The Philosophy of education in Catalonia in the 20th century: dialectics, synthetics and vitalists

Abstract

This text is a contribution to the history of philosophy of contemporary education, which presents three major currents in educational philosophy in Catalonia in the 20th century. In the beginning it deals with the line of thinkers represented by Eugenid’Ors and OctaviFullat, who understood education as a dialectic between two poles or opposites in constant conflict.Then it will analyze the synthetic view following Jaume Balmes and the constantly modernizing pedagogy from Cardenal Mercier in the Catholic University of Louvain, which was represented in Catalunya by Professor Joan Tusquets.The third case will review the vitalist authors, Joaquim Xirau and Joan Roura-Parella, who understand education as a revitalizing activity. Finally, within the section on the vitalists, we will look at the cybernetic orientation, represented by Profesor Alexandre Sanvisens, who interpreted education as an open, dynamic enterprise tending toward optimization.The methodology used has been the hermeneutics of texts through analysis, interpretation and contrast with the philosophical-pedagogical of the aforementioned authors.