Abstract

The quest for meaning constitutes an important endeavour through which human beings strive to make sense of their lives, the operations of their minds, their history, development and goals. Philosophers of education have almost always vindicated the question of life’s having a meaning. For some human life is only meaningful to the extent that it is devoted to ultimate ends we care deeply about such as ideals. Ideals have been acclaimed to be existentially important for human beings and their education. This is a weak claim that has easily gained unanimous acceptance. What has been a rather debatable issue it is the strong claim that insists on their indispensability for education. In this paper we re-consider the strong claim and absolve it from an alleged irresolvable tension existing between its presuppositions. Philosophical discussions have been stigmatized by weariness and dissatisfaction due to the inconclusiveness of arguments. Raising the question has been regarded synonymous to the modern reflective stance that surpasses ancient eudemonism. Inventing meaning has replaced its discovery, as if the tension between “invention” and “discovery”, cognitivism and non-cognitivism, absolute and relative meaning constitutes a necessary map into which the question should be pursued. Theoretically and culturally dominant have been proved those who insist on the released epistemological and practical abilities of modern individuality to construct and relativize meaning in the interest of its own will and power. Our aim is to debunk the alleged inevitability of the dilemma: On the one hand, the idea of an absolute, pre-given meaning leads to absolutism and stifles individual expression and pluralism. On the other hand, no matter how much gratifying the sense of individual liberation has been, the idea of individual construction of meaning has occurred at the expense of modern education and culture, as it leads to subjectivism and relativism. Modern philosophy of education faces an unprecedented educational demand to the extent that the modern world-view is irreversibly different, fragmented and disorientated which renders it responsible for our modern stance towards the quest for meaning and the adoption of ideals in our educational theories and policies. In other words, modern philosophy of education should adjust its resources to the educational challenges of the modern world by relocating the centrality of the quest for meaning and the significance of ideals in order to restore education to its reflective and critical height.