The urgent revaluation of humanities for the humanization of higher education

Abstract

The purpose of this analysis is to show the importance of education from the university as a privileged space for knowledge and humanization, as well as the need to address humanist training in a responsible and constant way as a preferred goal. In this sense, the term educate itself acquires particular importance for the university, as the mother house of training, since it supports, cares for and feeds the 21st century professionals. Certainly, those three elements intrinsically constitute the etymological sense of educare. This is the nature of the university, as it provides the student knowledge and skills. Therefore "education is the action of educating" (Zalazar 2016). Although the term educate is integrative, it goes beyond professionalization, a term that implies professional competencies in a specific area, such as the rules of the game for the referee or the civil engineering design, supervision and management of infrastructures. The act of educating implies humanizing, according to the Kantian conception of education. For this philosopher from Königsberg, education is an art with the objective of searching for human perfection. This is why it is essential to educate oneself. Through education, a human being becomes a man as soon as he becomes human through education. However, for learners, there is a sense of loss of the meaning and importance of humanities, which could be replaced by a focus on those tools used for professional training, with an exclusive emphasis on the technical-scientific field.