Philosophy of Liberal Education: The Contexts

Vitaly Kurennoy - Candidate of Sciences in Philosophy, Professor, Head of the School of Cultural Studies, Faculty of Humanities, National Research University Higher School of Economics.Address: Bld. 1, 21/4 Staraya Basmannaya Str., 105066 Moscow, Russian Federation. E-mail: vkurennoj@hse.ruThe first article devoted to philosophy of liberal education (Voprosy obrazovaniya / Educational Studies Moscow no 1, 2020) laid out systematically the principles of that philosophy, such as (1) lifelong learning, (2) academic freedom, (3) importance of practice and experience, (4) critical thinking and civil competency, (5) competency development instead of knowledge accumulation, (6) priority of general education over specialized education, (7) the concept of learning to learn, (8) self-directed learning effort, (9) political neutrality, and (10) interaction and Socratic dialogue. In this second part of the article, the liberal model of education is contextualized under two main perspectives, historical and socio-theoretical. The historical perspective is used to discuss the ancient origins of the liberal model, German classical philosophy as a direct origin of its principles, and the trajectories of liberal education discourse elements penetrating Russia’s educational and cultural policy. The socio-theoretical perspective is applied to the context in which the liberal model was conceived (the nascent stage of modernity), the social conditions that led to its crisis (stabilized industrial societies of the modern age), and its relevance in the era of late modernity.