History of Educational ideas and History of Philosophy

Abstract

During the last fifty years, the history of education has undergone a period of profound
transformation, which has radically renewed both the methods and the objects of its investigation.
The transformation has allowed this field of study to achieve a defined and
autonomous identity with respect to other “humanistic” fields of knowledge, to which it
was previously annexed and substantially subordinated.
In particular, the history of education’s subordination to the history of philosophical and
political thought has been overcome. These disciplines were the foundational grounds of
the history of education itself, which was seen as an appendix to the history of philosophy,
causing it to be taught as such in schools and in universities for a long time. In this
new scientific context it would be appropriate to reflect on what possibilities exist to update
the interdisciplinary relationship between the history of education, the history of
philosophical ideas and the history of political ideas in light of the epistemological and
methodological changes that have taken place; in particular, the aspect of the history of
ideas, in its complex internal articulation, could allow us to continue cultivating research
in the historical-educational field, devoting renewed attention to the phenomena of the
history of philosophical and political thought.