• Intellectual Pluralism: Modes of Thought and Teaching

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This speech is a look back on my career in philosophy of education which is set in a musical context created by Franz Schubert.  I try to place personal thoughts about my teaching and research in a larger context of both the world of ideas and the world of music.  The complexity of the latter two is reflected in the intellectual pluralism that can make sense of all discussions and debates about them, even, in some sense, harmonizing them.

​To listen to the speech and music, click just below::

​​Presidential Address to the Midwest Philosophy of Education Society (1994)

To read the speech (without music), click here:

TALKS

Intellectual​

Pluralism

• Failure, Philosophy of Education, and the Music of the Spheres

I gave this talk at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand, to education students and faculty in fall of 1998.  I focused on the complexity of experience and, following the work of Richard McKeon, briefly explored four modes of thought as ways to deal with that complexity.  In conclusion, I suggested radically different ways of thinking about the teacher that such a pluralistic approach might give rise to, namely, the teacher as tutor, trainer, mediator, or master.