Education, Illusions and Valuable Fictions

Autor/in	Dahlbeck, Johan
Titel	Education, Illusions and Valuable Fictions
Quelle	In: Journal of Philosophy of Education, 54 (2020) 1, S.214-234 (21 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Dahlbeck, Johan)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0309-8249
DOI	10.1111/1467-9752.12369
Schlagwörter	Ethics; Educational Philosophy; Moral Values; Beliefs + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Ethik; Bildungsphilosophie; Erziehungsphilosophie; Moral value; Ethischer Wert; Belief; Glaube
Abstract	Saul Smilansky's Illusionism suggests that some false beliefs are important enough to warrant the indefinite perpetuation of illusions in order to protect the larger moral community from breaking down. In this article I suggest that this position actualises an old educational paradox where education is expected to protect the common moral community (even if this means maintaining some illusions), and at the same time promote the pursuit of truth. Taking Smilansky's position of Illusionism as a starting point, I argue that while Illusionism highlights and addresses an important problem--that sometimes false beliefs can function to maintain social stability where the truth threatens to unsettle it--relying on indefinite illusions is problematic from an educational point of view. It is difficult to justify that education, being at least in part motivated by truth-seeking, should (or even could) be grounded in illusion. Taking seriously the fact that a dimension of education concerns maintaining social stability, I suggest that Spinoza's notion of fiction can complement Smilansky's view in that it can be conceived in terms of an instrument for maintaining social stability and promoting truth-seeking without assuming that one end is pursued at the expense of the other. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01