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All the King's Horses and All the King's Men: justifying higher education
Author(s) -
MENDUS SUSAN
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
journal of philosophy of education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.501
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1467-9752
pISSN - 0309-8249
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9752.1992.tb00279.x
Subject(s) - modernity , consciousness , value (mathematics) , fragmentation (computing) , sociology , epistemology , philosophy of education , philosophy , social science , higher education , environmental ethics , law , political science , machine learning , computer science , operating system
This article addresses the question‘What is the justification of higher education in modern society?’ It takes issue with writers such as Alasdair Macintyre and Allan Bloom, who argue that the fragmentation of value characteristic of modernity has undermined the possibility of providing a coherent justification of higher education. Against MacIntyre and Bloom, I argue that we should understand education as a means of developing reflective consciousness in students, and that that will require fragmentation and the immanent conflict of traditions rather than a background of agreed values.