Tuesday, 20 January 2015

Philosophy, Politics and Education



Philosophy, as a social and political enterprise, can be viewed in two important perspective (Cohen, 2003). Firstly, it is conceived in terms of practice. Philosophy is thus a group of activities and this further conveys that philosophy is interpersonal and not solitary. Philosophy as a group of activities, requires rules to function and the question of what is proper philosophical methodology.
To Cohen, 2003, philosophy is conceived in terms of its product when philosophizing takes place in the public realm, it works to establish the values of the entire society not just those activities of philosophers. It is then clear that philosophy is the ultimate form of politics. Taylor (1976) maintains that Plato’s Republic, though a plan of an actual utopian society can be seen as outlining a deeper sense of political activity for philosophers.
          Cohen (2003) further stresses that philosophy and politics are linked and are in turn linked with education. Education, in virtue of its inextricable links with both philosophy and politics makes its dependence on them even stronger. Education is explicitly present in the methodology passage. Frede (1992) claims that education not only allows for inequality, for people will surely be of different abilities in terms of learning but indeed assumes inequality for its leaders. In Calais (1995) laissez-faire view, education is conceived as a haphazard affair and it seems to have been like this in ancient Athens, in which all learn at their own pace. In consequence as in political version this means there is no social cohesion derivable from western educational theoria and praxis if individual capabilities are not to be sacrificed on the altar of political populism. To Hippias (1995) education should be common to all, but this will be at the cost of high quality in the type of education provided. He believes that enforcing equality of education will keep everybody together but it will also keep the best students from moving ahead. This last view is in line with an industrial-era vision of state schooling. Socrates view about education looks like that of Dewey (1997). Dewey (1966) conception is that of collaborative education. He stressed that the best students must be involved in the enterprise in such a way that their ability benefits the group. According to Cohen (2003) philosophy searches for wisdom and is indeed synonymous with education in the sense of individual’s search for learning. But philosophy as noted above, does not only search for wisdom but it also conveys the wisdom to others. This corresponds to education as teaching.
          Dewey (1966) goes so far to define philosophy as the general theory of education. This double sense of education as either a reflexive or transitive helps at the same time to reveal its essential interconnection with politics. Politics too can be seen as a matter of either governing oneself or governing others. At best governing others is a matter of educating them. Thus in Plato’s (1945) understanding, the law is often spoken of as an educational tool. In the same sense, to be educated means to be autonomous, as education makes one understand why certain laws are binding and deserving of obedience.

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