The task facing the philosophy of education is the deliberation of conceptual problems in which any analysis has to repeatedly take the history of pedagogical concepts into consideration. In the 19th and 20th centuries two variations of education have been predominately debated, if not exactly developed, and they are regarded as irreconcilable. I call them the conservative and the liberal dogmas. One is based on the classical study of European High Culture and the other on the history of elementary education. Both dogmas are similarly fundamental in the area of education philosophy to QUINES' Two Dogmas of Empricism for science philosophy.1 In this paper I shall discuss both variations in their modern contexts of development and analyse them against the background of the theory of democratic education. The central question will be whether there is a position beyond this dualism or whether one can only ever stand on one side or the other, if the philosophy of education is considered with a political understanding. I will not refer here to German pedagogics because although both dogmas exist here there is however no association with the theory of democracy.