Social Challenges and the Teaching of Philosophy: The Experience of the National Tradition in France in the 19th Century

The study aims to summarize the experience of teaching philosophy in French culture of the 19th century. The relevance of the topic is connected with the fact that many of the prerequisites of modern culture were laid precisely in the “age of miracles”, which brought many outstanding scientific discoveries, significantly changed the appearance of the communication system and industrial production, as well as witnessed a fierce social confrontation. To reveal the patterns inherent in the pedagogical practice of this important period of world history is one of the ways to realize the origins of what is happening in the field of philosophy today. As materials was used the content of textbooks and lecture courses popular at that time, which had a significant impact on visitors to university classrooms. The following methods were used in the study: hermeneutic, phenomenological, comparative historical. As dominant models of teaching philosophy, the approaches of the school of “ideologists”, eclecticism, and various versions of spiritualism are considered. These approaches were directly associated with political conflicts that accompanied the fall of the dictatorship of the Montagnards, the establishment of a consulate regime, the proclamation of the Empire, and then the Restoration, the July Monarchy, the Second Republic, and finally the Second Empire and the Third Republic. The study substantiates the conclusion that the pedagogical experience associated with the emphasis of worldview ideas in the field of higher education cannot be considered tracing paper from the historical and philosophical process. Mainly because not all areas of philosophical thought got the opportunity to promote their ideas in the academic sphere. At the same time, the philosophical model prevailing in the educational sphere had to both respond to the challenges of the era and respond to the very fact of the existence of opponents. For all the certainty of the pluralistic nature of philosophy in its past history, in the field of education, the tendency to unify worldview problems manifested itself quite eloquently. At the same time, the teaching of philosophy was by no means reduced to a set of opportunistic slogans, since the very sphere of worldview knowledge was inherent in immanent laws, which significantly influenced, among other things, the nature of its teaching. An important feature of pedagogical practice was also that the differentiation and deepening of the ways of presenting philosophical content to students of educational institutions served as one of the tools to strengthen cultural identity.