First published in 1991, In Praise of Cognitive Emotions comprises fourteen of Scheffler's most recent essays - all of which challenge contemporary notions of education and rationality. While defending the ideal of rationality, he insists that rationality not be identified with a mental faculty or a mechanism of inference but taken rather as the capactity to grasp principles and purposes and to evaluate them in the light of relevant reasons. Examining a broad range of issues - from computers in school to math education, from metaphor to morality - these essays are unified by Scheffler's conviction of the primacy of critical thought in education.