While at Warwick, Dr John Tillson was a Teaching Fellow with academic responsibilities for admissions, outreach and recruitment activities. He is now Senior Lecturer in Philosophy of Education at Liverpool Hope University. He discusses his research in this interview with Richard Marshall for 3:16, and whether you should (if you could) insert knowledge into your mind in a blog for Psyche. He and Winston C. Thompson discuss their Pedagogies of Punishment project on a recent episode of the Ethics & Education podcast.

His 2020 paper on the morality of school exclusions was picked up by various news outlets.

Education

• PhD Philosophy of Education, Dublin City University, Institute of Education.
• MA Philosophy of Education, University College London, Institute of Education
• PGCE Religious Education (Secondary), University College London, Institute of Education
• BA Philosophy, University of Durham.

Research interests

The ethics and nature of formative influence; philosophy of education; discipline for children; educational epistemology; religious education; moral education; moral and political philosophy; philosophy of religion.

Research grants and scholarships

• Research Grant: Principal Investigator ($39,969.50) with Winston Thompson, ‘Pedagogies of Punishment: How and Why Should Schools Punish Students (If At All)?' awarded by the Centre for Ethics and Education (2019-2020)

Selected publications

Books

• (with Winston C. Thompson) Pedagogies of Punishment: The Ethics of Discipline in EducationLink opens in a new window (Bloomsbury, forthcoming)
• Children, Religion and the Ethics of InfluenceLink opens in a new window (Bloomsbury, July 2019)

Reviews: Educational Theory, Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain, Journal of Beliefs & Values, Teachers College Record, British Journal of Religious Education, Theory and Research in Education,Link opens in a new window

Symposia: Studies in Philosophy and Education 2022 41(1): 111-149, PESGB Annual Meeting 2021, Journal of Philosophy of Education 2024 58(1):99-151Link opens in a new window 

Further InformationLink opens in a new window on the book.

Editorial Pieces and roles

• Guest-editor (with Winston C. Thompson) Special Issue: Pedagogies of PunishmentLink opens in a new window, Theory and Research in Education 18, No. 1 (2020): 3-9.
• Guest-editor (with Dave Aldridge) Symposium: Cheating Education: the coherence and desirability of technological human enhancement in educational contexts. Educational Theory 68, No. 6 (2018): 589-594.

Journal Articles

• 'Autonomy, Rationality and Religious Initiation: Replies to Clayton, Gheaus, Hand, Lewin, and Wareham' Link opens in a new windowJournal of Philosophy of Education 58 No. 1 (2024): 143-151.
• 'Children, Religion and the Ethics of Influence: Introduction for a Symposium'Link opens in a new window Journal of Philosophy of Education 58 No. 1 (2024): 99-103.
• 'The Aims of Upbringing, Reasonable Affect, and Parental Rights: A Response to Paul Hirst's Autobiographical Reflections'Link opens in a new window Special Issue on Paul Hirst (eds.) Patricia White and David Bridges Journal of Philosophy of Education Vol 57 (2023): 293-307.
• 'On Deciding the Aims and Content of Public Schooling' Educational Theory 73, No. 1 (2023).
• 'Rationality, Religious Belief, and Shaping Dispositions: Replies to Carruth, Gatley,Link opens in a new window LLink opens in a new windowevy,Link opens in a new window Kotzee, and Rocha'Link opens in a new window Studies in Philosophy and Education 41, No. 1 (2022): 135 - 149.
• 'Children, Religion and the Ethics of Influence: An Overview'Link opens in a new window Studies in Philosophy and Education 41, No. 1 (2022): 111 - 112.

• 'Is Knowledge Insertion Desirable?'Link opens in a new window Educational Theory, 70, No. 4 (2020): 483-505.

• 'Deciding for Others', Educational Goods Book Symposium. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 54 No. 5 (2020): 1349-1355.
• 'Knowledge, Moment, and Acceptability: How to Decide Public Educational Aims and Curricula' Philosophy of Education, 76 No. 3 (2020): 42-55.

• (with Laura Oxley) 'Children's moral rights and UK school exclusions,'Link opens in a new window Theory and Research in Education 18, No. 1 (2020): 40-58.

• 'Sympathy, social stability, and those left out: Querying A Theory of Moral Education',Link opens in a new window Journal of Philosophy of Education, 53, No. 4 (2019): 649-655.
• 'Assessment, Truth and Religious Studies',Link opens in a new window Studies in Philosophy and Education, 38, No. 2 (2019): 195–210.
• 'Might Knowledge be Insertable?'Link opens in a new window Educational Theory 68, No. 6 (2018): 595-607.
• ‘Is it Distinctively Wrong to Simulate Doing Wrong?’Link opens in a new window, Ethics and Information Technology 20, No. 3 (2018): 205-217.
• 'Is all Formative Influence Immoral?'Link opens in a new window Ethics and Education, 13, No. 2. (2018): 208-220.
• 'The Problem of Rational Moral Enlistment'.Link opens in a new window Theory and Research in Education, 15, No. 2 (2017): 165–181.
• ‘When to Teach for Belief: A Tempered Defence of the Epistemic Criterion’.Link opens in a new window Educational Theory, 67, No. 2 (2017): 173–191.
• ‘The Possibility of Horizontal Tolerance: A Reply to van Waarden’. Link opens in a new window Democracy and Education, 25, No. 1 (2017): Article 6.
• ‘Towards a Theory of Propositional Curriculum Content’. Link opens in a new windowJournal of Philosophy of Education, 48, No. 1 (2014): 137–148.
• ‘Is Knowledge What It Claims to Be? Bernard Williams and the Absolute Conception’.Link opens in a new window Educational Philosophy and Theory, 45, No. 8 (2013): 860 – 873.
• 'Elmer Thiessen and the Ethics of Evangelism',Link opens in a new window Journal of Education and Christian Belief, 17, No. 2 (2013): 243-258.
• ‘In Favour of Ethics Education, Against Religious Education’.Link opens in a new window Journal of Philosophy of Education, 45, No. 4 (2011): 675–68.
• ‘Religious Education and the Floodgates of Impartiality’Link opens in a new window, in Robert Kunzman (ed.) Philosophy of Education Society Yearbook. Urbana: IL, Philosophy of Education Society (2011): 118 – 123.

Book Chapters

• 'Moral Education, Big Data and Adaptive Video Games'Link opens in a new window in Larry Nucci, Winston C. Thompson and Tobias Krettenauer (eds) Handbook of Moral and Character Education 3rd edition (Routledge, forthcoming)
• 'Punishment, Pupils and School Rules'Link opens in a new window, (with Winston C. Thompson) in Winston C. Thompson & John Tillson (eds.) Pedagogies of Punishment: The Ethics of Discipline in Education (Bloomsbury, 2003)
• 'Taking Hypocrisy to School: Doing Better Together'Link opens in a new window (with Kartik Upadhyaya) in Winston C. Thompson & John Tillson (eds.) Pedagogies of Punishment: The Ethics of Discipline in Education (Bloomsbury, 2003)
• 'Wrongful Influence in Educational Contexts',Link opens in a new window in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education. Oxford University Press (2021, May 26)

Reprinted in: Oxford Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Education (ed.) Kathryn Hytten (Oxford University Press, forthcoming)

• ‘Rival Conceptions of Religious Education’Link opens in a new window in International Handbook of Philosophy of Education (ed.) Paul Smeyers (Dordrecht: Springer, 2018): 1059-1082.

Book Reviews

• 'A Review of Walter Feinberg's What is a Public Education and Why We Need it’,Link opens in a new window Studies in Philosophy and Education, 37, No. 5 (2018): 529-536.
• ‘A Critical Commentary of Richard Bailey’s Philosophy of Education: An Introduction’,Link opens in a new window in Bajo Palabra, Journal of Philosophy, II Época, 6 (2011): 185 – 190.
• ‘A Critical Commentary of Stephen Law’s The War for Children’s Minds’Link opens in a new window, in Bajo Palabra, Journal of Philosophy, II Época, 5 (2010): 551-556.

Invited Replies

• 'Respect, Concern and Manipulation in Education' Philosophy of Education, 77 No. 2 (2021): 81-85.
• 'Against a Disguised Defense of Religious Initiation' in Philosophy of Education Society Yearbook. Urbana: IL, Philosophy of Education Society (2016): 401 – 404.

Other Writing

• ‘Modify Your Body!’Link opens in a new window, Philosophy Now, Issue 91 (2012): 53 – 54.

Links to other profiles

• Academic.edu
• Google Scholar
• Linkedin
• PhilPapers
• ResearchGate
• Times Educational Supplement
• Twitter

Contact

Department of Philosophy
University of Warwick
Coventry
CV4 7AL

Room: S2.47

Email: J dot Tillson dot 1 at warwick dot ac dot uk

CV