An Introduction to Philosophy of Education

Course Type	Course Code	No. Of Credits
Foundation Core	SES201110	2

Semester and Year Offered: Semester I (Monsoon semester)

Course Coordinator and Team: Dr. Monimalika Day (Coordinator)

Email of course coordinator:monimalika[at]aud[dot]ac[dot]in

Pre-requisites: None

Course Description:

Philosophy is understood in a very generalized manner in common parlance. There is a need to differentiate between this understanding of philosophy and the systematic study of philosophy and the nature of questions which it raises. Education in its wider connotation asks the same questions. Thus this course is designed to introduce the students with philosophy and education as domains of inquiry.

Course Objectives:

It aims to:

Introduce students to philosophy and education as domains of inquiry
Provide students some acquaintance with the disciplines of Philosophy and of Education
Engage with ideas of philosophy and education and help students understand them as disciplines.
Acquaint students with the trajectory that the discipline of Philosophy of Education has taken to unpack educational ideas and issues.

Course Outcomes: One completion of this course

The students will be able to recognize how schooling can become indoctrinating and why it is necessary to differentiate between indoctrination and education.
The students will be able recognize the concepts Philosophy of education and the emergence of the pedagogical sciences.
The students will be able to understand and map out the contours of the understanding of philosophy of education in the last century.
The students will be able toexamining of the philosophical underpinnings of evolving ideas in pedagogy through the lens of the philosophers like major philosophers and educators like Kant, Hegel, Rousseau and Dewey.

Brief description of the units:

Unit I

Philosophy and Education: Understanding the two disciplines.
Education, indoctrination and schooling.
Philosophy is understood in a very generalized manner in common parlance. There is a need to differentiate between this understanding of philosophy and the systematic study of philosophy and the nature of questions which it raises. Education in its wider connotation asks much the same questions. Moreover, both education and philosophy have a common quest in the betterment of human life. There is also need to understand the difference between reflective, speculative philosophy and the act of philosophizing, as understood in cartographies of university knowledge. The same is true of Education. This unit will engage students with these foundational concerns.Ideas about what education is aimed at would then be studied to lead us into what schooling should be. It would be illustrated how schooling can become indoctrinating and why it is necessary to differentiate between indoctrination and education.

Unit 2

The discipline of Philosophy of Education. The Schools of thought approach and its critique in analytic philosophy.Philosophy of education and the emergence of the pedagogical sciences This unit will delineate the self-conscious attempts of educators and philosophers to map out the contours of the understanding of philosophy of education in the last century. The subject matter of philosophy of education comprised largely of descriptions of the epistemology, metaphysics, ethics and axiology of some schools of thought in Philosophy, which were then looked at for implications for education. This approach reduced the discourse to causal connections between philosophical understandings and educational theorizing and came under attack by analytic philosophers. This altered the course that the discipline had undertaken and turned the attention of philosophers of education to the task of clarification of concepts and terms in education.This led to the examining of the philosophical underpinnings of evolving ideas in pedagogy. This would be examined with the help of some major philosophers and educators like Kant, Hegel, Rousseau and Dewey.

Assessment Plan:

S.No	Assessment	Weightage
1	Assignment-1	50%
2	Assignment-2	50%

Readings:

Edman, Irwin. (1947). In explanation of a noble and misunderstood profession. In Philosopher’s quest, pp. 3-4. New York: Viking Press.
Korner, Stephen. (1969). The past of philosophy and contemporary scene. In What is Philosophy: One philosopher’s answer, pp. 250-280. London: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press.
Emmet, E.R. (1964). Introduction. In Learning to philosophise, pp. 1-10. London: Longmans.
Hook, Sidney. The uses of Philosophy, pp. 1-7. In Harold Titus and MaylonHepp (eds.) The range of philosophy. East-West Press.
Broad, C.D. Philosophy: Critical and speculative, pp. 8-13. In Harold Titus and MaylonHepp (eds.) The range of philosophy. East-West Press.
Gutek, G.L. (2009). New perspectives on philosophy and education. Ohio, New Jersey: Pearson.
Philosophy and education, pp. 1-17
Ideology and philosophy, p.186
Barrow, Robin and Woods, Ronald (2014). Indoctrination, pp. 70-83. In An introduction to philosophy of education (4th edition). London and New York: Routledge.
Richmond. Education and Schooling, Chapter 1.
Carr, David (2010). The Philosophy of Education and Educational Theory. In The Sage Handbook of Philosophy of Education, pp. 37-54.
Phillips, D.C. What is Philosophy of Education? In The Sage Handbook of Philosophy of Education,, pp.3-20.
Barrow, Robin. (2010). Schools of Thought in Philosophy of Education. In The Sage Handbook of Philosophy of Education, pp 21-36. Los Angeles: Sage.
Munzel, Felicitas G. (2006). Kant, Hegel, and the Rise of Pedagogical Sciences. In Randall Curren (ed.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Education, pp. 113-129. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Supplementary Texts:

Ganeri, J. (2002). On the concept of Philosophy in India. In Mind, language and world: The collected essays of Bimal Krishna Matilal, pp.358-369. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Rao, P. Nagaraja (1971). The conception of philosophy through the ages. In Essays in Indian Philosophy and Religion, pp.1-13. New Delhi, Bombay: Lalvani Publishing House.
Jacobsen, D.A. (1999). Philosophy in classroom teaching. New Jersey, Ohio: Merrill (an imprint of Prentice Hall).
Gutek, G.L. (2009). New perspectives on philosophy and education. Ohio, New Jersey: Pearson
Pring, Richard. (2010). The Philosophy of Education and Educational Practice. In The Sage Handbook of Philosophy of Education, pp. 55-66