ABSTRACT
I begin by recording a striking shift that has taken place in ideas and ideals of enquiry and hence of the educational practices in which enquiry is of central importance. This shift can be characterized as one from an old to a new notion of humanism. I then indicate some of the factors, at work both in our wider culture and within educational trends, which have predisposed many people to embrace the new humanism. Next I articulate two philosophical positions, ‘radical hermeneutics’ and ‘constructivism’, on which the intellectual credentials of the new humanism seem mainly to rest. These are serious positions that it is not my intention to ‘rubbish’. What I will reject is the idea that these positions support certain fashionable educational proposals-for the teaching of maths and history, for example-and a wider ‘postmodern’ ethos of education which such proposals nowadays reflect.
