Challenges Facing the Philosophy of Education in the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

AbstractNew trends in the philosophy of education in the twenty-first century have sprung from their background in the twentieth century. This essay introduces the twentieth-century philosophies within Dewey’s early pragmatism and other “ism” movements as well as the educational revolution of analytic philosophy. The twenty-first century has introduced reactions (i.e., new pragmatism, post-structuralism, post-modernism, and constructivism), and each of these trends is shown to have provided a new horizon in philosophical thought on education. However, the new trends are also expected to have their own weaknesses. For instance, Rorty is too quick to reject scientific objectivity, Derrida undermines the roles of agents in favor of taking deconstruction as an event, post-modernists are too quick to reject generality in modern thought, and constructivists ignore the power of reality. Thus, educational thought could learn: from new pragmatism to resist naïve scientism but it should be alert not to ignore the real power of scientific thought; from post-structuralism to put educational structures under scrutiny in terms of educational justice but it should take the role of agents more seriously into account in moderating the power of structures; from post-modernism to be alert to local requirements for education but give similar weight to generality too; and finally from constructivism to embrace creativity in the classroom without replacing the discovery dimension of truth with it altogether.