HEGEL'S PHILOSOPHY OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION

Starting from Hegel's philosophy of self-consciousness and examining man's ability to relate to the world, self, and others through thoughts and desires, Hegel's philosophy is presented in the light of what education truly is. Hegel considers all of spiritual life to be the development, perfection, and self-education of humanity, through which the absolute spirit becomes free, or self-conscious, through the historical process, just as man becomes free through education as a result of spiritual development. Hegel considers education to unfold through a constant battle in the sense of attaining man's self-development, which is a vital, philosophically-determined task of education, defined by rationality and the desire for the individual to become a citizen of the state. I have identified the task of education defined in this same manner or even more broadly - liberating and in the service of the self-realisation of the individual through responsible inquiry and openness to new questions - in the Croatian philosophy of education, beginning with its founder Pavao Vuk-Pavlovic. His most important works on this issue were also promoted by Milan Polic, who himself made significant contributions to the development of the philosophy of education as a philosophical discipline by critically opening new horizons. Their works, like the works of other thinkers who dealt in the philosophy of education, oblige us to further analyse these issues openly with responsibility for sense and development.