Philosophy of Education

This book is dedicated to the great John Deely (d. 2017), a dear friend and colleague whose research in the theory and history of semiotics is unsurpassable. His work is a lasting inspiration for generations of students to come, in philosophy, semiotics, and now edusemiotics. The handbook presents edusemiotics as a novel unified conceptual framework at the intersection of educational philosophy and theoretical semiotics
It collects cutting-edge theoretical and empirical research in this emergent field and
addresses the dimension of values and meaning in education and learning. Further,
the contributors explore the practical implications of edusemiotics in diverse global contexts

El tema de esta tesis es la educación musical en la filosofía de Platón. En la República de Platón, la etapa educativa más importante es la niñez; los vehículos de esta educación son la mousiké para el alma (o mente) y la gimnasia para el cuerpo. La palabra griega mousiké describe un conjunto de artes compuesto por la música, la poesía, el canto y el baile. Así mismo, una educación musical para Platón describe una educación cultural. Además, Platón entiende que la conservación política de la ciudad ideal depende de una adecuada práctica musical, y de proteger los modos musicales. Por ende, la educación musical es un tema meridiano en la pedagogía si concedemos que la República es más bien un libro cuyo tema es la educación. Que el elemento fundamental del tema educativo (la mousiké) provoque sorpresa, sea en el lector antiguo o moderno, problematiza el significado del concepto humano de la educación. Que provoque sorpresa puede dejar entrever que una pedagogía que no otorga a las artes (y notablemente, a los modos musicales) importancia suprema, está condenada al fracaso. Igual destino puede esperar a una filosofía o práctica política que ignore su importancia. Es en el contexto de estas inquietudes que surge la pregunta que esta tesis intenta contestar: ¿Por qué considera Platón que la mousiké es central en la polis? La tesis que se defiende es la siguiente: Platón postula que la mousiké es aquello que educa la sociedad porque tiene el efecto de moldear el alma (o la mente). Esto tiene consecuencias políticas, pues la legislación y la justicia, que son las dos artes de la política, dependen del carácter de los individuos que componen la polis.

Even though the interrelationship between education and democratic politics is as old as democracy itself, it is seldom explicitly formulated in the literature. Most of the time, the political system is taken as a given, and education conceptualized as an instrument for stability and social integration. Many contemporary discussions about citizenship education and democracy in the Western world mirror this tendency. In the paper, I argue that, in order to conceptualise the socio-political potential of education we need to understand democracy in more political terms. This means that democracy can neither be seen primarily as a mode of associated living (Dewey), nor a model for handling different life-views (political liberalism à la Rawls and Gutmann). A third alternative is Gert Biesta’s notion of democratic subjectification. Even though Biesta identifies depoliticising trends in citizenship education policies, I argue that his alternative still fails to be a sufficiently political alternative. What is lacking in Biesta is the explicit attention to political causes and the kind of collective activities that define a democracy: the creation of one’s own laws, norms and institutions. This capacity of the collective to question and govern itself is put in relief by Cornelius Castoriadis’s notion of “the project of autonomy”.

'Philosophy and the aims of higher education' Studies in Higher Education Vol. 22, No 1

The paper asks how far philosophy can throw light on what the aims of higher education should be. It begins with a critical discussion of Ronald Bamett's argument set out in his 'The Idea of Higher Education' and elsewhere, that there are  'emancipatory' aims implicit in the concept of higher education itself. Bamett's philosophical and historical arguments for this conclusion are examined and rejected. The question is also raised, whether the conclusion could be supported on other grounds. In the last part of the paper, it is suggested that higher education seems to offer much less scope than compulsory school education for philosophical discussions of its aims'.

William Frankena (1966) has suggested a model
for analyzing philosophies of education based on
practical syllogism which goes back to Aristotle
(1925). Even though the deductive method in
philosophy of education was the subject of
attacks, Frankena’s model has been influential
as it has been appealed to in religious education
studies (e.g., Cohen 2010), applied branches of
education (e.g., Martin 2011), as well as philosophical
reflection on education (e.g., Covaleski
2007). Frankena’s model helps students to analyze
philosophies of education and acquire a
proper understanding of values education (Litke
1976), teacher education (Ainsworth and Johnson
2005), and workplace education (Hager 1999).

This text is a non-linear bricollage of reflections that surfaced at a keynote address at the Lapes conference in San Francisco in 2017. In this event,  I invited participants to ponder and wonder about existence, reality, meaning, and practices of political and existential resistance through interwoven images, analyses, propositions, invitations and open-ended questions. This text echoes the invitation issued in this event to re-imagine and experience education as collective onto-genesis: an expansion of horizons and constellations of knowledges, affect, lived experiences, sensibilities, temporalities, spatialities, rhythms, neuro-metabolic processes, and possibilities of (co)existence.

Since the turn of the millennium there has been a clear rise in the implementation and research of mindfulness across primary, secondary and postsecondary education. These implementations, however, hardly constitute a uniform phenomenon. They reflect a variety of framings, modalities and educational aims, as documented in hundreds of peer-reviewed papers. To date no overarching review has provided an empirically-based mapping of this multifaceted and rapidly developing discourse. This paper offers a first-of-its-kind map of mindfulness in education based on the 447 peer-reviewed papers published between 2002 and 2017 that constitute this academic discourse, applying grounded theory methodology. The research reveals an exponential rise in the amount of publications over years, with a complex discourse that evolves from seven different framings of the practice, applied to nine different educational domains and through various types of implementation. It maps this complexity and outlines two main patterns that reflects this discourse to date: a) Mindfulness in education, which comprises mostly of outsourced, secularized interventions aimed at improved mental-physical health, social-emotional learning and cognitive functions. b) Mindfulness as education, which is a more transformative strand characterized by contemplative pedagogy in higher education and sporadic whole-school implementations. Overall, in the studied period mindfulness has been moving from near-anonymity toward the mainstream; however, this discourse reflects a nascent phase given that it is only beginning to critique itself. Furthermore, its two patterns reflect a split discourse that is challenged by the practice's psychological-secular framing and its Buddhist framing.

Amidst ongoing attempts to think beyond Western frameworks for education, there is a tendency to overlook Japan, perhaps because it appears highly modern. This is striking given that some prominent strands of Japanese philosophy have formulated an explicit and exacting challenge to the core onto-epistemic premises of modern Western thought. It is also surprising because Japanese educational practices have resulted in some of the highest achievement outcomes-both cognitive and noncognitive-found anywhere in the world and inculcate a worldview that is distinct. Herein, we thus attempt to make visible the potential contribution of modern Japanese philosophy by outlining some of the core ideas, then turn to sketch resonances with and responses to other projects outlined in this Special Issue. Our approach is elucidation through relational comparison. Through this process, we suggest that the notion of self-negation as a mode of learning may be helpful in explaining why-at the empirical level-the outlook of Japanese students, and perhaps other East Asian students, diverge markedly from their Western peers. Yet we also find that an attempt, such as ours, to link divergent onto-epistemic thought to alternative empirical hypotheses quickly gives rise to various doubts and discomforts, even among otherwise sympathetic scholars.

It is not possible to provide a comprehensive account of the educational philosophies and theories that fall within the wide-ranging rubric of 'Eastern philosophy of education'. This disclaimer acknowledges the need to be selective, and so in what follows we have chosen to focus on certain Eastern traditions that have seemed to provide the most enduring and substantive contributions to educational thinking. This inclusionary/exclusionary task should not be understood as disavowing other potentially important contributions and traditions (e.g. Shintoism, Sikhism, Jainism, Baha'i) nor that the categories 'Eastern' and 'tradition' can be offered without significant reservation. Furthermore, the reader would be faced with a bewildering array of ideas without a conceptual frame with which to interpret less familiar contexts. We employ Plato's allegory of the cave as the methodological and pedagogical vehicle to frame and to drive the discussion that follows because it allows us to explore certain key ontological,epistemological and ethical features within our selected Eastern pedagogies, providing the balance between meaningful encounter and coherent interpretation. If philosophy is concerned with what it means to be human, then philosophers of education are sometimes said to take up the question of what it means to become human: humanization. Our traditions define humanization through a set of practices and/or understandings. Thus, we will focus our attention both on the goal and the practices and processes by which the goal might be achieved. Our chapter includes three parts: the first part will briefly introduce key elements of Plato’s allegory of the cave. Part two will include four sections that examine Buddhism, Hinduism, Daoism and Confucianism in turn. It is important to note however, that each of these traditions is more of a tree with several branches, reflecting diverse schools of thought. This general difficulty becomes severe when discussing Buddhism and Hinduism (the former more appropriately conceived as Buddhisms and the latter a broad term that includes several belief systems), requiring us to select specific teachings/aspects within each tradition. Part three will offer some brief statements that may be surmised from our analysis, pointing to shared features of an ‘Eastern philosophy of education’.

The article highlights the productivity of the visual metaphor in the context of the use of information and communication technologies, the implementation of which changes the format of the educational process. An analysis of visual metaphors in the paradigm of the philosophy of education, which are used to describe various models of worldview, cognition and reflection on the meaning of concepts and knowledge that become the subject of study is performed. Visualization is defined as the creation of images for the transmission and expression of symbols, which provides a more complete understanding of the text, data, information, complementing the scientific explanation or logical reasoning. Given that metaphors are used in everyday perception as a means of visualization to "see" abstract concepts, the concept of "conceptual metaphor" is analyzed, which in cognitive-linguistic research associates thinking with vision and explains complex phenomena that determine the course of thought. The idea of engaging visual metaphors in the process of applying information and communication technologies and learning tools, which by means of computer graphic presentation help deeper understanding of the text, educational material, and its application is postulated. It is proved that visual metaphors are a means of raising the level of the concept, direct thought in a certain direction, and with the use of information and communication technologies, at the same time more fully inform, present, create opportunities for reflection on the meanings of specific knowledge. It is noted that visual metaphors arise both in images and in language, appealing to sight, vision, light, visual perception, and visual experience. A number of key visual metaphors are analyzed – “visual contemplation”, “blindness”, “mirrors”, “light” and their application in the practice of learning in the humanities. The authors see promising further research on the use of information and communication technologies for the formation of all components of visual culture.

Issues of, and calls for transformation in higher education emanate from a long history of entrenched and deepening levels of socio-economic inequality. The types of resistance and protest action witnessed in the spiral of the #FeesMust-Fall campaigns in 2015 and 2016 are symptomatic of complex experiences of student exclusion and marginalisation on the basis of race and economics. Seemingly, university leadership has responded to what is obvious and visible,
rather than taking stock of the complexities underscoring these protests,
or offering any meaningful engagement with students. Our argument in this chapter focuses on the problem of student protestations from the perspective of a lack of educational leadership that has apparently enhanced resistance, instead of dealing more justly and humanely with the dilemma at hand. We explore an argument for educational leadership-in-becoming that might contribute more meaningfully to dealing with the contemporary challenges faced by the higher education sector in South Africa.

Se indaga el sentido de la conferencia de Sloterdijk
“Normas para el Parque humano” así como las
polémicas por ella suscitada. Se realiza un diagnóstico
de la capacidad crítica del humanismo tradicional. En el
marco del naufragio del humanismo como escuela y
utopía domesticadora humana -marco en el que
Sloterdijk reclama una revisión genético-técnica de la
humanidad- se indaga ¿qué criterios pueden
establecerse para normar las inevitables luchas por los
derechos de la crianza humana? ¿Quiénes y sobre qué
bases debieran hoy detentar el derecho a la crianza?
¿Cómo determinar quiénes son los que educan y los que
son educados? Se proponen nuevos caminos que
tienen en la mediación de la técnica su formulación
discursiva y sus orígenes en las disidencias que, desde
la propia tradición filosófica, reducían la estancia del
hombre en el mundo a su expresión leída y escrita.

This article stems from a story of arts education advocacy in the midst of a bureaucracy that misunderstood the purpose of art education at the launch of a new elementary school. Contemporary visual arts education practices overlap a unique period of change in neighboring social science disciplines, a turn of the tide that involves the embrace of narrative methods to rewrite prevailing working models and paradigms of social science practice. Here at the start of the 21st century, art education continues to be practiced in the thrall of a scientific paradigm that misunderstands the greater potential of the arts in education, often imposing a ceiling ill-fitted for arts praxis, arts-based research, or arts pedagogy. The author argues that art education is also at a turn of the tide and surmises some of the unexpected outcomes when new and ex-centric stories of learning and a “pedagogy of possibility” are more thoroughly explored, allowing practitioners to fully rethink an art education practice without taxonomic ceilings and within the shelter of the unexplored labyrinth.

Denne bog er en introduktion til pædagogikken som fag og som praksis. Den hjælper dig med at finde faglig retning, så du med pædagogisk takt og omtænksomhed bliver i stand til at sætte dig selv i spil i arbejdet med menneskers udvikling.
Når du arbejder pædagogisk med mennesker, er du deltager i det, forfatterne til denne bog kalder det pædagogiske projekt. Det er det kulturelle projekt, som går ud på at opdrage, uddanne og støtte mennesker, sådan at de selv kan tage hånd om et liv og en fremtid, som står åben.

I bogen møder du fire forskellige mennesker i meget forskellige livssituationer: Freja, der er ny i børnehaven, Julie, en ældre dame, der har en demenssygdom og bor på plejehjem, Tom på 13, der lige er ankommet til en døgninstitution, hvor han nu skal bo, og Viggo, der går i 1. klasse og har svært ved at finde sig til rette i børnefællesskabet. Fælles for de fire er, at de har brug for pædagogisk støtte. Forfatterne bruger praksisfortællingerne til at gøre det pædagogiske projekt konkret og levende og til at vise, at der ikke er én rigtig vej, men mange mulige veje at gå i det pædagogiske arbejde. Og undervejs må der træffes pædagogiske valg.
Bogen giver forståelser, begreber og indsigter, der ruster dig som studerende eller professionel til at tage ansvar for det pædagogiske projekt og bidrager til udviklingen af en pædagogisk professionsidentitet

One of the questions that Heidegger presents in his paper, ‘Plato’s Doctrine on Truth’, is the distortion as he sees it of paideia—that is the loss of the essential elements in education. This loss is characterised according to Heidegger, by a misconception of Plato’s concept of teaching and learning. By undertaking an historical examination, Heidegger provides a means to rectify this loss. With reference to past, present and future philosophical perspectives of teaching and learning as particular spaces, an attempt is made in this paper to examine Heidegger’s reading of paideia within the context of online learning. This, for many contemporary writers on education, is an encounter with new literacies, new knowledge and the adoption of an online environment that challenges the hegemonic order of the institution as the purveyors of knowledge. Teachers within this new environment are, however still constituted as experts and their knowledge is seen as ultimately inviolate. Heidegger i...

Most of us were raised in a religious tradition of some sort, and whether we lapsed, embraced a religious identity, or consciously rejected this upbringing, it is rarely claimed that parents are wrong for trying to pass on their beliefs. In Children, Religion, and the Ethics of Influence, philosopher of education John Tillson asks us to rethink almost everything about this state of affairs. He takes the reader through a series of challenging philosophical questions en route to addressing his guiding question: "How may we ethically influence children with respect to religions?" (CR, 1). His answers are at times buried or tentative, but they culminate in the provocative conclusion that essentially children should not be raised in a religion.

At the heart of my project on aesthetic education is the formative encounter that I am describing as “the turning”:  the experience with a work of art that captures our attention (captivates us) so much that we are virtually flooded over by the work of art, inundated by its creative power.  In that aesthetic experience we are ‘attuned’ to the work, and our relationship to it is a contemplative one.  We are engrossed in the work.  As I read it, this is what Plato is getting at when he writes in Republic 518-519: “the entire soul must be turned away from the world of becoming until it is able to endure the sight of being and the most brilliant light of being…”   

The thesis put to work in this project is that this ‘most brilliant light of being’ is revealed through art in the aesthetic experience. 

My reading of Plato’s allegory is situated within an attempt to describe the process of a philosophical education happening via the aesthetic experience/encounter with art.

An aesthetic philosophical education emerges out of phenomenological contemplation, which always involves a transcendental move ‘beyond’ the self. (This is what happens when we are engrossed, attuned to a work of art.)  Contemplation via the phenomenological attitude is perhaps the most intense way of attending to the matters that stand or appear before us. It might be described as the modality of being-in-harmony.  Hence, the word ‘attunement’ is used to name the modality of contemplation.

Engaging with beauty can orient mind, heart and action in this era of ecological destruction. First, I present a vision of beauty that acknowledges some of its common critiques while salvaging it from claims that it is merely subjective, or worse, destructive. I then focus on how the ecological crisis elicits and invites participation in actions towards vulnerable things and the beauty they invoke. I reflect on my life experiences and engagements with art to help understand the possibilities and power in the beauty of vulnerable things and of actions towards them. While I acknowledge and address some difficulties with beauty as the basis for action, I suggest it is better suited to engage the ecological crisis than appealing to emotions such as hope or relying on prevalent ethical approaches. I end the paper by considering the transformative role aesthetics should play in reimagining subject focus, interdisciplinarity and character development in school curricula and pedagogy aimed at sustainability.

Интернационализация является одним из наиболее актуальных трендов в современном высшем образовании, который все еще требует философского осмысления. Появление интернационализации в высшем обра-зовании связывается с постепенным отказом от задач международного влияния, на смену которому приходит по-вестка межнациональной интеграции. Интеграция реализуется за счет сближения качества высшего образования, что обеспечивает выгоду от международного участия для многочисленных заинтересованных сторон, действующих в различных режимах функционирования высшего образования. Ускоряющиеся процессы интеграции обуславлива-ют неравномерность развития интеграционных процессов: появляются как лидеры интернационализации, так и те страны, где эта сфера не получает должного развития. Благодаря новой политике добрососедства и приграничному сотрудничеству хорошие результаты достигнуты на общеевропейском пространстве высшего образования. Развива-ющиеся страны менее успешны в этих процессах, а потому возникает опасность усугубления дисбалансов развития между разными регионами мира. Будущее интернационализации во многом связано с тем, как высшее образование будет адаптироваться к этой проблеме. Ключевые слова: интернационализация высшего образования, философия образования, международная инте-грация, интеграция высшей школы Для цитирования: Смоляков, Д. А. Интернационализация высшего образования: социально-философский аспект / Д. А. Смоляков // Докл. Нац. акад. наук Беларуси. Abstract. Internationalization is one of the most important trends in modern higher education which requires philosophical reflection. The emergence of internationalization is associated with replacing the international influence by international integration. Integration is realized through the convergence of the quality of higher education, which provides the benefits of international participation for different stakeholders operating in various modes of higher education. Accelerating integration processes internationalization is determined by the development of integration processes: there are leaders and outsiders of internationalization. The future of internationalization largely depends on the adaptation of higher education to global development disbalances.

In her review of my book, Weili Zhao sheds a new light on what it means to study like a communist, particularly by focusing on the concept of the encounter and the dao movement. In this response, I build on her insights by proposing that the binary and the planar be heterogeneously blocked together. Rather than critical pedagogy, critical education , liberal education, and postmodern education, we need to see pedagogy and politics as hanging together in a confrontational negotiation.

Tekst jest recenzją wieloautorskiej monografii przygotowanej w 150-lecie śmierci Bronisława F. Trentowskiego. Publikacja wpisuje się w cykl inicjatyw podejmowanych w kręgu członków i przyjaciół Towarzystwa Pedagogiki Filozoficznej z myślą o pogłębianiu wiedzy o życiu i twórczości tego polskiego filozofa i pedagoga oraz o upowszechnianiu jego dorobku. Do realizacji tego naukowego przedsięwzięcia redaktor tomu, Sławomir Sztobryn, zaprosił badaczy z zakresu nauk humanistycznych i społecznych z wielu ośrodków akademickich w kraju. Są wśród nich historycy filozofii, filozofowie polityki, etycy, historycy wychowania i oświaty, historycy literatury polskiej, filozofowie wychowania, pedagodzy. Dziedzictwo Trentowskiego zostaje więc prześwietlone z różnych perspektyw badawczych, razem budując wielopłaszczyznowe kompendium, w którym każda z perspektyw ma szansę przejrzenia się i porównania na tle pozostałych. Mamy przed sobą interesującą kompozycję wieloautorską, z poszczególnymi rozdziałami z ich oryginalnym własnym brzmieniem, ale tworzącymi zgraną całość, w efekcie przynosząc coś więcej niż sumę poszczególnych ujęć i stanowisk. Praca wnosi zarazem nowe impulsy do refleksji nad wychowaniem i kształceniem w ogóle./ The text is a review of a multi-author monograph prepared on the 150th anniversary of the death of Bronisław F. Trentowski. The publication is part of a series of initiatives undertaken by members and friends of the Society of Philosophy of Education in Poland with the intention to deepening the knowledge about the life and work of this Polish philosopher and educator and to disseminating his achievements. To implement this scientific undertaking, the editor of the volume, Sławomir Sztobryn, invited researchers in the field of humanities and social sciences from many academic centers in Poland. Among them there are historians of philosophy, philosophers of politics, ethicists, historians of education, historians of Polish literature, philosophers of education, and pedagogues. Trentowski's legacy is therefore explored from various research perspectives, creating together a multifaceted compendium in which each perspective has a chance to review and compare against the others. We have an interesting and harmonious composition in front of us, with individual chapters with their own original sound, but creating in effect something more than the sum of the individual  positions. At the same time, the work brings new impulses to reflection on education in general.

This paper is about Sapphires. The Sapphires is an Australian dramatic and comedy movie about four women singers. In May 2012, it premiered in Australia during the Cannes Festival. The Movie is about a group of indigenous women, Gail Julie, Kay, and Cynthia, who decide to form a music group after being discovered by a scout.  In 1968, they travel to Vietnam to sing for the military troops during the war. The production of the movie began in 2010, after the selection of all the four members of “The Sapphires group”, and the filming took place in a variety of locations in Vietnam, New South Wales, and Australia.

Resumen: En México no queda claro cuál debe ser el papel de la educación pública después de la transición. ¿Debe continuar el proyecto de construcción nacional iniciado por el régimen priísta o debe abandonar todo contenido ideológico? Este trabajo comienza por preguntarse si para una democracia liberal como México es permisible inculcar contenidos ideológicos a través de la educación pública. A manera de simplificación me concentro en el caso de la enseñanza de la historia patria articulada mediante la ideología del nacionalismo revolucionario a través del libro de texto gratuito. Argumento que para una democracia liberal no es permisible inculcar el perfeccionismo cultural que parece implicar la enseñanza de la historia patria. Sin embargo espero que el argumenta pueda extenderse a otros casos similares de adoctrinamiento infantil. Abstract: After Mexican political transition, it is not clear what should be the role of public education. Should public education continue with the nation building process first conducted by the PRI's regime? Or should it instead abandon any ideological endeavor? This paper begins by asking if it is morally permissible for a liberal democracy like Mexico, to indoctrinate children using the schooling governmental apparatus. As a means of simplification I discuss only the case of history free text books where Mexican history seems to be still constructed around the ideology of the revolution-nationalism. I argue that it is not permissible for a liberal democracy to indoctrinate children with the kind of cultural perfectionism entrenched in the patriotic doctrinal history books. The hope is to extend my argument to similar cases of children endoctrination.