Abstract
This chapter is the heart of the book. It analyses the conceptual structure that underpins Holt’s account of learning and his critique of education. One way to view this analysis is as the solution to an interpretative problem. After all, the exceptional clarity and plainness of Holt’s prose can hide the fact that his central claims about learning and education are, prima facie, rather puzzling.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The general idea of ‘states that are essentially by-products’ of activity, I take from the superb analysis in Elster (1983), Chap. 2.
- 2.
The practice of motorcycle repair deserves an honorable mention here, as it has inspired at least two works of exceptional quality (Pirsig 2004; Crawford 2010), whose themes overlap in various ways with the argument developed here. Two other magnificent books exploring the nature of practices are Sennett (2008) and Sudnow (2001).
- 3.
- 4.
“A main cause of philosophical disease—a one-sided diet: one nourishes one’s thinking with only one kind of example” (Wittgenstein 1958, §593).
References
Aristotle (1984). Nichomachean ethics (W. D. Ross, Trans.). In J Barnes (Ed.), The complete works of Aristotle: The revised Oxford translation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Baehr, J. (2011). The inquiring mind: On intellectual virtues and virtue epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Barrow, R. (1978). Radical education: A critique of freeschooling and deschooling. Oxford: Martin Robertson.
Brewer, T. (2009). The retrieval of ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Burnyeat, M. F. (1980). Aristotle on learning to be good. In A. O. Rorty (Ed.), Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics (pp. 69–92). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Crawford, M. (2010). Shopcraft as soulcraft: An inquiry into the value of work. London: Penguin.
Dewey, J. (2015). Experience and education. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Elster, J. (1983). Sour grapes: Studies in the subversion of rationality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Foot, P. (2002). Virtues and vices. Virtues and vices and other essays in moral philosophy (pp. 1–18). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Green, B. (1986). The inner game of music. New York: Doubleday.
Hirst, P. (1975). What is teaching? In R. S. Peters (Ed.), The philosophy of education (pp. 163–77). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Holt, J. (1970). What do I do Monday? New York: E. P. Dutton and Co.
Holt, J. (1971). Big bird, meet Dick and Jane: A critique of Sesame Street. Atlantic Monthly, 227(5), 72–8.
Holt, J. (1972). Fundamental reminders: We learn for ourselves. Edcentric: A Journal for Educational Change, September, 4–6.
Holt, J. (1976). Instead of education. New York: E. P. Dutton and Co.
Holt, J. (1981). Teach your own: A hopeful path for education. Liss, Hants: Lighthouse Books.
Holt, J. (1982). How children fail (revised ed.). New York: Merloyd Lawrence.
Holt, J. (1983). How children learn (revised ed.). London: Penguin.
Holt, J. (1989). Learning all the time. New York: Merloyd Lawrence.
Holt, J. (1990). Letter to Joanna Picciotto, 1/1/82. In S. Sheffer (Ed.), A life worth living: Selected letters of John Holt (pp. 249–52). Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press.
Hookway, C. (2003). How to be a virtue epistemologist. In M. DePaul & L. Zagzebski (Eds.), Intellectual virtue: Perspectives from ethics and epistemology (pp. 183–202). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kilpatrick, W. H. (1918). The project method. Teachers College Record, 19(4), 319–35.
MacIntyre, A. (1984). After virtue: A study in moral theory (2nd ed.). Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
MacIntyre, A. (1994). The Theses on Feuerbach: A road not taken. In C. C. Gould & R. S. Cohen (Eds.), Artifacts, representations and social practice (pp. 277–90). Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Marsalis, W. (1995). Marsalis on music. New York: Norton.
Peters, R. S. (1966). Ethics and education. London: George Allen and Unwin.
Pirsig, R. M. (2004). Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance: An inquiry into values (25th anniversary ed.). London: Vintage.
Roberts, R. C., & Wood, W. J. (2007). Intellectual virtues: An essay in regulative epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sennett, R. (2008). The craftsman. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Sudnow, D. (2001). Ways of the hand: A rewritten account. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Von Wright, G. H. (1963). The varieties of goodness. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Wittgenstein, L. (1958). Philosophische Untersuchungen/Philosophical Investigations (2nd ed.). (G. E. M. Anscombe, Trans.). Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Wood, L. (1963). Intelligence. In D. D. Runes (Ed.), Dictionary of philosophy. New York: Philosophical Library.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Dickerson, A. (2019). The Spirit in Which the Work Is Done. In: John Holt. SpringerBriefs in Education(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18726-2_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18726-2_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-18725-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-18726-2
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)