In philosophy of education usually it is discussed to what end education has to be undergone. This is for instance crucial for the education of educators, and educational goals like 'individual sovereignty', 'personal emancipation' or 'bildung' have to find their operational correspondents within the process of teaching and learning. As Christine Möller once suggested, there is a line of conclusion along from 'general goals' ("Richtziele") to 'intermediate goals' ("Grobziele") to 'well-defined objectives' ("Feinziele"), the last being the only type of learning goals that is operational. This (possibly at first sight very German) discussion has been induced not only by the "Taxonomy of Educational Objectives" of Bloom, Krathwohl, and others but also by the writings of Robert Mager. However, despite the apparent relevance to teaching and instruction, despite its foundation in the philosophical dimension of education, and despite its obvious logical conclusiveness: there is a problem with it. It is impossible to deduce a specific proposition from a general proposition unless the side constraints are well-defined (cf. Popper 1934, 32). The problem is, that there never is a fully well-defined set of side constraints in education, for the process of education is open ended in itself. Accordingly, it is impossible to generate a full set of 'instructional goals' from a given 'educational goal'. Although the logical problem underlying in the relationship of more general 'educational' and more specific 'instructional goals' has not been publicly denounced to my knowledge, its impracticabilty - besides the reproach of being a late concept of behaviorism - has doubtlessly led to the rejection of the discourse of instructional goals. The topic of learning or instructional goals has gained new relevance under the name of 'education standards'. This latest concept in the discourse of public education is reproducing the same errors as the former debate on learning goals. These new dynamics seem to justify the effort of looking out for a new theoretical basis for identifying objectives. Otherwise the concept of education standards will fail once again. It shall be emphasised that the underlying logic can only rely on the idea of 'abduction' once put forward by Peirce as a third conclusive concept besides induction and deduction. This contribution is to show, how instructional objectives can be found from given intermediate goals and those again be determined by educational goals.

Analytic approach; integration of different theoretical fields (didactics & epistemology)

The expected outcome consists in detecting a way of making the imperatives of philosophical fondations of education work in practical educational contexts like teaching.