Session Information
13 SES 04 A, Reason, Faith, and Philosophy of Education
Long Paper Session
Contribution
To inquire about philosophy of education possible assigments, we must ask what this discipline may consist of, what rationale could support it and what kind of purpose could it have. Many posed these questions, but the answers given ended up producing a broad spectrum of ideas. Now, if this demonstrated the creativity of this field of knowledge it also raised some vertigo before the dispersion of perspectives and the stubborn inconclusiveness that settled. Relying on what is generally assumed about philosophy, we could say it points out to radical reflexion on the deep assumptions of a specific understanding about education, requiring both a good knowledge of history, as the analysis of concepts on education and its anthropo-philosophical bases, without, not necessarily, sticking to the onto-metaphysical level that could be entailed (Ibañez-Martin, 1984).
When we refer to the academic context, it seems that Philosophy of Education (PE) has emerged in university departments as a subdiscipline of philosophy around the middle of the nineteenth century. Under the Anglo-Saxon influence, analytic philosophy became the dominant trend during the first phase of the twentieth century and followed a purpose that was primarily of epistemological foundation. Analytic philosophy eventually was criticized for the inability to truly meet educational problems and its strong hostility regarding ethical issues (Chambliss, 2009). According to Amilburu & Gutierrez (2012), PE has in fact a relatively short academic history and still lacks recognition from some disciplinary quadrants. However it can be said that PE presents nowadays a vibrant field of strong vitality, if one counts the number of meetings and publications, although its impact on educational policies seems to be reduced.
Among the meta-analysis on philosophy of education current activity, stands out the one carried out by Hayden (2012). The author begins by recognizing the present strong anxiety about PE’s work relevance and identifies a set of issues, which sketches a scenario that seems to suggest we should stimulate the debate about education among philosophers and between them and the educational community by focusing their work on specific educational problems.
Questions on “What is philosophy of education?” and “What is the current state of the field?” were also made by Chambliss (2009), the author follows, in a sense, the "factualist" way, so he performed an analysis of four renown publications in the area: "A Companion to Philosophy of Education", edited by R. Curren in 2003, the "Blackwell Guide to Philosophy of Education," published in 2003 by N. Blake, P. Smeyers, R. Simth and P. Standish, the "RoutledgeFalmer Reader in Philosophy of Education," edited by W. Carr in 2005, and the "Philosophy of Education: An Anthology", edited by R. Curren in 2007.
Following the analytic branch focused on Philosophy of Education production, Wortham (2011) examined two reference works: the "Oxfford handbook of philosophy of education", published in 2009 by Harvey Siegel and the "Yearbook" in two volumes of the National Society for the Study of Education ( "Why We Educate - Renewing the Conversation", vol. I, and "Why We Educate - Voices from the Conversation", vol. II), edited in 2008 by G. D. Fenstermacher. The first work is more addressed to philosophers and philosophers of education that could be interested in serious philosophical work, it proposes to relocate the discipline and presents sections on the ends, rationalities, ethics, knowledge and education policy. Meanwhile the second work points widely to researchers from the field of education, professionals, educational policy makers and the general public.
A general conclusion can be drawn: PE could be taken as a broker, contributing to disciplinary knowledge but also facilitating engagement between disciplinary ideas and relevant publics.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Amilburu, M. G. & Gutiérrez, J. G. (2012). Filosofía de la educación: Cuestiones de hoy y de sempre. Madrid: Narcea/UNED. Cabanas, J. M. Q. (1988). Teoria de la educación: Concepción antinómica de la educación. Madrid: Editorial Dykinson. Carvalho. A. D. (1988). Epistemologia das ciências da educação. Porto: Edições Afrontamento. Chambliss, J. J. (2009). Philosophy of education today. Educational Theory, 59, 2: 233-251. Deleuze, G. & Guatari, F. (1994). What is philosophy? New York: Columbia University Press. Fadigas, N. (2003). Inverter a educação: de Gilles Deleuze à filosofia da educação, Porto: Porto editora. Hayden, M. J. (2012). What do philosophers of education do? An empirical study of philosophy of education journals. Studies of Philosophy and Education, 31: 1-27. Heidegger, M. (1989). Ser e tempo. Parte I. Petrópilis: Vozes. Ibañez-Martin, J. A. (1984). Filosofía de la educación. In Diccionario de ciencias de la educación. Madrid: Anaya. Kant, I. (1985). Crítica da razão pura. Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. Kant, I. (2003). Pedagogia. Madrid: Akal Ediciones. Smeyers, P. (2010). Repensar la filosofía de la educación. Teoría de la Educación, 22 (1) 91-116. Standish, P. (2003). The nature and purposes of education. In R. Curren (Ed.), A companion to the philosophy of education (pp. 221-231). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Wortham, S. (2011). What does philosophy have to offer education and who should be offering it. Educational Theory, 61, 6: 727-741.
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