Philosophy of Education
HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
The word education is used sometimes to signify the activity, process, or
enterprise of educating or being educated and sometimes to signify the
discipline or field of study taught in schools of education that concerns itself
with this activity, process, or enterprise. As an activity or process, education
may be formal or informal, private or public, individual or social, but it always
consists in cultivating dispositions (abilities, skills, knowledges, beliefs,
attitudes, values, and character traits) by certain methods. As a discipline,
education studies or reflects on the activity or enterprise by asking questions
about its aims, methods, effects, forms, history, costs, value, and relations to
society.
Definition
The philosophy of education may be either the philosophy of the process of
education or the philosophy of the discipline of education. That is, it may be
part of the discipline in the sense of being concerned with the aims, forms,
methods, or results of the process of educating or being educated; or it may be
meta disciplinary in the sense of being concerned with the concepts, aims, and
methods of the discipline. However, even in the latter case it may be thought
of as part of the discipline, just as meta philosophy is thought of as a part of
philosophy, although the philosophy of science is not regarded as a part of
science. Historically, philosophies of education have usually taken the first
form, but under the influence of analytical philosophy, they have sometimes
taken the second.
In the first form, philosophy of education was traditionally developed by
philosophers–for example, Aristotle, Augustine, and John Locke–as part of
their philosophical systems, in the context of their ethical theories. However,
in the twentieth century philosophy of education tended to be developed in
schools of education in the context of what is called foundations of education,
thus linking it with other parts of the discipline of education–educational
history, psychology, and sociology–rather than with other parts of philosophy.
It was also developed by writers such as Paul Goodman and Robert M.
Hutchins who were neither professional philosophers nor members of schools
of education.
Types
As there are many kinds of philosophy, many philosophies, and many ways of
philosophizing, so there are many kinds of educational philosophy and ways of
doing it. In a sense there is no such thing as the philosophy of education; there
are only philosophies of education that can be classified in many different
ways.
Philosophy of education as such does not describe, compare, or explain any
enterprises to systems of education, past or present; except insofar as it is
concerned with the tracing of its own history, it leaves such inquiries to the
history and sociology of education. Analytical philosophy of education is meta
to the discipline of education–to all the inquiries and thinking about
education–in the sense that it does not seek to propound substantive
propositions, either factual or normative, about education. It conceives of its
task as that of analysis: the definition or elucidation of educational concepts
like teaching, indoctrination, ability, and trait, including the concept of
education itself; the clarification and criticism of educational slogans like
"Teach children, not subjects"; the exploration of models used in thinking
about education (e.g., growth); and the analysis and evaluation of arguments
and methods used in reaching conclusions about education, whether by
teachers, administrators, philosophers, scientists, or laymen.
To accomplish this task, analytical philosophy uses the tools of logic and
linguistics as well as techniques of analysis that vary from philosopher to
philosopher. Its results may be valued for their own sake, but they may also be
helpful to those who seek more substantive empirical of normative conclusions
about education and who try to be careful about how they reach them. This
entry is itself an exercise in analytical philosophy of education.
Normative philosophies or theories of education may make use of the results
of such analytical work and of factual inquiries about human beings and the
psychology of learning, but in any case they propound views about what
education should be, what dispositions it should cultivate, why it ought to
cultivate them, how and in whom it should do so, and what forms it should
take. Some such normative theory of education is implied in every instance of
educational endeavor, for whatever education is purposely engaged in, it
explicitly or implicitly assumed that certain dispositions are desirable and that
certain methods are to be used in acquiring or fostering them, and any view on
such matters is a normative theory of philosophy of education. But not all such
theories may be regarded as properly philosophical. They may, in fact, be of
several sorts. Some simply seek to foster the dispositions regarded as desirable
by a society using methods laid down by its culture. Here both the ends and
the means of education are defined by the cultural tradition. Others also look
to the prevailing culture for the dispositions to be fostered but appeal as well
to experience, possibly even to science, for the methods to be used. In a more
pluralistic society, an educational theory of a sort may arise as a compromise
between conflicting views about the aids, if not the methods, of education,
especially in the case of public schools. Then, individuals or groups within the
society may have conflicting full-fledged philosophies of education, but the
public philosophy of education is a working accommodation between them.
More comprehensive theories of education rest their views about the aims and
methods of education neither on the prevailing culture nor on compromise but
on basic factual premises about humans and their world and on basic
normative premises about what is good or right for individuals to seek or do.
Proponents of such theories may reach their premises either by reason
(including science) and philosophy or by faith and divine authority. Both types
of theories are called philosophies of education, but only those based on
reason and philosophy are properly philosophical in character; the others
might better be called theologies of education. Even those that are purely
philosophical may vary in complexity and sophistication.
