KOMPARATYSTYKA EDUKACYJNA W PERSPEKTYWIE FILOZOFICZNEJ: SERGIUSZ HESSEN (1887–1950) I JEGO PODEJŚCIE DO BADAŃ PORÓWNAWCZYCH W PEDAGOGICE

Abstract

Sergiusz Hessen, a philosopher and educator, is a figure who has a well-established place in the history of pedagogical thought, and the concept of the scientific status of pedagogy as applied philosophy became the focal point of his work. The aim of the article is to present another important area of his research interests, namely comparative education. A number of studies on Hessen’s scientific work in the field of comparative research present his achievements in a fairly general manner or include only short remarks on this topic. The introduction to this paper presents a short outline of Hessen’s biography, which is important from the point of view of his research. The following is a description of his concept of pedagogy as an applied philosophy, and then the attention is focused on his research conducted in the field of comparative education. This leads to the conclusion that Sergiusz Hessen can be consdered as one of the first European researchers who systematically conducted comparative studies of educational systems, and his works, along with the achievements of Józef Chałasiński, Zygmunt Mysłakowski and Bogdan Nawroczyński, formed the foundations of Polish comparative education.