The concepts of autonomy and of critical thinking are of key importance in many contemporary accounts of the aims of education. Education, Autonomy and Critical Thinking analyzes their relationship to each other and to education, explores their roles in mortality and politics, and examines the part critical thinking has to play in fulfilling the educational aim of preparing young people for autonomy.

Assessing the significance of the concern with critical rationality as a key intellectual component for a worthwhile life involving autonomy, this book also examines important views about what critical thinking is and how it can be cultivated.

Drawing from discussions on epistemology and the philosophy of language which concern the nature of rationality, Christopher Winch produces a powerful critique of concepts central to contemporary philosophy of education - autonomy and critical thinking.