Review article
https://doi.org/10.21464/mo42.222.937
Human Being and Education
Branko Bognar
orcid.org/0000-0002-8037-6555
; Fakultet za odgojne i obrazovne znanosti, Sveučilište Josipa Jurja Strossmayera, Osijek, Hrvatska
Abstract
In the science of education – pedagogy – there are different definitions of the fundamental concept of education. Most authors agree that education is specifically human activity of becoming a human being. Authors, either explicitly or implicitly, base each definition of education on particular theory of human being without reaching an agreement on the matter. In this study, we tried to explain what makes humans different from other animal species, especially from representatives of hominids very similar to us. The key difference from other species lies in our ability to create a cumulative culture through evolutionary developed abilities of cooperation and mutual intentionality, but it is also based on cultural transmission and creativity as its key feature. While creating their world and themselves, humans exceed not only their biological but also social potentials by taking the world and themselves as their own creation. Taking into account a discussion about the essence of human being we tried to critically consider three different approaches in defining the concept of education. We have determined that normative, but also descriptive pedagogical science fails to give reasonable explanation of that fundamental term by staying under the level of historically achieved human abilities. Opposed to this, Milan Polić succeeded to give a consistent and coherent philosophical definition of education that outreaches human essence, and that is a human as a free and self-aware being that creates their own world, and by doing so, they create themselves.
Keywords
philosophy of education; culture; education; creativity
Hrčak ID:
158551
URI
Publication date:
26.4.2016.
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