MacIntyre, rival traditions and education

Steven Stolz (La Trobe University)

This paper extends upon Alasdair MacIntyre's thesis that when two or more rival, incompatible and apparently incommensurable traditions of enquiry confront each other, two central problems emerge. These being: (1) How do we decide between rival or competing accounts when there is no neutral standpoint?; and, (2) By what standards are these rival or competing accounts to be evaluated? Indeed, MacIntyre in some of his earlier works highlight how the current social and cultural conditions of Western modernity have excluded the possibility of an "educated public" because educators are confronted with an "either/or" proposition between two rival or competing accounts of education that are mutually incompatible. Part of the problem is that conditions of modernity have excluded the possibility of a "both/and" in modern educational systems, and an educated public that could make this coexistence possible. It is argued that the historical legacy of what MacIntyre refers to as "Enlightenment cultures" is still prevalent within modern educational systems because we take for granted that rationality and reflective thinking – which are the remnants of the Scottish Enlightenment – will somehow be covertly developed. It is concluded that just like Aquinas, who integrated the rival traditions of Augustianism and Aristotelianism into a new Thomist tradition, in a sense MacIntyre is arguing for a new tradition of education, which I describe as a hybrid of a communitarian view of education with an underlying classical, albeit, new and extended upon form of liberal education.

Dr Steven Stolz is a lecturer in education from La Trobe University, Melbourne. He has an MA (philosophy) and PhD (philosophy of education) from the School of Philosophy – Australian Catholic University (ACU). He is the past recipient of the Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia (PESA) doctoral scholarship in 2011, and the Faculty of Education, La Trobe University emerging researcher of the year in 2013. Just recently he accepted an invitation to be a visiting scholar at the University of Stirling (United Kingdom) in June of 2014 where he will present his latest research. He has a diverse array of interests that range from epistemology, moral philosophy, continental philosophy, and theology, however, at the moment his current research interests mainly revolve around educational philosophy and theory.