Abstract

A review article on the book, The Custody and Courtship of Experience: Western education in Philosophical Perspective was contributed to the Autumn 1996 issue of Studies by Fr Des O'Grady, SJ. The book was published in the Maynooth Bicentenary Series - a series which aims to give a flavour of the kinds of studies being undertaken in a variety of Departments in Maynooth at the time of its bicentenary anniversary. Fr. O'Grady welcomes the series but seems quite unhappy about the authors (Padraig Hogan) contribution to it. What follows is a summary attempt to explain the educational perspective of the book. In the course of this attempt the author seeks to address the issues raised by Fr. O'Grady's account of the author’s arguments, and thus to ameliorate the conflicts of understanding occasioned by different starting points in the reading of Western philosophical tradition.