Η φιλοσοφία της παιδείας κατά τον Richard Stanley Peters

Abstract

The contribution of Richard Stanley Peters to the attestation of the philosophy of education as an essential element for the global study of the educational phenomenon is crucial and subversive for his time, as he achieved to show via his work the necessity of the philosophical completion in order to handle educational issues. The specificity of his thoughts, the breadth and depth of his knowledge and the original, systematic approach of the educational issues forces us to classify him among the worthy modern interpreters of the educational phenomenon. If we take a look into his life, we will discover that already from his childhood he received enough stimuli so as to be nurtured into a strong personality with an intense critical and filtering spirit. Initially his meeting with the writer, George Orwell, for example, his participation as a member of the hospital unit of the victims of the 2nd World War and also his occupation as a director at the Center of Youth at Toynbee Hall reinforced his love for mankind and the whole society and strengthened his interest in teaching and transmitting knowledge to young people. Furthermore, the third and fourth decades of his life were marked by strong educational and intellectual activity as we first encountered him as a professor at London University, as a visitor professor at Harvard University and at the University of Australia, to continue thereafter as a chairman of the Pedagogical Institute of the University of London and as a dean at the pedagogical Faculty of the same University. Peters possessed all of the scientific conditions in order to deal validly with the field of the philosophy of education. He was an erudite of the subject and his top concern was to reform the educational structures within the school, the abandonment of the sterile educational theory and the effort of the immediate interference and reconstruction of the educational data. He didn’t only achieve to define the concept of the philosophy of education, based on the fruitful coupling of theory and practice, but also to conquer the scepters of the most creative philosophical thinking on these issues that Great Britain had to offer for more than twenty years. However, it was discovered, during the studying of his works, that Peters projected the image of a rather unconventional philosopher in the sense that, while studying his work, it is not possible to classify him with absolute certainty into a particular philosophical School and to be sure that all of his views are developed based on a single common, philosophical line, like all the members who belong in that School. This happened because, although from a first glance he appeared to belong to the Analytical school, which flourishes in the 20th century (1910-1970) in England, but, during the interpretation of the aspects of science in Pedagogy, Psychology, etc., he does not follow all the analytical methods faithfully and to the letter, so, as we have seen, several times his Analytical methods are brought to criticism, something that makes him reverse what he says and also re-define his argumentation quite a few times. In a detailed study of his views it was considered appropriate to divide the work into two parts. In the first one his views were stated on separate chapters on the field of the philosophy of education, on the cognitive approach of the educational issues and on their moral shielding. So, his effort was studied to seek the interpretation of the terms “philosophy” and “education” first separately and then as a whole. For him philosophy is the finding of the causes which hide behind acts and events and the philosopher is the medium of such searches. Further to the project his willingness to approach the concept of education with an unconventional way was highlighted and to seek for interpretations that are far from the familiar type: “education aims to the proportionate development of all the aspects of human activity, etc.” and to innovate by introducing three criteria for that specific concept, which he regarded as a meaning which states that something was pursued and achieved at the same time. The criteria that were established by him, according to which we are able to baptize an educational act, as energy, are directly related to the transmission of cognitive content which is deemed worthy for those who are subjected to the work of education as well as to the intentional, voluntary and active participation of the learner. In this way, which was later criticized, Peters related the educational process with cognitive and evaluative reports, even formally, considering that he had managed to help to the as much as possible correct definition of the term education. The weakness of such claims, which presupposed the existence of strong arguments associating all of his considerations, did not make long to appear, to such point that, forced to rewrite his theory correlating to these, he created and interposed a new concept, that of the literate human being. With that specific move he managed to escape the danger of his definition being characterized as another standard and graphic definition, that is why by using a second concept which clearly indicates the human presence, he moderated the general concept which is riskily declared by the term of education and he included the concept of human action and outcome in his speculation and definition. Then there was a reference to the famous transcendental argumentation which is firstly introduced by him along with P. Hirst in the educational field, in sequence of the transcendental, philosophical thinking of E. Kant, which he extended to matters of education, in order to defend the need to interpret reality with the help of the already existing cognitive structures and to pose questions such as: "Why do this rather than that?” and "What ought I to do?" For him a philosophical and properly trained educator must possess all those perceptive schemas which would allow him to capture reality and to understand making firstly the right questions before doing anything else. Finally, his views were studied and discussed in detail on the intellectual development and its association with reality, as well as his view that eventually “education” consists of an initiation in social reality through the human mental process and apprehension. In the third chapter there was a reference to the perceptions of ethical and social dimension of the philosophy of education. Starting with his report on the worthwhile activities as a result of the educational process, he defines the axiological bounds of these actions and unfolds his own way on how to interpret the axiological judgments. At the same time, according to the stages of development of the individual and to the theory of Piaget, he detects the differences which exist in the moral of every person, engaging also the science of the philosophy of psychology, the assistance of which he considers necessary in order to understand the phenomenon of education. In the second part the criticism that he was subjected to, is mentioned, concerning the selection of criteria which will be used to decide over the validity of an activity as well as the importance that we attach to his transcendental question in order to describe an act as moral or not. The conclusion was that a common person is not obliged to make transcendental type questions so as to be moral and therefore the generality of these questions is raised. At the same time, his effort to connect heterogeneous words, such as passion and logic, characteristics that must be held by a teacher, leaves us some space to justify his view that Psychology as a science that can explore the soul, can offer much to the research of educational issues and that is why he considers that the research of the real motives of the human being can also be operated through the findings of the specific science. In this way we pass into the final chapter of our disquisition which refers to the importance and the role of incentives in psychology and in the behavior of the teacher. In conclusion, we must acknowledge the contribution of Peters in the study of the educational phenomenon as through his cognitive and ethical-social study all the constituents were revealed on the different aspects of human behavior and learning. His contribution in the sedulous study of all the learning structures through a philosophical point of view was also deemed necessary to determine the depth and range of problems and concerns that are born during the educational activity.

Στόχος της παρούσας εργασίας ήταν η ενδελεχής μελέτη του φιλοσοφικού στοχασμού του R. S. Peters καθώς και η διάκριση των κατευθύνσεων της φιλοσοφικής του σκέψης σε συνάρτηση πάντοτε με τη φιλοσοφική προσέγγιση των παιδευτικών ζητημάτων. Από την οπτική αυτή, αναφάνηκε η αναγκαιότητα της φιλοσοφικής θεώρησης των ζητημάτων αυτών καθώς και η ανάδειξη ως σημαίνοντος του διττού χαρακτήρα της παιδείας μέσα από τον οποίο πηγάζουν η γνώση και η ηθική, ως έννοιες καθοριστικής σημασίας και ως αναγκαίες συνιστώσες στην εκπαιδευτική και τη γενικότερη παιδευτική πράξη. […]