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Patrick R. Frierson, The Moral Philosophy of Maria Montessori: Agency and Ethical Life, Bloomsbury Academic, 2022, 277pp., $39.95 (pbk), ISBN 9781350176393.
Reviewed by Juan Antonio Casas, Columbia University
In this carefully argued and exhaustively researched book, Patrick R. Frierson offers a much-deserved vindication of Maria Montessori’s contributions to moral philosophy, presenting her as a first-rate philosopher who warrants serious attention in contemporary debates on ethical life. To make his case, Frierson draws extensively on Montessori’s works to articulate her original contribution to moral philosophy. This view is rooted in Montessori’s careful and insightful observations of young persons, particularly children under five, actively engaging with the world through play, conversation, and other forms of meaningful work. For Montessori, ethical life revolves around “an agency that consists of active, norm-governed, persistent expression of interests with which one identifies, an agency that sometimes—but not always—involves reflective deliberation” (145).
Frierson extensively defends Montessori’s inclusion of children as…
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