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I think it is perhaps even more important 

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that a philosophical point of view 

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develops your critical readiness to become aware of 

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the information received through your own immediate experience

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This may seem like a surprising idea – why would philosophy have anything to do with 

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the way I experience things at the level of immediate experience? But 

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if I were not able to share any other idea 

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but this, this is actually the most essential thing in philosophy

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Because philosophy uses highly technical and abstract concepts 

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their meaning is real for us only 

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when we manage to set these abstract concepts in proportion to 

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our own experience. For example, if we talk about 

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the value of things, then I should 

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through self-reflection stimulate the feeling 

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that arises in me when I see something beautiful or 

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good, or when I react to something that is unjust. When I react to, for example

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an unfair event, it is my own value experience 

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and it is something that arises through an encounter with the real world. And then, 

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if I examine different theories on justice or on 

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equality in learning or human rights

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I should get in touch with my experience to be able to evaluate 

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how much those theories do justice to reality. Because 

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one of the biggest problems with philosophical theories is that their developers 

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are often people who are very far from reality. They may be very intelligent 

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but they are not in touch with reality. Let’s think about someone like Rousseau

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one of the great names of educational philosophy

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Rousseau’s theories – when reading something like his book Émile – they are 

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extremely eloquently written and their expression is enchanting

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But what is their practical relevance 

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if we take into account that Rousseau never raised a child? 

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What is a person’s educational understanding if he takes all  

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five of his children to a foundling home right after their birth? 

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He has thus written the book in his older days, somehow created a utopian idea of the world of education 

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because he has no connection to that reality. That utopian idea is actually extremely 

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charming, but the problem is that it does not work in practice

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That is why, when I read Rousseau 

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and find the text fascinating

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I in fact should test it through my experience as an educator. Because otherwise it 

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leads me astray. Why would I trust an extremely intelligent, intuitive 

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person who has no experience of education? 

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Of course, I can learn from him how some concepts are related to each other and so on

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But the entire utopian world he portrays, what is its value? 

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This is the point I am aiming at

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This philosophical perspective refers to reflecting on 

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logical possibilities. When it comes to the definitions of education, there 

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can be hundreds of them. But in philosophy, we are only interested in 

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the logical possibilities that open up when we examine things from the most fundamental 

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perspective

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For example, characteristic of the concept of education 

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is that we want a person 

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to learn something or to develop in some way, 

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to develop some readiness or skill, or to learn

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certain ideas. All these are then charged with 

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the idea that something is valuable. If we teach, for instance, 

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reading skills, in practice we oblige pupils to learn how to read, and 

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we thus suppose that literacy is valuable. Because if these children 

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did not want to come to school and would rather play computer games at home 

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why would we make them come to school and learn how to read? 

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Well, perhaps because it would be easier to play computer games; but 

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 we suppose all the time that there is something that is regarded 

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as valuable. Now the question is whether there is something that is truly valuable 

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or whether it is so that certain communities, such as 

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the Finnish educational system, regard something as valuable 

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and this view somehow democratically reflects Finnish citizens’ 

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views on what is valuable. Or is it so that we can discuss 

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what is truly valuable and what we really should learn, for example, from the 

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perspective of making human life better and opening up human potential

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That is why we distinguish between two groups: descriptive 

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definition and normative definition. A descriptive definition does not take a standing on 

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whether anything is truly valuable. It just says that some people find something 

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valuable. In this case, either the individual that is being educated thinks something is valuable 

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and is educated to learn it, or the community regards 

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something as valuable. Then the members of the community are educated 

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to adopt the things considered to be valuable, and money and labour are invested in education 

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promoting the same purpose. In contrast 

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a normative definition presumes there is something factually valuable

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In other words, that there are also objectively valuable things that apply universally and to all people 

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and that we are entitled to educate only from this basis

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otherwise it’s so that I transfer my own values to someone else, who may have different values

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This is the logic