ABSTRACT
In this chapter the author examines shortly, philosophers and empirical researchers work together to clarify concepts so that they can be appropriately operationalized for research. Sometimes, too, philosophical analysis contributes to the gradual abandonment of educational ideas. Analytical philosophers of education use the powerful methods demonstrated in the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein on ordinary language analysis. Most philosophers agreed that teachers intend to affect learning, but they pointed out that students often fail to learn even when teachers work hard to teach them. Teachers were under fire for allowing American students to fall behind their Soviet counterparts. After the 1957 Russian launching of Sputnik, the first human-made satellite, many Americans feared Soviet technological superiority and reacted by blaming schools and, especially, teachers for the nation's apparent shortcomings in technology. Susan Laird makes the point that teachers cannot always connect with students by analyzing intellectual predicaments that are themselves abstracted from fictional lessons and not from the real lives of students.
