چکیده (انگلیسی):

People talk of philosophy without understanding its relevance to their field of research. A general account of
the term “philosophy” and its object may enable anyone to better understand its relevance to education and
almost all the other academic disciplines. This study used logical thinking coupled with cases from a literature
review to elicit the meaning of the concept of philosophy and its object with in the context of education as
illustrated in the book “Philosophy and Education in Africa: An Introductory Text for Students of Education”
(Njoroge and Bennaars 1986). The word “philosophy” comes from the Greek word philia (meaning love) and
sophia (meaning wisdom). It is basically the love or quest of wisdom in all aspects. The formal object of
philosophy is all aspects of reality while the formal objects of other disciplines such as physics, biology or
sociology is confined to or limited to an aspect of reality. For instance the term biology is derived from the
Greek word bio meaning life hence biology is limited to the study of living things. The same thing can be said
of psychology which is derived from the Greek word Psyche which means mind and logos which means
science, theory or study hence psychology becomes the descriptive study of mind behaviour or mental
phenomena. This is not the case with philosophy for philosophical reflection can be brought to bear on any
subject matter whatever since philosophical inquiry is essentially the application of reasoning to a wide
variety of topics. A philosopher therefore considers everything as important and want to know “why” things
happen the way they happen. Hence, philosophy is concerned with both the ‘why’ a nd the ‘how’ questions.
Just as small percentage of people have an insight into the fundamental problems of human existence with
which philosophers are concerned. Majority of people subscribe to traditions and customs. Yet there is no area
in domain in which philosophy cannot ask questions. There is therefore need for philosophical thinking about
education and not just the scientific thinking if education is to be meaningful and useful to the one being
educated because he who has studied philosophy is more likely to view things with a wide in depth analysis of
evidence as opposed to he who has not. This is so because the mere accumulation of knowledge does not lead
to understanding because it does not necessarily train the mind to make a critical evaluation of facts which
entails consistent and coherent judgment. This therefore calls for the critical creative dimension of education.
In other words in as much as educational science primarily looks at education in economic terms, manpower
needs and job opportunities, educational philosophy looks at the deeper meaning and significance of
education which is tied to the meaning of life, particularly human life. This implies that educational
philosophy does not equate the use and value of education to monetary term s as the scientist would do. Given
that the term education is a multidimensional concept, this paper aims at highlighting the four dimensions by
placing emphasis on holistic education based on those four dimensions.