One of the greatest problems of education is, according to Kant, how to cultivate freedom in spite of restraint. However, it seems that the problem is not only how “to unite submission to the restraint with the capability to use one’s own freedom”, but also the question of whether it is possible to cultivate freedom at all. And the purpose of this paper is to emphasize precisely this particular problem. But the question is why the cultivation of freedom is, or at least seems to be, a problem. It is a problem because Kant himself says that moral culture, whose characteristic is that it refers to freedom, “is not cultivation, but moralization”. Where then, if at all, is the difference between cultivation and moralization?

The paper is devoted to understanding education as bringing to “true adulthood” and to the educational model based on this concept. What would be the future of humanity if infantilism was to increase? To comprehend the nature of “childish people” and that of “true adulthood”, the author observes the characteristics of these two, the structure of maturity modus and genesis of maturation using materials of Buddhist tradition. “Childish people”. In Buddhist texts is a concept that describes common people, possessing ordinary mind. This state is a starting point for education. Buddhist educational model with its main elements is substantiated by scheme of the maturation’s genesis. Bringing the mind to maturity in terms of the cognitive model is here the foundation for transformations of all other spheres of human personality: emotional, motivation, values and will, activity and communication.

Humanity is currently facing a set of global challenges. We have now committed a new transfer, which happened as a part of the scientific paradigm: Space, earlier understood through imagination, became real only in our days (a transfer from the Symbolic and Imaginary modus to Reality). In this context, we record worldview transfer, which allowed for the development of the whole set of processes and phenomena, a totality which we currently call Globalization. We are facing an issue: whether modern education is in time for preparation of the generation of people adapted and fitted in the transfer. Knowledge ceases to be a destiny of chosen people. A technology, particularly a knowledge gaining technology becomes a destiny of chosen people. And, to our point of view, a mechanism for retention of this informational-technological phenomenon is a transfer from knowledge paradigm to competence paradigm. Competence does not reduce only to the knowledge or to abilities. Competence is sphere of relations that exist between knowledge and actions in practice. Essential feature of modern pedagogical thought is the multiple variances of methods to explain the same phenomenon. Despite that, there are multitude methodological approaches to solve certain pedagogical problems, it is important to note organic integrity of science, which substantial components are developed largely evolutionarily. Other aspect, on which we should dwell on, is change in natural native habitat of a man and origination of new (often non realizable) risks. Thus, we can set up a principle to organize natural cycle: “science is for life rather than the life is for science” and with respect to education: «education is for life rather than the life is for receiving of educational statuses». It is important for teachers to provide a notion that the physics, chemistry and mathematics might be represented as specific languages using which it is historically easier to express change and development of matter-energy. Culture should be considered as a certain method for describing of the world. A man may act as a bearer of some such methods. It is important to provide notion about various types of special normalization as well as about scales, through which we can evaluate the state and its structure, quality of life, human rights etc. We can surely say that there should be the below specified through lines in the modern education system: Sustainable Development; Life safety; Multiculturalism (recognition of oneself value as a bearer of his culture and accepting of other cultures’ value); Inclusion and exclusion (excluded groups, gender etc.)

Centuries after Socrates personalized the task of “intellectual midwifery” and optimized the Dialectic as an art of reasoning and teaching, learner-centeredness as a vision in Education finds a fresh philosophical grounding in the Process Thought of the American philosopher-theologian, Charles Hartshorne (1897-2000). Process Philosophy is basically a metaphysico-theistic system that considers ‘event’ as the fundamental unit of reality, with concepts such as creativity, freedom, emergence and growth as its explanatory categories. It views the universe as a living, social organism and the human person as a society of event-experiences. As a Metaphysics of Interrelatedness, it defines a distinct social ethics that underscores the concepts of organic sympathy or universal love as the foundational principle of its ethical theory of Contributionism. It likewise offers a perspective of Education as a significant contribution and a beautiful gift not only to humanity but more so to the Divinity. This demands a radical de-centering of consciousness from one’s self to others and to the Other, an ‘internal revolution’ that signifies a reorientation of the mind from self-centeredness to self-transcendence. Learning and teaching, thus, become a single and seamless act of unfolding the natural giftedness of others as well as one’s own.

Education involves initiation into forms of thought which conceptually must be developed. Wilson (1972) suggests an overlap between part of the area we call lack of mental health and part of the area we might call lack of education. Philosophy of Education plays one of the vital roles in personal development and acquiring new skills and knowledge. Philosophy is multi-connected with Education and transmission of knowledge. Awareness has been one of the basic components stressed by most Philosophical theories used by different terms. Therefore, the concept of awareness is present in most Philosophical theories and therapy approached by different methods. In the present paper we are going to present the similarities and comparisons between the Eastern concept of Mindfulness and Consciousness and relevant Eastern conceptualizations of Philosophy

The article draws on a multi-level conception of the Information Society. We have attempted to identify the historically important stages of society development depending on a form of information representation. The current social organization is going through transformation from information-based society to a knowledge-based one. Overcoming the cognitive gap through a deep reformation of the global education system is a necessary prerequisite for change. The proposed conception is based on the Trinitarian post-non-classical methodology (PNC MEP) and information model of Universum – info-world comprised of information objects. The importance of this model consists in “putting together” three different groups of notions – knowledge, meanings, ideas, values (relating to liberal arts); information, content, data (“technical” notions); facts and information (general scientific notions).All these notions are the means of representing information which is regarded as an ideal object. Further, singling out the levels of the Information society makes it possible not only to analyze its stages from a historical angle, but also to reveal the major tendencies, principles and characteristic features. All these elements would thus result in a scientifically solid theory and methods for research and building prognostication models.

The philosophy of education is situated historically and culturally. How possible, then, is a conversation on the philosophy of education among people with different background? This paper has two-fold objectives: one is, by situating the philosophy of education in Japan and exploring a future of it, to demonstrate the reality that makes the philosophy of education possible; and the other is, by doing this, to seek commonality that a conversation relies on, among people with different background. The rise of the philosophy of education in Japan had a strong connection with the policy of teacher education. Its recent decline is also caused by changes in society. As a reaction to social expectation, ethics education for teaching professionals can be a future task of the philosophy of education. Reflecting on one own philosophy of education in a conversation could lead to the imagining and understanding of other people by finding commonality in differences.

Since the mid-20th century philosophy of education has taken a well-deserved place in science and teaching. University faculties and departments have appeared; there are research teams collaborating and creating open content material. Nowadays as usual during the time of critical fundamental changing, mankind tries to find out the answers to eternal questions: about the relationships between I as a Subject of Education, an Education, and relationship between them. We need modern solutions of these eternal questions. A “modern solution” is provided by the information society, the new post-non-classical approach. It has been crucial to modify the method of passing from the abstract to something concrete; to define the terms of subject philosophy and also of education as cognitive activity and pedagogy. A cognitive and competency-based educational model has been developed and a relevant post-non-classical pattern of educational processes has been established. The information model of Philosophy of Science is applied to Philosophy of Education which is considered in three senses: as a discipline, scope for interdisciplinary studies and cognitive activity. The “road map” of education is rational basis and methods for innovative practices in education.

The article examines the conditions of formation of a new civilization kind of education - “post-industrial” since the previous species (“craft” and “academical”) became fragile for contemporary humanistic problems. In this regard, a model is offered of “post-industrial” education, performing the role of “pioneer” sphere of development of the humanistic-creative potential of the individual, advancing its development to all other professional fields and offering them humanitarian and creative guidance. As basic characteristics of the proposed model of “post-industrial” education the following are addressed: purpose - “creative personality”; subject - “humanistic creative mentality”; methodology - self-development in the social space; technology - experimental forms of self-development, focused on “growing” creative mentality; education environment - social space in its dynamics, etc. Through these characteristics the considered post-industrial education is presented as humanistic-creative education ‘for life’, a self-development in the social space and through the social space, realizing a model of direct interaction with society, not indirectly through professional spheres which is typical for the previous two types of education.

The modern University is the phenomenon of a rational sociality, expressed as a result of the integration of intellectual forms of human activities. Development of models of self-organization of the University provides for the understanding of the philosophical bases of all forms of University being. Explication of the obtained design of University space is carried out by the method of spatial integral-differential analysis. Building a holistic picture of the University of culture, reflecting the knowledge component of its existence in the context of ensuring the connection of vocational theoretical and practical activities of the scientific-oriented social communities and groups. The ideals and standards of the University, addressed in the form of three-dimensional schemes-images that are the basis for the scientific picture of constructed University space. The «two-layer prism» of the University space covers the full spectrum of scientific-technical subjects, and creates a condition for the achievement of «colour» completeness of the scientific picture of the world, becomes a means of generating ideas and creates a starting point for comprehension of the modern universe. The participation of the University space in the search of new paradigms of meanings and answers to the historic challenge in the General cultural process, is carried out according to the triad principle. Socio-philosophical problems of anthropo-social-genesis can be looked at in the tripled rhythm of University space development with consideration of contingency schemes-images with philosophical ideas and values, arising on the ground of different cultural traditions in many respects seen at as alternative.

Educational and sociological research shows that school education maintains an important role in the shaping of students’ choices concerning values and beliefs; this role is yet gradually decreasing due to the intervention of a series of other factors that affect in a more intense and imminent way the values’ orientation of the students. However, the fundamental question of the philosophy of education remains: how to combine the guiding and restrictive structure of the educational praxis on the one hand with the free and autonomous development of the student on the other. This paper discusses the above question through the study of the recent educational reflections, aiming to define some key elements for the development of means of self-awareness in parallel with the professional and moral commitment of the tutor. It is pointed out that the “morality” of education as an institution is not diminished by its restrictive character, but is, in a sense, further acknowledged as a social necessity for the development of shared value systems.

This paper attempts to present a Marxist-inspired approach to the content of philosophical thinking about education in relation to a relevant definition of the specific characteristics of philosophy. Philosophy is conceived as a form of social consciousness, the specificity of which consists in lending meaning to the existence of humans as subjects in their relation to other humans-subjects and within their interaction with objective reality. Philosophy is also presented as the privileged intellectual field for the critical assessment of all aspects of the human condition, in a quest of life prospects and ideals. In connection with that, philosophy is defined as the form of social consciousness which reflects upon consciousness itself. In the paper it is suggested that the content of the philosophical thinking about education mainly consists in the formation of the aims of education, in relation to both the critical examination of the position of education in the social totality and the critical assessment of the inherited knowledge traditions. Within this frame of analysis it is considered of paramount importance the philosophical examination of the relation between education and social labour.

This paper discusses the way Hannah Arendt denounces the perverted consequences of pedagogical theories that wrongly identify democracy with facilitation. She searches for an answer to the plain question “Why Johnny can’t read» although his teaching is guided by the most sophisticated methods. We shall discuss the opportunity of her theories as well as the relevance of their guidelines for an adequate philosophy of education in present times.

In this work, we will analyze what we call teacher illiteracy. Such illiteracy refers to the fact that we live in an age of image and we do not know to read it. The reference to the image in the field of knowledge, when it occurs, it is associated with a usually unilateral critique, as if it were a misrepresenting element in the training of students, able to entice, induce, misinterpret. This reference dates back to the Ancient Greece and Plato. Understanding the need to learn to read the images produced culturally, as well as their sense of imitation, Walter Benjamin is brought up and the concept of dialectical image and editing, as well. He will associate the image to a work of interruption of the ordinary experience, important because the extreme restlessness that characterizes the today can fixate on an image, revealing new meanings about what it represents. So, according to him, the historian and the photographer bow to the same task, the crystallization of the time, retaining it in a dialectical image. The relevance of this topic wins forcefulness when Benjamin in Pequena História da Fotograia -Short History of Photography- states that “the illiterate of the future will not be those who cannot write, but those who cannot shoot.”

Within globalization, integration of the Russian system of education into European education space there occur problems of the loss of spiritual values of the Slavic culture. The first problem of spirituality loss in sociocultural and educational space as its mirror reflection implies dissociation of the Slavic world, lack of dialogue interaction, mutual understanding, formation of controversy and spiritual emptiness. It is filled with the festival of anti-values, which lead to the loss of Spiritual Health, Creative Spiritual Powers, cultural space and territories. The second problem of spirituality loss implies that the values of national cultures on the background of intervention of anti-values are leveled due to the increasing tendencies of globalism: devaluation of a person’s life, priority of material values over spiritual, freedom as permissiveness, consumer attitude towards the Earth. The third problem, connected with the loss of spirituality, comes out of new, constantly changing conditions. Within the process of education reorientation to the service sphere as a new form, culture senses, ideals, prominent Names are “washed out” from the content of education as a carrier of value cultures, there are no conditions for cultivation of personal spiritual values, it is formed national self-consciousness, identification.

John Dewey professed at the first centennial of Emerson’s birth that “the coming century may well make evident what is just now dawning, that Emerson is not only a philosopher, but that he is the Philosopher of Democracy.” I hope that this paper will contribute to further demonstrating the force and potential of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s thinking for philosophy of education. While recent Emerson scholarship has started to open up for social and political readings also of Emerson’s work, the reception of this new Emersonianism has been relatively sparse within philosophy of education. Drawing chiefly on Stanley Cavell’s reading, I argue that it can be shown that, when taken seriously as a philosophical writer, Emerson´s writing proposes an understanding of self and society which undermines any bipolar opposition of the two concepts as early as in “Self-Reliance,” and that, if there is to be hope for the individual self, then, for Emerson, there always has to be hope for a democratic society as well. The paper will conclude by considering the consequences of this reading of “Self-Reliance” for understanding Emerson’s American appropriation of the concept of Bildung, adjusting some arguments recently put forth in scholarship, also regarding his influence on American pragmatism.

Considering “philosophy of education” in its dimensions and perspective as a science, one can easily realize, especially if taking into account the perpetual needs of school societies, the unceasing necessity of re-testing its methodology, its systematic character and, most of all, its content. This affirmation entails a constant revision of its material as also the development of specific issues that should be (re)-introduced and recommended in both our “school theory” and “school practice”. The idea of spiritual awareness should be afresh restated as a primary, educational aim and its constituent targets should be resolved. The notions of unceasing exercise, considered predominantly as a nonphysical but spiritual procedure, and of dexterity, measured as an indication of the inward, psychic configuration of both tutors and apprentices are subjects upon which we should anew reflect. The conception of discrete discipline as a revived deliberation of self-restrain and as a presumption for rehabilitating appreciation among the members of the school community is also to be re-introduced. The conversion of the gnosiological into aesthetic, regarding the character of school life, even by re-introducing such disregarded parts of the curriculum as calligraphy, and the invention of ways to avoid gnosiological narcissism are also subjects to be taken into account. The idea of teaching as a worshiping ceremony, which pilots towards the accomplishment of an ultimate excellence, should be well thought out. Freedom should be reevaluated in its dimensions of responsibility, accountability and liability. Finally, the sense of lawfulness and the morals regarding the relations between educator and his pupils, namely the ethos of them, are among the subject matters to be restated and redefined.

The concept of Bildung, as it has been developed within the framework of the German Idealism, does not refer to any particular social sphere like schooling, teaching, training etc. but to the character, the directions and the mechanisms of human development in general. We can find probably the most elaborated version of the concept of Bildung via human development in the work of G. F. Hegel. That is way I focus in this paper exclusively on Hegel’s concept of Bildung. In the first part of my paper I try to show how Hegel spells out this concept in order to describe the very process of development of humanity within the single person. In the second part of the paper I link the Hegelian concept of Bildung to the pedagogical question of what educative teaching consists in and how we can discriminate between educative and non-educative forms of teaching. This is, so to say, a Hegelian move beyond Hegel who himself did not systematically explore any pedagogical topics. Nevertheless, my claim is that his concept of Bildung has very important pedagogical implications.

In the modern world, education has taken a functionalist hue, and its purpose has become one of ensuring that pupils have sufficient generic skills and competencies to meet the needs of employers. It is argued that the aims of education are broader than this. Education needs to prepare students to have understanding of themselves, of their relationships to others, to have an ability to make good moral and other judgements and to act on these. If education has a role to play in the alleviation of the crises facing the world, then there is some urgency in reflecting on what needs to be changed to form individuals who are far-sighted and able to think creatively about solutions to the problems facing humanity. It is our contention that the major problem with modern education is that it has forgotten that its main task is helping students to learn to be wise. That is, in considering the aims of education, it is proposed that it is wisdom which is the main aim of education.

As we read the so-called “enlightened” authors, we are able to grasp the efforts entailed in the announcement of an educational project aiming to develop a “new man”, one that could be guided by the “the enlightened reason” in an increasingly ordered society. In such a society, one might think that this man’s development would be based on rights and duties, and that man should become a citizen, thus promoting a society of equals. It is possible to claim, however, that this extremely organized and planned ideal, the construction of thinkers who assumed to have the clarity of lights illuminating paths, has not been developed. What happened instead was the reversal of that logic, and the proposals resulted seemingly “dead”. The project of emancipation did not emancipate, but kept individuals trapped in a system of “intellectual domination”.