A work by John Locke about education.

Immanuel Kant’s moral philosophy, political philosophy, and philosophy of judgement have been and continue to be widely discussed among many scholars. The impact of his thinking is beyond doubt and his ideas continue to inspire and encourage an on-going dialogue among many people in our world today. Given the historical and philosophical significance of Kant’s moral, political, and aesthetic theory, and the connection he draws between these theories and the appropriate function and methodology of education, it is surprising that relatively little has been written on Kant’s contribution to education theory. Recently, however, internationally recognized Kant scholars such as Paul Guyer, Manfred Kuehn, Richard Velkley, Robert Louden, Susan Shell, and others have begun to turn their attention to Kant’s writings on education and the role of education in cultivating moral character. Kant and Education: Interpretations and Commentary has gathered these scholars together with the aim of filling this perceived void in Kant scholarship. All of the essays contained within this volume will examine either Kant’s ideas on education through an historical analysis of his texts; or the importance and relevance of his moral philosophy, political philosophy, and/or aesthetics in contemporary education theory (or some combination).

Although Kant was involved in the education debates of his time, it is widely held that in his mature philosophical writings he remained silent on the subject. In her groundbreaking Kant’s Conception of Pedagogy, G. Felicitas Munzel finds extant in Kant’s writings the so-called missing critical treatise on education. It appears in the Doctrines of Method with which he concludes each of his major works. In it, Kant identifies the fundamental principles for the cultivation of reason’s judgment when it comes to cognition, beauty, nature, and the exercise of morality while subject to the passions and inclinations that characterize the human experience. From her analysis, Munzel extrapolates principles for a cosmopolitan education that parallels the structure of Kant’s republican constitution for perpetual peace. With the formal principles in place, the argument concludes with a query of the material principles that would fulfill the formal conditions required for an education for freedom.

Kantian Genesis of the Problem of Scientific Education terms the dominant educational paradigm of our time as scientific education and subjects it to historical analysis to bring its tacit racial, colonial and Eurocentric biases into view. Using archaeology and genealogy as tools of investigation, it traces the emergence of scientific education and related racial and colonial inequities in Western modernity, especially in the works of the defining figure of Western Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant. The book addresses the key role played by Kant in establishing a Eurocentric rational notion of the human being. It also reveals genealogical continuities between Kantian and neoliberal rationality of the all-embracing market of today. It discusses several strategies for resistance against the imperial rationality based on decolonial and postcolonial perspectives and suggests basic principles for a shift of paradigm in education, including shifts in our understanding of the notions of criticism, freedom, the universal, art and the human being. This book will be of great interest for academics and researchers and post graduate students in the fields of education, philosophy, and philosophy of education.

This 2007 volume contains all of Kant's major writings on human nature.

"One of the greatest problems of education," Kant observes, "is how to unite submission to the necessary restraint with the child's capability of exercising his free will." He explores potential solutions to this dilemma, stressing the necessity of treating children as children and not as miniature adults. His positive outlook on the effects of education include a conviction that human nature could be continually improved; to achieve this end, he advocated that pedagogy, the science of education, be raised to academic status and studied at a university level — an innovative notion for the 18th century.