Opening the space of reasons in education: mindfulness as a potential meta-epistemic and moral virtue practice
Martin Harant
Pedagogy Culture and Society October 7, 2026 DOI: 10.1080/14681366.2026.2743598 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Meditation |
| Key points | Argues that school-based mindful decentring can be educationally justified when it supports openness, self-correction, and reduced self-bias, but risks epistemic and normative fallacies if non-judgemental awareness is detached from standards of truth, justification, and good judgement. Proposes mindfulness as a support for reason-responsive inquiry and critical thinking rather than a replacement for it. |
Abstract
Debates on mindfulness in education often oscillate between therapeutic affirmation and ideological critique while largely neglecting questions of epistemic and normative justification. This article develops an alternative framework grounded in analytic philosophy of education. Drawing on Metzinger’s (2024) account of mindfulness as epistemic openness, Bowell, Cowan, and Kemp's (2020) critical thinking framework, and a reasons-responsive account of normative justification informed by Scanlon (1998) and Parfit (2011), it examines when school-based mindfulness practices of decentring can be educationally justified. Mindful decentring, understood as a weakened identification with one’s own thoughts, may support openness, self-correction, and reduced self-bias. Yet it also risks epistemic and normative fallacies when non-judgemental awareness is detached from standards of truth, justification, and good judgement. Mindfulness is therefore presented not as an alternative to critical thinking, but as a practice that may support reason-responsive inquiry, moral reflection, and epistemic and moral virtues in school.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mindfulness: A proposed operational definition. | 2004 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mechanisms of mindfulness | 2005 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| How Does Mindfulness Meditation Work? Proposing Mechanisms of Action From a Conceptual and Neural Perspective | 2011 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression | 2006 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence (S-ART): a framework for understanding the neurobiological mechanisms of mindfulness | 2012 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |