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Refurbishing MacIntyre's Account of Practice
Author(s) -
HAGER PAUL
Publication year - 2011
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.1467-9752.2011.00810.x
Subject(s) - constructive , variety (cybernetics) , epistemology , philosophy of education , sociology , set (abstract data type) , position (finance) , pedagogy , higher education , philosophy , law , political science , process (computing) , finance , artificial intelligence , programming language , operating system , computer science , economics
According to Alasdair MacIntyre's influential account of practices, ‘teaching itself is not a practice, but a set of skills and habits put to the service of a variety of practices’ (MacIntyre and Dunne, 2002, p. 5). Various philosophers of education have responded to and critiqued MacIntyre's position, most notably in a Special Issue of the Journal of Philosophy of Education (Vol. 37.2, 2003). However, both in that Special Issue and since, this debate remains inconclusive. Much of this earlier discussion seems to accept that teaching is a unique case in being a putative practice that does not fit readily into MacIntyre's account. In fact many supposed practices, including some nominated by MacIntyre himself, do not fit his account. A constructive critique of this account leads to a refurbished, broadly MacIntyrean account of practice. This will clarify the issue of whether teaching and a range of other activities are, indeed, practices.