Abstract

I argue that Aristotle and Hegel can be interpreted in a useful manner as contextual thinkers. Critical analysis of Aristotle's and Hegel's social theories suggests that these philosophers form their conception of justice in important respects on the basis of their understanding of the relationship between the distribution of knowledge and key features of social context such as conflict and the division of labor. A contextual approach helps in the statement of practical questions about the structure and control of knowledge within society. ;My second thesis is the claim that a contextual approach informed by the work of Aristotle and Hegel is useful for framing a normative conception of a democratic distribution of knowledge within contemporary institutions of education in our own society. The normative conception of justice that I argue for is defined in terms of a democratic control of the production and the distribution of knowledge within social institutions