From school to university: unity of education system in Kant’s thought

Nowadays, the topics of the philosophy of education, in general, and the philosophy of university, in particular, are mainly focused on the details of the education system such as ethics, academic freedom, the relationship between education and developmental psychology and the like. This scenario, which is not unaffected by the prevailing discourse of recent decades, especially the discrediting of continental philosophy, on the one hand, and the opening of the field for sociologists, psychologists, and administrator in line with global development programs, on the other hand can confront us with the mental truths. But we must not forget that one day we would come across a much wider scope of the philosophy of education than the one we are facing now. The current paper, focusing on the philosophy of education of the eighteenth-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant, shows that this issue involves a continuous range from school to university. For him, this appropriate scope is an understanding of human anthropology and its purpose and includes future, cultural cohesion and the formation of a new society, universal moral ideals; these are the topics that determine the functions of education and educational mechanisms. In his two independent but consistent treatises, Kant bases this intertwined theory on an understanding of human history and the future based on the principles of his own critical philosophy, and shows the continuity of school and university in a manner consistent with the will of "nature" in functions and goals. By this way, since for Kant "nature" has wills and aspirations for freedom and enlightenment, he, in his two works, tries to explain the functions of the educational system from school to university in accordance with those aspirations and on the basis of enlightening and idealistic values; a patterns that requires empirical steps.