Filozofska istraživanja, Vol. 41 No. 4, 2021.
Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.21464/fi41408
Reconstructing Leibniz’s Educational Theory. Contribution to the Study of an Unresearched Part of Leibniz’s Philosophy
Saša Popović
orcid.org/0000-0002-8931-8730
; Univerzitet u Beogradu, Filozofski fakultet, Čika Ljubina 18–20, RS–11000 Beograd
Abstract
This paper presents a historical-philosophical reconstruction of Leibniz’s theory of education. In the introduction, I point out the exegetical problems involved in locating Leibniz’s “philosophy of education” within the broader corpus of his works and in uncovering an appropriate theoretical framework within which it is possible to contextualise and reconstruct Leibniz’s thought on education. It is then shown that this framework is provided by Leibniz’s practical philosophy, i.e. his ideas about the optimal state and the common good. I analyse the key theses of Leibniz’s ethics and political philosophy to uncover the background of the idea of the respublica optima and explain how education, in Leibniz’s view, should enable the perfection of the individual and society and contribute to the realisation of the common good. Finally, it is argued that in his educational project Leibniz articulated an idea of the Enlightenment that is far more progressive than the educational ideas of the philosophers we usually associate with the eighteenth-century Enlightenment.
Keywords
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz; education; educational reform; curricular reform; progress; perfectionism; the common good; respublica optima; theoria cum praxi
Hrčak ID:
272032
URI
Publication date:
7.1.2022.
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