فصلنامه نوآوری های آموزشی
پیاپی 20 (تابستان 1386)

Philosophy is the method of correct thinking, the way of wise living, and the effort for understanding the existence. We face a diverse range of philosophies such as philosophy of religion, philosophy of art, philosophy of science, philosophy of various sciences, and philosophy of education. It is this philosophy of education which is the subject of the article at hand and suggests that the traditional perceptions of philosophy do not have the enough capacities to response to the psycho-educational demands of people's lives in the current era. This article also tries to show that we require systematic philosophical thinking and correct thinking in the education and human life-style and that we can teach it to everyone, even to child and young students, given we consider several things in doing so. The conditions that we need to consider in order to be successful in the above mentioned subject include our recognizing and utilizing the appropriate subject, the appropriate method, the appropriate language and tools, and last but not least the proper circumstances for these teachings.This article states few related subjects in one glance. It states that if our education relied on an arranged and emancipatory philosophy, the Iranian children, youths, and young persons were enabled to think correctly about the meaning of their lives in a local, national, and international environment and to expand their skills for a sprucy, human life. To reach such goal we need to organize certain things in an intelligible and emancipatory system of thought. These include increasing our understanding of philosophy and wisdom and science in general, and philosophy of education in particular, and adjusting the goals, content, method, and process of education with life in the current world. As a result we would revise the educational and curriculum planning, the textbooks, the educational resources, the teaching methods, as well as the teacher training. This is the sort of huge effort which productive renovation in the Iranian education system requires before anything else. The Iranian intellectuals and scientists should utilize their strength for theory-making in new educational philosophy and be the lantern in this type of transformation.In this article we have explained philosophical thought and the teaching of correct thinking method to children and youth, the philosophy of education and present deficiencies, the integrative model of philosophy, wisdom, and science which are all required for the education system in Iran, and the placement of philosophy of scientific and eternal wisdom in this model. The purpose of this article is to prepare a better ground for answering the most fundamental psycho-educational life needs of the addressees of education in Iran. We believe this to be comprehensive and complete public education, developing the identity and personality, teaching correct thinking, and teaching life skills to the students.

During the past centuries, the knowledge itself, which had expanded with the aim of discovering the truth about the universe, was very important. This attitude was changed in the twentieth century especially in its second half. The applied and useful aspect of knowledge gained central role every day more than yesterday. It is such that today, in the first decade of the twenty-first century, the standards for being developed are items such as knowledge-centered production, knowledge-centered economy, and an aware and learning society.The appearance of pragmatism school, especially progressivism, which consider the value of knowledge not in its being true or being in agreement with the outer reality but in its profitability and applicability, has had a considerable role in this change of attitude (Ozmen & Crawer, 2000: 225). Following this, something was going on in the scientific associations and circles: the development and expansion of modernism and post-modernism, which considered reaching any type of absolute truth impossible and rather a relative and plural matter, made the usefulness and applicability of sciences and learnings to gain more value than their worth in stating the truth. This matter in turn caused the formation of similar expectations from philosophy and as a result philosophy of education, leading this branch of human epistemology to move in the direction of being practical and applicable.This assumption not only penetrated into the scientific associations but also among policy-makers and educational planners. Due to the fact that philosophy is mainly focusing on fundamental issues and its related researches are of the theoretical type, they eventually moved away from the attention of the educational planners and policy-makers. Those who seriously were and still are after expansion and industrialization and renovation of the society have caused philosophy and in general human sciences to be placed in the second level of important, because its function and profitability is not as clear and observable as natural sciences and the technical knowledge or technology.Although a group of thinkers of philosophy of education made valuable efforts to make it practical and show its profitability, these efforts apparently were not as effective in getting the attention of the critics. This article is trying to work on pathology of this thought and to be a reminder of the opportune and inopportune expectations by paying attention to the importance of philosophy of education, be it in policy-making, planning, or educational researches and the teaching-learning process.

In the light of writings of Pring, Brew, Barnett and Hammersley in the last decade, and in relation to the application of empirical research methods in education, this paper offers a critique to pragmatic view and a corrective to the Pring’s paradigmatic viewpoint and recognizes transcendental realism as an alternative theory to underpin the use of scientific educational research method. The argument is made that the deployment of scientific research methods needs to be underpinned by a philosophical theory that does not commit to that the absolute knowledge of the educational phenomena is possible. Further to this, by discussing false dualisms between quantitative and qualitative approaches, and between structure and agency in relation to transcendental realist viewpoint, the paper offers a new approach to scientific educational research method titled “paraquantitativism”.

The last challenge on the place of philosophy of education was the discussion between Wilfred Carr, as a defender of continental philosophy, and Paul Hirst, as an outstanding representative of analytic philosophy, in 2005. Preparing the background for supporting practical philosophy against the theoretical one, Carr holds that philosophy of education should be considered as a branch of practical philosophy in order to both overcoming theory/practice gap and destroying the supposed security of philosophy of education against practical changes. In rejection of this conception, Hirst holds that the phrase of “practical philosophy” involves a misunderstanding because philosophy has always been an abstract and theoretical activity. According to him, philosophy is a second-order activity because its work, being verification of rational validity of beliefs and actions, presupposes the existence of beliefs and actions. Thus, the role of philosophy of education in verifying educational action is fulfilled indirectly through analyzing the concepts relevant to the action. It should be said in evaluating the two views that both of them are held in a reductive manner. Hirst takes theoretical reason as his main concern as Carr takes the same position on practical reason but it still seems better to keep the two reasons diverse and plural. If it is followed from Carr’s views that any division in philosophy or reason to theoretical and practical parts lead us to trap of theory/practice gap, then evidently it will not be acceptable. On the other hand, he is right to claim that philosophy of education in its theoretical feature provides a kind of security and absoluteness for itself that should be eliminated by a constant study on its historical limitations.

Although the philosophy movement for children has constantly taken advantage of children's literature, it has never had a theoretical consideration on this concept. The main part of the discussions by the authorities in this movement is about the children's concepts, philosophy, and the theory of education. Literature has only been considered as a tool that has a destination other than itself – in this case the education of philosophical thinking. The current article is after allocating a space to the children's literature in the interaction between the concepts of childhood and philosophy and analyze the relationship of three concepts instead of two concepts. It is as a final work, after finding an approach that simultaneously values the independent essence and identity of literature and the nourishment of children's philosophical thinking.

Official education consists of two aspects: practical and theoretical. The purpose of writing this article is investigating the quality of structuring of the educational theories, structural characteristics, and their important development samples in the history of education, both in the West and in Iran.Several things have been investigated in this article: Appearance and development of the educational theory in the Western civilization, The concept of educational theory, the origins, the structure and types of it, the development of these theories due to cultural & social & political & thinking transformations, and the status of education theory in Iran. Due to the fact that Western education is going though a period of ambiguity and turbulence in the era of post-modernistic attitudes, it is important that we avoid the loss to understand or be theoretically confused. It seems that our education system is lacking a guiding integrated and organized educational theory. We are deprived of a theory in which the issues related to existence, knowledge, and value are coordinated and set. The related issues to these fields include world-view and ideology, the position of science & technology & their direction of move, as well as personal and social needs in a specified frame.With this regard, the article provides several suggestions in order to find possible solutions.

The foundation of current educational philosophy is on two basis, which is dual worldview or dipolar universe. The dipolar universe which refers to the independent essences of matter and meaning or thinking and extension has expanded the distinction of parts of the world, society, and human. The distinction between physics and metaphysics, or matter from meaning eventually leads to the expansion of material or physical pole and created materialism. The consequence of dipolar worldview of educational materialism was separationism, educational scleroma, and educational secularism. Any type of innovation and educational modification is in hands of philosophical innovation. Turning from the dipolar universe to a tri-grade world is a proper way for making the educational modifications possible and escape the damages of the dipolar universe. Explanation of the tri-grade world is in the hands of the unity of worldview and belief in the world of illustration or imagination. The world of illustration can make the unity of world a reality by filling in the space between the world of nature and the world of rationality. The tri-grade world has different presents and gifts for education, some of the most important of which include: the unity of physics and meta-physics, reconciliation of human and universe, passage over metaphor, and aesthetic outlook. The Islamic philosophy, especially transcendent philosophy creates strong theoretical support in epistemology and knowledge of existence for believing in the tri-grade world.