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n turn considered to be part of educational theory; as such, however, philosophy and epistemology would appear to have been regarded - along with such other educational disciplines as psychology and sociology of education - as subservient to largely technical educational ends. Indeed, although Peters and Hirst were early pioneers of a faculty-based conception of theoretical professional education as a matter of systematic initiation into such disciplines as philosophy, psychology, sociology, as history, they inclined to a palpably instrumental conception of the role of theory in professional teacher preparation; Hirst, in particular, persistently construed the relationship of educational theory (and philosophy as one branch of that theory) to practice as an applied one, and patently (albeit formerly) allotted to epistemology a largely underlaboring role in the construction of something like a rationally systematic technology of pedagogy grounded in the specification of educational objectives. Such instrumental perspectives on educational theory have never, of course, been especially uncommon - not least among educational theorists. A former psychologist colleague regularly instructed his students that while it was the task of psychologists to devise an educational technology apt for the achievement of educational aims, that of sociologists to identify appropriate organizational strategies, it fell to philosophers to discover what our educational aims and objectives ought to be. It requires little reflection, however, to see that any such idea of cozy collaboration between educational theorists must be hopelessly utopian, if not actually absurd. Indeed, the very same psychologist was wont to respond to philosophical criticisms of psychological theory by postmodernly advising students (without the least sign of cognitive dissonance) that psychology and philosophy are after all just different points of view between which one might freely choose according to taste. However, in order to have serious doubts about any such conception of the relationship of educational theory generally - and philosophical reflection particularly - to actual educational practice, one only needs to observe that relatively little of what is taught under the heading of educational theory does have technical application in the classroom. Indeed, taking perhaps the most plausible case of ostensible technical application of educational theory, it seems nonetheless far-fetched to defend the teaching of empirical psychology to students of teaching on the grounds that it might be useful for classroom behavior shaping; moreover, recognition on the part of generations of intelligent students that experimental psychology could have no such principled or even sane educational use, has no doubt greatly fired the complaints of those who wish to deny that theory has any relevance to the professional education and training of teachers. But if an applied theoretical interpretation of learning theory does not fare especially well, how could we seriously claim that an instrumental conception of educational philosophy in general, and of educational epistemology in particular, might fare better? THE POSTMODERN DEMISE OF EDUCATIONAL EPISTEMOLOGY EPISTEMOLOGY: DEAD OR ALIVE? THE REGRESS TO METHOD EPISTEMOLOGY IN PROFESSIONAL REFLECTION: TOWARD A VINDICATION 1. Israel Scheffler, Conditions of Knowledge (Chicago: Scott, Foresman, 1965) and R.S. Peters, Ethics and Education本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。