El amor como fundamento de la educación moral

Diálogo con Max Scheler y Miguel de Unamuno

Abstract

Love is a term that has been interpreted from multiple academic perspectives. Thus, there are perspectives associated with particular sciences as well as with philosophy, the latter understood as a general science. In this essay, a dialogue is proposed with two philosophical personalities who made love a relevant theme in their works. Specifically, with the German philosopher Max Scheler and the Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno. The analyses were projected into the field of education, both formal and informal. And particularly, to moral education. In both philosophers, a spiritual perspective of love was recognized, which, moreover, was considered a moral aspect reflecting the goodness of a person. As for the method they used to approach this spiritual phenomenon, Scheler's method was deductive and Unamuno's was inductive, which, in turn, would be associated with the different philosophical traditions that both claimed. On the part of Scheler, a rationalist tradition can be seen, which tried to clarify exhaustively the conceptual aspects of love, that is, a system that would explain everything associated with love. On the other hand, Unamuno showed a more moderate tradition from the intellectual perspective, which considers that love itself would be an irrational aspect par excellence, so that the work of understanding it completely by a rational way would lose its meaning. In both authors we find relevant philosophical bases for the design of a moral education based on love.