The search for the meaning of human formation: a task for the philosophy of education

Abstract

The work conducts a reflection on education understood as a process of human formation, trying to perceive the meanings attributed to this formation throughout our philosophical tradition and in contemporaneity, since there have been changes in the conceptions men have made of the ideal of their humanization. Under such perspective, the article brings back to the discussion the relations between the various dimensions of human educability, highlighting the ethical and political dimensions which, until the present moment, have prevailed as the foundations of the understanding of the very nature of education, and reaching the conclusion that human formation today, as targeted by education, is understood as cultural formation. This idea gives education an intrinsic purpose of a character that is more anthropological than ethical or political. Such reflection on the nature of education equally entails making explicit the place and role of the Philosophy of Education as a hermeneutic effort of disclosure of the educational practice as it needs to unfold under today's changed historical-cultural conditions. The discussion thus allows not just to inquire into significant moments of the historical expression of the philosophy of education in Western culture, but also to debate fundamental theoretical contents of the philosophical argument over the meaning of education, an argument that stands with renewed strength before the educators meeting the challenges posed by the new conditions of postmodernity, responsible for a profound examination of the philosophical references of Western cultural tradition.