“Be true to thine own self”
―
Socrates
philosophy of education
Siegel, Harvey et al, detail in their paper on the philosophy of education important themes on the subject. Philosophy of education is concerned with the philosophical problems or questions that arise from the practice of teaching. “the subject is wide-ranging, involving issues in ethics and social/political philosophy, epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind and language, and other areas of philosophy” (Siegel, Harvey et al, 2018).
The philosophy of education looks at what is worth teaching, educational equality, policies and practices. “In all this the philosopher of education prizes conceptual clarity, argumentative rigor, the fair-minded consideration of the interests of all involved in or affected by educational efforts and arrangements, and informed and well-reasoned valuation of educational aims and interventions.” (Siegel, Harvey et al, 2018).
It spans from Socrates to the present day. Socrates and many others held the view that education should allow the student to seek reason and to evaluate accordingly and to be lead by their belief in their actions and judgment. Contemporary philosopher held this position, that reason and rationality are key. There are some controversies with this view and Siegel sets them out in the paper in terms of problems in delineating the field, analytic philosophy of education and its influence, areas of contemporary activity, the context of the curriculum and the aims and functions of schooling, social, political and moral philosophy, and social epistemology, virtue epistemology, and the epistemology of education.
He concludes by acknowledging that globally different cultures have different ways of institutialising the philosophy of education as there are individual traditions.
bibliography
1),Siegel, Harvey, D.C. Phillips, and Eamonn Callan, “Philosophy of Education”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
2, James, M. Magrini. Plato’s Socrates, Philosophy and Education (2018). Springer Cham: New York