Rethinking Education through Trust

Reflections from the Philosophy of Education

Abstract

This article addresses an epistemological question within the philosophy of education concerning the role of trust in educational and teaching-learning processes. It advances the hypothesis that education should be understood from the perspective of trust, rather than conceiving trust as a by-product or strategy of education. In other words, trust is proposed as a foundational condition of educational practice. Adopting an analytical-descriptive methodology, the article first examines the emergence of trust within philosophical reflection on education through the concepts of philosophy, education and trust, identifying both its significance and its limitations. It then develops an understanding of the human being as fundamentally relational, articulated through cognitive and anthropological structures such as intentionality, conscious-ness and selfhood, which support trust as an educational foundation. Finally, the article out-lines the role of trust as a constitutive element of educational and teaching-learning processes.