Abstract
This chapter is the heart of the book. It analyses the conceptual structure that underpins Holt’s account of learning and his critique of education. One way to view this analysis is as the solution to an interpretative problem. After all, the exceptional clarity and plainness of Holt’s prose can hide the fact that his central claims about learning and education are, prima facie, rather puzzling.
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The general idea of ‘states that are essentially by-products’ of activity, I take from the superb analysis in Elster (1983), Chap. 2.
- 2.
The practice of motorcycle repair deserves an honorable mention here, as it has inspired at least two works of exceptional quality (Pirsig 2004; Crawford 2010), whose themes overlap in various ways with the argument developed here. Two other magnificent books exploring the nature of practices are Sennett (2008) and Sudnow (2001).
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- 4.
“A main cause of philosophical disease—a one-sided diet: one nourishes one’s thinking with only one kind of example” (Wittgenstein 1958, §593).
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Dickerson, A. (2019). The Spirit in Which the Work Is Done. In: John Holt. SpringerBriefs in Education(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18726-2_2
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