Philosophical Foundations of Education

The present work Philosophical Foundations of Education, among several books the subject, claims to be most comprehensive yet to the point analysis and description of the subject in the Indian context. It covers the syllabi of almost all the Indian universities on the subject in simple and lucid language drawing examples from the Indian environment. This book lays down the basic concepts of philosophical foundations of education required to be understood by every reader—students, scholars, teachers and specialists of the subject. Most of the Indian writers on the subject have not touched the subject in totality. They have confined their works only to naturalism, idealism, realism and pragmatism and some of them only have taken modern humanism as a philosophical concept for discussing the philosophical foundations of education. Though some of the Indian writer have mentioned ‘Progressive Education’ and ‘New Tendencies and Education’ distinctively but that too without mentioning philosophical foundations of these ‘New Tendencies’. The work at hand not only considered naturalism, idealism, realism, pragmatism and modern humanism, but also the philosophies of logical empiricism, humanistic realism, social realism, sense realism, neo-realism as well as philosophies of logical positivism, scientific empiricism, unity of science movement, behaviourism and ideals of the philosophy of renaissance, to discuss the philosophical foundations of education. Thus this work claims to be unique in nature. Planned as a textbook for the students and reference book for the scholars, teachers and specialists this book is a critical and constructive appraisal of the subject. While I have tried my best to make this book the best book on the subject, the students, scholars, teachers, specialists and general readers are the best judge of its merits.