*CALL FOR PAPERS / APPEL DE COMMUNICATIONS*
Annual Symposium
THE CANADIAN JACQUES MARITAIN ASSOCIATION / /
L'ASSOCIATION CANADIENNE JACQUES-MARITAIN
Friday/Saturday, November 16-17, 2018
Dominican University College, Ottawa, ON
96 Empress St., Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Is Philosophy at a Crossroads in Education?
Seventy-five years ago, in 1943, Jacques Maritain published his Education at the Crossroads, his major contribution to the philosophy of education. In that work, Maritain recognized that there were major challenges to education and that the understanding of education was at a crossroads, and so he sought to find a way to reorient thinking about education. Maritain’s solution was, in part, to look at the nature of the human person, and to show that students are to be developed in a context where all disciplines are represented, where rational discernment is always to be pursued, but where religious traditions have an essential place. Maritain’s work had a significant impact on the philosophy of education of his time, and it was a consistent theme throughout the writings of the late Fr. Mario O. D’Souza C.S.B. (1956-2017) to whose memory this conference is dedicated.
Today, a similar challenge in education is, arguably, present – one that raises the question whether even philosophy should have a place in educational institutions. Philosophy, then, seems to be at a crossroads in education. In the classical tradition of liberal education, attention to and development of the whole person was central. This education was not primarily a training for employment and philosophy was neither ignored, nor relegated to the margins by the social sciences, nor used primarily as a tool to dismantle attempts to understand meaningful human interaction and the truth. Today, however, the ways in which philosophy is frequently present in education – as a sometimes inward-looking, technical activity, removed from questions of wisdom and virtue, or as a seed-bed for social activism – may, ironically, challenge philosophy continuing to have a place therein.
Proposals for papers dealing directly with the role of philosophy in education, classical liberal education, or the contribution of trends, such as postmodernism, to education, are welcome. Proposals dealing directly with Maritain’s philosophy of education are especially welcome.
We invite papers, in English or French, relating to the conference theme. Selected papers will be published in Études maritainiennes-Maritain Studies.
Those who wish to present a paper should send a one-page abstract or proposal to:
Dr William Sweet
Department of Philosophy
St Francis Xavier University
Box 5000
Antigonish, NS B2G 2W5 Canada
e-mail: wsweet@stfx.ca
Deadline for submission of proposals: September 1, 2018
Papers should not exceed 35 minutes reading time.