A thought of education can be regarded as a three-layer structure : 1. the ultimate, unanalyzable value preconceptions which cannot be tested and confirmed by intersubjectively available procedures of our world of experience, 2. the network of concepts as intermediate ideational constructs, 3. the individual, close-to-perception facts, which are data for our purposive educational actions.
The task of educational philosophers is to analyze and clarify the concepts in this conceptual network so that the present educational research may be freed from logical and semantic confusions and inconsistencies. Especially in this country, the educational philosophers themselves benefit by this analysis work because they can get cured of their deep-seated diseases like capricious use of language, parrot-like recitations of the big thinkers' words, irresponsible escape from serious, thought-provoking problems of educational practice.

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Questions and doubts about the scientific nature of pedagogy are as old as the history of pedagogy and are at the center of pedagogy even now. This may be due to the fact that educational reality and the educational situation form a non-technical complex entity which ist not sufficiently explained by means of a technical model construed and controlled in a semi-logical fashion. Therefore the fact that the quarrel around the scientific character of pedagogy is still going on, must not be blamed on the scientific backwardness of pedagogy. The problem is rather a matter of being more deeply concerned about the essence of education.
In this discussion the attempt is made to scrutinize the problem of the scientific nature of pedagogy, within the frame of our viewpoint of hermeneutic =phenomenological theory and comparing it with the theory of theoretical analysis and the theory of social criticism covering in the discussion the following five points.
1. The connection between “understanding life” and scientificness;
2. The unbiasedness and objectivity of science;
3. The connection between factual research and normative research;
4. The hermeneutic character of concept formation;
5. Critical theory and hermeneutics.

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In connection with the establishing of the foundation of a science of education, the attempt was made in West Germany to arrive at a theoretical basis from the various types of “critical theory” of the Frankfort School in the sixties, and it is assumed that in the seventies this current forms a tendency in the research on educational science.
This type of educational research is generally called “critical educational science” or after its main concept “emancipatory educational science”. But it is feared today by many that the postulates of “emancipation” in education i. e. the postulates of an “emancipatory educational science” are presented without discussing the underlying metatheoretical meaning. In other words the concept of “emanipation” is used without being sufficiently examined and scrutinized. It is said therefore that on the contrary the concept of emancipation is quite worthless and serves rather to conceal the proper problem and the proper object of education ; hence at present along with the decline of the “Frankfort School”, finally the time has come when one speaks of the “poverty of emancipatory education”.
In this presentation of the problem, foundations of criticism and problems arizing therefrom are clarified through a critical examination of the “critical theory” of Jiirgen Habermas who exercised in the midst of a variety of “critical theories” an extraodinary influence especially on the research aspect of educational science, and on the basis of this the attempt is made to present some methodological considerations on some problems of a “critical educational science”.

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In order to arrive at a truly scientific pedagogy, it is necessary first to determine precisely the aim of such a science furthermore on the basis of this to realise clearly its proper research object, next as in other sciences, to apply distinct research methods which may be divided into theoretical, positive, experimental, historical and other methods as may be the case. But as a matter of fact, pedagogy at present is considered to be underdeveloped on all these accounts.
Accordingly, in the interest of a scientific pedagogy, I would like to make the following suggestions :
(1) To determine the object of research as “problems of education” in order to make the researchers clearly aware of their common object.
(2) In order to make the individual researcher conscious of such a peculiar purpose of this peculiar type of research, to change the research areas from the former traditional ones such as e. g. educational sociology, educational philosophy etc., to such ones as practical research (in education), positive research (in education), experimental research (in education), theoretical research (in education), historical research (in education).

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From Pestalozzi's own statement that he was very much interested in law and education, we can judge that in order to understand his pedagogy more deeply, it is necessary to study its basis, i.e. its political and social context. It was the French Revolution which made him study politics and society.
Pestalozzi, realizing that the revolution broke out because the people were deprived of liberty and rights recognized the great meaning of the revolution, but he did not approve of the ensuing power struggle.
Because of the Revolution Pestalozzi abandoned his prerevolutionary patriarchical ideas and supported hence democratic political ideas. Furthermore, the Revolution deepened his understanding of human nature, and as a consequence he worked on a more fundamental theory of education. According to Pestalozzi, man combines a natural and a social level within his nature and his existence is characterized by the contradiction of selfish desires and moral goodwill. The system of his educational theory implies that man must be raised from his natural and social status to the level of morality. Hence Pestalozzi thought that in order to remedy the disorder in state and society and to make the people happy, it was necessary to educate morally each single member of human society and at the same time to educate the people by enlightening them politically. Hence his education is based on the ideal of popular education and closely related to politics, to the state and society. His ideas of popular education were clarified through the French Revolution and issued in a theory of elementary formation.

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Nakamura Masanao, a confucianist who experienced the encounter with Western civilization, promoted the study of “the Western Law of Morality” (Saikoku no Kyoho) in order to accomplish the task of educating the nation by “reforming the character of the people”. This paper is an attempt to examine the basic structure of his “Law of Morality” relying on his image of man as he visualized it within the frame of an encounter between East and West.
It is possible to interpret Nakamura's thought in its confucianist uniformity; in this paper however the development of his thought is roughly divided into three stages and in the slight changes which can be discovered during those stages, we try to find, in connection with the task of a reform of the ethos of the Japanese, the double aspect of “possibility and bond” characteristic of his image of man.
The first period (about 1853-1866; first section of this paper) is the period when his interest was aroused in connection with problems of the national strength resp. weakness and “moral customs”. He believed firmly in human nature being basically the same in old and modern times, East and West; hence with an open-mindedness toward Western civilization, the foundation was laid during that period for investigating this problem.
The second period (about 1867-1875; second and third section of this paper) was a period of groping for an expression of the content and the structure of “character” (hinko), since he has become aware of the relation between the strength resp. weakness of the nation and “character”. His image of man vascillates between canfucianism and christianity, but within this struggle indications appear of his establishing the foundations of a new image of man.
The third period (about 1876-1891; fourth section of this paper) in connection with the problems the “autonomy of the heart” and the “right to fortune and misfortune” is characterized by a return to Nakamura's image of man in keeping with the finality of the confucianist world. The goodness or badness of the actions of man and the vicissitudes of life resulting therefrom, are considered closely bound together, and while the personal and the transcendental nature of “heaven (ten) as against” heart “become increasingly vague, his” education “(kyoho) is transformed into” educational rules for rewarding good and punishing evil". That is the reason why one gets the impression that Nakamura's thought, while being able to express the ethos of the people, was not strong enough to break through it from the inside.

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