What's the Good of Education?

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A01=Joseph Dunne
Author_Joseph Dunne
Category=JN
Category=JNA
Category=JNAM
Education
Education Theory
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
forthcoming
Human Flourishing
Philosophy of Childhood
Philosophy of Education
Teaching Citizenship

Product details

  • ISBN 9781350433380
  • Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
  • Publication Date: 17 Sep 2026
  • Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
  • Publication City/Country: GB
  • Product Form: Paperback
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An Irish Times Best Book for Summer 2025

In this book Joseph Dunne exposes the damage done by obsession with measurable
outcomes in schools and universities. He argues for an education that respects the interpersonal fabric of learning and teaching, and that takes account of difficulties in late modern societies regarding childhood, citizenship, the relative prestige accorded to different kinds of knowledge, and the forging by individuals of a coherent identity across a whole life-course. To ask about good education, he claims, is necessarily to pose the larger question of the human good. Central to the book is a concern to elucidate the kind of practices that can best help persons to pursue this good, a concern that deepens through reflection in the final chapters on the challenges and fulfilments opened by the spiritual dimension of human life. Making his case in a series of inter-related essays, Dunne draws on his decades-long experience in teacher-education, informed by a reading of classical Greek philosophy and of several recent thinkers – including Raimond Gaita, Alasdair MacIntyre, Iris Murdoch and Charles Taylor – who are key conversation partners throughout.

Joseph Dunne is Cregan Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Education at Dublin City University, Ireland.

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