This paper is a response to Richard Pring's "Reclaiming Philosophy for Educational Research," which appears in this issue. While it provides broad support for the case for the importance of philosophy in the study of education that Pring advances, it seeks to refine and to extend this. It does this through a consideration of three sets of claims.…

The mental activities of reading and responding to literature and the difficulties that occur as students try to produce written accounts of what they have gained are explored, as are the demands made on the student's language when putting into words what s/he has gained through a study of literature. (Author/KC)