From Philosophy to Science in Public Education: Differences between Jovellanos’ Basis and Quintana’s Report for a Conceptual History of the Term «Philosophy»

Abstract

The new social imaginary of theoretical knowledge of the 18th century, which, among other features, included the utility of knowledge, led to a semantic change in the term «philosophy», closely related to teaching, after being progressively displaced by «science». Philosophical sciences, of the scholastic tradition, were taught in the universities, focused mainly on training State and Church officials, but the new mathematical and natural sciences required a place in teaching to educate civil society. For this reason, the Spanish Enlightenment intellectuals, among others, Jovellanos, conceived two types of institutions, one for the former, which continued to be the universities, while for the latter, they proposed establishing specific institutes. On the other hand, the liberals, and particularly Quintana, decided to unify the teaching of sciences in single centers, the provincial universities and a newly created one, the Central University. The philosophical sciences were then marginalized, such as logic, replaced by mathematics as the fundamental instrumental science, and metaphysics, which was abandoned.