We all like to think we can make a difference. In an anniversary VV year (and this is the 50th anniversary of the University of the West Indies), if we cannot point to an impact in the past then it is reassuring and inspiring to offer the promise of important results in the future for our particular speciality, a pathway to some new excellence for our region as it prepares to face a new millennium.' Philosophers, however, have a couple of thousand years of history to suggest that such hopes are futile: a well-argued, comprehensively researched position is not likely to persuade anyone, not even its author, for very long. But hope springs eternal, so I offer the following quixotic argument for one important consequence of our taking seriously some fairly widely accepted positions in philosophy and philosophy of education. Its conclusion is not one that is put forward in CARICOM (Caribbean Community) declarations, but that perhaps indicates how great is the gap between what CARICOM understands by human resource development and what a dispassionate commitment to education would yield.