The Ideal and the Goal of Education within the Hierarchy of Cultural Values

Abstract

The article is dedicated to philosophical investigation of the notion and phenomenon of ideal, particularly as the highest of education process. The problem being considered lies in means prevailing over goals under the contemporary social situation. Those means in fact perform the role of quasi-goals while depriving human life and activity of its sense and the ultimate end. Basing mostly on the ideas of Kyiv philosophy school of the 20th c., the author argues that the ideal serves as the highest goal in the hierarchy of human values, being also a measure for all of them. As for the system of education, its highest goal is stated to consist of the image of the educated human personality featuring the ability to the most concrete thinking, while providing the surrounding world with most complete set of senses and ranging the many social values by their place within the hierarchy of human culture.
It is summarized that only universal education guided by such humanistic goal is found to be able to end the self-reproduction of the current society of consumption lacking its ideal dimension.