Discipline and the cultivation of autonomy in Immanuel Kant and Maria Montessori

Abstract

After showing discipline's centrality in Kant's pedagogy, I briefly highlight Montessori's alternative and then turn to three fundamental differences between Kant and Montessori that partly explain their divergent accounts. My goal is not to assess whether Kant or Montessori gets the role of discipline 'right' , but to highlight broader stakes of their disagreement and ways deeper features of Kant's psychology and moral theory ground his emphasis on discipline.