ADVANCED PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION

Philosophy of Education is a system of rationally supported

assumptions and belief about education. It uses traditional philosophical
concepts and methods to show how children’s experiences, if organized in
accordance with certain assumptions, will result in the achievement of what may
be considered the good life.

What is Philosophy?
It came from the Greek words “philo” meaning love and “Sophia”
meaning wisdom,(philosophia) meaning “love of wisdom”. It is a set of ideas
formulated to understand the basic truth about the nature of being and thinking.
I

History of Philosophy

The birthplace of philosophy was the seaport town of Miletus, located

across the sea from Athens, on the western part of Iona in Asia Minor, and for
this reason, the first philosophers were called Milesians or Ionians. It is wealth
made possible the leisure, without which the life of art and philosophy could
hardly develop, and broadmindedness and inquisitiveness of its people created
congenial atmosphere for the intellectual activity that was to become philosophy.

Branches of Philosophy

PHILOSOPHY

Metaphysic Epistemology Axiology Logic

s

Cosmology Agnosticism Ethics Deductive

Teleology Skepticism Aesthetics Inductive

Ontology A Posteriori

A Priori
 Metaphysics- concerns with the fundamentals of existence and reality.
It attempts, evaluate, speculate about, and interpret physical
 or scientific theories. It is a search for unity, for the one
possible unifying principle that will render coherent and
intelligible all the diversities evident in the universe and life.
Investigates the nature of being and the world.
 1.Cosmology-branch of metaphysics which tries to
explain the theories, origin and
development of the nature of the cosmos
(universe). It considers
evolution and creation as possible
origins of the cosmos.
 2.Teleology - branch of metaphysics which tries to
elucidate on objects pertaining to
whether or not there is purpose in the
universe.
 3.Ontology- branch of metaphysics which deals with
the meaning of existence and
ties to resolve the question of whether
existence is identical
with space ,time ,nature ,spirit , or God.

 Epistemology-refers to the theory of knowledge that has something to do

with approaches to teaching and learning. It deals with the
knowledge as a universal matter and aims to discover what
is involved in the process of knowing .Among its central
concerns has been the challenge posed by skepticism
and the relationships between truth ,belief ,and justification.
 1.Agnosticism-The doctrine that conclusive
knowledge
of ultimate reality in an outright impossibility
 2.Skepticism- the doctrine that any true knowledge is
impossible or that all knowledge is
uncertain.
 3. A Posteriori- the reasoning that experience comes
first and knowledge afterwards.
 4. A Priori- the reasoning that knowledge can be
acquired through pure reasoning reason
alone, dependently and perhaps before
experience. Literally it means ‘from
beforehand’.

 Axiology- (from Greek word axia, meaning “value , worth”;and logia) is

the study of quality or value. Sets the values desirable to live
by at any given time or place. Theories and knowledge are for
 actual classroom instruction. The need for strong social and
ethical theory is readily conceded to be foundational to
educational practice.

Two Divisions of Axiology

1.Ethics – refers to the moral values of a right
conduct.
Is concerned with questions of how persons
ought to act or if such questions are
answerable. It is also associated with
morality.

The Main Branches of Ethics

Meta-ethics-(sometimes called analytic

ethics)concerns the nature of
ethical thought
Normative ethics and applied ethics

2. Aesthetics –refers to the value and beauty of arts,

enjoyment ,sensory-emotional
values, perception ,and matter of taste
and sentiment.

 Logic- focuses on the formal structure of truthful arguments. It attempts

to correct faulty thought operations. It studies the rules of “valid
inference,” which enable to pass successfully from one argument
to another ,and establishes criteria, such as the principle of self-
contradiction “or the “law of the excluded middle ,”that enable us
to assess the internal consistency of a statement.

Deals with pattern of thinking that lead from true premises

to true conclusions, originally developed in Ancient Greece.
Beginning in the late 19th century ,mathematicians such as
Frege focused on mathematical treatment of logic .

Types of Logic
 1.Deductive Logic-theories derived directly and
enviably
from one or a number of basic axioms or
assumptions. We may say that deduction is
form of reasoning that moves from a
general statement to a particular instance.

The syllogism is an example of deductive reasoning.

Example of a generalized statement which nobody
can deny, “All men are mortal.” It is followed by a
minor premise, usually more specific: “ John is a
man.”This is a particular fact and no one doubts it.
The conclusion is inevitable : “John is mortal.”We see
that deductive logic is concerned primarily with
establishing proof. This means that once certain
premises are accepted, the conclusion of an
argument is indisputable if it is drawn validly from
the premises.

 2.Inductive Logic -is characterized commonly as

reasoning that moves from the particular
instance to the general conclusion. Certain
particulars with similar characteristics are
put in the same category.

Scientific theories are created deductively

because they tend to be expressed in terms of
mathematics which is a branch of deductive logic.

In sum, when logic is used properly in

educational practice it results in

(1) clarity of thought;

(2) consistency and cogency of reasoning;
(3) factual adequacy and reliability of knowledge
claims;
(4) objectivity of knowledge claims; and
(5) rationality of moral and purposive behavior.
 OUSTANDING EXPONENT OF THE DIFFERENT PHILOSOPHIES
REALISM
Realism believes in the world as it is. It is based on the view that reality is
what we observe. It believes that truth is what we sense and observe and that
goodness is found in the order of the law of nature. As a result, schools exist to
reveal the order of the world and universe. Students are taught factual
information. Aristotle is the founder of realism

In other words, what we see, hear, taste, touch, and smell are not ideas
impressions or sense of date –whichever term ones care to use –but are real
solid objects that we can know pretty much for what they are. For the realist an

object is true if it “corresponds” with those aspects of the world which it claims to
describe. In the act of knowing we discover reality, we do not create it.

The initiative in education, therefore lies with the teacher .It is his
responsibility to decide what knowledge the child should learn. Knowledge
makes us “realists” in the popular as well as the philosophical sense of the term.

The Nature of Realism

 Advocates that values are defendant upon the attitudes of the sentiment
beings experiencing them.
 Believes that investigating and reasoning are important in any effective
adjustment to the real world in the control of experiences.

Assumption

 The primary qualities of experience exist in the physical world.

 Mind like mirror receiving images from the physical world.
 The mind of child birth is similar to a blank sheet of paper upon which the
world proceeds to write its impressions.
 Nature is a primary self-evident reality, a starting point in philosophizing.
 Consciousness is not a substance, it is an awareness of experience and
experience is a medium in which objects and organism are related
Educational Aim

 Gives direction and form to individual’s basic potentialities.

 Determine the direction of the individual’s inherited tendencies.
an education that could produce a good individual and a good society by
meeting four principal needs of an individual:

1. Aptitude needs
2. Self-determination needs
3. Self-realization needs
4. Self-integration needs

Curricular Emphasis
Combination of subject matter and problem-centered concepts or real
problems towards acquisition habits:

1. Study habits
2. Evaluation
3. Observation
4. Experimentation
5. Analytical and critical thinking
6. Application of principles
7. Effective use of words
8. Habit of enjoyment

Subject Areas
1. Natural Science
2. Social Science
3. Arts
4. Poetry
5. Literature
6. Biography
Teaching Methods
Scientific Methods
Steps:
1. Defining problems
2. Observing factors related to problem
3. Hypothesizing
4. Testing the hypothesis

Character Development

 Training in rules of conduct.

Role of Teachers

 Help the students realize irresistible necessity of earth’s

physical forces.
 Help develop initiative and ability to control their experiences.
 Help realize that they can enter into meaning of their
experiences.
 The students would be taught factual information for mastery.
Role of School

 Further develop discipline

 Utilize pupil activity through instruction
 Speak with authority
 Regard the pupil as more superior than other objects.
 Change in the school would be perceived as a natural evolution
toward perfection of order.

IDEALISM

Idealism is a system of thought that emphasizes the importance of

mind, soul or spirit. Truth is to be found in consistency of ideas. Goodness is an
ideal state, something to be strived for. Idealism’s origins are usually traced to
Ancient Greek Philosopher Plato, the famous student of Socrates. Whereas
Socrates raced fundamental questions about reality, knowledge and human
nature .In idealist education, the notion that the teacher is the learned master and
that the student is a disciple in learning the master’s wisdom is a powerful
concept that was true in the case of Socrates, the master and Plato, the disciple.

Genuine love, according to Plato, was immaterial, intellectual and

eternal as were the perfect forms on which it was based. Like truth itself genuine
education is also universal and timeless. In Plato’s republic, the educational
system exercised a selecting role as it assessed the person’s intellectual
potentiality. Once the individual potentiality had been determined, he or she
received the education appropriate to this ability and ultimately to the function to
be exercised in the political state.

Idealism believes in refined wisdom. It is based on the view that

reality is a world within a person’s mind. It believes that truth is the consistency of
ideas and that goodness is an ideal state to strive to attain.

As a result, schools exist to sharpen the mind and intellectual

processes. In Plato’s political design, philosopher kings were virtuous, intelligent,
and talented persons who had the capacity for leadership. In order to explain the
idealist epistemology, it should be remembered the absolute mind is eternal
thinking, valuing, perceiving and willing. The Universal or Macrocosmic mind is
an absolute person. The Macrocosmic mind is both a substance and a process.
The consistent mind is able to relate the parts, time, whole, place, circumstance,
and event into a coherent pattern or whole.

Nature

 One of the oldest schools of thoughts with its original traced back to
Plato’s ideas.
 Stresses the mental, moral and spiritual nature of an individual and his
universe.
 Advocates that education is both a basic need and a basic right of man.
Assumption

 God is the absolute ideal and all positive values are fully realized and
enjoyed through Him.
 Every individual is born good, and is capable to sense, perceive, and
think.
 The self is the ultimate reality of individual experiences.
  The individual self has all the freedom for self-determination.
 One’s perception of the world is rooted on his existence.
 Values depend on how individual person pass and enjoy his or her
experiences.
 Social values are realized when an individual recognizes that he is a part
of the total society.

Educational Aim

 To develop the individual spiritually, mentally and morally.

Curricular Emphasis

Subject Areas:

1. Literature
2. History
3. Philosophy
4. Religion
5. Mathematics
6. Arts

Teaching Methods

 Lecture-Discussion Method
 Excursion
 Question Method
 Project Method

Character development
Imitating examples of heroes.

Role of Teacher

 Chief source of inspiration

 Thinking institution
 PRAGMATISM / EXPERIMENTALISM

Pragmatism is primarily an American philosophy, although its roots

go back to Greek thinking. Pragmatist is primarily conceived with the
knowledge process, the relationship of ideas to action. Basically, this
concerns with the method of reflective thinking.
Experimentalism believes that things are constantly changing . It is
based on the view that reality is what you experience. It believes that truth
is what works right now and that goodness comes from group decisions.
As a result, schools exist to discover and expand the society we live
in. Students study social experiences and solve problems.
Nature

 Encourages people to find processes that work in order to attain desired

goals.
 The doctrine that practical consequences are the criteria of knowledge,
meaning and value.
 Conservative
Assumption

 The world is uncertain and incomplete. It allows a room for improvement.

 Past is a potential instrumentally for dealing with future.
 Experience is not primarily an affair in knowing but is incidental in the
process of acting, doing and living.
 Sensation is not merely a gateway but the avenue of active relation with
the world.
Educational Aim

 For social efficiency

 Train the student to continuously and actively quest for information and
production of new idea needed to adjust to an ever-changing society.
Educational Emphasis

 Creation of new social order.

 Integrated and based on the problem of the society
 Subjects are interdisciplinary
 Academic and vocational disciplines

1. Mathematics
2. Science
3. History
4. Reading
 5. Music
6. Arts and metal works

Teaching Methods

 Experimental methods

Steps:

1. Statement of the problem

2. Hypothesizing
3. Investigating or data gathering
4. Testing hypothesis
5. Forming conclusions

 Other methods:

1. Creative and constructive projects.

2. Field trips
3. Laboratory works
4. Library work

 Activity-centered

 Pupil-centered

 Opportunity to practice democratic ideas

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

 Making group decisions in light of consequences

ROLE OF TEACHERS

 Keeps order in the class

 Facilitates group work
 Encourages and offers suggestions and help in planning
 Curriculum planner
ROLE OF SCHOOL

 A miniature society
 Gives child balance and genuine experience in preparation for democratic
living.
 Place where ideas are tested, implemented and restructured.
 ssntial PERENNIALISM
Perennialism is the most conservative, traditional, or flexible
philosophy. The distinguishing characteristic of human is the ability to reason.
Education should focus on developing rationality. Education is preparation for
life, and the student should be taught the world’s permanencies structured
studies.
It is largely a product of Aristotle’s rationalism and its subsequent
treatment by Thomas Aquinas. It assumes that man’s basic or essential
characteristic is his ability to reason. Only through reason can man understand
existence and how he is required to live.
Perennialism believes that one should teach the thing that they
believe is of everlasting importance to all people everywhere.

NATURE

 Views truth as constant and universal.

 Education is good if it enables the student to acquire knowledge of
unchanging principles.
 Great ideal have the potential to solve problem in any area.
ASSUMPTION

 Educational should promote continuing search for truth since truth is

universal and timeless.
 Educational should cultivate human’s rational mind.
 Educational should stimulate humans to think critically and thoughtfully.
EDUCATIONAL AIM

 To develop power of thought, internalize truths that are universal and

constant.
CURRICULAR EMPHASIS

 Great ideas or universal principles.

 Focused on arts and science and areas such as History, Language,
Mathematics, Science, logic, Literature and Humanities.
TEACHING METHOD

 Subject centered
 Methods of disciplining of all learners and prepare them for life.
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

 Develop the intellect of all learners and prepare them for life.
ROLE OF TEACHERS

 A known master of discipline.

ROLE OF SCHOOL

 Produce intellectually elite individuals to become intellectual.

PROGRESSIVISM

It assumes that the world changes, which in the universe that is not
particularly conceived with him, man, can rely only upon his ability to think
straight in education, this means that the child must be taught to be independent,
self-reliant thinker, learn to discipline himself, be responsible for the
consequences of his behavior.
Progressivism emphasizes the concept of progress which asserts that
human beings are capable of improving and perfecting their environment.
NATURE

 Exactly opposite of perennialism

 Stresses the child’s needs and therefore child-centered.
ASSUMPTION

 The curriculum should be derived from the needs and interest of the
students.
 Effective methods of teaching must consider interests and needs of the
students.
 Effective teachers provide experience that will make students active the
passive.
 Effective education is one of that provides the learners with a future better
than the past.
EDUCATIONAL AIM

 To provide the pupil the necessary skills to be able to interest with his ever
changing environment.
CURRICULAR EMPHASIS

 Activity and experienced centered on life functions.

TEACHING METHODS

 Cooperative Learning Strategies

 Reflective Strategies
 Problem Solving Strategies
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

 Improvement and reform in the human condition

ROLE OF TEACHER

 Act as resource person

 Guide or facilitate
 Teaches students how to learn and become active problem solvers.
ROLE OF SCHOOL

 Develop personal and social values

 Set up a classroom environment along the lines of democracy

ESSENTIALISM

Essentialism is often called traditionalism or conservatism. It

assumes that the values of men are embedded in the universe, waiting to be
discovered and understood. In education, there are some things the child must
learn which tend the curriculum relatively static. There is a core of essential and
traditional subjects; certain literary classic, language, religion, mathematics,
science and history and other materials.
NATURE

 Emphasis is on race experience or the social heritage.

ASSUMPTION

 The study of knowledge and skills for the individual are imperative for him
to become a productive member of the society.
EDUCATIONAL AIM

 Education provides sound training of the fundamental skills.

 Education develops individuals to perform justly, skillfully, and
magnanimously.
CURRICULAR EMPHASIS

 Emphasis on the essential skills (3R’s) and essential subject such as

English, Math, and Foreign Language.
 Hard science and vocation courses

TEACHING METHODS

 Deductive method
 Drill method
 Recitation
 Giving assignment or homework
 Testing and evaluating
 Systematic analysis and synthesis

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

 Values of discipline, hard work, and respect for authority.

ROLE OF TEACHERS

 Provide stimulating activities for learning

 Prepare well-organized lesson to prove he is an authority of instruction.
ROLE OF SCHOOL

 Ensure master of essential skills

 Prepare students for real life situation
 Teach students to communicate clearly and logicall

EXISTENTIALISM
 Man has no fixed nature and he shapes being lives. The existentialist
sees the world as personal subjectivity, where goodness, truth and reality are
individually defined. Reality is a world of things, truth subjectivity chosen, and
goodness, a matter of freedom.
Existentialism believes that things are constantly changing. It is
based on the view that reality is what you experience. It believes that truth is
what words right now and that goodness comes from group decision.
As a result, schools exist to discover and expand the society we live
in. Students study social experiences and solve problems.
If school existed at all, they would be places that assist students in
knowing themselves and learning of their place in society.
If subject matter existed, it would be a matter of interpretation such as
the arts, ethics or philosophy.
Teacher-student interaction would center on assisting students in
their personal learning journeys. Change in school environments would be
embraced as both natural and necessary phenomenon.
NATURE

 Focuses on the experiences of the individuals.

 Offers individuals a way of thinking about the meaning of life.
ASSUMPTION

 Existence precedes essence

EDUCATIONAL AIM

 To train individual for significant and meaningful existence.

CURRICULAR EMPHASIS

 Subject-centered
 Literature
 History
 Arts for Aesthetic expression
 Humanities for ethical values

TEACHING METHODS

 Inquiry Approach
 Question-Answer Method
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

 Individual responsibility for decisions and preferences

ROLE OF TEACHERS

 Good provider of experiences

 Effective questioner
 Mental disciplinarian
ROLE OF SCHOOL

 Create an atmosphere for active interaction

 Plan better solution to their everyday problems
 Discuss the different situations based by an individual.

RECONSTRUCTIONALISM

The belief that man to a significant degree plan and control his
society, that in a democratic society this should be done in the public interest,
and that the school have significant part to play in the process.
The philosophy of reconstructionism contains two major premises:
1.) Society is in need of constant reconstruction or change, and
2.) Such social change involves a reconstruction of education in use of education
in reconstructing society.
NATURE

 Social change
 Schools should have initiative in reconstructing the present social order.
 Believes that educational philosophies are based on one’s culture .
ASSUMPTION

 Mankind has the intellectual technological and moral potential to create a

world civilization of abundance, health and human capability.
EDUCATIONAL AIM

 Education enlivens the student’s awareness of different society problems.

 Education based on the quest for a better society
CURRICULAR EMPHASIS

 Stresses learning that enables the individual to live in a global milieu

 Controversial national and international issues.
 Emphasis on social sciences and social research methods; examination of
social economics and political problems; focus on present and future
trends.
TEACHING METHOD

 Community-based projects
 Problem-oriented method
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

 Provide vision for better world

ROLE OF TEACHERS

 Lead the young in designing programs for social, educational, practical

and economic change.
ROLE OF SCHOOL

 Primary agent of social change

 Critical examination of cultural heritage
 Center of controversy where students discuss controversial issues,
political and educational.
MATERIALIST materialist
SUMMARY
The roots of realism date back as far as the origin of idealism, and it
was, in fact, a philosophical revolt against idealism. Educational realism is
concerned primarily with helping the child understand and accept demands made
upon him by laws of nature. The students’ first task is to master what man has
already come to know, since knowledge exists external to him as part of social
reality. The students can be taught a problem-solving approach that will help him
to learn new things from reality. The real task of education is to lead the child to
establish effective relationships with the objects and events that surround him
and to save him from vain illusions.
 Idealism is in many ways the offspring of Greek and Medieval
rationalism. This was a belief that truth and knowledge do not depend upon
sense experience but can only be secured only through reason. In education, the
students must be helped reflect through eternal understanding of ideal
experience. Hence, Idealism is ideal-centered.
Pragmatism, on the other hand, is a school philosophy which
originated in the United State in the late 1800s. It is characterized by the
insistence on consequences, utility and practicality as vital components of truth.
Pragmatism does not hold, however, that just anything that is useful or practical
should be regarded as true, or anything that helps us to survive merely short-
item.
The perennialist shares with the essentialist the idea that the
primary goal of education is to develop the intellect. However, in the perennialist
view learner should pursue truth for it won sake, not because it happens to be
useful for some vocation. Essentialists argue that the schools should be
academic rather than social agencies; curricular organization should based on
carefully selected and well-defined kill and subjects; the teacher should be an
authority figure, and learning should be teacher-directed.

Progressive education must be understood as both a general

movement to reform American life and education. Progressivism is often
associated with reconstructionism and more specifically with John Dewey’s
pragmatism and experimentalism. Rooted in the Philosophical school of
pragmatism, progressivism is the counterpoint to both essentialism and
perennialism.

THE REALISTS

ARISTOTLE (384-322 BC)

 Greek philosopher and scientist, who shares with Plato and

Socrates the distinction the most famous ancient philosophers.
 Aristotle was born at Stagira, in Macedonia, the son of
physician to the royal court. At the age of 17, he went to
Athens to study at Plato’s Academy. He remained there for
about 20 years, as a student and then as a teacher.
 Founder of Realism
 He invented formal logic.
 He viewed virtue as the “golden mean.”
Virtue is conceived with as various feelings and actions, for it is
in them that there can be excess and defect. To feel them
 when we ought to. On which occasions, toward whom, and as
we should is the “mean” that is the best state for man to be in,
and this is virtue.
 He saw a basic duality in human nature in that human being
posses an immaterial soul or mind as well as a material body.
Unlike animals, the human mind or intellect gives one the
power to think. The truly educated person is guiding his ethical
conduct and political behavior.
 “Nature is a primary self-evident reality, a starting point of
philosophizing.”
 One of the most distinctive of Aristotle’s philosophic
contributions was new notion of causality. Each thing or event,
he thought, has more than one “reason” that helps to explain
what, why, and where it is.

HARRIS BROUDY

 A contemporary realist focused his work on the value of

education to “live the good life,” which consists of cultivating
human potentialities to their highest level through self-
determination, self-realization, and self-integration.

JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704)

 An English philosopher
 His major work: “An Essay Concerning Human understanding”
it describes his theory of how the minds function in learning
about the world.
 “A good life was life of pleasure.”
 “The primary qualities of experience exist in the physical
world.”
 “The mind of the child at birth is similar to a blank sheet of
paper upon which the world proceeds to write its impression.”

JOHN COMENIUS

 “Mind is like a mirror receiving images from the physical world.”

JOHANN HENRICH PESTALOZZI

 “Teaching should proceed from the known to the unknown

(Principle of Apperception), from the concrete to the abstract;
from the learner’s immediate lesson to the distant and remote.”
 That the aim of education was the social regeneration of
humanity.
JEAN JACQUES ROSSEAU (1712-1778)

 A Swiss-French philosopher, writer, political theorist, and self-

taught composer.
 Born in Geneva, Switzerland, and died in Ermenonville (28
miles northeast of Paris). His mother died at his birth and his
father abandoned him as a child.
 Rousseau contended that man is essentially good, a “noble
savage” when in the state of nature (the state of all the “other
animals”, and the condition man was in before the creation of
civilization and society), and that good people are made
unhappy and corrupted by their experiences in society.
 He viewed society as “artificial” and “corrupt” and held that the
furthering of society results on the continuing unhappiness of
man. Rousseau’s essay. “Discourse on the arts and Sciences”
(1750), argued that the advancement of art and science had
 not been beneficial to mankind.
 He proposed that the progress of knowledge had made
government more powerful and had crushed individual liberty.
He concluded that material progress had actually undermined
the possibility of sincere friendship, replacing it with jealousy,
fear and suspicion.
 Rousseau’s ideas about education have profoundly influenced
modern educational theory. He minimizes the importance of
book learning, and recommends that a child’s emotions should

be educated before his reason. He placed a special emphasis

on learning by experience.
 “Man is born free but everywhere is in chains.”

“In reality the difference is, that the savage lives within himself
while social man lives outside himself and can only live in the
opinion of others, so that seems to receive the feeling of his
own existence only from the judgment of others concerning
him. It is not my present purpose to insist on the difference to
good and evil which arises from this disposition, in spite of our
many fine works on morality, or to show how, everything being
reduced to appearances, there is but art and mummery in even
honor, friendship, virtue, and often vise itself, of which we at
length learn the secret of boasting, to show, in short, how
abject we are, and never daring to ask ourselves in the midst
of so much philosophy, benevolence, politeness, and of such
sublime codes of morality, we have nothing to show for
 ourselves but a frivolous and deceitful appearance, honor
without virtue, reasons without wisdom, and pleasure without
happiness.”

 “Let us return to nature.”

In his earlier writings Rousseau identified nature with the
primitive state of savage man. Later, especially under the
criticism of Voltaire, Rousseau took nature to mean the
spontaneity of the process by which man builds his personality
and his world. Nature thus signifies interiority, integrity, spiritual
freedom, as opposed to that imprisonment and enslavement
which society imposes in the name of civilization. Hence, to go
back to nature means to restore to man the forces of this
natural process, to place him outside every oppressing bond of
society and the prejudices of civilization.

 He defined his plan of education in Emile; saw the child as an

offspring of nature. His writings represented an attack as an
age of reason, gave impetus to the romantic moment by
emphasizing feelings. He had doubts some traditional
teachings and provided new direction for education. His book,
Emile was considered by some as the best book in education
since Plato’s “The Republic.”

THE IDEALISTS

PLATO (circa 428 c-347 BC)

 Greek philosopher, one of the most creative and influential

thinkers in Western philosophy.

 Plato was born to an aristocratic family I Athens. His father,

Ariston, was believed to have descended from the early Kings
of Athens. Perictione, his mother, was distantly related to the
6th-century BC lawmaker Solon. When Plato was a child, his
father died, and his mother married Pyrilampes, who was an
associate of the statesman Pericles.

 As a young man Plato political ambitions, but he became

disillusioned by the political leadership in Athens. He
eventually became a disciple of Socrates, accepting his basic
 philosophy and dialectical style of debate; the pursuit of truth
through questions, answers, and additional questions. Plato
witnessed the death of Socrates at hands of the Athenian
democracy in 399 BC. Perhaps fearing for his own safety, he
left Athens temporarily and traveled to Italy. Sicily, and Egypt.

 Plato’s writings were in dialogue form; philosophical ideas

were advanced, discussed, and criticized in the context of a
conversation of debate involving two or more persons. The
earlier collection of Plato’s work includes 35 dialogues and 13
letters. The authenticity of a few of the dialogues and most of
the letters has been disputed.

 He described how the human mind achieves knowledge, and

indicated what knowledge consists of by means of his works:

1.) The Allegory of the Cave describes individuals chained

deep within the recesses of a cave. Bound so that vision is
restricted, they cannot see one another. The only thing visible
is the wall of the cave upon which appear shadows cast by
models statues of animals and objects that are passed before
a brightly burning fire. Breaking free, one of the individuals
escapes from the cave into the light of day. With the aid of the
sun, that person sees for the first time the real world and
returns to the cave with the message that the only things they
have seen heretofore are shadows and appearances and that
the real world awaits them if they are willing to struggle free of
their bonds. The shadowy environment of the cave symbolizes
for Plato the physical world of appearances. Escape into the
sun-filled setting outside the cave symbolizes the transition to
the real world, the world full and perfect being, the world of
Form, is the proper object of knowledge.

This allegory suggests that most mankind dwell in the

darkness of the cave. It is the function of education to lead
men out of the cave into the world of shadow. Education is not
simply a matter of putting knowledge into person’s soul that
does not possess it any more than vision is putting sight into
blind eyes.

2.) Methods of the Divided Line

In the process of discovering true knowledge, the minds
moves through four stages of development:
2.1 imaginary
2.2 beliefs
2.3 thinking, and
 2.4 perfect intelligences

3.) Forms of Ideas

It represents a serious attempt to explain the nature of
existence.

 The Republic, Plato’s major political work, is concerned with

the question of justice and therefore with the questions “what
is a just state” and “who is just individual?

The ideal state, according to Plato, is composed of

three classes. The merchant class maintains the economic
structure of the state. The military class meets security needs,
and the philosopher-kings provide political leadership.
A particular person’s class is determined by an educational
process that begins a birth and proceeds until that person has
reached the maximum level of education compatible with
interest and ability. Those who complete the entire educational
process become philosopher-kings. They are the ones whose
minds have been so developed that they are able to grasp the
Forms and, therefore, to make the wisest decisions. Indeed,
Plato’s ideal educational system is primarily structured so as
to produce philosopher-kings.

 “Every individual is born good, and capable to senses

perceive, and think.”

SOCRATES (469-399 BC)

 A Greek philosopher and teacher.

 His noble life and courageous death, together with his
teachings, have him one of the most admired figures in
history.
 He believed that human nature leads people to act
correctly and in agreement with knowledge.
 He felt that evil and wrong actions arise from ignorance
and the failure to investigate why people act as they do.
 He devoted himself completely seeking truth and
goodness.
 “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
 “No man knowingly does evil.”
 “He was a respected teacher, chiefly interested in helping
people become well.
  The surest way to attain reliable knowledge was through
the practice of disciplined conversations, a method he
called “dialectic.”
 “Knowledge and virtue was the same thing. If virtue has to
do with it, helping the soul as good as possible, it is
necessary to know what makes the soul good.”

RENE DESCARTES (1596-1650)

 A French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician

 The father of modern philosophy
 It was probably during the years of his residence in the
Netherlands that Descartes wrote his first major work.
Essais phylosophiques (Philosophical Essays), published
in 1637. The work contained four parts: an essay on ,
geometry, another optics, and third on meteors, and
Discours de la methode) (Discourse on Method), which
described his philosophical speculations. This was
followed by other philosophical works, among them
Meditationes de Prima Philosophia (Meditations on First
Philosophy, 1641; revised 1642) and Principia
Philosophiae ( The Principle of Philosophy, 1644.) The
latter volume was dedicated to Princess Elizabeth Stuart
of Bohemia, who lived in the Netherlands and with whom
Descartes had formed a deep friendship. In 1649
Descartes was invited to the court of Queen Christina of
Sweden in stock to Holm to give the queen instruction in
philosophy. The rigors of the northern winter brought on
the pneumonia that caused his death in 1650.
 The single sure fact from which his investigations began
was expressed by in the famous words Cogito, ergo
sum,” I think, therefore I am.” From this postulate that a
clear consciousness of his thinking proved his own
existence, he argued the existence of God. God,
according to Descartes’ philosophy, created two classes
of substance that make up the whole of reality. One class
was thinking substances or minds, and the other was
extended substances, or minds, and the other was
extended substances, or bodies.

THE PRAGMATIST / EXPERIMENTALISTS

JOHN DEWEY (1859-1952)
 An American and educator
 Founder of pragmatism
 Invented semiotics (semioses- “signs” “interpretation”)
 He was one of the first philosophers to be influenced by
psychology and the theory of evolution put forward by the British
naturalist Charles Darwin.
 He was one of the leaders of the movement known pragmatism.
 He believed that we use intelligence as instrument to cope with
a conflict or challenge. His philosophy is called instrumentalism
( all ideas are instruments, therefore, true ideas are those that
work best for attaining human goals).
 He urged that philosophy become a tool for dealing with specific
problems of all human beings rather than with the remote
problems of philosophers.
 He advocated that the method science be used to reshape
education, morals, politics and society.
 In every area of life, he called for experimenting and trying out
new methods.
 As an educator, he opposed that traditional method of learning
by memory under the authority of teachers.

CHARLES SANDERS PEIRCE (1839-1914)

 He was born September 10, 1839 in Cambridge,

Massachusetts, and he died on April 19, 1914 in Milford,
Pennsylvania.
 His writing extends from about 1857 until near his death, a
period of approximately 57 years. His published works run to
about 12,000 printed pages and his known unpublished
manuscripts run to about 80,000 handwritten pages.
 The topics on which he wrote have an immense range, from
mathematics and the physical sciences at the other extreme, to
economics and the social sciences at the other extreme.
 Pierce was often in dire financial straits, and sometimes he
managed to survive only because of the charity of friends, for
example that of his old friend William James.
  From his father, Charles Sanders Peirce received most of the
substance of his early education as well as good deal of
intellectual encouragement of stimulation.
 His father’s didactic technique mostly looks the form of setting
interesting problem for his son and checking Charles’s solution
to them. In this challenging instructional atmosphere Charles
acquired his lifelong habit of thinking through philosophical and
scientific problem entirely on his own. To this habit, perhaps, is
to be attributed Charles Peirce’s considerable originality.

WILLIAMS JAMES (1842-1910)

 In William James’s view, derived from that of Peirce but with a

different emphasis, pragmatism is in the first instance a theory
of meaning.

 He asked us to imagine a man on a camping trip trying to catch

a glimpse of a squirrel on the opposite side of a tree. The
squirrel is clinging to the trunk, belly against the wood, so that
he and the man are directly facing one another, although the
tree itself keeps either from seeing the other. As the man moves
around the tree to try to see the critter, it moves
correspondingly, keeping the tree between them.

James asked us to imagine, further, that an argument breaks

out within the camping party, whether the man was “going
around” the squirrel or not. One faction contends that he was
not- the man and squirrel were face- to- face the whole time, so
neither went around the other. To another faction, this seems
absurd! The man went around the tree; the squirrel was on the
tree, so the man necessarily went around the squirrel!

 The point of the story was that, in the end, the campers realized
there were simply confused by an ambiguity in the phrase “to go
around.” This ambiguity cab is resolved by tracing the “practical
consequences” of going around. Do we mean begin to the
north, east, south, and west of some central objects? Then the
man went around the squirrel. Do we mean being in front, to the
side, in back, and to the other side of that central object? Then
the man failed to go around the squirrel. Likewise with such
notions are freedom or fate, materialism, pluralism, monism- we
must trace practical consequences to know what we mean by
the terms we employ so as to avoid interminable confusion.
  James advocated pragmatism as a means of clearing up
precisely such confusions that, he believed, were ubiquitous in
philosophy.

 ”Theory of knowledge is the theory of truth.”

 One of the words to which he applied this approach was truth.

He could find no content to the ideas of truth held either by the
British empiricists of his day such as Bernard Russel or in that
held by the post-Hegelian idealist such as Josiah Royce. Their
interminable dispute with one another could only be settled the
campers’ dispute was settled – by attention to practical
consequences. So he offered as the content of truth the
hypothesis that it is the expedient in the way of our thinking –
“expedient in almost any fashion; and expedient in the long run
and on the whole of course.”

 James made no sharp distinction between the theory of truth

and the theory of knowledge. The distinction became a
canonical part of Anglo-American philosophy sometimes James’
death in 1910. One might well rephrase James’ theory of
knowledge, or of the warrant of truth belief, rather than of truth
itself.

RICHARD RORTY

 Reworks pragmatism

Rorty has written “Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature” (1980).

“Consequences of Pragmatism” (1982) “Contingency, Irony and
Solidarity” (1989) and other works.

 In “Consequences,” he calls pragmatism a “vague, ambitious,

and overworked word” but offers three characterization of it that
he endorses. First, pragmatism is “simply anti-essentialism
applied to notions like “truth”, “knowledge”, ”language”,
“morality” and similar objects of philosophical theorizing,
“Second, pragmatism is the denial of any metaphysical
 difference between what is and what ought to be- physics and
ethics. The pattern of all inquiry under either of those arbitrary
headings must be the same, “deliberation concerning the
relative attractions of various concrete alternatives, “Third,
pragmatism treats objectivity as inter-subjectivity, the
convergence of differing minds upon common conclusions.

THE PERENNIALIST

ROBERT MAYNARD HUTCHINS (1899-1977)

 An American educator who criticized over-specialization and

sought to balance the college curriculum and to maintain in the
Western intellectual tradition.

 He argued about the purposes of higher education, deploring

undue emphasis on nonacademic pursuits (Chicago abandoned
intercollegiate football in 1939) and criticizing the tendency
toward specialization and vocationalism.

 The university abandoned most of his reforms, however, after

this departure and returned to the educational practices of other
major American universities.

 He was active in forming the Committee to Frame a World

Constitution (1945), led the Commissions on Freedom of the
Press (1946), and vigorously defended academic freedom,
opposing faculty loyalty oaths in the 50’s. after serving as until
associate director of the Ford Foundation (from 1951), he
became president of the Fund for the Republic (1954) and in
1959 founded the Center for the Study of Democratic Institution
(Santa Barbara, Calif.) as the fund’s main activity.

 The Center was an attempt to approach Hutchins’s ideal of “a

community of scholars” discussing a wide range of issues-
individual freedom, international order, ecological imperatives,
the rights of minorities and of woman, and the nature of the
good life, among others.

 From 1943 until his retirement in 1974 Hutchins was chairman

of the Board of Editors of Encyclopedia Britanica, Inc. he was
editor in chief of the 54-volume Greet Books of the Western
 World (1952) and coeditor, from 1961, with Mortimer J. Adler, of
an annual, The Great Ideas Today.

 He views on educational and public issues appeared in No

Friendly Voice (1936). The Highest Learning in America (1936).
Education for Freedom (1943), and others. Later books include
The University of Utopia (1953) and the Learning Society
(1968).

MORTIMER JEROME ADLER (1902-2001)

 Adler was born in New York City.

 After dropping out of high school at age of 14, he worked as a copy
boy for the New York Sun. Wanting to become a journalist, he took
writing classes at night where he discovered the works of men he
would come to call heroes: Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, John
Locke, John Stuart Mill and others. He went on to study philosophy
at Columbia University. Though he failed to complete the necessary
physical education requirements for a bachelor’s degree, he stayed
at the university and eventually was given a teaching position and
was awarded a doctorate in philosophy.

 Adler was appointed to the philosophy faculty at the University of

Chicago in 1930, where he met its president Robert Hutchins, with
whom he founded the Great Books of the Western World program.
He founded and served as director of the Institute for Philosophical
Research in 1952. For a long time he was Chairman of the Board of
Editors of the Encyclopedia Britannica, and influenced many of the
policies of the 15th edition.
 He introduced the Paidea Program; a grade-school curriculum
centered guided reading and discussion of difficult works (as
judged for each grade).

 With Max Weismann, he founded The Center for the Study of The
Great Ideas.

 Adler long strove to bring philosophy to the masses, and some of

his works (such as How to Read a Book) became popular
 bestsellers. Adler was often aided in his thinking and writing by
Arthur Rubin, an old friend from his Columbia undergraduate days.

JACQUES MARITAIN (1882-1973)

 He was born in Paris. A French Philosopher and one of the

most influential Roman Catholic Scholar of the 90’s.

 He was a leader of neo-Thomism, a revival of the philosophical

system developed by the medieval theologian Saint Thomas
Acquinas. It attempted to reconcile faith and reason.

 His work: “The Degree of Knowledge” (1932)

 Analyzed the structure of thought, identifying the three

types of knowledge:

1. scientific knowledge of empirical reality;

2. metaphysical knowledge of the principles of “being as

such,” and

3. supranational knowledge, knowledge beyond the

compression of human reason.

 He taught the Catholic Institute from 1914 to 1939 and was the
French ambassador to the Vatican from 1945 to 1948.

THE EXISTENTIALISTS

SOREN AABYE KIERKEGAARD (1813-1855)

 A Danish philosopher and religious thinker, he considered one

of the founders of existentialism.
 He has greatly influenced religious thought, philosophy, and
literature.
 His many books are concerned with the nature of religious faith,
especially Christianity.
 His Philosophy:
 He held that religious faith is irrational. He argued that
religious beliefs cannot be supported by rational
argument, for true faith involves accepting what is
“absurd.”

 He insisted on the absurdity or logical impossibility of the

Christian belief that God who is infinite and immortal, was
born as Jesus Christ, who was finite and mortal.

 “Fear and Trembling” (1846)

He cited another example of the absurdity of religion in

Genesis 22, where God commands Abraham, for no
apparent reason, to kill his only son. Isaac. He found this
story of God’s unreasonableness so fascinating and
important that he wrote an entire book about it.

He argued that God requires us to hold beliefs and

perform actions that are ridiculous and immoral by
rational standards. Because Abraham had obeyed God’s
outrageous commands without trying to understand or
justify them, he was Kierkegaard’s religious ideal, “the
knight of faith.”

 “Concluding Unscientific Postscript” (1846)

He argued that nobody can attain religious faith by an

objective examination of the evidence, but only by a
subjective choice, “a leap of faith.”

He argued objective evidence supporting a belief genuine

or true. Rather, true belief is measured by the sincerity
and passion of the believer. Thus, he concluded that in
religion, ‘truth is subjectivity.”

 He bitterly criticized all attempts to make religion rational.

He held that God want us to obey Him, not to argue for
Him.
  He regarded those who offered rational proofs for religion
as having “betrayed religion with Judas kiss.”

 He became convinced that many people who were

officially Christians and who considered themselves
Christians did not possess the unconditional faith
demanded by Christianity. He often attacked the
Evangelical Lutheran Church of Denmark.

JEAN-PAUL SARTRE (1905-1980)

 He was French existentialist philosopher who expressed his

ideas in many novels, plays, and short stories, as well as in
theoretical works.

 “Nausea” (1938)

He described the horror and mystery which man experience

when he considers the unexplainable fact of thing’s existence.

 “Being and Nothingness” (1943)

His chief philosophical work about the nature and forms of

existence or being.

He claimed that human existence, which is called “being-for-

itself, is radically different from the existence of such inanimate
objects simply are what they are; however, people are whatever
they choose to be.

He said that people are not coward, for example, in the simple
way that a table is only a table. A person is only a coward by
choice. Person, unlike a table, has no fixed character or
“essence.”

 “ Existentialism and Humanism” (1946)

He defined existentialism as the doctrine that, for humankind,
existence precedes essence.
  He believed that people are completely free, but are afraid to
recognize this freedom and accept full responsibility for their
behavior, which such freedom implies. Thus, people tend to
deceive themselves about their true situation. Throughout his
philosophical and literary works. Sartre examined and analyzed
the varied and subtle forms of self- deception.

 He criticized Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of human

behavior and offer his own “existential psychoanalysis.” He said
that the ultimate motive for all human behavior is the desire to
achieve perfect self- sufficiency by becoming the cause of one’s
own existence. However, he argued that his goal is self-
contradictory and impossible to attain. Therefore, he considered
all human activity ultimately futile.

 “Man is useless passion.” He identified this idea of perfectly self-

sufficient beings who are the cause of their own existence as
the traditional idea of God. According to him, each of us wants
to become God, and God cannot possibly exist.

 “Critique of Dialectical Reason” (1964)

He presented his political and sociological theories, which he

considered to be a form of Marxism.

THE PROGRESSIVISTS
WILLIAM HEARD KILPATRICK (1871-1965)

 An American educator, college president, and philosopher of

education.

 During the 1920’s and 1930’s. Kilpatrick one of the most

influential progressive educators of the period.

 He also viewed by scholars as a disciple of Dewey and a

popularized of the latter’s educational theory.
  Kilpatrick shared with Dewey the desire to have school
curriculum reflect to some extent students’ interest and
purposes and to place problem-solving at the core of the
educational process. He moved somewhat beyond Dewey in
the extent of his position to the traditional curriculum, organized
in advance and presented to children in the form of fixed
subject-matter.

 His theory of learning emphasize what he called “purposely

activity” engaged in by pupils as they worked on a variety of
projects.

 His methodological views were set forth in “The Project

Method,” an essay that appeared in the “Teacher College
Record in 1918 and was later expanded into a book entitled
Foundations of Method (1925).

 His concern for the child’s interests and purposes did not result
in an excessive educational individualism. Like his mentor John
Dewey, he centered factors to bridge the gap between the
child-centered and the society, centered factions of the
progressive educational movement.

 “The Educational Frontier” (1933)

A yearbook that stressed the need for formal education to

focus on contemporary social issues and problems and to
prepare children to participate intelligently in the formulation of
ideas for social change.

JOHN DEWEY’S Relationship to Progressivism

 He wanted students to learn through action and being involved

in the processes that will get to the end product.
  He wanted students to work on hand-on projects so learning
would take place rather than memorization.

 In a regular classroom students would have to exercise their

brain by problem solving and thinking critically, resulting in
learning (even though the students may not even know it). This
allows the individual’s brain to develop, so as the individual’s
learning becomes easier.

 School would be a lot of hands-on learning and the progression

of education would not end.

 THE SOCIAL RECOSTRUCTIONISTS

THEODORE BRAMELD (1904-1987)

 He was the founder of social reconstructionism in reaction

against the realities of the World War II.

 He championed the educational role of transforming the existing

culture and the need for students to be able to establish useful
goals.

 In his work “Education for the emerging Age,” he suggested that

we give objectives or goals not for the sake of credits or even
knowledge as such; we give them so that people of all races,
creed, classes, and cultures may realize a more satisfying life
for themselves and for their fellows.

 “Knowledge, training, skill, - all these are mean to the end of

such social self-realization.”

 He recognized the potential for either human annihilation

through technology and human cruelty or the capacity to create
a beneficent society using technology and human compassion.

 Brameld was best known for his theory of reconstructionism,

which received widespread attention in educational circles.
  He held that a system of public education that is aware of the
findings of the behavioral sciences could bring about
fundamental changes in social and economic structure of
society.

 His writings include Ends and Means in Education (1950),

Philosophies of Education and Cultural Perspective (1955),
Toward a Reconstructed Philosophy of Education (1956), The
Climactic Decades (1970), and Tourism as Cultural Learning
(1977).

GEORGE SYLVESTER COUNTS (1889-1974)

 An American educator, George Counts recognized that

education was the means of preparing people for creating this
new social order.

 “Social values and institutions did not remain static, thus,

education philosophies too must reconstructed to maintain their
relevance.”

 The works of Counts provided the key issue for

reconstructionism when he posed the question, “Dare the
school build a new social order? “ His concern that American’s
schools did not serve the needs of most of the children arose
from their impact of the Great Depression in the 1930’s and in
his belief that only a small favored group was being prepared for
the challenges of a technological and global future.

 Counts was well ahead of his time when he wrote in 1952:

“The supreme task of the present and the coming generation in
all countries, surpassing any domestic issue, is the development
of the institutions, the outlook, the morality and the development
of the institutions, the outlook, the morality and the defenses of
world community. All geographical barriers, including distance,
have been surmounted. Retreat into the past is impossible;
perpetuation of the present means chaos and disaster.”
  He further believed that teachers play a critical role in shaping
culture, for if they are interested in the lives of children – the
central responsibility with which they are charged by the state –
they must work boldly and without ceasing for a better social
order.

PAULO REGLUS NEVES FREIRE (1921-1997)

 He was a Brazilian whose experiences living in poverty led him

to champion education and literacy as the vehicle for social
change.

 Excerpts from “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”

POLITICS AND EDUCATION

Autocracy
An autocracy is a form of government in which the political power is held
by a single, self –appointed ruler. The term autocrat is derived from Greek word
‘αυᴛoᴋράᴛωρ (lit. “self-ruler”, or who rules by one’s self”). Compare with oligarchy
(“rule by few”) and democracy (“rule by the people”).
 Today it is usually seen as synonymous with despot, tyrant and / or
dictator, though each of these terms originally had separate and distinct
meaning.

Autocracy is synonymous with totalitarianism, as this concept was

precisely forged to distinguish modern regimes that appeared in 1923 from
traditional dictatorships. Nor is it synonymous with military dictatorship, as these
often take the form of “collective presidencies” such as the South American
iuntas.However, an autocracy may br totalitarian or be a military dictatorship.

The term monarchy also differs in that it emphasizes the hereditary

characteristics, though some Slavic monarchs, specifically Russian Emperors
traditionally included the title “autocrat” as part o their official styles. This usage
originated in the Byzantine Empire, where the term autokratṓr was traditionally
employed in Greek to translate the Latin imperator and was used along with
Basileus to mean “emperor”. This use remains current in the modern Greek
language, where the term is used for any emperor (e.g. the Emperor of Japan).
Regardless of the actual power of the monarch . Historically . many monarchs
ruled autocratically but eventually their power was diminished and dissolved with
the introduction of constitutions giving people the power to make dicisions for
themselves through elected bodies of government.

The autocrat needs some kind of [power structure to rule .Very few rulers
were in the position to rule with only their personal charisma and skills, however
great these may be, without the help of others. Most historical autocrats
depended on their nobles , the military , the priesthood or others, who could turn
against the ruler and despoise or murder them. As such , it can be difficult to
draw a clear line between historical autocracies and oligarchies.

Democracy

Democracy is a form of government in which power is held directly or

indirectly by citizens under a free electoral system. It is derived from the Greek
”popular government” which was coined from (demos), “people” and
th th
(kratos), “rule, strength” in the middle of the 5 -4 century BC to denote the
political systems then existing in some Greek city-states, notably Athens
following a popular uprising in 508 BC.

In political theory, democracy describes a small number of related forms of

government and also a political philosophy.Even though there is no universally
accepted definition of democracy , there are two principles that any definition of
democracy includes . The first principle is that all members of the society have
equal access to power and the second that all members en joy universally
recognized freedom and liberties.

There are several varieties of democracy , some of which provide better

representation and more freedoms for their citizens ttan others .However ,if any
democracy is not carefully legislated to avoid unevendistribution of political power
with balances , such as separation of powers. A branch of system could be
accumulate power and become harmful to the democracy itself. The majority rule
is often described as a characteristicfeature of minority to be abused by rthe
tyranny of the majority. An essential process representative democracies are
competitive elections that are fair both substantively aNd
procedurally.Furthermore, freedom of political expression, freedom of speech
and freedom of the press are essentialso that citizens are informed and able to
vote in their personal interests.

Popular sovereignty is common but not a universal motivating philosophy

for establishing a democracy. In some countries, democracy is based on the
philosophical principle of equal rights. Many people use the terms “democracy”
as shorthand for liberal democracy, which may include additional elements such
as political pluralism, equality before the law, the right to petition elected officials
for redness of grievances, due process, civil liberties, human rights, and
elements of civil society outside the government. In United States, separation of
powers often cited as a supporting attribute, but in other countries, such as the
United Kingdom, the dominant philosophy is parliamentary sovereignty (though in
practice judicial independence is generally maintained). In other cases,
“democracy” is used to mean direct democracy. Though the term “democracy” is
typically used in the context of a political state, the principles are also applicable
to private organizations and other groups.

Democracy has its origins in Ancient Greece. However other cultures have
significantly contributed to the evolution of democracy such as Ancient India,
Ancient Rome, Europe, and North and South America. Democracy has been
called the “last form of government” and has spread considerably across the
globe. Suffrage has been expanded in many jurisdictions over time from
relatively narrow groups (such as wealthy men of a particular ethnic group), but
still remains a controversial issue disputed territories, areas with significant
immigration, and countries that exclude certain demographic groups.

OBLIGARCHY
(Forms of government)

“Oligarchy” ([[Greek languageIGreek]] {{ Polytonic}}, “Oligarkhia”) is a form of

government where [[political powerIpower]] effectively rests with a small segment
of society distinguished by royalty, wealth, family, military influence or religious.
The word oligarchy is from the Greek words for “few” and “rule”. Such states are
often controlled by politically powerful families whose children are heavily
conditioned and mentored to the heirs of the power of the oligarchy. This type of
power by its very nature may not be exercised openly; the oligarchs preferring to
remain “the power behind the throne”, exerting control through economics
means. Oligarchies have been tyrant throughout history, being completely reliant
on public to exist. Although Aristotle pioneered the use of the term as a synonym
for rule by the rich, for which the exact term is plutocracy, oligarchy is not always
a rule by wealth, as oligarchs can simply be a privileged group. Some city-states
from ancient Greece were oligarchies.

Oligarchy vs Monarchy
Early Society may have become oligarchies as an outgrowth of an alliance
between rival chieftains or as the result of caste system. Oligarchies can often
become instruments of transformation, by insisting that monarchs or dictators
share power, thereby opening the door to power-sharing by other elements of
society while oligarchy means “the rule of the few,” monarchy means “the rule of
the one”. One example of power-sharing from one person to larger group of
persons occurred when England/English nobles banded together in to force a
reluctant Monarch King John of England to sign the Magna Carta, a tacit
recognition both of King John’s waning political power and of the existence of an
incipient oligarchy the nobility. As English society continued to growth and
develop, Magna Carta was repeatedly revised1216, 1217, and 1225,
guaranteeing greater rights to greater numbers of people, thus setting the stage
for Kingdom of England/English constitutional monarchy. Oligarchy is also
compared with Aristocracy and Communism. In an aristocracy, a small group of
wealthy or socially prominent citizens control the government. Members of this
high social class claim to be, or are considered by others to be, superior to the
other people because of family ties, social rank, wealth, or religious affiliation.
The word “aristocracy” comes from the Greek term meaning rule by the best.
Many aristocrats have inherited titles of nobility such as duke or baron.

Examples of oligarchies

Some examples include Vaishali, the First French Republic government under
the French Directory, and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth only the nobility
could vote. A modern example of oligarchy could be seen in South Africa during
the 20th century. Here, the basic characteristics of oligarchy are particularly easy
to observe, since the South African form of oligarchy was based on Race
classification of human beings. After the Second Boer War, a tacit agreement
was reached between English-and Afikaans-speaking whites. Together, they
make up about twenty percent of the population. Whites had access to virtually
all the educational and trade opportunities, and they proceeded to deny this to
the black majority even further than before. Although this process had been
going on since the mid-18th century, after 1948 it became official government
policy and became known worldwide as apartheid. This lasted until the arrival of
democracy of South Africa in 1994, punctuated by the transition to a
democratically-elected government dominated by the black majority.

Meiji Restoration rulers from Japan’s westernization era were also known as an
oligarchy in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Capitalism as a social system is sometimes described as an oligarchy. Socialist

argues that in a capitalist society, power-economic, cultural and political-rests in
the hands of the capitalist class. Communist states have also been seen as
oligarchies, being ruled by a class with special privileges, the nomenklatura.

Russia s been labeled an oligarchy because of the power certain individuals, the
Business oligarch often perform Nomenklatura, who gained great wealth after the
fall of Communism. Critics have argued that this happened in illegitimate ways
and was due to Political corruption. Russia ranked 143 rd out of 179 countries in
2007 Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index.

Several nations in Latin America have long functioned as oligarchies, where

small, mostly European-descended elite dominate the economy, politics, and
society.

The concept of an “oligarchic democracy” is one which some scholars attribute to

Ancient Rome and the United States. Marxist Ellen Meiksins Wood writes, that it
“conveys a truth about U.S. politics every bit as telling as its application to
ancient Rome. It is no accident that the Founding Fathers of the U.S. Republic
looked to Roman models for inspiration in making the federalist case, adopting
Roman names a pseudonyms and conceiving of themselves as latterday Catos,
forming a natural aristocracy of republican virtue. Americans today still have a
representative body called the Senate, and their republic is still watched over by
the Aquila Roman/Roman eagle, albeit in its Bald Eagle/American form. Faced
with the distasteful specter of democracy, they sought ways to redefine that
unpalatable concept to accommodate aristocratic rule, producing a hybrid,
“representative democracy,” which was clearly meant to achieve an effect similar
to the ancient Rome idea of the “mixed constitution,” in fact, an “oligarchic
democracy”. See Monthly Review, July-August, 1989. However, the constitution
and state laws have since been modified, with the removal of the original
property requirement for voting, as well as giving the vote to women and blacks.

A number of critics argue that the United States political system is, itself, an
oligarchic structure. Third party candidates stand little chance of election to
national office, due to the enormous monetary capital needed to purchase
advertising time and to make other key connections in order to gain sufficient
attention from the electorate. Since large donors fuel national political races,
expecting due compensation in turn for funding the winners’ campaigns, it is
difficult to distinguish between the current situation and societies most commonly
recognize as oligarchies. It is, many feel, a return to aristocratic rule, in which the
common people have little control over their political fate; feelings of being “sold
out” frequently lead to apathy, now recognized as the most common problem in
American politics.

The Iron Law of Oligarchy

Some authors, such as Zulma Riley, Keith Riley, Mathew Marquess, and Robert
Michels, believe that any political system eventually evolves into an oligarchy.
This theory is called the iron law of oligarchy. According to this school of thought,
modern democracy should be considered as elected oligarchies. In these
systems, actual differences between viable political rivals are small, the
Oligarchic Elitism impose strict limits on what constitutes an ‘acceptable’ and
‘respectable’ political position, and politicians’ careers depend heavily on
unelected economic and media elites.
STATE AND EDUCATION

I. PLURALISM

The theory of pluralism states that reality consists of true or more

independent element. It means that the society is being preceded not only by the
government but by other social enterprise such as the family and the church.
This pluralist theory aims to protect the society from the shadow of governmental
tyranny and they have persistently tried to reduce the arrogance of the state.
They have made a written constitution to delimit the powers of government.
Through this constitution, the government has no absolute powers and other
social agency is being guided by other organization. In this way the society is
variety of different ways of doing things.

II. TOTALITARIANISM

The totalitarianism theory is a concept used to describe a political system

whereby a store regulates every aspect of public and private life. It aims total
transformation and control of society. It holds on to an organismic theory of
society.

The totalitarian would probably follow “Hegel” principle that “the child has
no chance of becoming a full-fledged man except through education for
citizenship. Similarly, the only way the child can make his will effective is to learn
to will what the states wants him to will. In other words, the child is educated not
only solely by the state but eventually exclusively for the state as well. This, the
state comes is assume ethical as well as political sovereignty in the education of
its custody.

Pluralism

Pluralism is, in the general sense, the acknowledgment of diversity. The

concept is used, often in different ways, in wide range of issues. In politics,
pluralism is often considered by proponents of modern democracy to be in the
interests of its citizens, and so political pluralism is one of its important features.

The term pluralism is also used to denote the theoretical standpoint on

state and power-which to varying degrees suggest that pluralism is an adequate
model of how power is distributed in societies. For information on the political
theory of pluralism see Pluralism (political theory).

In democratic politics, pluralism is a guiding principle which permits the

peaceful coexistence of different interests, convictions and lifestyles. In this
context it has normative connotations absence from its use to denote a
theoretical standpoint. Unlike totalitarianism or particularism, pluralism
acknowledges the diversity of interests and considers its imperative that
members of the society accommodate their differences by engaging in good-faith
negotiation.

One of the earliest arguments for pluralism came from James Madison in
The Federalist Papers 10. Madison feared that factionalism will lead to in-fighting
in the new American Republic and devotes this paper to questioning how best to
avoid such an occurrence. He posits that to avoid factionalism, it is best to allow
many competing factions to prevent any one dominating the political system. This
relies, to a degree, on a series of disturbances changing the influences of groups
so as to avoid institutional dominance and ensure competition.

Pluralism and the common good

Pluralism is connected with the hope that this process of conflict and
dialogue will lead to a definition and subsequent realization of the common good
that is the best for all members of society. This implies that in a pluralistic
framework, the common good can only be found out in and after the process of
negotiation (a posteriori).

Consequently, the common good does not, according to pluralists,

coincide with the position of any one cohesive group or organization. However, a
necessary outcome of this philosophy is that the beliefs of any particular group
cannot represent absolute truth. Therefore any group with philosophy that
purports to hold both absolute truth and identity the common good necessarily
rejects pluralism-their belief system does not consider as valid the opinions of
others who do not hold to their given beliefs.

Still, one group may eventually manage to establish its own view as the
generally accepted view, but only as the result of the negotiation process within
the pluralism framework. This implies that, as a general rule, the “operator” of a
truly pluralistic framework, i.e. the state in a pluralistic society, must not be
biased: it may not take sides with any group, give undue privileges to one group
and discriminate against another one.

Proponents of pluralism argue that this negotiation process is the best way
to achieve the common good: since everyone can participate in power and
decision-making (and can claim part of the ownership of the results of exercising
power) there members, and therefore better outcomes. By contrast, an
authoritarian or oligarchic society, where power is concentrated and decisions
are made by few members, forestalls this possibility.

Proponents in contemporary political philosophy of such view include

Isaiah Berlin, Stuart Hamspshire and Bernard Williams. An earlier version of
political pluralism was a strong current in the formation of modern social
democracy, with theorists such s Harold Laski and G.D.H. Cole, as well as other
leading members of the British Fabian Society. Horace Kallen coined the term
cultural pluralism to express the condition of a democratic nation which
sustained, and was sustained by, many cultural traditions.

Note, however, that political philosophers such as Charles Blattberg have

argue that negotiation can at best compromise rather than realize the common
good. Doing the latter is said to require engaging in “conversation” instead, room
for which made within what Blattberg calls a patriotic, as distinct from pluralist,
politics.

Conditions for pluralism

For pluralism to function and to be successful in defining the common

good, all groups have to agree to a minimal consensus regarding shared values.
Which tie the different groups to society, and shared rules for conflict resolution
between the groups.

The most important value is that of mutual respect and tolerance, so that
different groups can coexist and interact without anyone being forced to
assimilate to anyone else’s position in conflicts that will naturally arise out of
diverging interest and positions. These conflicts can only be resolved durably by
dialogue which leads to compromise and mutual understanding.

To illustrate, anarcho-capitalism takes self-ownership as a shared a priori

value. Derived from this come the principles of non-aggression and private
property. To resolved conflicts over the use of property, both-benefit voluntary
trade is conducted according to subjective theory of value. From the single
shared value of self-ownership, voluntary trade thus enables individuals with
differing values to resolve conflicts without resorting to violence.

Pluralism and subsidiarity

However, the necessary consensus on rules and values should not

unnecessarily limit different groups and individuals within society in their value
decisions. According to the principle of subsidiarity, everything that need not be
regulated within the general framework should be left to decide for subordinate
groups and, in turn, to individuals so as to guarantee then a maximum amount of
freedom.

In ultimate consequence, pluralism thus also implies the right for

individuals to determine values and truths for themselves instead of being forced
to follow the whole of society or, indeed, their own group.

Totalitarianism
 Totalitarianism (or totalitarian rule) is a concept used to describe political
system whereby a state regulates nearly every aspect of public and private life.
Totalitarian regimes or movements maintain themselves in political power by
means of an official all-embracing ideology and propaganda disseminated
through the state-controlled mass media, a single party that controls the state,
personality cults, control over the economy, regulation and restriction of free
discussion and criticism, the use of mass surveillance, and widespread use of
state terrorism. The term has been applied to many states, including: the Soviet
Union, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Swowa Japan, German Democratic Republic
(East Germany) People’s Republic of Hungary, Socialist Republic of Romania,
People’s Socialist Republic of Albania, Derg Ethiopia, People Republic of China,
Democratic Kampunchea, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea),
Communist Czechoslovakia and Saddahas Hussein’s Iraq. Political opposition
has also applied this term to the Saudi regime.

Etymology

The notion of Totalitarianism as “total” political power by state was

formulated in 1923 by Giovanni Amendola who criticized Italia Fascism as a
system fundamentally different from conventional dictatorships. The term was
later assigned a positive meaning in the writings of Giovanni Gentile, Italy’s most
prominent philosopher and leading theorist of Fascism. He used the term
“totalitario” to refer to the structure and goals of the new state. The new was to
provide the ‘total representation of the nation and total guidance of national
goals.” He described totalitarism as a society in which the ideology of the state
had influence, if not the power, over most of its citizens. According to Benito
Mussolini, this system politicizes everything spiritual and human: The concepts of
totalitarism emerged in the 1920’s and 1930’s’ , although it is frequently and
mistakenly seen as developing only after 1945 as a part of anti-Soviet
propaganda during the cold war.

PHILOSOPHICAL (doctrine, ideology or the body of ideas, aims that constitute a political social and
economic program) UNDERPINNINGS OF THE NEW SOCIETY
An Ideology for Filipinos
The new bedrock the Philippine Philosophy of education at that time is of
essential elements as espoused by Marcos to win:
1. A commitment to a set of fundamental values;
2. A theory of the society;
3. A concept of an alternative future;
4. A program of action.

It is not difficult to discern that the Marcos Ideology for Filipinos was
a response to the communist ideology which had fired the thinking and
fantasy of an increasing number of communist Filipinos whose appeal to
the masses was not easy to resist. The masses have long been suffering
from abject (miserable, hopeless) poverty, and despite the build-up of
infrastructures and other measure to enable people to rise above the
florable condition , there came about a gradual erosion of peoples’ faith in
the government , culminating in massive rallies and mass actions
exacerbated by the assassination of Marcos strongest political rival, the
late Benigno S. Aquino , on August 21, 1983.

Union College of Laguna

Graduate School

Santa Cruz, Laguna

Course: Master of Arts in Education

Major in Administration and Supervision

Subject: Advanced Philosophy of Education

Summer 2011

Submitted to:

Merlinda B. Ella
 Instructress/ Lecturer

Submitted by:

Master of Arts in Education Students

JOSEFINE U. JUANILLO

Home Address: 043 P. Burgos Street

Cavinti , Laguna
Mobile No. 09215610434

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Date of Birth: January 29, 1969

Place of Birth: Mauban , Quezon
Age: 43
Sex: Female
Height: 5.5 ”
Weight: 68 kg
Civil Status: Married
Nationality: Pilipino
Religion: Catholic
Language Spoken: Filipino , English
Father’s Name: Federico A. Unlayao
Mother’s Name: Anacita C. Principe

Educational attainment
Tertiary: Union College
Santa Cruz , Laguna

Course: Bachelor of Elementary Education

Secondary: Central Quezon Academy

Mauban , Quezon

Elementary: San Miguel Elementary School

 Mauban ,Quezon

Government Examination Taken: Licensure Examination for Teachers (LET)

Date: August 18, 2001

Rating: 77.60 %

Working Experience: 8 years

COURSE TITLE: ADVANCED PHILOSOPHY

OF EDUCATION

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

The course deals with concepts, systems, activities, and

objectives of Philosophy as applied to education. It includes the
following: exploration of evaluation of philosophical perspective
and its implications to educational management; analysis of the
concepts of good and right; origin and ethical values, principles
and standards of morality, norms and values of personnel and
the professional ethics. It deals with various schools of
philosophy and its implication to educational aims methods,
curriculum, and human resource.

COURSE OBJECTIVES

1. To analyze concepts of good and right ethical values,

principles and standard of morality and the professional
ethics.

2. To be familiarized with various school of philosophy such

as realism, idealism, pragmatism, existentialism,
perennialism,progressivism,essentialism,reconstructionalism,
and behaviorism.

3. To understand the subdivisions in the fields of philosophy

 such as metaphysics, epistemology, and sociology.

4. To apply concepts ,systems and objectives of different

philosophies to the Philippine educational system.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title / Topic Page

Meaning of Philosophy……………………………………………………… 1
Branches of Philosophy………………………………………… 1
Metaphysics……………………………………………………… 2
Two Divisions of Axiology………………………………………. 3
Types of Logic……………………………………………………. 4
Outstanding Exponent of Different Philosophies…………………………. 5
Realism…………………………………………………………… 5
Idealism…………………………………………………………… 7
Pragmatism………………………………………………………. 9
Experimentalism…………………………………………………. 10
Perennialism……………………………………………………… 12
Progressivism…………………………………………………….. 13
Essentialism………………………………………………………. 14
Existentialism……………………………………………………... 16
Reconstructionalism……………………………………………… 17
The Realists…………………………………………………………………… 20
The Idealists…………………………………………………………………… 23
The Pragmatist………………………………………………………………... 26
The Perennialist………………………………………………………………. 29
The Existentialists…………………………………………………………….. 32
The Progressivists……………………………………………………………. 33
The Social Reconstructionists……………………………………………….. 36
Autocracy………………………………………………………………………. 39
Democracy……………………………………………………………………... 40
Obligarchy……………………………………………………………………… 41
State and Education…………………………………………………………… 44
Pluralism……………………………………………………………. 44
Totalitarianis………………………………………………………… 47
Philosophy of Education……………………………………………………… 48
 Avicenna…………………………………………………………… 49
Aristotle…………………………………………………………….. 50
Paulo Freire……………………………………………………….. 51
Normative Educational Philosophies………………………………………… 52
Immanuel Kant……………………………………………………… 53
Plato…………………………………………………………………. 54
Thomas Aquinas……………………………………………………. 55
Jean- Jacques Rousseau………………………………………….. 56
Mortimer Jerome Adler……………………………………………... 57

John Lock………………………………………………………… 58
Ibn Tufail………………………………………………………….. 59
Educational Perennialism…………………………………………………. 60
Maria Montessore……………………………………………….. 61
Nel Noddings…………………………………………………….. 62
John Dewey……………………………………………………….. 63
Rudolf Steiner……………………………………………………… 64
Jerome Bruner……………………………………………………... 65
Jean Piaget …………………………………………………… 66
Montesoori Method……………………………………………….. 67
A.S.Neil……………………………………………………………… 68
John Holt…………………………………………………………….. 69
Famous Philosopher’s Quotes…………………………………………….. 70
Aristotle………………………………………………………………. 72
Albert Einstein………………………………………………………. 77
Plato………………………………………………………………….. 78
Jean Jaques Rousseau…………………………………………….. 79
Michel de Montaigne……………………………………………….. 80
Confucius, AristotleEuripides, Stobaeus, Seneca………………. 84
Mohandas Gandhi………………………………………………….. 87
Essays and Research………………………………………………………. 88
105
References…………………………………………………………………… 106

109
Personal Data ………………………………………………………………. 110

129
 EMRAID R. CABANTOG

Home Address: Barangay Bukal

Cavinti , Laguna
Mobile No. 09109248721
E-mail Address: Emraid [email protected]

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Date of Birth: April 29 , 1985

Place of Birth: Cavinti , Laguna
Age: 26 years old
Sex: Female
Height: 147.94 cm.
Weight: 45 kg
Civil Status: Single
Nationality: Pilipino
Religion: (IFI) Catholic
Language Spoken: Filipino , English
Father’s Name: Danilo L. Cabantog
Mother’s Name: Jasmine R. Cabantog

Educational attainment
Tertiary: Southern Luzon Poletechnic College
Lucban , Quezon

Course: Bachelor in Elementary Education

Secondary: Bukal Natioanal High School

Cavinti , Laguna
 Elementary: Bukal Elementary School
Cavinti , Laguna

Government Examination Taken: Licensure Examination for Teachers (LET)

Date: April 6, 2008
Rating: 75 %
Working Experience: 2 years

LIZA P. ORENSE

Home Address: 144 Calvario Street

Cavinti , Laguna
Mobile No. 09204934056
E-mail Address: [email protected]

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Date of Birth: May 28, 1986

Place of Birth: Santa Cruz , Laguna
Age: 25 years old
Sex: Female
Height: 147.4 cm.
Weight: 48 kg
Civil Status: Married
Nationality: Pilipino
Religion: Roman Catholic
Language Spoken: Filipino , English
Father’s Name: Segredo Perolina
Mother’s Name: Erlinda . Demesa

Educational attainment
Tertiary: Laguna State Poletechnic College
Siniloan , Laguna

Course: Bachelor in Elementary Education

Area: Mathematics

Secondary: Pedro Guevara Memorial National High School

Santa Cruz , Laguna
 Elementary: Burol Elementary School
Cavinti , Laguna

Government Examination Taken: Licensure Examination for Teachers (LET)

Date: September 26, 2008
Rating: 77.20 %
Working Experience: 2 years

BABY JEAN B. OLIVEROS

Home Address: Barangay Talaongan West

Cavinti , Laguna
Mobile No. 09159699181
E-mail Address: [email protected]

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Date of Birth: October 22, 1981

Place of Birth: Cavinti , Laguna
Age: 30 years old
Sex: Female
Height: 160.16 cm.
Weight: 55 kg
Civil Status: Married
Nationality: Pilipino
Religion: Roman Catholic
Language Spoken: Filipino , English
Father’s Name: Domingo Bullosos
Mother’s Name: Juliana Araneta

Educational attainment
Tertiary: Union College

Santa Cruz , Laguna

Course: Bachelor in Elementary Education

Secondary: Pedro Guevara Memorial National High School

Santa Cruz , Laguna
 Elementary: Talaongan West Elementary School
Cavinti , Laguna

Government Examination Taken: Licensure Examination for Teachers (LET)

Date: August 26, 2002
Rating: 77.65 %
Working Experience: 8 years

LIZA P. ORENSE

Home Address: 144 Calvario Street

Cavinti , Laguna
Mobile No. 09204934056
E-mail Address: [email protected]

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Date of Birth: May 28, 1986

Place of Birth: Santa Cruz , Laguna
Age: 25 years old
Sex: Female
Height: 147.4 cm.
Weight: 48 kg
Civil Status: Married
Nationality: Pilipino
Religion: Roman Catholic
Language Spoken: Filipino , English
Father’s Name: Segredo Perolina
Mother’s Name: Erlinda . Demesa

Educational attainment
Tertiary: Laguna State Poletechnic College
Siniloan , Laguna

Course: Bachelor in Elementary Education

Area: Mathematics

Secondary: Pedro Guevara Memorial National High School

Santa Cruz , Laguna
 Elementary: Burol Elementary School
Cavinti , Laguna

Government Examination Taken: Licensure Examination for Teachers (LET)

Date: September 26, 2008
Rating: 77.20 %
Working Experience: 2 years

ANGELIE DE LA TORRE GALLARDO

Home Address: 4013 Barangay Sisilmin

Cavinti , Laguna
Mobile No. 09075792645
E-mail Address: [email protected]

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Date of Birth: December 19, 1988

Place of Birth: Cavinti , Laguna
Age: 22 years old
Sex: Female
Height: 155.08 cm.
Weight: 48 kg
Civil Status: Single
Nationality: Pilipino
Religion: Roman Catholic
Language Spoken: Filipino , English
Father’s Name: Quirino A.Gallardo
Mother’s Name: Agrin T. Gallardo

Educational attainment
Tertiary: Union College
Santa Cruz , Laguna

Course: Bachelor in Elementary Education

Major: English

Secondary: Pedro Guevara Memorial National High School

Santa Cruz , Laguna

Elementary: Burol Elementary School

 Cavinti , Laguna

Government Examination Taken: Licensure Examination for Teachers (LET)

Date: October 4, 2009
Rating: 75 %
Working Experience: 1 year
MARY ROSE B. MORALES

Home Address: 13 Barangay Talaongan West

Cavinti , Laguna
Mobile No. 09173983312
E-mail Address: [email protected]

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Date of Birth: August 31, 1983

Place of Birth: Cavinti , Laguna
Age: 28 years old
Sex: Female
Height: 147.94 cm.
Weight: 45 kg
Civil Status: Married
Nationality: Pilipino
Religion: Roman Catholic
Language Spoken: Filipino , English
Father’s Name: Domingo F. Bullosos
Mother’s Name: Juliana D. Araneta

Educational attainment
Tertiary: Union College
Santa Cruz , Laguna

Course: Bachelor in Elementary Education

Secondary: Pedro Guevara Memorial National High School

Santa Cruz , Laguna

Elementary: Talaongan West Elementary School

Cavinti , Laguna
Government Examination Taken: Licensure Examination for Teachers (LET)
Date: October 4, 2009
Rating: 77.20 %
Working Experience: 6 years

MARY JANE TOQUE ARROYO

Home Address: Barangay Talaongan East

Cavinti , Laguna
Mobile No. 09184259016

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Date of Birth: June 26, 1977

Place of Birth: Cavinti , Laguna
Age: 34 years old
Sex: Female
Height: 155.08 cm.
Weight: 64 kg
Civil Status: Married
Nationality: Pilipino
Religion: Roman Catholic
Language Spoken: Filipino , English
Father’s Name: Leon C. Toque
Mother’s Name: Adelaida A. Conde

Educational attainment
Tertiary: Union College
Santa Cruz , Laguna

Course: Bachelor in Elementary Education

Secondary: Pedro Guevara Memorial National High School

Santa Cruz , Laguna

Elementary: Talaongan East Elementary School

Cavinti , Laguna
Government Examination Taken: Licensure Examination for Teachers (LET)
Date: August 27, 2000
Rating: 75 %
Working Experience: 7 years

JACQUILINE C. VALDOPENAS

Home Address: Magsaysay Street

Cavinti , Laguna 4013
Mobile No. 09186578445

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Date of Birth: July 14, 1975

Place of Birth: Masbate
Age: 36 years old
Sex: Female
Height: 5 cm.
Weight: 65 kg
Civil Status: Married
Nationality: Pilipino
Religion: Roman Catholic
Language Spoken: Filipino , English
Father’s Name: Elenito A. Cantre
Mother’s Name: Lalina E. Gerela

Educational attainment
Tertiary: San Pablo Colleges
San Pablo City

Course: Bachelor in Elementary Education

Secondary: Ibayiw National National High School

Alaminos , Laguna

Elementary: Alaminos Elementary School

Alaminos , Laguna

Government Examination Taken: Licensure Examination for Teachers (LET)

Date: August 1, 1998
Rating: 75 %
Working Experience: 8 years

JOBETH L. RAMOS
Home Address: Bagong Silang Street
Cavinti , Laguna
Mobile No. 09208643396

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Date of Birth: March 19 , 1974

Place of Birth: Sampaloc,Metro Manila
Age: 37 years old
Sex: Female
Height: 5 cm.
Weight: 60 kg
Civil Status: Married
Nationality: Pilipino
Religion: Roman Catholic
Language Spoken: Filipino , English
Father’s Name: Gilbert M. Lubuguin
Mother’s Name: Josephine P. Morales

Educational attainment
Tertiary: Union College
Santa Cruz , Laguna

Course: Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education

Secondary: Cavinti Academy

Cavinti , Laguna

Elementary: Talaongan East Elementary School

Cavinti , Laguna

Government Examination Taken: Licensure Examination for Teachers (LET)

Date: August 24 , 2006
Rating: 75.80 %
Working Experience: 14 years

Glorina E. Adan-?

Mary Jane T. Arroyo_OK

Emraid R. Cabantog-ok

Grace O. Creencia-?

Annaliza R. De la Torre-ok

Grace B/. Flores-?

Jonna R. Flores-?

Maribel B. Gordula-__?

Josefine V. Juanillo-ok

Mary Rose B. Morales-ok

5 more

Roselyn Morales-?

Eufemia P. Nequinto-?

Baby Jean B. Oliveros-ok

Maggie C. Oliveros-?

Liza P. Orense-OK

Agnes M. Principe-?

Jacquiline C. Valdopenas-OK

Gina R. Vicente-?

Sheryl P. Vitor-?

6 more
CURRICULUM VITAE

Union Collge
Graduate School
Santa Cruz , Laguna

MEANING OF PHILOSOPHY
BRANCHES OF PHILOSOPHY
HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the Degree of Master of Arts in Education
Major in Administration and Supervision

Submitted to:

Merlinda B. Ella
Instructress / Lecturer

Submitted by;
Master of Arts in Education Students
 ADVANCED PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION

Philosophy of Education is a system of rationally

supported assumptions and belief about education. It uses traditional
philosophical concepts and methods to show how children’s
experiences, if organized in accordance with certain assumptions, will
result in the achievement of what may be considered the good life.

What is Philosophy?

It came from the Greek words “philo” meaning love and

“Sophia” meaning wisdom,(philosophia) meaning “love of wisdom”. It
is a set of ideas formulated to understand the basic truth about the
nature of being and thinking.
I

History of Philosophy

The birthplace of philosophy was the seaport town of Miletus,

located across the sea from Athens, on the western part of Iona in
Asia Minor, and for this reason, the first philosophers were called
Milesians or Ionians. It is wealth made possible the leisure, without
which the life of art and philosophy could hardly develop, and
broadmindedness and inquisitiveness of its people created congenial
atmosphere for the intellectual activity that was to become
philosophy.

Branches of Philosophy

PHILOSOPHY
 Metaphysic Epistemology Axiology Logic
s

Cosmology Agnosticism Ethics Deductive

Teleology Skepticism Aesthetics Inductive

Ontology A Posteriori

A Priori
 Metaphysics- concerns with the fundamentals of existence
and reality.
It attempts, evaluate, speculate about, and
interpret physical or scientific theories. It is a search for unity, for the one
possible unifying principle that will render coherent and
intelligible all the diversities evident in the universe and life.
Investigates the nature of being and the world.
 Cosmology-branch of metaphysics which tries to
explain the theories, origin and
development of the nature of the cosmos
(universe). It considers
evolution and creation as possible
origins of the cosmos.
 Teleology - branch of metaphysics which tries to
elucidate on objects pertaining to
whether or not there is purpose in the
universe.
 Ontology- branch of metaphysics which deals with
the meaning of existence and
ties to resolve the question of whether
existence is identical
with space ,time ,nature ,spirit , or God.

 Epistemology-refers to the theory of knowledge that has something to do

with approaches to teaching and learning. It deals with the
knowledge as a universal matter and aims to discover what
is involved in the process of knowing .Among its central
concerns has been the challenge posed by skepticism
and the relationships between truth ,belief ,and justification.
 Agnosticism-The doctrine that conclusive knowledge
 of ultimate reality in an outright impossibility
 Skepticism- the doctrine that any true knowledge is
impossible or that all knowledge is
uncertain.
 A Posteriori- the reasoning that experience comes
first and knowledge afterwards.
 A Priori- the reasoning that knowledge can be
acquired through pure reasoning reason
alone, dependently and perhaps before
experience. Literally it means ‘from
beforehand’.

 Axiology- (from Greek word axia, meaning “value , worth”;and logia ) is

the study of quality or value. Sets the values desirable to live
by at any given time or place. Theories and knowledge are for
actual classroom instruction. The need for strong social and
ethical theory is readily conceded to be foundational to
educational practice.

Two Divisions of Axiology

 Ethics – refers to the moral values of a right conduct.
Is concerned with questions of how persons
ought to act or if such questions are
answerable. It is also associated with
morality.

The Main Branches of Ethics

 Meta-ethics-(sometimes called analytic ethics)

concerns the nature of ethical thought
Normative ethics and applied ethics

 Aesthetics –refers to the value and beauty of arts,

enjoyment ,sensory-emotional
values, perception ,and matter of taste
and sentiment.

 Logic- focuses on the formal structure of truthful arguments . It attempts

to correct faulty thought operations. It studies the rules of “valid
inference,” which enable to pass successfully from one argument
to another ,and establishes criteria, such as the principle of self-
contradiction “or the “law of the excluded middle ,”that enable us
to assess the internal consistency of a statement.

Deals with pattern of thinking that lead from true premises

to true conclusions, originally developed in Ancient Greece.
Beginning in the late 19th century ,mathematicians such as
Frege focused on mathematical treatment of logic .

Types of Logic

 Deductive Logic-theories derived directly and

enviably
from one or a number of basic axioms or
assumptions. We may say that deduction
is form of reasoning that moves from a
general statement to a particular
instance.

The syllogism is an example of deductive

reasoning.
Example of a generalized statement which nobody
can deny, “All men are mortal.” It is followed by a
minor premise, usually more specific: “ John is a
man.”This is a particular fact and no one doubts
it. The conclusion is inevitable : “John is
mortal.”We see
that deductive logic is concerned primarily with
establishing proof. This means that once certain
premises are accepted, the conclusion of an
argument is indisputable if it is drawn validly from
the premises.

 Inductive Logic -is characterized commonly as

reasoning that moves from the particular
instance to the general conclusion.
Certain
particulars with similar characteristics
are
 put in the same category.

Scientific theories are created

deductively because they tend to be
expressed in terms of mathematics which is a
branch of deductive logic.

In sum, when logic is used properly in

educational practice it results in

(1) clarity of thought;

(2) consistency and cogency of reasoning;
(3) factual adequacy and reliability of
knowledge

claims;
(4) objectivity of knowledge claims; and
(5) rationality of moral and purposive
behavior.

OUSTANDING EXPONENT OF THE DIFFERENT PHILOSOPHIES

REALISM

Realism believes in the world as it is. It is based on the view

that reality is what we observe. It believes that truth is what we sense
and observe and that goodness is found in the order of the law of
nature. As a result, schools exist to reveal the order of the world and
universe. Students are taught factual information.

In other words, what we see, hear, taste, touch, and smell are
not ideas impressions or sense of date –whichever term ones care to
use –but are real solid objects that we can know pretty much for what
they are. For the realist an object is true if it “corresponds” with those
aspects of the world which it claims to describe. In the act of knowing
we discover reality, we do not create it.

The initiative in education, therefore lies with the

teacher .It is his responsibility to decide what knowledge the
child should learn. Knowledge makes us “realists” in the
popular as well as the philosophical sense of the term.
The Nature of Realism
 Advocates that values are defendant upon the attitudes
of the sentiment beings experiencing them.
 Believes that investigating and reasoning are important
in any effective adjustment to the real world in the
control of experiences.

Assumption

 The primary qualities of experience exist in the physical world.

 Mind like mirror receiving images from the physical world.
 The mind of child birth is similar to a blank sheet of paper upon
which the world proceeds to write its impressions.
 Nature is a primary self-evident reality, a starting point in
philosophizing.
 Consciousness is not a substance, it is an awareness of
experience and experience is a medium in which objects and
organism are related.

Educational Aim

 Gives direction and form to individual’s basic potentialities.

  Determine the direction of the individual’s inherited tendencies.

an education that could produce a good individual and a good

society by meeting four principal needs of an individual:

1. Aptitude needs
2. Self-determination needs
3. Self-realization needs
4. Self-integration needs

Curricular Emphasis

Combination of subject matter and problem-centered concepts

or real problems towards acquisition habits:

1. Study habits
2. Evaluation
3. Observation
4. Experimentation
5. Analytical and critical thinking
6. Application of principles
7. Effective use of words
8. Habit of enjoyment
Subject Areas
1. Natural Science
2. Social Science
3. Arts
4. Poetry
5. Literature
6. Biography
Teaching Methods
Scientific Methods
Steps:
1. Defining problems
2. Observing factors related to problem
3. Hypothesizing
4. Testing the hypothesis

Character Development
 Training in rules of conduct.
Role of Teachers
 Help the students realize irresistible necessity of
earth’s physical forces.
 Help develop initiative and ability to control their
experiences.
 Help realize that they can enter into meaning of their
experiences.
 The students would be taught factual information for
mastery.
Role of School
 Further develop discipline
 Utilize pupil activity through instruction
 Speak with authority
 Regard the pupil as more superior than other objects.
 Change in the school would be perceived as a natural
evolution toward perfection of order.

IDEALISM
 Idealism is a system of thought that emphasizes the
importance of mind, soul or spirit. Truth is to be found in consistency
of ideas. Goodness is an ideal state, something to be strived for.
Idealism’s origins are usually traced to Ancient Greek Philosopher
Plato, the famous student of Socrates. Whereas Socrates raced
fundamental questions about reality, knowledge and human nature
.In idealist education, the notion that the teacher is the learned
master and that the student is a disciple in learning the master’s
wisdom is a powerful concept that was true in the case of Socrates,
the master and Plato, the disciple.

Genuine love, according to Plato, was immaterial,

intellectual and eternal as were the perfect forms on which it was
based. Like truth itself genuine education is also universal and
timeless. In Plato’s republic, the educational system exercised a
selecting role as it assessed the person’s intellectual potentiality.
Once the individual potentiality had been determined, he or she
received the education appropriate to this ability and ultimately to the
function to be exercised in the political state.

Idealism believes in refined wisdom. It is based on the view

that reality is a world within a person’s mind. It believes that truth is
the consistency of ideas and that goodness is an ideal state to strive
to attain.

As a result, schools exist to sharpen the mind and

intellectual processes. In Plato’s political design, philosopher kings
were virtuous, intelligent, and talented persons who had the capacity
for leadership. In order to explain the idealist epistemology, it should
be remembered the absolute mind is eternal thinking, valuing,
perceiving and willing. The Universal or Macrocosmic mind is an
absolute person. The Macrocosmic mind is both a substance and a
process. The consistent mind is able to relate the parts, time, whole,
place, circumstance, and event into a coherent pattern or whole.

Nature
  One of the oldest schools of thoughts with its original traced
back to Plato’s ideas.
 Stresses the mental, moral and spiritual nature of an individual
and his universe.
 Advocates that education is both a basic need and a basic right
of man.

Assumption

 God is the absolute ideal and all positive values are fully
realized and enjoyed through Him.
 Every individual is born good, and is capable to sense,
perceive, and think.
 The self is the ultimate reality of individual experiences.
 The individual self has all the freedom for self-determination.
 One’s perception of the world is rooted on his existence.
 Values depend on how individual person pass and enjoy his or
her experiences.
 Social values are realized when an individual recognizes that
he is a part of the total society.

Educational Aim

 To develop the individual spiritually, mentally and morally.

Curricular Emphasis

Subject Areas:

1. Literature
2. History
3. Philosophy
4. Religion
5. Mathematics
6. Arts

Teaching Methods
  Lecture-Discussion Method
 Excursion
 Question Method
 Project Method

Character development
Imitating examples of heroes.
Role of Teacher
 Chief source of inspiration
 Thinking institution

PRAGMATISM / EXPERIMENTALISM

Pragmatism is primarily an American philosophy, although

its roots go back to Greek thinking. Pragmatist is primarily
conceived with the knowledge process, the relationship of ideas
to action. Basically, this concerns with the method of reflective
thinking.
Experimentalism believes that things are constantly
changing. It is based on the view that reality is what you
experience. It believes that truth is what works right now and
that goodness comes from group decisions.
As a result, schools exist to discover and expand the
society we live in. students study social experiences and solve
problems.
Nature
 Encourages people to find processes that work in order to
attain desired goals.
 The doctrine that practical consequences are the criteria of
knowledge, meaning and value.
 Conservative
Assumption
  The world is uncertain and incomplete. It allows a room for
improvement.
 Past is a potential instrumentally for dealing with future.
 Experience is not primarily an affair in knowing but is incidental
in the process of acting, doing and living.
 Sensation is not merely a gateway but the avenue of active
relation with the world.
Educational Aim
 For social efficiency
 Train the student to continuously and actively quest for
information and production of new idea needed to adjust to an
ever-changing society.
Educational Emphasis
 Creation of new social order.
 Integrated and based on the problem of the society
 Subjects are interdisciplinary
 Academic and vocational disciplines

1. Mathematics
2. Science
3. History
4. Reading
5. Music
6. Arts and metal works

Teaching Methods
 Experimental methods

Steps:

1. Statement of the problem

2. Hypothesizing
3. Investigating or data gathering
4. Testing hypothesis
 5. Forming conclusions

 Other methods:

1. Creative and constructive projects.

2. Field trips
3. Laboratory works
4. Library work

 Activity-centered

 Pupil-centered

 Opportunity to practice democratic ideas

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
 Making group decisions in light of consequences
ROLE OF TEACHERS
 Keeps order in the class
 Facilitates group work
 Encourages and offers suggestions and help in planning
 Curriculum planner
ROLE OF SCHOOL
 A miniature society
 Gives child balance and genuine experience in preparation for
democratic living.
 Place where ideas are tested, implemented and restructured.

ssntial PERENNIALISM
Perennialism is the most conservative, traditional, or
flexible philosophy. The distinguishing characteristic of human is the
ability to reason. Education should focus on developing rationality.
Education is preparation for life, and the student should be taught the
world’s permanencies structured studies.
It is largely a product of Aristotle’s rationalism and its
subsequent treatment by Thomas Aquinas. It assumes that man’s
basic or essential characteristic is his ability to reason. Only through
reason can man understand existence and how he is required to live.
Perennialism believes that one should teach the thing that
they believe is of everlasting importance to all people everywhere.

NATURE
 Views truth as constant and universal.
 Education is good if it enables the student to acquire knowledge
of unchanging principles.
 Great ideal have the potential to solve problem in any area.
ASSUMPTION
 Educational should promote continuing search for truth since
truth is universal and timeless.
 Educational should cultivate human’s rational mind.
 Educational should stimulate humans to think critically and
thoughtfully.
EDUCATIONAL AIM
 To develop power of thought, internalize truths that are
universal and constant.
CURRICULAR EMPHASIS
 Great ideas or universal principles.
 Focused on arts and science and areas such as History,
Language, Mathematics, Science, logic, Literature and
Humanities.
TEACHING METHOD
 Subject centered
 Methods of disciplining of all learners and prepare them for life.
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
 Develop the intellect of all learners and prepare them for life.
ROLE OF TEACHERS
 A known master of discipline.
ROLE OF SCHOOL
 Produce intellectually elite individuals to become intellectual.

PROGRESSIVISM

It assumes that the world changes, which in the universe

that is not particularly conceived with him, man, can rely only upon
his ability to think straight in education, this means that the child must
be taught to be independent, self-reliant thinker, learn to discipline
himself, be responsible for the consequences of his behavior.
Progressivism emphasizes the concept of progress which
asserts that human beings are capable of improving and perfecting
their environment.
NATURE
 Exactly opposite of perennialism
 Stresses the child’s needs and therefore child-centered.
ASSUMPTION
 The curriculum should be derived from the needs and interest
of the students.
 Effective methods of teaching must consider interests and
needs of the students.
  Effective teachers provide experience that will make students
active the passive.
 Effective education is one of that provides the learners with a
future better than the past.

EDUCATIONAL AIM
 To provide the pupil the necessary skills to be able to interest
with his ever changing environment.
CURRICULAR EMPHASIS
 Activity and experienced centered on life functions.
TEACHING METHODS
 Cooperative Learning Strategies
 Reflective Strategies
 Problem Solving Strategies
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
 Improvement and reform in the human condition
ROLE OF TEACHER
 Act as resource person
 Guide or facilitate
 Teaches students how to learn and become active problem
solvers.
ROLE OF SCHOOL
 Develop personal and social values
 Set up a classroom environment along the lines of democracy

ESSENTIALISM
 Essentialism is often called traditionalism or conservatism.
It assumes that the values of men are embedded in the universe,
waiting to be discovered and understood. In education, there are
some things the child must learn which tend the curriculum relatively
static. There is a core of essential and traditional subjects; certain
literary classic, language, religion, mathematics, science and history
and other materials.
NATURE
 Emphasis is on race experience or the social heritage.

ASSUMPTION
 The study of knowledge and skills for the individual are
imperative for him to become a productive member of the
society.
EDUCATIONAL AIM
 Education provides sound training of the fundamental skills.
 Education develops individuals to perform justly, skillfully, and
magnanimously.
CURRICULAR EMPHASIS
 Emphasis on the essential skills (3R’s) and essential subject
such as English, Math, and Foreign Language.
 Hard science and vocation courses

TEACHING METHODS
 Deductive method
 Drill method
 Recitation
 Giving assignment or homework
 Testing and evaluating
 Systematic analysis and synthesis
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
 Values of discipline, hard work, and respect for authority.
ROLE OF TEACHERS
 Provide stimulating activities for learning
 Prepare well-organized lesson to prove he is an authority of
instruction.
ROLE OF SCHOOL
 Ensure master of essential skills
 Prepare students for real life situation
 Teach students to communicate clearly and logically.
‘

EXISTENTIALISM

Man has no fixed nature and he shapes being lives. The

existentialist sees the world as personal subjectivity, where
goodness, truth and reality are individually defined. Reality is a world
of things, truth subjectivity chosen, and goodness, a matter of
freedom.
Existentialism believes that things are constantly
changing. It is based on the view that reality is what you experience.
It believes that truth is what words right now and that goodness
comes from group decision.
As a result, schools exist to discover and expand the
society we live in. Students study social experiences and solve
problems.
If school existed at all, they would be places that assist
students in knowing themselves and learning of their place in society.
 If subject matter existed, it would be a matter of
interpretation such as the arts, ethics or philosophy.
Teacher-student interaction would center on assisting
students in their personal learning journeys. Change in school
environments would be embraced as both natural and necessary
phenomenon.
NATURE
 Focuses on the experiences of the individuals.
 Offers individuals a way of thinking about the meaning of life.
ASSUMPTION
 Existence precedes essence

EDUCATIONAL AIM
 To train individual for significant and meaningful existence.
CURRICULAR EMPHASIS
 Subject-centered
 Literature
 History
 Arts for Aesthetic expression
 Humanities for ethical values
TEACHING METHODS

 Inquiry Approach
 Question-Answer Method
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
 Individual responsibility for decisions and preferences
ROLE OF TEACHERS
 Good provider of experiences
 Effective questioner
 Mental disciplinarian
ROLE OF SCHOOL
 Create an atmosphere for active interaction
 Plan better solution to their everyday problems
 Discuss the different situations based by an individual.

RECONSTRUCTIONALISM

The belief that man to a significant degree plan and control

his society, that in a democratic society this should be done in the
public interest, and that the school have significant part to play in the
process.
The philosophy of reconstructionism contains two major
premises:
1.) Society is in need of constant reconstruction or change, and
2.) Such social change involves a reconstruction of education in use
of education in reconstructing society.
NATURE
 Social change
 Schools should have initiative in reconstructing the present
social order.
 Believes that educational philosophies are based on one’s
culture.
ASSUMPTION
 Mankind has the intellectual technological and moral potential
to create a world civilization of abundance, health and human
capability.
EDUCATIONAL AIM
 Education enlivens the student’s awareness of different society
problems.
 Education based on the quest for a better society
CURRICULAR EMPHASIS
 Stresses learning that enables the individual to live in a global
milieu
 Controversial national and international issues.
 Emphasis on social sciences and social research methods;
examination of social economics and political problems; focus
on present and future trends.
TEACHING METHOD
 Community-based projects
 Problem-oriented method
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
 Provide vision for better world
ROLE OF TEACHERS
 Lead the young in designing programs for social, educational,
practical and economic change.
ROLE OF SCHOOL
 Primary agent of social change
 Critical examination of cultural heritage
 Center of controversy where students discuss controversial
issues, political and educational.

SUMMARY
The roots of realism date back as far as the origin of
idealism, and it was, in fact, a philosophical revolt against idealism.
Educational realism is concerned primarily with helping the child
understand and accept demands made upon him by laws of nature.
The students’ first task is to master what man has already come to
know, since knowledge exists external to him as part of social reality.
The students can be taught a problem-solving approach that will help
him to learn new things from reality. The real task of education is to
lead the child to establish effective relationships with the objects and
events that surround him and to save him from vain illusions.
 Idealism is in many ways the offspring of Greek and
Medieval rationalism. This was a belief that truth and knowledge do
not depend upon sense experience but can only be secured only
through reason. In education, the students must be helped reflect
through eternal understanding of ideal experience. Hence, Idealism is
ideal-centered.
Pragmatism, on the other hand, is a school philosophy
which originated in the United State in the late 1800s. It is
characterized by the insistence on consequences, utility and
practicality as vital components of truth. Pragmatism does not hold,
however, that just anything that is useful or practical should be
regarded as true, or anything that helps us to survive merely short-
item.
The perennialist shares with the essentialist the idea that
the primary goal of education is to develop the intellect. However, in
the perennialist view learner should pursue truth for it won sake, not
because it happens to be useful for some vocation. Essentialists
argue that the schools should be academic rather than social
agencies; curricular organization should based on carefully selected
and well-defined kill and subjects; the teacher should be an authority
figure, and learning should be teacher-directed.

Progressive education must be understood as both a

general movement to reform American life and education.
Progressivism is often associated with reconstructionism and more
specifically with John Dewey’s pragmatism and experimentalism.
Rooted in the Philosophical school of pragmatism, progressivism is
the counterpoint to both essentialism and perennialism.
 THE REALISTS

ARISTOTLE (384-322 BC)

 Greek philosopher and scientist, who shares with

Plato and Socrates the distinction the most famous
ancient philosophers.
 Aristotle was born at Stagira, in Macedonia, the son of
physician to the royal court. At the age of 17, he went
to Athens to study at Plato’s Academy. He remained
there for about 20 years, as a student and then as a
teacher.
 Founder of Realism
 He invented formal logic.
 He viewed virtue as the “golden mean.”
Virtue is conceived with as various feelings and
actions, for it is in them that there can be excess and
defect. To feel them when we ought to. On which
occasions, toward whom, and as we should is the
“mean” that is the best state for man to be in, and this
is virtue.
 He saw a basic duality in human nature in that human
being posses an immaterial soul or mind as well as a
material body. Unlike animals, the human mind or
intellect gives one the power to think. The truly
educated person is guiding his ethical conduct and
political behavior.
 “Nature is a primary self-evident reality, a starting
point of philosophizing.”
 One of the most distinctive of Aristotle’s philosophic
contributions was new notion of causality. Each thing
 or event, he thought, has more than one “reason” that
helps to explain what, why, and where it is.

HARRIS BROUDY

 A contemporary realist focused his work on the value

of education to “live the good life,” which consists of
cultivating human potentialities to their highest level
through self-determination, self-realization, and self-
integration.

JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704)

 An English philosopher
 His major work: “An Essay Concerning Human
understanding” it describes his theory of how the
minds function in learning about the world.
 “A good life was life of pleasure.”
 “The primary qualities of experience exist in the
physical world.”
 “The mind of the child at birth is similar to a blank
sheet of paper upon which the world proceeds to write
its impression.”

JOHN COMENIUS

 “Mind is like a mirror receiving images from the

physical world.”

JOHANN HENRICH PESTALOZZI

 “Teaching should proceed from the known to the

unknown (Principle of Apperception), from the
concrete to the abstract; from the learner’s immediate
lesson to the distant and remote.”
 That the aim of education was the social regeneration
of humanity.

JEAN JACQUES ROSSEAU (1712-1778)

 A Swiss-French philosopher, writer, political theorist,
and self-taught composer.
 Born in Geneva, Switzerland, and died in
Ermenonville (28 miles northeast of Paris). His mother
died at his birth and his father abandoned him as a
child.
 Rousseau contended that man is essentially good, a
“noble savage” when in the state of nature (the state
of all the “other animals”, and the condition man was
in before the creation of civilization and society), and
that good people are made unhappy and corrupted
by their experiences in society.
 He viewed society as “artificial” and “corrupt” and held
that the furthering of society results on the continuing
unhappiness of man. Rousseau’s essay. “Discourse
on the arts and Sciences” (1750), argued that the
advancement of art and science had not been
beneficial to mankind.
 He proposed that the progress of knowledge had
made government more powerful and had crushed
individual liberty. He concluded that material progress
had actually undermined the possibility of sincere
friendship, replacing it with jealousy, fear and
suspicion.
 Rousseau’s ideas about education have profoundly
influenced modern educational theory. He minimizes
the importance of book learning, and recommends
that a child’s emotions should

be educated before his reason. He placed a special

emphasis on learning by experience.
 “Man is born free but everywhere is in chains.”

“In reality the difference is, that the savage lives within
himself while social man lives outside himself and can
only live in the opinion of others, so that seems to
receive the feeling of his own existence only from the
 judgment of others concerning him. It is not my
present purpose to insist on the difference to good
and evil which arises from this disposition, in spite of
our many fine works on morality, or to show how,
everything being reduced to appearances, there is but
art and mummery in even honor, friendship, virtue,
and often vise itself, of which we at length learn the
secret of boasting, to show, in short, how abject we
are, and never daring to ask ourselves in the midst of
so much philosophy, benevolence, politeness, and of
such sublime codes of morality, we have nothing to
show for ourselves but a frivolous and deceitful
appearance, honor without virtue, reasons without
wisdom, and pleasure without happiness.”

 “Let us return to nature.”

In his earlier writings Rousseau identified nature with
the primitive state of savage man. Later, especially
under the criticism of Voltaire, Rousseau took nature
to mean the spontaneity of the process by which man
builds his personality and his world. Nature thus
signifies interiority, integrity, spiritual freedom, as
opposed to that imprisonment and enslavement which
society imposes in the name of civilization. Hence, to
go back to nature means to restore to man the forces
of this natural process, to place him outside every
oppressing bond of society and the prejudices of
civilization.

 He defined his plan of education in Emile; saw the

child as an offspring of nature. His writings
represented an attack as an age of reason, gave
impetus to the romantic moment by emphasizing
feelings. He had doubts some traditional teachings
and provided new direction for education. His book,
Emile was considered by some as the best book in
education since Plato’s “The Republic.”
 THE IDEALISTS

PLATO (circa 428 c-347 BC)

 Greek philosopher, one of the most creative and

influential thinkers in Western philosophy.

 Plato was born to an aristocratic family Athens. His

father, Ariston, was believed to have descended from
the early Kings of Athens. Perictione, his mother, was
distantly related to the 6th-century BC lawmaker
Solon. When Plato was a child, his father died, and
his mother married Pyrilampes, who was an associate
of the statesman Pericles.

 As a young man Plato’s political ambitions, but he

became disillusioned by the political leadership in
Athens. He eventually became a disciple of Socrates,
accepting his basic philosophy and dialectical style of
debate; the pursuit of truth through questions,
answers, and additional questions. Plato witnessed
the death of Socrates at hands of the Athenian
democracy in 399 BC. Perhaps fearing for his own
safety, he left Athens temporarily and traveled to Italy.
Sicily, and Egypt.

 Plato’s writings were in dialogue form; philosophical

ideas were advanced, discussed, and criticized in the
context of a conversation of debate involving two or
more persons. The earlier collection of Plato’s work
includes 35 dialogues and 13 letters. The authenticity
of a few of the dialogues and most of the letters has
been disputed.

 He described how the human mind achieves

knowledge, and indicated what knowledge consists of
by means of his works:
 1.) The Allegory of the Cave describes individuals
chained deep within the recesses of a cave. Bound so
that vision is restricted, they cannot see one another.
The only thing visible is the wall of the cave upon
which appear shadows cast by models statues of
animals and objects that are passed before a brightly
burning fire. Breaking free, one of the individuals
escapes from the cave into the light of day. With the
aid of the sun, that person sees for the first time the
real world and returns to the cave with the message
that the only things they have seen heretofore are
shadows and appearances and that the real world
awaits them if they are willing to struggle free of their
bonds. The shadowy environment of the cave
symbolizes for Plato the physical world of
appearances. Escape into the sun-filled setting
outside the cave symbolizes the transition to the real
world, the world full and perfect being, the world of
Form, is the proper object of knowledge.

This allegory suggests that most mankind dwell in the

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
mmmmmmmmmm
darkness of the cave. It is the function of education to
lead men out of the cave into the world of shadow.
Education is not simply a matter of putting knowledge
into person’s soul that does not possess it any more
than vision is putting sight into blind eyes.

2.) Methods of the Divided Line

In the process of discovering true knowledge, the
minds moves through four stages of development:
2.1 imaginary
2.2 beliefs
2.3 thinking, and
2.4 perfect intelligences

3.) Forms of Ideas

 It represents a serious attempt to explain the nature
of existence.

 The Republic, Plato’s major political work, is

concerned with the question of justice and therefore
with the questions “what is a just state” and “who is
just individual?

The ideal state, according to Plato, is

composed of three classes. The merchant class
maintains the economic structure of the state. The
military class meets security needs, and the
philosopher-kings provide political leadership.
A particular person’s class is determined by an
educational process that begins a birth and proceeds
until that person has reached the maximum level of
education compatible with interest and ability. Those
who complete the entire educational process become
philosopher-kings. They are the ones whose minds
have been so developed that they are able to grasp
the Forms and, therefore, to make the wisest
decisions. Indeed, Plato’s ideal educational system is
primarily structured so as to produce philosopher-
kings.

 “Every individual is born good, and capable to

senses perceive, and think.”

SOCRATES (469-399 BC)

 A Greek philosopher and teacher.

 His noble life and courageous death, together with
his teachings, have him one of the most admired
figures in history.
 He believed that human nature leads people to act
correctly and in agreement with knowledge.
  He felt that evil and wrong actions arise from
ignorance and the failure to investigate why
people act as they do.
 He devoted himself completely seeking truth and
goodness.
 “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
 “No man knowingly does evil.”
 “He was a respected teacher, chiefly interested in
helping people become well.
 The surest way to attain reliable knowledge was
through the practice of disciplined conversations, a
method he called “dialectic.”
 “Knowledge and virtue was the same thing. If
virtue has to do with it, helping the soul as good as
possible, it is necessary to know what makes the
soul good.”

RENE DESCARTES (1596-1650)

 A French philosopher, scientist, and

mathematician
 The father of modern philosophy
 It was probably during the years of his residence
in the Netherlands that Descartes wrote his first
major work. Essais phylosophiques
(Philosophical Essays), published in 1637. The
work contained four parts: an essay on ,
geometry, another optics, and third on meteors,
and Discours de la methode) (Discourse on
Method), which described his philosophical
speculations. This was followed by other
philosophical works, among them Meditationes
de Prima Philosophia (Meditations on First
Philosophy, 1641; revised 1642) and Principia
Philosophiae ( The Principle of Philosophy,
1644.) The latter volume was dedicated to
 Princess Elizabeth Stuart of Bohemia, who lived
in the Netherlands and with whom Descartes had
formed a deep friendship. In 1649 Descartes was
invited to the court of Queen Christina of Sweden
in stock to Holm to give the queen instruction in
philosophy. The rigors of the northern winter
brought on the pneumonia that caused his death
in 1650.
 The single sure fact from which his investigations
began was expressed by in the famous words
Cogito, ergo sum,” I think, therefore I am.” From
this postulate that a clear consciousness of his
thinking proved his own existence, he argued the
existence of God. God, according to Descartes’
philosophy, created two classes of substance
that make up the whole of reality. One class was
thinking substances or minds, and the other was
extended substances, or minds, and the other
was extended substances, or bodies.

THE PRAGMATIST / EXPERIMENTALISTS

JOHN DEWEY (1859-1952)

 An American and educator
 Founder of pragmatism
 Invented semiotics (semioses- “signs” “interpretation”)
 He was one of the first philosophers to be influenced
by psychology and the theory of evolution put forward
by the British naturalist Charles Darwin.
 He was one of the leaders of the movement known
pragmatism.
 He believed that we use intelligence as instrument to
cope with a conflict or challenge. His philosophy is
called instrumentalism ( all ideas are instruments,
therefore, true ideas are those that work best for
attaining human goals).
  He urged that philosophy become a tool for dealing
with specific problems of all human beings rather than
with the remote problems of philosophers.
 He advocated that the method science be used to
reshape education, morals, politics and society.
 In every area of life, he called for experimenting and
trying out new methods.
 As an educator, he opposed that traditional method of
learning by memory under the authority of teachers.

CHARLES SANDERS PEIRCE (1839-1914)

 He was born September 10, 1839 in Cambridge,

Massachusetts, and he died on April 19, 1914 in
Milford, Pennsylvania.
 His writing extends from about 1857 until near his
death, a period of approximately 57 years. His
published works run to about 12,000 printed pages and
his known unpublished manuscripts run to about
80,000 handwritten pages.
 The topics on which he wrote have an immense range,
from mathematics and the physical sciences at the
other extreme, to economics and the social sciences at
the other extreme.
 Pierce was often in dire financial straits, and
sometimes he managed to survive only because of the
charity of friends, for example that of his old friend
William James.
 From his father, Charles Sanders Peirce received most
of the substance of his early education as well as good
deal of intellectual encouragement of stimulation.
 His father’s didactic technique mostly looks the form of
setting interesting problem for his son and checking
Charles’s solution to them. In this challenging
instructional atmosphere Charles acquired his lifelong
 habit of thinking through philosophical and scientific
problem entirely on his own. To this habit, perhaps, is
to be attributed Charles Peirce’s considerable
originality.

WILLIAMS JAMES (1842-1910)

 In William James’s view, derived from that of Peirce

but with a different emphasis, pragmatism is in the first
instance a theory of meaning.

 He asked us to imagine a man on a camping trip trying

to catch a glimpse of a squirrel on the opposite side of
a tree. The squirrel is clinging to the trunk, belly
against the wood, so that he and the man are directly
facing one another, although the tree itself keeps either
from seeing the other. As the man moves around the
tree to try to see the critter, it moves correspondingly,
keeping the tree between them.

James asked us to imagine, further, that an argument

breaks out within the camping party, whether the man
was “going around” the squirrel or not. One faction
contends that he was not- the man and squirrel were
face- to- face the whole time, so neither went around
the other. To another faction, this seems absurd! The
man went around the tree; the squirrel was on the tree,
so the man necessarily went around the squirrel!

 The point of the story was that, in the end, the campers
realized there were simply confused by an ambiguity in
the phrase “to go around.” This ambiguity cab is
resolved by tracing the “practical consequences” of
going around. Do we mean begin to the north, east,
south, and west of some central objects? Then the
man went around the squirrel. Do we mean being in
front, to the side, in back, and to the other side of that
central object? Then the man failed to go around the
squirrel. Likewise with such notions are freedom or
fate, materialism, pluralism, monism- we must trace
 practical consequences to know what we mean by the
terms we employ so as to avoid interminable
confusion.

 James advocated pragmatism as a means of clearing

up precisely such confusions that, he believed, were
ubiquitous in philosophy.

 ”Theory of knowledge is the theory of truth.”

 One of the words to which he applied this approach

was truth. He could find no content to the ideas of truth
held either by the British empiricists of his day such as
Bernard Russel or in that held by the post-Hegelian
idealist such as Josiah Royce. Their interminable
dispute with one another could only be settled the
campers’ dispute was settled – by attention to practical
consequences. So he offered as the content of truth
the hypothesis that it is the expedient in the way of our
thinking – “expedient in almost any fashion; and
expedient in the long run and on the whole of course.”

 James made no sharp distinction between the theory

of truth and the theory of knowledge. The distinction
became a canonical part of Anglo-American
philosophy sometimes James’ death in 1910. One
might well rephrase James’ theory of knowledge, or of
the warrant of truth belief, rather than of truth itself.

RICHARD RORTY

 Reworks pragmatism
 Rorty has written “Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature”
(1980). “Consequences of Pragmatism” (1982)
“Contingency, Irony and Solidarity” (1989) and other
works.

 In “Consequences,” he calls pragmatism a “vague,

ambitious, and overworked word” but offers three
characterization of it that he endorses. First,
pragmatism is “simply anti-essentialism applied to
notions like “truth”, “knowledge”, ”language”, “morality”
and similar objects of philosophical theorizing,
“Second, pragmatism is the denial of any metaphysical
difference between what is and what ought to be-
physics and ethics. The pattern of all inquiry under
either of those arbitrary headings must be the same,
“deliberation concerning the relative attractions of
various concrete alternatives, “Third, pragmatism
treats objectivity as inter-subjectivity, the convergence
of differing minds upon common conclusions.

THE PERENNIALIST

ROBERT MAYNARD HUTCHINS (1899-1977)

 An American educator who criticized over-

specialization and sought to balance the college
curriculum and to maintain in the Western intellectual
tradition.

 He argued about the purposes of higher education,

deploring undue emphasis on nonacademic pursuits
(Chicago abandoned intercollegiate football in 1939)
and criticizing the tendency toward specialization and
vocationalism.
  The university abandoned most of his reforms,
however, after this departure and returned to the
educational practices of other major American
universities.

 He was active in forming the Committee to Frame a

World Constitution (1945), led the Commissions on
Freedom of the Press (1946), and vigorously defended
academic freedom, opposing faculty loyalty oaths in
the 50’s. after serving as until associate director of the
Ford Foundation (from 1951), he became president of
the Fund for the Republic (1954) and in 1959 founded
the Center for the Study of Democratic Institution
(Santa Barbara, Calif.) as the fund’s main activity.

 The Center was an attempt to approach Hutchins’s

ideal of “a community of scholars” discussing a wide
range of issues-individual freedom, international order,
ecological imperatives, the rights of minorities and of
woman, and the nature of the good life, among others.

 From 1943 until his retirement in 1974 Hutchins was

chairman of the Board of Editors of Encyclopedia
Britanica, Inc. he was editor in chief of the 54-volume
Greet Books of the Western World (1952) and
coeditor, from 1961, with Mortimer J. Adler, of an
annual, The Great Ideas Today.

 He views on educational and public issues appeared in

No Friendly Voice (1936). The Highest Learning in
America (1936). Education for Freedom (1943), and
others. Later books include The University of Utopia
(1953) and the Learning Society (1968).

MORTIMER JEROME ADLER (1902-2001)

 Adler was born in New York City.

  After dropping out of high school at age of 14, he worked
as a copy boy for the New York Sun. Wanting to become
a journalist, he took writing classes at night where he
discovered the works of men he would come to call
heroes: Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, John Locke,
John Stuart Mill and others. He went on to study
philosophy at Columbia University. Though he failed to
complete the necessary physical education requirements
for a bachelor’s degree, he stayed at the university and
eventually was given a teaching position and was
awarded a doctorate in philosophy.

 Adler was appointed to the philosophy faculty at the

University of Chicago in 1930, where he met its president
Robert Hutchins, with whom he founded the Great Books
of the Western World program. He founded and served as
director of the Institute for Philosophical Research in
1952. For a long time he was Chairman of the Board of
Editors of the Encyclopedia Britannica, and influenced
many of the policies of the 15th edition.
 He introduced the Paidea Program; a grade-school
curriculum centered guided reading and discussion of
difficult works (as judged for each grade).

 With Max Weismann, he founded The Center for the

Study of The Great Ideas.

 Adler long strove to bring philosophy to the masses, and

some of his works (such as How to Read a Book) became
popular bestsellers. Adler was often aided in his thinking
and writing by Arthur Rubin, an old friend from his
Columbia undergraduate days.

JACQUES MARITAIN (1882-1973)

  He was born in Paris. A French Philosopher and one of
the most influential Roman Catholic Scholar of the
90’s.

 He was a leader of neo-Thomism, a revival of the

philosophical system developed by the medieval
theologian Saint Thomas Acquinas. It attempted to
reconcile faith and reason.

 His work: “The Degree of Knowledge” (1932)

 Analyzed the structure of thought, identifying the

three types of knowledge:

1. scientific knowledge of empirical reality;

2. metaphysical knowledge of the principles of

“being as such,” and

3. supranational knowledge, knowledge beyond

the compression of human reason.

 He taught the Catholic Institute from 1914 to 1939 and

was the French ambassador to the Vatican from 1945
to 1948.

THE EXISTENTIALISTS

SOREN AABYE KIERKEGAARD (1813-1855)

 A Danish philosopher and religious thinker, he

considered one of the founders of existentialism.
 He has greatly influenced religious thought,
philosophy, and literature.
 His many books are concerned with the nature of
religious faith, especially Christianity.
 His Philosophy:

 He held that religious faith is irrational. He

argued that religious beliefs cannot be supported
by rational argument, for true faith involves
accepting what is “absurd.”

 He insisted on the absurdity or logical

impossibility of the Christian belief that God who
is infinite and immortal, was born as Jesus
Christ, who was finite and mortal.

 “Fear and Trembling” (1846)

He cited another example of the absurdity of

religion in Genesis 22, where God commands
Abraham, for no apparent reason, to kill his only
son. Isaac. He found this story of God’s
unreasonableness so fascinating and important
that he wrote an entire book about it.

He argued that God requires us to hold beliefs

and perform actions that are ridiculous and
immoral by rational standards. Because
Abraham had obeyed God’s outrageous
commands without trying to understand or justify
them, he was Kierkegaard’s religious ideal, “the
knight of faith.”

 “Concluding Unscientific Postscript” (1846)

He argued that nobody can attain religious faith

by an objective examination of the evidence, but
only by a subjective choice, “a leap of faith.”
 He argued objective evidence supporting a belief
genuine or true. Rather, true belief is measured
by the sincerity and passion of the believer.
Thus, he concluded that in religion, ‘truth is
subjectivity.”

 He bitterly criticized all attempts to make religion

rational. He held that God want us to obey Him,
not to argue for Him.

 He regarded those who offered rational proofs for

religion as having “betrayed religion with Judas
kiss.”

 He became convinced that many people who

were officially Christians and who considered
themselves Christians did not possess the
unconditional faith demanded by Christianity. He
often attacked the Evangelical Lutheran Church
of Denmark.

JEAN-PAUL SARTRE (1905-1980)

 He was French existentialist philosopher who

expressed his ideas in many novels, plays, and short
stories, as well as in theoretical works.

 “Nausea” (1938)

He described the horror and mystery which man

experience when he considers the unexplainable fact
of thing’s existence.

 “Being and Nothingness” (1943)

 His chief philosophical work about the nature and
forms of existence or being.

He claimed that human existence, which is called

“being-for-itself, is radically different from the existence
of such inanimate objects simply are what they are;
however, people are whatever they choose to be.

He said that people are not coward, for example, in

the simple way that a table is only a table. A person is
only a coward by choice. Person, unlike a table, has no
fixed character or “essence.”

 “ Existentialism and Humanism” (1946)

He defined existentialism as the doctrine that, for
humankind, existence precedes essence.

 He believed that people are completely free, but are

afraid to recognize this freedom and accept full
responsibility for their behavior, which such freedom
implies. Thus, people tend to deceive themselves
about their true situation. Throughout his philosophical
and literary works. Sartre examined and analyzed the
varied and subtle forms of self- deception.

 He criticized Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of

human behavior and offer his own “existential
psychoanalysis.” He said that the ultimate motive for all
human behavior is the desire to achieve perfect self-
sufficiency by becoming the cause of one’s own
existence. However, he argued that his goal is self-
contradictory and impossible to attain. Therefore, he
considered all human activity ultimately futile.
  “Man is useless passion.” He identified this idea of
perfectly self-sufficient beings who are the cause of
their own existence as the traditional idea of God.
According to him, each of us wants to become God,
and God cannot possibly exist.

 “Critique of Dialectical Reason” (1964)

He presented his political and sociological theories,

which he considered to be a form of Marxism.

THE PROGRESSIVISTS

WILLIAM HEARD KILPATRICK (1871-1965)

 An American educator, college president, and

philosopher of education.

 During the 1920’s and 1930’s. Kilpatrick one of the

most influential progressive educators of the period.

 He also viewed by scholars as a disciple of Dewey

and a popularized of the latter’s educational theory.

 Kilpatrick shared with Dewey the desire to have

school curriculum reflect to some extent students’
interest and purposes and to place problem-solving at
the core of the educational process. He moved
somewhat beyond Dewey in the extent of his position
to the traditional curriculum, organized in advance and
presented to children in the form of fixed subject-
matter.
  His theory of learning emphasize what he called
“purposely activity” engaged in by pupils as they
worked on a variety of projects.

 His methodological views were set forth in “The

Project Method,” an essay that appeared in the
“Teacher College Record in 1918 and was later
expanded into a book entitled Foundations of Method
(1925).

 His concern for the child’s interests and purposes did

not result in an excessive educational individualism.
Like his mentor John Dewey, he centered factors to
bridge the gap between the child-centered and the
society, centered factions of the progressive
educational movement.

 “The Educational Frontier” (1933)

A yearbook that stressed the need for formal

education to focus on contemporary social issues and
problems and to prepare children to participate
intelligently in the formulation of ideas for social
change.

JOHN DEWEY’S Relationship to Progressivism

 He wanted students to learn through action and being

involved in the processes that will get to the end
product.
  He wanted students to work on hand-on projects so
learning would take place rather than memorization.

 In a regular classroom students would have to exercise

their brain by problem solving and thinking critically,
resulting in learning (even though the students may not
even know it). This allows the individual’s brain to
develop, so as the individual’s learning becomes
easier.

 School would be a lot of hands-on learning and the

progression of education would not end.

 THE SOCIAL RECOSTRUCTIONISTS

THEODORE BRAMELD (1904-1987)

 He was the founder of social reconstructionism in

reaction against the realities of the World War II.

 He championed the educational role of transforming

the existing culture and the need for students to be
able to establish useful goals.

 In his work “Education for the emerging Age,” he

suggested that we give objectives or goals not for the
sake of credits or even knowledge as such; we give
them so that people of all races, creed, classes, and
cultures may realize a more satisfying life for
themselves and for their fellows.

 “Knowledge, training, skill, - all these are mean to the

end of such social self-realization.”
  He recognized the potential for either human
annihilation through technology and human cruelty or
the capacity to create a beneficent society using
technology and human compassion.

 Brameld was best known for his theory of

reconstructionism, which received widespread
attention in educational circles.

 He held that a system of public education that is aware

of the findings of the behavioral sciences could bring
about fundamental changes in social and economic
structure of society.

 His writings include Ends and Means in Education

(1950), Philosophies of Education and Cultural
Perspective (1955), Toward a Reconstructed
Philosophy of Education (1956), The Climactic
Decades (1970), and Tourism as Cultural Learning
(1977).

GEORGE SYLVESTER COUNTS (1889-1974)

 An American educator, George Counts recognized that

education was the means of preparing people for
creating this new social order.

 “Social values and institutions did not remain static,

thus, education philosophies too must reconstructed to
maintain their relevance.”
  The works of Counts provided the key issue for
reconstructionism when he posed the question, “Dare
the school build a new social order? “ His concern that
American’s schools did not serve the needs of most of
the children arose from their impact of the Great
Depression in the 1930’s and in his belief that only a
small favored group was being prepared for the
challenges of a technological and global future.

 Counts was well ahead of his time when he wrote in

1952:
“The supreme task of the present and the coming
generation in all countries, surpassing any domestic
issue, is the development of the institutions, the
outlook, the morality and the development of the
institutions, the outlook, the morality and the defenses
of world community. All geographical barriers,
including distance, have been surmounted. Retreat
into the past is impossible; perpetuation of the present
means chaos and disaster.”
 He further believed that teachers play a critical role in
shaping culture, for if they are interested in the lives of
children – the central responsibility with which they are
charged by the state – they must work boldly and
without ceasing for a better social order.

PAULO REGLUS NEVES FREIRE (1921-1997)

 He was a Brazilian whose experiences living in poverty

led him to champion education and literacy as the
vehicle for social change.

 Excerpts from “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”

POLITICS AND EDUCATION

Autocracy

An autocracy is a form of government in which the political

power is held by a single, self –appointed ruler. The term autocrat is
derived fdrom Greek word ‘αυᴛoᴋράᴛωρ (lit. “self-ruler”, or who rules
by one’s self”). Compare with oligarchy (“rule by few”) and democracy
(“rule by the people”).

Today it is usually seen as synonymous with despot , tyrant and

/ or dictator, though each of these terms originally had separate and
distinct meaning.

Autocracy is synonymous with totalitarianism , as this concept

was precisely forged to distinguish modern regimes that appeared in
1923 from traditional dictatorships. Nor is it synonymous with military
dictatorship, as these often take the form of “collective presidencies”
such as the South American iuntas.Howver, an autocracy may br
totalitarian or be a military dictatorship.

The term monarchy also differs in that it emphasizes the

hereditary characteristics, though some Slavic monarchs, specifically
Russian Emperors traditionally included the title “autocrat” as part o
their official styles. This usage originated in the Byzantine Empire,
where the term autokratṓr was traditionally employed in Greek to
translate the Latin imperator and was used along with Basileus to
mean “emperor”. This use remains current in the modern Greek
language, where the term is used for any emperor (e.g. the Emperor
of Japan). Regardless of the actual power of the monarch .
Historically . many monarchs ruled autocratically but eventually their
power was diminished and dissolved with the introduction of
constitutions giving people the power to make dicisions for
themselves through elected bodies of government.

The autocrat needs some kind of [power structure to rule .Very

few rulers were in the position to rule with only their personal
charisma and skills, however great these may be, without the help of
others. Most historical autocrats depended on their nobles , the
military , the priesthood or others, who could turn against the ruler
and despoise or murder them. As such , it can be difficult to draw a
clear line between historical autocracies and oligarchies.

Democracy

Democracy is a form of government in which power is held

directly or indirectly by citizens under a free electoral system. It is
derived from the Greek ”popular government” which was coined
from (demos), “people” and (kratos), “rule, strength” in the
middle of the 5th-4th century BC to denote the political systems then
existing in some Greek city-states, notably Athens following a popular
uprising in 508 BC.

In political theory, democracy describes a small number of

related forms of government and also a political philosophy.Even
though there is no universally accepted definition of democracy ,
there are two principles that any definition of democracy includes .
The first principle is that all members of the society have equal
access to power and the second that all members en joy universally
recognized freedom and liberties.

There are several varieties of democracy , some of which

provide better representation and more freedoms for their citizens
ttan others .However ,if any democracy is not carefully legislated to
avoid unevendistribution of political power with balances , such as
separation of powers. A branch of system could be accumulate power
and become harmful to the democracy itself. The majority rule is
often described as a characteristicfeature of minority to be abused by
rthe tyranny of the majority. An essential process representative
democracies are competitive elections that are fair both substantively
aNd procedurally.Furthermore, freedom of political expression,
freedom of speech and freedom of the press are essentialso that
citizens are informed and able to vote in their personal interests.

Popular sovereignty is common but not a universal motivating

philosophy for establishing a democracy. In some countries,
democracy is based on the philosophical principle of equal rights.
Many people use the terms “democracy” as shorthand for liberal
democracy, which may include additional elements such as political
pluralism, equality before the law, the right to petition elected officials
for redness of grievances, due process, civil liberties, human rights,
and elements of civil society outside the government. In United
States, separation of powers often cited as a supporting attribute, but
in other countries, such as the United Kingdom, the dominant
philosophy is parliamentary sovereignty (though in practice judicial
independence is generally maintained). In other cases, “democracy”
is used to mean direct democracy. Though the term “democracy” is
typically used in the context of a political state, the principles are also
applicable to private organizations and other groups.
 Democracy has its origins in Ancient Greece. However other
cultures have significantly contributed to the evolution of democracy
such as Ancient India, Ancient Rome, Europe, and North and South
America. Democracy has been called the “last form of government”
and has spread considerably across the globe. Suffrage has been
expanded in many jurisdictions over time from relatively narrow
groups (such as wealthy men of a particular ethnic group), but still
remains a controversial issue disputed territories, areas with
significant immigration, and countries that exclude certain
demographic groups.

OBLIGARCHY

(Forms of government)

“Oligarchy” ([[Greek languageIGreek]] {{ Polytonic}}, “Oligarkhia”) is a

form of government where [[political powerIpower]] effectively rests
with a small segment of society distinguished by royalty, wealth,
family, military influence or religious. The word oligarchy is from the
Greek words for “few” and “rule”. Such states are often controlled by
politically powerful families whose children are heavily conditioned
and mentored to the heirs of the power of the oligarchy. This type of
power by its very nature may not be exercised openly; the oligarchs
preferring to remain “the power behind the throne”, exerting control
through economics means. Oligarchies have been tyrant throughout
history, being completely reliant on public to exist. Although Aristotle
pioneered the use of the term as a synonym for rule by the rich, for
which the exact term is plutocracy, oligarchy is not always a rule by
wealth, as oligarchs can simply be a privileged group. Some city-
states from ancient Greece were oligarchies.

Oligarchy vs Monarchy
Early Society may have become oligarchies as an outgrowth of an
alliance between rival chieftains or as the result of caste system.
Oligarchies can often become instruments of transformation, by
insisting that monarchs or dictators share power, thereby opening the
door to power-sharing by other elements of society while oligarchy
means “the rule of the few,” monarchy means “the rule of the one”.
One example of power-sharing from one person to larger group of
persons occurred when England/English nobles banded together in to
force a reluctant Monarch King John of England to sign the Magna
Carta, a tacit recognition both of King John’s waning political power
and of the existence of an incipient oligarchy the nobility. As English
society continued to growth and develop, Magna Carta was
repeatedly revised1216, 1217, and 1225, guaranteeing greater rights
to greater numbers of people, thus setting the stage for Kingdom of
England/English constitutional monarchy. Oligarchy is also compared
with Aristocracy and Communism. In an aristocracy, a small group of
wealthy or socially prominent citizens control the government.
Members of this high social class claim to be, or are considered by
others to be, superior to the other people because of family ties,
social rank, wealth, or religious affiliation. The word “aristocracy”
comes from the Greek term meaning rule by the best. Many
aristocrats have inherited titles of nobility such as duke or baron.

Examples of oligarchies

Some examples include Vaishali, the First French Republic

government under the French Directory, and the Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth only the nobility could vote. A modern example of
oligarchy could be seen in South Africa during the 20 th century. Here,
the basic characteristics of oligarchy are particularly easy to observe,
since the South African form of oligarchy was based on Race
classification of human beings. After the Second Boer War, a tacit
agreement was reached between English-and Afikaans-speaking
whites. Together, they make up about twenty percent of the
population. Whites had access to virtually all the educational and
trade opportunities, and they proceeded to deny this to the black
majority even further than before. Although this process had been
going on since the mid-18th century, after 1948 it became official
government policy and became known worldwide as apartheid. This
lasted until the arrival of democracy of South Africa in 1994,
punctuated by the transition to a democratically-elected government
dominated by the black majority.

Meiji Restoration rulers from Japan’s westernization era were also

known as an oligarchy in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Capitalism as a social system is sometimes described as an

oligarchy. Socialist argues that in a capitalist society, power-
economic, cultural and political-rests in the hands of the capitalist
class. Communist states have also been seen as oligarchies, being
ruled by a class with special privileges, the nomenklatura.

Russia s been labeled an oligarchy because of the power certain

individuals, the Business oligarch often perform Nomenklatura, who
gained great wealth after the fall of Communism. Critics have argued
that this happened in illegitimate ways and was due to Political
corruption. Russia ranked 143rd out of 179 countries in 2007
Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index.

Several nations in Latin America have long functioned as oligarchies,

where small, mostly European-descended elite dominate the
economy, politics, and society.

The concept of an “oligarchic democracy” is one which some scholars

attribute to Ancient Rome and the United States. Marxist Ellen
Meiksins Wood writes, that it “conveys a truth about U.S. politics
every bit as telling as its application to ancient Rome. It is no accident
that the Founding Fathers of the U.S. Republic looked to Roman
models for inspiration in making the federalist case, adopting Roman
names a pseudonyms and conceiving of themselves as latterday
Catos, forming a natural aristocracy of republican virtue. Americans
today still have a representative body called the Senate, and their
republic is still watched over by the Aquila Roman/Roman eagle,
albeit in its Bald Eagle/American form. Faced with the distasteful
specter of democracy, they sought ways to redefine that unpalatable
concept to accommodate aristocratic rule, producing a hybrid,
“representative democracy,” which was clearly meant to achieve an
effect similar to the ancient Rome idea of the “mixed constitution,” in
fact, an “oligarchic democracy”. See Monthly Review, July-August,
1989. However, the constitution and state laws have since been
modified, with the removal of the original property requirement for
voting, as well as giving the vote to women and blacks.

A number of critics argue that the United States political system is,
itself, an oligarchic structure. Third party candidates stand little
chance of election to national office, due to the enormous monetary
capital needed to purchase advertising time and to make other key
connections in order to gain sufficient attention from the electorate.
Since large donors fuel national political races, expecting due
compensation in turn for funding the winners’ campaigns, it is difficult
to distinguish between the current situation and societies most
commonly recognize as oligarchies. It is, many feel, a return to
aristocratic rule, in which the common people have little control over
their political fate; feelings of being “sold out” frequently lead to
apathy, now recognized as the most common problem in American
politics.

The Iron Law of Oligarchy

Some authors, such as Zulma Riley, Keith Riley, Mathew Marquess,

and Robert Michels, believe that any political system eventually
evolves into an oligarchy. This theory is called the iron law of
oligarchy. According to this school of thought, modern democracy
should be considered as elected oligarchies. In these systems, actual
differences between viable political rivals are small, the Oligarchic
Elitism impose strict limits on what constitutes an ‘acceptable’ and
‘respectable’ political position, and politicians’ careers depend heavily
on unelected economic and media elites.

STATE AND EDUCATION

I. PLURALISM

The theory of pluralism states that reality consists of true or

more independent element. It means that the society is being
preceded not only by the government but by other social enterprise
such as the family and the church. This pluralist theory aims to
protect the society from the shadow of governmental tyranny and
they have persistently tried to reduce the arrogance of the state. They
have made a written constitution to delimit the powers of government.
Through this constitution, the government has no absolute powers
and other social agency is being guided by other organization. In this
way the society is variety of different ways of doing things.

II. TOTALITARIANISM

The totalitarianism theory is a concept used to describe a

political system whereby a store regulates every aspect of public and
private life. It aims total transformation and control of society. It holds
on to an organismic theory of society.

The totalitarian would probably follow “Hegel” principle that “the

child has no chance of becoming a full-fledged man except through
education for citizenship. Similarly, the only way the child can make
his will effective is to learn to will what the states wants him to will. In
other words, the child is educated not only solely by the state but
eventually exclusively for the state as well. This, the state comes is
assume ethical as well as political sovereignty in the education of its
custody.

Pluralism
 Pluralism is, in the general sense, the acknowledgment of
diversity. The concept is used, often in different ways, in wide range
of issues. In politics, pluralism is often considered by proponents of
modern democracy to be in the interests of its citizens, and so
political pluralism is one of its important features.

The term pluralism is also used to denote the theoretical

standpoint on state and power-which to varying degrees suggest that
pluralism is an adequate model of how power is distributed in
societies. For information on the political theory of pluralism see
Pluralism (political theory).

In democratic politics, pluralism is a guiding principle which

permits the peaceful coexistence of different interests, convictions
and lifestyles. In this context it has normative connotations absence
from its use to denote a theoretical standpoint. Unlike totalitarianism
or particularism, pluralism acknowledges the diversity of interests and
considers its imperative that members of the society accommodate
their differences by engaging in good-faith negotiation.

One of the earliest arguments for pluralism came from James

Madison in The Federalist Papers 10. Madison feared that
factionalism will lead to in-fighting in the new American Republic and
devotes this paper to questioning how best to avoid such an
occurrence. He posits that to avoid factionalism, it is best to allow
many competing factions to prevent any one dominating the political
system. This relies, to a degree, on a series of disturbances changing
the influences of groups so as to avoid institutional dominance and
ensure competition.

Pluralism and the common good

Pluralism is connected with the hope that this process of

conflict and dialogue will lead to a definition and subsequent
realization of the common good that is the best for all members of
society. This implies that in a pluralistic framework, the common good
can only be found out in and after the process of negotiation (a
posteriori).
 Consequently, the common good does not, according to
pluralists, coincide with the position of any one cohesive group or
organization. However, a necessary outcome of this philosophy is
that the beliefs of any particular group cannot represent absolute
truth. Therefore any group with philosophy that purports to hold both
absolute truth and identity the common good necessarily rejects
pluralism-their belief system does not consider as valid the opinions
of others who do not hold to their given beliefs.

Still, one group may eventually manage to establish its own

view as the generally accepted view, but only as the result of the
negotiation process within the pluralism framework. This implies that,
as a general rule, the “operator” of a truly pluralistic framework, i.e.
the state in a pluralistic society, must not be biased: it may not take
sides with any group, give undue privileges to one group and
discriminate against another one.

Proponents of pluralism argue that this negotiation process is

the best way to achieve the common good: since everyone can
participate in power and decision-making (and can claim part of the
ownership of the results of exercising power) there members, and
therefore better outcomes. By contrast, an authoritarian or oligarchic
society, where power is concentrated and decisions are made by few
members, forestalls this possibility.

Proponents in contemporary political philosophy of such view

include Isaiah Berlin, Stuart Hamspshire and Bernard Williams. An
earlier version of political pluralism was a strong current in the
formation of modern social democracy, with theorists such s Harold
Laski and G.D.H. Cole, as well as other leading members of the
British Fabian Society. Horace Kallen coined the term cultural
pluralism to express the condition of a democratic nation which
sustained, and was sustained by, many cultural traditions.

Note, however, that political philosophers such as Charles

Blattberg have argue that negotiation can at best compromise rather
than realize the common good. Doing the latter is said to require
engaging in “conversation” instead, room for which made within what
Blattberg calls a patriotic, as distinct from pluralist, politics.
Conditions for pluralism

For pluralism to function and to be successful in defining the

common good, all groups have to agree to a minimal consensus
regarding shared values. Which tie the different groups to society,
and shared rules for conflict resolution between the groups.

The most important value is that of mutual respect and

tolerance, so that different groups can coexist and interact without
anyone being forced to assimilate to anyone else’s position in
conflicts that will naturally arise out of diverging interest and positions.
These conflicts can only be resolved durably by dialogue which leads
to compromise and mutual understanding.

To illustrate, anarcho-capitalism takes self-ownership as a

shared a priori value. Derived from this come the principles of non-
aggression and private property. To resolved conflicts over the use of
property, both-benefit voluntary trade is conducted according to
subjective theory of value. From the single shared value of self-
ownership, voluntary trade thus enables individuals with differing
values to resolve conflicts without resorting to violence.

Pluralism and subsidiarity

However, the necessary consensus on rules and values should

not unnecessarily limit different groups and individuals within society
in their value decisions. According to the principle of subsidiarity,
everything that need not be regulated within the general framework
should be left to decide for subordinate groups and, in turn, to
individuals so as to guarantee then a maximum amount of freedom.

In ultimate consequence, pluralism thus also implies the right

for individuals to determine values and truths for themselves instead
of being forced to follow the whole of society or, indeed, their own
group.

Totalitarianism

Totalitarianism (or totalitarian rule) is a concept used to

describe political system whereby a state regulates nearly every
aspect of public and private life. Totalitarian regimes or movements
maintain themselves in political power by means of an official all-
embracing ideology and propaganda disseminated through the state-
controlled mass media, a single party that controls the state,
personality cults, control over the economy, regulation and restriction
of free discussion and criticism, the use of mass surveillance, and
widespread use of state terrorism. The term has been applied to
many states, including: the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy,
Swowa Japan, German Democratic Republic (East Germany)
People’s Republic of Hungary, Socialist Republic of Romania,
People’s Socialist Republic of Albania, Derg Ethiopia, People
Republic of China, Democratic Kampunchea, Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea (North Korea), Communist Czechoslovakia and
Saddahas Hussein’s Iraq. Political opposition has also applied this
term to the Saudi regime.

Etymology

The notion of Totalitarianism as “total” political power by state

was formulated in 1923 by Giovanni Amendola who criticized Italia
Fascism as a system fundamentally different from conventional
dictatorships. The term was later assigned a positive meaning in the
writings of Giovanni Gentile, Italy’s most prominent philosopher and
leading theorist of Fascism. He used the term “totalitario” to refer to
the structure and goals of the new state. The new was to provide the
‘total representation of the nation and total guidance of national
goals.” He described totalitarism as a society in which the ideology of
the state had influence, if not the power, over most of its citizens.
According to Benito Mussolini, this system politicizes everything
spiritual and human: The concepts of totalitarism emerged in the
1920’s and 1930’s’ , although it is frequently and mistakenly seen as
developing only after 1945 as a part of anti-Soviet propaganda during
the cold war.
 Union College of Laguna

Graduate School

Santa Cruz, Laguna

Course: Master of Arts in Education

Major in Administration and Supervision

Subject: Advanced Philosophy of Education

Summer 2011

Submitted to:

Merlinda B. Ella

Direction: Answer the following questions:

1. Explain your point of view of the importance of philosophy

of education in your life as a teacher.

2. Give one philosophy that you learned and give a short

detail on how are you going to apply it in real life situation
in terms of education is concerned.
 3. How can you be a good role model as a teacher and a
facilitator of learning in the classroom?

4. Which among the philosophers has a great impact to you?

Why?

5. Choose a part of your report which has a great impact to

you as an individual. Explain it further.

6. In five sentences describe yourself as a teacher and as an

ordinary person.

. ADVANCED PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION

Philosophy of Education is a system of rationally supported assumptions and belief about
education. It uses traditional philosophical concepts and methods to show how children’s experiences, if
organized in accordance with certain assumptions, will result in the achievement of what may be considered
the good life.
What is Philosophy?
It came from the Greek words “philo” meaning love and “Sophia” meaning wisdom,(philosophia)
meaning “love of wisdom”. It is a set of ideas formulated to understand the basic truth about the nature of
being and thinking.
IBranches of Philosophy

PHILOSOPHY

Metaphysic Epistemology Axiology Logic

s

Cosmology Agnosticism Ethics Deductive

Teleology Skepticism Aesthetics Inductive

Ontology A Posteriori
A Priori
Metaphysics- concerns with the fundamentals of existence and reality.
It attempts, evaluate, speculate about, and interpret physical
or scientific theories. It is a search for unity, for the one
possible unifying principle that will render coherent and
intelligible all the diversities evident in the universe and life.
Investigates the nature of being and the world.
 1.Cosmology-branch of metaphysics which tries to
explain the theories, origin and
development of the nature of the cosmos
(universe). It considers
evolution and creation as possible
origins of the cosmos.
2.Teleology - branch of metaphysics which tries to
elucidate on objects pertaining to
whether or not there is purpose in the
universe.
3.Ontology- branch of metaphysics which deals with
the meaning of existence and
ties to resolve the question of whether
existence is identical
with space ,time ,nature ,spirit , or God.

 Epistemology-refers to the theory of knowledge that has something to do

with approaches to teaching and learning. It deals with the
knowledge as a universal matter and aims to discover what
is involved in the process of knowing .Among its central
concerns has been the challenge posed by skepticism
and the relationships between truth ,belief ,and justification.

1.Agnosticism-The doctrine that conclusive knowledge

of ultimate reality in an outright impossibility
2.Skepticism- the doctrine that any true knowledge is
impossible or that all knowledge is
uncertain.

3. A Posteriori- the reasoning that experience comes

first and knowledge afterwards.
 4. A Priori- the reasoning that knowledge can be
acquired through pure reasoning reason
alone, dependently and perhaps before
experience. Literally it means ‘from
beforehand’.

Axiology- (from Greek word axia, meaning “value , worth”;and logia) is

the study of quality or value. Sets the values desirable to live
by at any given time or place. Theories and knowledge are for
actual classroom instruction. The need for strong social and
ethical theory is readily conceded to be foundational to
educational practice.
Two Divisions of Axiology
1.Ethics – refers to the moral values of a right conduct.
Is concerned with questions of how persons
ought to act or if such questions are
answerable. It is also associated with
morality.

The Main Branches of Ethics

Meta-ethics-(sometimes called analytic

ethics)concerns the nature of
ethical thought
Normative ethics and applied ethics

3. Aesthetics –refers to the value and beauty of arts,

enjoyment ,sensory-emotional
values, perception ,and matter of taste
and sentiment.

 Logic- focuses on the formal structure of truthful arguments. It attempts

 to correct faulty thought operations. It studies the rules of “valid
inference,” which enable to pass successfully from one argument
to another ,and establishes criteria, such as the principle of self-
contradiction “or the “law of the excluded middle ,”that enable us
to assess the internal consistency of a statement.

Deals with pattern of thinking that lead from true premises

to true conclusions, originally developed in Ancient Greece.
Beginning in the late 19th century ,mathematicians such as
Frege focused on mathematical treatment of logic .

Types of Logic

1.Deductive Logic-theories derived directly and enviably

from one or a number of basic axioms or
assumptions. We may say that deduction is
form of reasoning that moves from a
general statement to a particular instance.

The syllogism is an example of deductive reasoning.

Example of a generalized statement which nobody can deny, “All men are
mortal.” It is followed by a minor premise, usually more specific: “ John is a
man.”This is a particular fact and no one doubts it. The conclusion is inevitable :
“John is mortal.”We see
that deductive logic is concerned primarily with establishing proof. This
means that once certain premises are accepted, the conclusion of an
argument is indisputable if it is drawn validly from
the premises.

 2.Inductive Logic -is characterized commonly as

reasoning that moves from the particular
instance to the general conclusion. Certain
particulars with similar characteristics are
put in the same category.

Scientific theories are created deductively because they tend

to be expressed in terms of mathematics which is a branch of deductive
logic.

In sum, when logic is used properly in educational practice it

results in
(1) clarity of thought;
(2) consistency and cogency of reasoning;
(3) factual adequacy and reliability of knowledge
claims;
(4) objectivity of knowledge claims; and
(5) rationality of moral and purposive behavior.

OUSTANDING EXPONENT OF THE DIFFERENT PHILOSOPHIES

Realism believes in the world as it is. It is based on the view that reality is what we observe. It
believes that truth is what we sense and observe and that goodness is found in the order of the law of
nature. As a result, schools exist to reveal the order of the world and universe. Students are taught factual
information. Aristotle is the founder of realism

In other words, what we see, hear, taste, touch, and smell are not ideas impressions or sense of
date –whichever term ones care to use –but are real solid objects that we can know pretty much for what
they are. For the realist an
object is true if it “corresponds” with those aspects of the world which it claims to describe. In the act of
knowing we discover reality, we do not create it.

The initiative in education, therefore lies with the teacher .It is his responsibility to decide what
knowledge the child should learn. Knowledge makes us “realists” in the popular as well as the philosophical
sense of the term.

The Nature of Realism

 Advocates that values are defendant upon the attitudes of the sentiment beings experiencing them.
 Believes that investigating and reasoning are important in any effective adjustment to the real world
in the control of experiences.

Idealism is a system of thought that emphasizes the importance of mind, soul or spirit. Truth is to be found in consistency
of ideas. Goodness is an ideal state, something to be strived for. Idealism’s origins are usually traced to Ancient Greek
Philosopher Plato, the famous student of Socrates. Whereas Socrates raced fundamental questions about reality,
knowledge and human nature .In idealist education, the notion that the teacher is the learned master and that the student
is a disciple in learning the master’s wisdom is a powerful concept that was true in the case of Socrates, the master and
Plato, the disciple.
Genuine love, according to Plato, was immaterial, intellectual and eternal as were the perfect forms on
which it was based. Like truth itself genuine education is also universal and timeless. In Plato’s republic, the educational
system exercised a selecting role as it assessed the person’s intellectual potentiality. Once the individual potentiality had
been determined, he or she received the education appropriate to this ability and ultimately to the function to be exercised
in the political state.
Idealism believes in refined wisdom. It is based on the view that reality is a world within a person’s mind.
It believes that truth is the consistency of ideas and that goodness is an ideal state to strive to attain.