ABSTRACT
Changes in religious education since the Second World War have echoed prevailing philosophical assumptions. The logical positivist stress on science made it seem that religious and moral attitudes were purely subjective. A later philosophical current stemming from political philosophy sees individual autonomy as the ultimate standard. This involves the idea of atomic individuals, finding themselves in isolation from others, not formed by community or religion. The self is seen as an entity mysteriously abstracted from all outside influences. Religion can then be reduced to a worldview which tends to be fluid and highly personal. The result is a total indeterminacy on what is to count as a worldview. The result, at the extreme, is a philosophical solipsism in which we all appear to live in separate worlds of our own construction. Even the possibility of communication between different views is put at risk, let alone rational consideration of them. What common ground can there be - not reality, not a human nature with common needs, not a shared rationality, and certainly not any striving for a common good?
