Problems in teaching the history of philosophy

Abstract

This paper deal with the problems and shortcomings in teaching social sciences and humanities in madrasas. Our aim is to highlight some problems related to the formative function of the active citizen and the role that the curricula of philosophy should play in the overall culture that is taught in high schools and even more in the madrasas of Albania. One of the main reasons preventing to realize the formative function of the active citizen is replacing the teaching of philosophy with the history of philosophy at secondary education level (including the education in madrasas). This means that students learn about solutions through descriptions given to them at certain European times and places by various philosophers instead of learning through the treatment of main problems of philosophy.
Moreover, a serious problem in teaching the history of philosophy, is the elaboration under the optics of a perspective according to Western culture. This highlights two problems:
• The contribution of Islamic thought, knowledge and culture is left aside (If this is not said in the madrasa, where can we expect it to be said?!), but also the contribution given by other civilizations such as Chinese, Indian, Persian, etc., that constitutes a great contribution to the history of mankind.
• Appearance according to this culture creates the impression, that there is a clash between science and religion, while Islamic civilization has shown that there is no such clash. There are also Western scholars who have denied this clash. These are very important concepts that need to be explained to madrassa students.

Another concerning problem is failure of treating properly the role played by Islamic civilization as a transitional bridge from Greco-Roman to Western European civilization, as the main driver of the so-called European Renaissance.