Philosophy of education

The Philosophy of education is the branch of applied philosophy that investigates the nature of education as well as its aims and problems. It includes the examination of educational theories, the presuppositions present in them, and the arguments for and against them. It is an interdisciplinary field that draws inspiration from various disciplines both within and outside philosophy, like ethics, political philosophy, psychology, and sociology. These connections are also reflected in the significant and wide-ranging influence the philosophy of education has had on other disciplines. Many of its theories focus specifically on education in schools but it also encompasses other forms of education. Its theories are often divided into descriptive and normative theories. Descriptive theories provide a value-neutral account of what education is and how to understand its fundamental concepts, in contrast to normative theories, which investigate how education should be practiced or what is the right form of education.

One of the difficulties in giving a more precise definition is the great variety of topics that are being discussed in the philosophy of education. Some studies focus on its fundamental concepts, like the concepts of education, teaching, learning, and student. Such studies often take the form of conceptual analysis, which aims to clarify concepts by discovering their fundamental constituents. Many discussions center around the aims of education, i.e. issues like why individuals should be educated and what purposes should be pursued in the process. There is wide agreement that these aims include passing on knowledge as well as the development of the abilities of good reasoning, judging, and acting. But theories describing more specific goals and their relative importance are usually controversial. Prominent suggestions include curiosity, creativity, rationality, morality, freedom, autonomy, and open-mindedness. An important discussion concerning the epistemic aims of education is whether education should focus mainly on the transmission of true beliefs or rather on the ability to reason and arrive at new knowledge on one's own. In this context, many theorists emphasize the importance of critical thinking in contrast to indoctrination. Critical thinking is a form of reasoning that is reflective, careful, and focused on determining what to believe or how to act. It also involves the ability to challenge unwarranted claims by epistemic authorities, in contrast to indoctrination, which is primarily concerned with instilling certain beliefs into the student's mind without regard to their evidential status. Another debate about the aims of education is whether the primary beneficiary is the individual educated or the society having this individual as its member.

Many of the more specific discussions in the philosophy of education concern the contents of the curriculum. This involves the questions of whether, when, and in what detail a certain topic, like sex education or religion, should be taught. Other debates focus on the specific contents and methods used in moral, art, and science education. Some philosophers investigate the relation between education and power, often specifically regarding the power used by modern states to compel children to attend school, a practice rejected by some advocates of the movements of deschooling and unschooling. A different issue is the problem of the equality of education, i.e. the demand that all students should be treated equally in public education. This is often understood in the sense that education should open the same opportunities to everyone. This ideal is threatened by various sources of inequality, like active discrimination and unequal distribution of wealth. In regard to educational research, some philosophers of education promote a quantitative approach, which follows the example of the natural sciences by using wide experimental studies. Others prefer a qualitative approach, which is closer to the methodology of the social sciences and tends to give more prominence to individual case studies. A topic that came to particular prominence in the contemporary discussion is the role of standardized testing in public schools.

Various schools of philosophy have developed their own perspective on the main issues of education. Existentialists emphasize the role of authenticity while pragmatists give particular prominence to active learning and discovery. Feminists and postmodernists often try to uncover and challenge biases and forms of discrimination present in current educational practices. Other philosophical movements include perennialism, classical education, essentialism, critical pedagogy, and progressivism. The history of the philosophy of education started in ancient philosophy and has remained an important topic to the present day. Despite its long and diverse history, it only emerged as a systematic branch of philosophy in the latter half of the 20th century. In universities, the philosophy of education usually forms part of departments or colleges of education.