ABSTRACT
Early in 1972, while I was teaching in the United States, I received news of my appointment as a lecturer in the philosophy of education at the University of London Institute of Education. Since, at the time, my interest in this subject was incipient rather than seasoned, I quickly consulted some American colleagues on how I might best 'mug up' on it. The most knowledgeable of them advised me to read four books before all others. These four books turned out to have one thing in common: each was written or edited by the same man—Richard Peters. Here was my first inkling of the remarkable influence that a single person had come to exercise in his subject—and within only ten years of his own full entry into it. I did read the four books, and was delighted to find my incipient feeling confirmed that here was an area of philosophy, however neglected, in which good and intriguing work could be done.
