The Need for a Philosophy of Adult Education

The dilemma in which adult education in America finds itself, if indeed it does, is dilemma which besets our civilization. Hence it is not unique to education, or to any variety of education whether adult, youth, or the higher learning. It is age-old problem of separation of ends and means. The record of history of philosophy displays this division into things called ends-in-themselves and other things that are mere means, intrinsically indifferent to ends-in-themselves, ulterior sources of value.' This division assumes multiple forms. Representative of them are following either-or fallacies: freedom or mechanism, social or physical, preference or fact, meanings or events, sacred or secular, beauty or utility, morals or science, understanding or skill; society or individual, and humanistic or vocational. It is last named of these pairs which is chief concern of this paper. The main debate in area of content in adult education-and hence an index to its need for a philosophy which can resolve it-is question: Shall adult education be cultural or vocational? Adult education has both inherited this question and, in a sense, brought it upon itself. In absence of a unified philosophy, that is, agreement on objectives and aims, it has turned to individual and group needs in hope of finding in them

Higher education · Mathematics education · Pedagogy · Philosophy of education · Political science · Sociology · Adult and Continuing Education Topics · Law · Psychology