What is philosophy of education? Overlaps and contrasts between different conceptions

Abstract Various conceptions of philosophy of education have been mooted over the last sixty years. The paper looks at five of these, associated particularly with R. S. Peters, D. W. Hamlyn, David Bakhurst, Philip Kitcher, and Harvey Siegel. It shows differences and sometimes overlaps among these, to do with whether or not philosophy of education should be seen as a branch of philosophy, as central to philosophy as a whole, or as a form of applied philosophy. The paper puts most weight on the last of these while recognizing the importance of work on the enculturation of young human beings as exemplified in Hamlyn’s and Bakhurst’s writings.