ABSTRACT
The Isocratic tradition of doctrinal conditional deduction (DCD) method in educational thought and practice is founded on a number of presuppositions and material preconditions. Anyone who presupposes Isocrates' idea of the subordinate nature of education and DCD method must distinguish between the logical consistency of deriving the normative intentions of education from political doctrine, and the normative justifiability of that derivation. Problems arise whenever there is a diversity of versions of one political doctrine, such as different versions of liberal democracy, and especially when there are quite different political doctrines within one regime as so often happens prior to revolution, each of which has some support among the citizenry. Tocqueville argues that democratic regimes encourage intellectual dependence on abstractions about subjects at the expense of direct knowledge of subjects, just as aristocracies can encourage an emphasis on particularities at the expense of commonalities.
