Hope and contradiction

The practical arts in the educational thought of late antiquity

Bibliographic Data

ID21696342
AuthorsDaniel I O’neill (0000-0002-5993-2676, Liverpool Hope University, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume76
Issue4
Pages946-962
Publication date2024-08-07
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Vocational Education and Training (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1363-6820 • E-ISSN: 1747-5090
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13636820.2022.2132528
OpenAlexW4306155756
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited14

This paper looks at tensions arising in the educational thought of late antiquity from the conflict between assumptions regarding the low worth of practical knowledge and the contribution practical education can make to the wider purposes educational thinkers assigned to learning. Drawing on the educational writings of Augustine, Martianus Cappella and Boethius, I argue that there are vagaries and contradictions in their depreciation of the practical and a fuller, more hopeful, appreciation of the potential of practical education emerges. This assertion has contemporary significance due to the ancient binary’s foundational and contemporary status as a tool of legitimation to reinforce the lower status of the practical and justify societal and economic determinants at the base of educational stratifications

Aesthetics · Assertion · Contradiction · Epistemology · Higher education · Late Antiquity · Legitimation · Philosophy of education · Political science · Sociology · Classics · Computer Science · History · Law · Medieval Philosophy and Theology · Philosophy · Religious Education and Schools · Religious, Philosophical, and Educational Studies

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