In Praise of the Cognitive Emotions - And Other Essays in the Philosophy of Education (Hardcover)

This collection of essays by a philosopher of education defends the ideal of rationality, but insists that rationality can not be identified with a mental faculty or a mechanism of inference but taken rather as the capacity to grasp principles and purposes and to evaluate them in the light of relevant reasons. The range of essays is wide, from computers in schools to metaphor and morality, but throughout, Scheffler is especially concerned to counteract the narrowing of educational vision, which has too often accompanied the technological revolution now sweeping education. Viewing reason as an outgrowth of symbolic capacity, he emphasizes its intimate connections with emotion and its teleological productive roles. This book should be of interest to students of philosophy of education, philosophy and psychology.