Chapter 1

Philosophical Development Of Education

Major Approaches

A. Background of Studies
Philosophy of education as a reference for improving education in
Indonesia. The study of Philosophical education makes us knowing better the
basics of education. By learning, the next generations will be more
understanding about education and major approaches of educational philosphy.
As John Dewey said, philosophy can never be defined in terms of subject
matter. His position makes sense, because the purpose of philosophy is to
identify problems and suggest ways of handling these problems.because
education is not distinct from the total life of education, the educational
philosophers can not be bound by the limitation of subject content; he must be
free to examine any problems that has social significance. The educational
philosopher must explain education, criticize its practice, and offer suggested
solution to problems by means of critical and reflective thought.
Finally, our study will focus on the important matter of excellence in
education. This is designed for the student’s review and evaluation of the
various sytem of thought.
B. Research Problems
1. What is Idealism?
2. What is Realism?
3. What is Experimentalism and Pragmatism?
4. What is Scholasticism?
5. What is Perennialism,Essentialism, and Progressivism?
6. What is Logical Analysis?
7. What is Existentialism?
8. What is Communism?
9. What is Problem of Excellence in Education?

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C. Objectives Studies
1. Students understand about Idealism?
2. Students understand about Realism?
3. Students understand about Experimentalism and Pragmatism?
4. Students understand about Scholasticism?
5. Students understand about Perennialism,Essentialism, and Progressivism?
6. Students understand about Logical Analysis?
7. Students understand about Existentialism?
8. Students understand about Communism?
9. Students understand about Problem of Excellence in Education?

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 Chapter 2
Result Studies

A. Definition of Philosophical Education

Philosophy means "love of wisdom." It is made up of two Greek words, philo,
meaning love, and sophos, meaning wisdom. Philosophy helps teachers to reflect
on key issues and concepts in education, usually through such questions as: What
is being educated? What is the good life? What is knowledge? What is the nature of
learning? And What is teaching? Philosophers think about the meaning of things
and interpretation of that meaning. Even simple statements, such as "What should
be learned? Or What is adolescence?" set up raging debates that can have major
implications. For example, what happens if an adolescent commits a serious crime?
One interpretation may hide another. If such a young person is treated as an adult
criminal, what does it say about justice, childhood, and the like? Or if the
adolescent is treated as a child, what does it say about society's views on crime?
Your educational philosophy is your beliefs about why, what and how you teach,
whom you teach, and about the nature of learning. It is a set of principles that
guides professional action through the events and issues teachers face daily.
Sources for your educational philosophy are your life experiences, your values, the
environment in which you live, interactions with others and awareness of
philosophical approaches. Learning about the branches of philosophy,
philosophical world views, and different educational philosophies and theories will
help you to determine and shape your own educational philosophy, combined with
these other aspects.
When you examine a philosophy different from your own, it helps you to
"wrestle" with your own thinking. Sometimes this means you may change your
mind. Other times, it may strengthen your viewpoint; or, you may be eclectic,
selecting what seems best from different philosophies. But in eclecticism, there is a
danger of sloppy and inconsistent thinking, especially if you borrow a bit of one
philosophy and stir in some of another. If serious thought has gone into selection
of strategies, theories, or philosophies, this is less problematic. For example, you
may determine that you have to vary your approach depending on the particular
learning needs and styles of a given student. At various time periods, one
philosophical framework may become favored over another. For example, the
Progressive movement led to quite different approaches in education in the 1930s.
But there is always danger in one "best or only" philosophy. In a pluralistic society,
a variety of views are needed.

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B. Major Approaches
B.1. Idealism
Idealism is the metaphysical and epistemological doctrine that ideas or thoughts
make up fundamental reality. Essentially, it is any philosophy which argues that
the only thing actually knowable is consciousness (or the contents of
consciousness), whereas we never can be sure that matter or anything in the
outside world really exists. Thus, the only real things are mental entities, not
physical things (which exist only in the sense that they are perceived).

Idealism is a form of Monism (as opposed to Dualism or Pluralism), and stands

in direct contrast to other Monist beliefs such as Physicalism and Materialism
(which hold that the only thing that can be truly proven to exist is physical matter).
It is also contrasted with Realism (which holds that things have an absolute
existence prior to, and independent of, our knowledge or perceptions).

A broad enough definition of Idealism could include many religious viewpoints,

although an Idealistic viewpoint need not necessarily include God, supernatural
beings, or an existence after death. It is a major tenet in the early Yogacara school
of Buddhism, which developed into the mainstream Mahayana school. Some Hindu
denominations are idealistic in outlook, although some have favoured a form of
Dualism, as with Christianity.

In general parlance, "idealism" is also used to describe a person's high ideals

(principles or values actively pursued as a goal), sometimes with the connotation
that those ideals are unrealisable or impractical. The word "ideal" is also
commonly used as an adjective to designate qualities of perfection, desirability and
excellence, which is totally foreign to the epistemological use of the word
"idealism", which pertains to internal mental representations.

Idealism is a label which covers a number of philosophical positions with quite

different tendencies and implications, including Subjective Idealism, Objective
Idealism, Transcendental Idealism and Absolute Idealism, as well as several more
minor variants or related concepts (see the section on Other Types of Idealism
below). Other labels which are essentially equivalent to Idealism include
Mentalism and Immaterialism.

History of Idealism

Plato is one of the first philosophers to discuss what might be termed Idealism,
although his Platonic Idealism is, confusingly, usually referred to as Platonic
Realism. This is because, although his doctrine described Forms or universals
(which are certainly non-material "ideals" in a broad sense), Plato maintained that
these Forms had their own independent existence, which is not an idealist stance,
but a realist one. However, it has been argued that Plato believed that "full reality"
(as distinct from mere existence) is achieved only through thought, and so he could
be described as a non-subjective, "transcendental" idealist, somewhat like Kant.

The Neo-Platonist Plotinus came close to an early exposition of Idealism in the

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contentions in his "Enneads" that "the only space or place of the world is the soul",
and that "time must not be assumed to exist outside the soul". However, his
doctrine was not fully-realized, and he made no attempt to discover how we can
get beyond our ideas in order to know external objects.

René Descartes was one of the first to claim that all we really know is what is in
our own consciousnesses, and that the whole external world is merely an idea or
picture in our minds. Therefore, he claimed, it is possible to doubt the reality of the
external world as consisting of real objects, and “I think, therefore I am” is the only
assertion that cannot be doubted. Thus, Descartes can be considered an early
epistemological idealist.

Descartes' student, Nicolas Malebranche, refined this theory to state that we only
directly know internally the ideas in our mind; anything external is the result of
God's operations, and all activity only appears to occur in the external world. This
kind of Idealism led to the Pantheism of Spinoza.

Gottfried Leibniz expressed a form of Idealism known as Panpsychism. He believed

that the true atoms of the universe are monads, (individual, non-interacting
"substantial forms of being", having perception). For Leibniz, the external world is
ideal in that it is a spiritual phenomenon whose motion is the result of a dynamic
force dependent on these simple and immaterial monads. God, the "central
monad", created a pre-established harmony between the internal world in the
minds of the alert monads, and the external world of real objects, so that the
resulting world is essentially an idea of the monads’ perception.

Bishop George Berkeley is sometimes known as the "Father of Idealism", and he

formulated one of the purest forms of Idealism in the early 18th Century. He
argued that our knowledge must be based on our perceptions and that there was
indeed no "real" knowable object behind one's perception (in effect, that what was
"real" was the perception itself). He explained how it is that each of us apparently
has much the same sort of perceptions of an object, by bringing in God as the
immediate cause of all of our perceptions. Berkeley's version of Idealism is usually
referred to as Subjective Idealism or Dogmatic Idealism (see the section below).

Arthur Collier (1680 - 1732), a near-contemporary and compatriot of Berkeley,

published some very similar claims at around the same time (or even earlier),
although the two were apparently not acquainted with, or influenced by, each
other's work.

Immanuel Kant, the earliest and most influential member of the school of German
Idealism, also started from the position of Berkeley's British Empiricism (that all
we can know is the mental impressions or phenomena that an outside world
creates in our minds). But he argued that the mind shapes the world as we
perceive it to take the form of space-and-time. According to Kant, the mind is not a
blank slate (or tabula rasa) as John Locke believed, but rather comes equipped
with categories for organizing our sense impressions, even if we cannot actually
approach the noumena (the "things-in-themselves") which emit or generate the
phenomena (the "things-as-they-appear-to-us") that we perceive. Kant's Idealism

5
is known as Transcendental Idealism (see the section below).

Johann Gottlieb Fichte denied Kant's concept of noumenon, arguing that the
recognition of an external of any kind would be the same as admitting a real
material thing. Instead, Fichte claimed that consciousness makes its own
foundation, and does not have any grounding in a so-called "real world" (indeed, it
is not grounded in anything outside of itself). He was the first to posit a theory of
knowledge where absolutely nothing outside of thinking itself would be assumed
to exist.

Friedrich Schelling also built on Berkeley and Kant's work and, along with Hegel,
he developed Objective Idealism and the concept of the "The Absolute", which
Hegel later developed further as Absolute Idealism.

G. W. F. Hegel was another of the famous German Idealists, and he argued that any
doctrine (such as Materialism, for example) that asserts that finite qualities (or
merely natural objects) are fully real is mistaken, because finite qualities depend
on other finite qualities to determine them. Hegel called his philosophy Absolute
Idealism (see the section below), in contrast to the Subjective Idealism of Berkeley
and the Transcendental Idealism of Kant and Fichte, both of which doctrines he
criticized. Although he took some of Kant's ideas seriously, Hegel based his
doctrine more on Plato's belief that self-determination through the exercise of
reason achieve a higher kind of reality than physical objects.

Another German Idealist, Arthur Schopenhauer, built on Kant's division of the

universe into the phenomenal and the noumenal, suggesting that noumenal reality
was singular whereas phenomenal experience involves multiplicity, and effectively
argued that everything (however unlikely) is ultimately an act of will.

In the latter part of the 19th Century, British Idealism, led by F. H. Bradley (1846 -
1924), T. H. Green (1836 - 1882) and Bernard Bosanquet (1848 - 1923), continued
to advocate Idealism in the face of strong opposition from the dominant Physicalist
doctrines.

Subjective Idealism

Subjective Idealism (or Solipsism or Subjectivism or Dogmatic Idealism or

Immaterialism) is the doctrine that the mind and ideas are the only things that can
be definitely known to exist or have any reality, and that knowledge of anything
outside the mind is unjustified. Thus, objects exist by virtue of our perception of
them, as ideas residing in our awareness and in the consciousness of the Divine
Being, or God.

Its main proponent was the 18th Century Irish philosopher Bishop George
Berkeley and he developed it out of the foundations of Empiricism which he shared
with other British philosophers like John Locke and David Hume. Empiricism
emphasizes the role of experience and sensory perception in the formation of
ideas, while discounting the notion of innate ideas.

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Berkeley believed that existence was tied to experience, and that objects exist only
as perception and not as matter separate from perception. He claimed that "Esse
est aut percipi aut percipere" or "To be is to be perceived or to perceive". Thus, the
external world has only a relative and temporary reality. He argued that if he or
another person saw a table, for example, then that table existed; however, if no one
saw the table, then it could only continue to exist if it was in the mind of God.
Berkeley further argued that it is God who causes us to experience physical objects
by directly willing us to experience matter (thus avoiding the extra, unnecessary
step of creating that matter).

Transcendental Idealism

Transcendental Idealism (or Critical Idealism) is the view that our experience of
things is about how they appear to us (representations), not about those things as
they are in and of themselves. Transcendental Idealism, generally speaking, does
not deny that an objective world external to us exists, but argues that there is a
supra-sensible reality beyond the categories of human reason which he called
noumenon, roughly translated as the "thing-in-itself". However, we can know
nothing of these "things-in-themselves" except that they can have no independent
existence outside of our thoughts, although they must exist in order to ground the
representations.

The doctrine was first introduced by Immanuel Kant (in his "Critique of Pure
Reason") and was also espoused by Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Friedrich Schelling,
and later resurrected in the 20th Century by Edmund Husserl.

This type of Idealism is considered "transcendental" in that we are in some

respects forced into it by considering that our knowledge has necessary
limitations, and that we can never know things as they really are, totally
independent of us. The name may, however, be considered counter-intuitive and
confusing, and Kant himself preferred the label Critical Idealism.

Objective Idealism

Objective Idealism is the view that the world "out there" is in fact Mind
communicating with our human minds. It postulates that there is only one
perceiver, and that this perceiver is one with that which is perceived. It accepts
common sense Realism (the view that independent material objects exist), but
rejects Naturalism (the view that the mind and spiritual values have emerged from
material things).

Plato is regarded as one of the earliest representatives of Objective Idealism

(although it can be argued that Plato's worldview was actually dualistic and not
truly Idealistic). The definitive formulation of the doctrine came from the German
Idealist Friedrich Schelling, and later adapted by G. W. F. Hegel in his Absolute
Idealism theory. More recent advocates have included C. S. Peirce and Josiah Royce
(1855 - 1916).

Schelling's Objective Idealism agrees with Berkeley that there is no such thing as

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matter in the materialist sense, and that spirit is the essence and whole of reality.
However, he argued that there is a perfect parallel between the world of nature
and the structure of our awareness of it. Although, this cannot be true of an
individual ego, it can be true of an absolute consciousness. He also objected to the
idea that God is separate from the world, arguing that reality is a single, absolute,
all-inclusive mind, which he (and Hegel) referred to as "The Absolute Spirit" (or
simply "The Absolute").

According to Objective Idealism, the Absolute is all of reality: no time, space,

relation or event ever exists or occurs outside of it. As the Absolute also contains
all possibilities in itself, it is not static, but constantly changing and progressing.
Human beings, planets and even galaxies are not separate beings, but part of
something larger, similar to the relation of cells or organs to the whole body.

A general objection to Idealism is that it is implausible and against common sense

to think that there can be an analytic reduction of the physical to the mental.
Hegel's system of Objective Idealism has also come under fire for merely
substituting the Absolute for God, which does not make anything clearer in the
end.

Absolute Idealism

Absolute Idealism is the view, initially formulated by G. W. F. Hegel, that in order

for human reason to be able to know the world at all, there must be, in some sense,
an identity of thought and being; otherwise, we would never have any means of
access to the world, and we would have no certainty about any of our knowledge.
Like Plato many centuries before him, Hegel argued that the exercise of reason
enables the reasoner to achieve a kind of reality (namely self-determination, or
"reality as oneself") that mere physical objects like rocks can never achieve.

Hegel started from Kant's position that the mind can not know "things-in-
themselves", and asserted that what becomes the real is "Geist" (mind, spirit or
soul), which he sees as developing through history, each period having a "Zeitgeist"
(spirit of the age). He also held that each person's individual consciousness or
mind is really part of the Absolute Mind (even if the individual does not realize
this), and he argued that if we understood that we were part of a greater
consciousness we would not be so concerned with our individual freedom, and we
would agree with to act rationally in a way that did not follow our individual
caprice, thereby achieving self-fulfilment.

For Hegel, the interaction of opposites (or dialectics) generates all of the concepts
we use in order to understand the world. This occurs both in the individual mind
as well as through history. Thus, the absolute ground of being is essentially a
dynamic, increasingly complex historical process of necessity that unfolds by itself,
ultimately giving rise to all the diversity in the world and in the concepts with
which we think and make sense of the world.

Hegel's doctine was later championed by F. H. Bradley (1846 - 1924) and the
British Idealist movement, as well as Josiah Royce (1855 - 1916) in the USA.

8
Proponents of Analytic Philosophy, which has been the dominant form of Anglo-
American philosophy for most of the 20th Century, have criticised Hegel's work as
hopelessly obscure. Pragmatists like William James and F. C. S. Schiller have
attacked Absolute Idealism for being too disconnected from our practical lives. G.
E. Moore used common sense and logical analysis against the radically counter-
intuitive conclusions of Absolute Idealism (e.g. that time is unreal, change is unreal,
separateness is unreal, imperfection is unreal, etc).

Existentialists have also criticise Hegel for ultimately choosing an essentialistic

whole over the particularity of existence. Schopenhauer objected that The Absolute
is just a non-personal substitute for the concept of God. Another perennial problem
of Hegel's metaphysics is the question of how spirit externalizes itself and how the
concepts it generates can say anything true about nature; otherwise his system
becomes just an intricate game involving vacuous concepts.

Other Types of Idealism

In addition to the main types of Idealism mentioned above, there are other types of
Idealism:

 Epistemological Idealism asserts that minds are aware of, or perceive, only
their own ideas (representations or mental images), and not external
objects, and therefore we cannot directly know things in themselves, or
things as they really are. All we can ever have knowledge about is the world
of phenomenal human experience, and there is no reason to suspect that
reality actually mirrors our perceptions and thoughts. This is very similar to
the doctrine of Phenomenalism.
 Actual Idealism is a form of Idealism developed by the Italian philosopher
Giovanni Gentile (1875 - 1944) that contrasted the Transcendental Idealism
of Kant and the Absolute Idealism of Hegel. His system saw thought as all-
embracing, and claimed that no-one could actually leave their sphere of
thinking, or exceed their own thought. His ideas were key to helping the
Fascist party consolidate power in Italy, and gave Fascism much of its
philosophical base.
 Buddhist Idealism (also known as "consciousness-only" or "mind-only") is
the concept in Buddhist thought that all existence is nothing but
consciousness, and therefore there is nothing that lies outside of the mind.
It is a major tenet in the early Yogacara school of Buddhism, which
developed into the mainstream Mahayana school.
 Panpsychism holds that that all parts of matter involve mind or,
alternatively, that the whole universe is an organism that possesses a mind.
Therefore, according to Panpsychism, all objects of experience are also
subjects (i.e. plants and minerals have subjective experiences, albeit very
different from the consciousness of humans). Gottfried Leibniz subscribed
to a view of this kind of Idealism.
 Practical Idealism is a political philosophy which holds it to be an ethical
imperative to implement ideals of virtue or good (it is is therefore unrelated
to Idealism in its other senses). Its earliest recorded use was by Mahatma
Gandhi (1869 - 1948), although it is now often used in foreign policy and

9
 international relations, where it purports to be a pragmatic compromise
between political realism (which stresses the promotion of a state's narrow
and amoral self-interest), and political idealism (which aims to use the
state's influence and power to promote higher liberal ideals like peace,
justice and co-operation between nations).

B.2. Realism
realism In everyday use realism is commonly attributed to caution, or
moderation in one's aspirations—the converse of utopianism. The word is also
used to describe a variety of approaches in literature and the visual arts in which
accurate depiction of reality is the aim. Each of these uses involves a contrast
between human thought or imagination, on the one hand, and an external reality
independent of mind, on the other. The notion that reality has a cognitive or
normative authority over the mind is also generally present. In philosophy, realism
signifies the assertion of the existence of a reality independently of our thoughts or
beliefs about it. Controversy has centred especially on the question of whether
universals (for example properties such as ‘redness’ or ‘softness’) really exist, or
whether they are functions of our use of language (‘nominalism’).
Realism as a metaphysical doctrine is challenged by a range of sceptical arguments.
Both in classical Greek philosophy and in the early modern period, sceptical
arguments commonly began by appealing to our experience of such phenomena as
dreams, illusions, and hallucinations, in which our senses mislead us. Since this
does, unquestionably, sometimes happen, how do we know that it does not always
do so? How can we be sure that, on any particular occasion, what we seem to
observe may not turn out to have been illusory? More recently these arguments
have been supplemented by analogous challenges to our ability to secure reliable
reference to external reality in the use of language. Since we have no access to the
world that is not mediated by thought or language, what independent check have
we upon the reliability of what we think or say?
Such sceptical arguments do not necessarily lead to a denial of a reality
independent of thought. It is possible to hold that there is a such a reality, but that
we cannot know its nature (or, perhaps, that we cannot know that we know).
More commonly, such epistemological scepticism lapses into phenomenalism,
solipsism, or some other form of denial of the existence of a reality independent of
mind, thought, or language.

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 In the philosophy of science, empiricists tend to be sceptical about the
existence of the entities (many of them unobservable) postulated by scientific
theories. On this view, the concepts of such entities are just convenient summaries
of actual or possible observations, or grounds for prediction. Scientific realists, on
the other hand, argue that the theories in question should be understood as
claiming existence for the entities (sub-atomic particles, retroviruses, or whatever)
they postulate. These claims may, of course, be either true or false. Many
sociological opponents suppose that scientific realists are committed to an
uncritical acceptance of the knowledge claims of science. This is not so. They are,
rather, committed to an interpretation of those claims as claims about the nature
of a reality which exists and acts independently of our knowledge or beliefs about
it. Realists may be as sceptical as anyone else about whether those claims are true.
The problem for the anti-realists is to make any sense at all of what science is
about; and, in particular, of what it might be for scientific knowledge-claims to turn
out to be false.

The leading British figure in the late twentieth-century revival of realist

metatheory in philosophy and the social sciences is Roy Bhaskar. He and his
associates have recently developed a form of scientific realism (variously termed
‘transcendental’ or ‘critical’ realism) which is offered as a comprehensive
alternative to both empiricism and conventionalism in the philosophy of science.
(The reference to critical is intended to indicate that the pursuit of knowledge is or
should be emancipatory.) Activities such as scientific experimentation and the
application of scientific knowledge are held to be unintelligible except on the
assumption of a world independent of our beliefs about it. It is also necessary to
distinguish the real causal powers and mechanisms of which science seeks
knowledge, from the actual flow of events triggered by the activity of these
mechanisms. The actual must, in turn, be distinguished from the empirical—that
small sub-set of events which are observed by someone. Bhaskar claims that this
view of science is applicable to both the human and the natural sciences in a way
which is able to take fully into account the radical differences in the natures of
their objects. Chief among his many publications are A Realist Theory of Science
(2nd edn. 1978), The Possibility of Naturalism (1979), Scientific Realism and

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Human Emancipation (1986), and Reclaiming Reality (1989).

B.3. Experimentalism and Pragmatism

Experimentalism is associated with a very broad but shallow curriculum.
Many electives, few required subjects. Experimentalism is friendly to educational

research, and many new ideas come from it. But experimentalism can be wasteful

of resources.It can also fail to follow through.It accommodates fads too easily.
Classroom Management for Experimentalists
Experimentalist teachers like to tinker or experiment.They don’t like to
leave things the same all the time.Don’t like bmod or assertive discipline.Prefer
more constructivistic approaches such as Discipline with Dignity.
What experimentalists would teach
Everything-anything that had any relation to students’ possible futures.Then it has
been accused of trying to do the home’s job
Where experimentalism shines
a. When essentialism or perennialism have been in power for so long, school
programs have become stagnant
b. When school has become all work and no play
c. When traditional methods have become ineffective
Pragmatism
Pragmatism is a late 19th Century and early 20th Century school of
philosophy which considers practical consequences or real effects to be vital
components of both meaning and truth. At its simplest, something is true only
insofar as it works. However, Pragmatism is not a single philosophy, and is more a
style or way of doing philosophy.
In general terms, Pragmatism asserts that any theory that proves itself
more successful in predicting and controlling our world than its rivals can be
considered to be nearer the truth. It argues that the meaning of any concept can be
equated with the conceivable operational or practical consequences of whatever
the concept portrays. Like Positivism, it asserts that the scientific method is
generally best suited to theoretical inquiry, although Pragmatism also accepts that
the settlement of doubt can also be achieved by tenacity and persistence, the
authority of a source of ready-made beliefs or other methods. For more details, see
the section on the doctrine of Pragmatism.
The school's founder, the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce,
first stated the Pragmatic Maxim in the late 19th Century (and re-stated it in many
different ways over the years) as a maxim of logic and as a reaction to

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metaphysical theories. The Pragmatic Maxim is actually a family of principles, not
all equivalent (at least on the surface), and there are numerous subtle variations
with implications which reach into almost every corner of philosophical thought.
The school of Pragmatism reached its peak in the early 20th Century
philosophies of William James and John Dewey. The term "pragmatism" was first
used in print by James, who credited Peirce with coining the term during the early
1870s.
After the first wave of Pragmatism, the movement split and gave rise to three
main sub-schools, in addition to other more independent, non-aligned thinkers:
 Neo-Classical Pragmatism inherits most of the tenets of the classical
Pragmatists, and its adherents includes Sidney Hook (1902 - 1989) and
Susan Haack (1945 - ).
 Neo-Pragmatism (sometimes called Linguistic Pragmatism) is a type of
Pragmatism, although it differs in its philosophical methodology or
conceptual formation from classical Pragmatism, and its adherents include
C. I. Lewis (1883 - 1964), Richard Rorty (1931 - 2007), W. V. O. Quine,
Donald Davidson (1917 - 2003)and Hilary Putnam (1926 - ).
 French Pragmatism is a specifically French off-shoot of the movement, and
includes Bruno Latour (1947 - ), Michel Crozier (1922 - ), Luc Boltanski
(1940 - ) and Laurent Thévenot (1948).
B.3.Scholaticism
Scholasticism is a Medieval school of philosophy (or, perhaps more
accurately, a method of learning) taught by the academics of medieval universities
and cathedrals in the period from the 12th to 16th Century. It combined Logic,
Metaphysics and semantics into one discipline, and is generally recognised to have
developed our understanding of Logic significantly.
The term "scholastic" is derived from the Latin word "scholasticus" and the
Greek "scholastikos" (meaning literally "devoting one's leisure to learning" or
"scholar") and the Greek "scholeion" (meaning "school"). The term "schoolmen" is
also commonly used to describe scholastics.
Scholasticism is best known for its application in medieval Christian
theology, especially in attempts to reconcile the philosophy of the ancient classical
philosophers (particularly Aristotle) with Christian theology. However, in the High
Scholastic period of the 14th Century, it moved beyond theology, and had
applications in many other fields of study including Epistemology, Philosophy of
Science, philosophy of nature, psychology and even economic theory.
Essentially, Scholasticism is a tool and method for learning which places emphasis
on dialectical reasoning (the exchange of argument, or thesis, and counter
argument, or antithesis, in pursuit of a conclusion, or synthesis), directed at
answering questions or resolving contradictions. In medieval Europe, dialectics (or
logic) was one of the three original liberal arts (the "trivium"), in addition to
rhetoric and grammar.
There are perhaps six main characteristics of Scholasticism:
 An acceptance of the prevailing Catholic orthodoxy.
 Within this orthodoxy, an acceptance of Aristotle as a greater thinker than
Plato.
 The recognition that Aristotle and Plato disagreed about the notion of
universals, and that this was a vital question to resolve.
 Giving prominence to dialectical thinking and syllogistic reasoning.

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  An acceptance of the distinction between "natural" and "revealed" theology.
 A tendency to dispute everything at great length and in minute detail, often
involving word-play.
The Scholastic method is to thoroughly and critically read a book by a
renowned scholar or author (e.g. The Bible, texts of Plato or St. Augustine, etc),
reference any other related documents and commentaries on it, and note down
any disagreements and points of contention. The two sides of an argument would
be made whole (found to be in agreement and not contradictory) through
philological analysis (the examination of words for multiple meanings or
ambiguities), and through logical analysis (using the rules of formal logic to show
that contradictions did not exist but were merely subjective to the reader).
These would then be combined into "questionae" (referencing any number of
sources to divine the pros and cons of a particular general question), and then into
"summae" (complete summaries of all questions, such as St. Thomas Aquinas'
famous "Summa Theologica", which claimed to represent the sum total of Christian
theology at the time).
Scholastic schools had two methods of teaching: the "lectio" (the simple
reading of a text by a teacher, who would expound on certain words and ideas, but
no questions were permitted); and the "disputatio" (where either the question to
be disputed was announced beforehand, or students proposed a question to the
teacher without prior preparation, and the teacher would respond, citing
authoritative texts such as the Bible to prove his position, and the students would
rebut the response, and the argument would go back and forth, with someone
taking notes to summarize the argument).
Scholasticism was concurrent with movements in early Islamic philosophy,
some of which presaged and influenced European Scholasticism. From the 8th
Century, the Mutazilite School of Islam pursued a rational theology known as
Kalam to defend their principles against the more orthodox Ash'ari School, and can
be seen as an early form of Scholasticism. Later, the Islamic philosophical schools
of Avicennism and Averroism exerted great influence on Scholasticism. There were
also similar developments in medieval Jewish philosophy (especially the work of
Maimonides).
St. Anselm of Canterbury is sometimes misleadingly referred to as the
"Father of Scholasticism", although his approach was not really in keeping with the
Scholastic method. Probably a better example of Early Scholasticism is the work of
Peter Abelard and Peter Lombard (c. 1100 - 1160), particularly the latter's
"Sentences", a collection of opinions on the Church Fathers and other authorities.
Other early Scholastics include Hugh of St. Victor (1078 - 1151), Bernard of
Clairvaux (1090 - 1153), Hildegard of Bingen (1098 - 1179), Alain de Lille (c. 1128
- 1202) and Joachim of Fiore (c. 1135 - 1202).
The Franciscan and Dominican orders of the 13th Century saw some of the
most intense scholastic theologizing of High Scholasticism, producing such
theologians and philosophers as Albertus Magnus, St. Thomas Aquinas, Alexander
of Hales (died 1245) and St. Bonaventure (1221 - 1274). This period also saw a
flourishing of mystical theology, such as Mechthild of Magdeburg (1210 - 1285)
and Angela of Foligno (1248 - 1309), and early natural philosophy (or "science") at
the hands of such men as Roger Bacon and Robert Grosseteste (c. 1175 - 1253).
Late Scholasticism (14th Century onwards) became more complex and
subtle in its distinctions and arguments, including the nominalist or voluntarist

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theologies of men like William of Ockham. Also notable during the Late
Scholasticism period are John Duns Scotus, Meister Eckhart (1260 - 1328),
Marsilius of Padua (1270 - 1342), John Wycliffe (c. 1320 - 1384), Julian of Norwich
(1342 - 1413), Geert Groote (1340 - 1384), Catherine of Siena (1347 - 1380), Jean
Gerson (1363 - 1429), Jan Hus (c. 1369 - 1415) and Thomas a Kempis (1380 -
1471).
Thomism and Scotism are specific off-shoots of Scholasticism, following the
philosophies of St. Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus respecitively.
Scholasticism was eclipsed by the Humanism of the 15th and 16th Centuries, and it
came to be viewed as a rigid, formalistic and outdated way of conducting
philosophy. It was briefly revived in the Spanish School of Salamanca in the 16th
Century, and in the Catholic Scholastic revival (Neo-Scholasticism) of the late 19th
and early 20th Century, although with a somewhat narrower focus on certain
scholastics and their respective schools of thought, most notably St. Thomas
Aquinas.
B.4. Perennialism,Essentialism,and Progressivism

Perennialism
For Perennialists, the aim of education is to ensure that students acquire
understandings about the great ideas of Western civilization. These ideas have the
potential for solving problems in any era. The focus is to teach ideas that are
everlasting, to seek enduring truths which are constant, not changing, as the
natural and human worlds at their most essential level, do not change. Teaching
these unchanging principles is critical. Humans are rational beings, and their
minds need to be developed. Thus, cultivation of the intellect is the highest priority
in a worthwhile education. The demanding curriculum focuses on attaining
cultural literacy, stressing students' growth in enduring disciplines. The loftiest
accomplishments of humankind are emphasized– the great works of literature and
art, the laws or principles of science. Advocates of this educational philosophy are
Robert Maynard Hutchins who developed a Great Books program in 1963 and
Mortimer Adler, who further developed this curriculum based on 100 great books
of western civilization.

Essentialism
Essentialists believe that there is a common core of knowledge that needs to be
transmitted to students in a systematic, disciplined way. The emphasis in this
conservative perspective is on intellectual and moral standards that schools should
teach. The core of the curriculum is essential knowledge and skills and academic
rigor. Although this educational philosophy is similar in some ways to
Perennialism, Essentialists accept the idea that this core curriculum may change.
Schooling should be practical, preparing students to become valuable members of
society. It should focus on facts-the objective reality out there--and "the basics,"
training students to read, write, speak, and compute clearly and logically. Schools
should not try to set or influence policies. Students should be taught hard work,
respect for authority, and discipline. Teachers are to help students keep their non-
productive instincts in check, such as aggression or mindlessness. This approach
was in reaction to progressivist approaches prevalent in the 1920s and 30s.
William Bagley, took progressivist approaches to task in the journal he formed in
1934. Other proponents of Essentialism are: James D. Koerner (1959), H. G.
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Rickover (1959), Paul Copperman (1978), and Theodore Sizer (1985).

Progressivism
Progressivists believe that education should focus on the whole child, rather than
on the content or the teacher. This educational philosophy stresses that students
should test ideas by active experimentation. Learning is rooted in the questions of
learners that arise through experiencing the world. It is active, not passive. The
learner is a problem solver and thinker who makes meaning through his or her
individual experience in the physical and cultural context. Effective teachers
provide experiences so that students can learn by doing. Curriculum content is
derived from student interests and questions. The scientific method is used by
progressivist educators so that students can study matter and events
systematically and first hand. The emphasis is on process-how one comes to know.
The Progressive education philosophy was established in America from the mid
1920s through the mid 1950s. John Dewey was its foremost proponent. One of his
tenets was that the school should improve the way of life of our citizens through
experiencing freedom and democracy in schools. Shared decision making, planning
of teachers with students, student-selected topics are all aspects. Books are tools,
rather than authority.

B.6. Logical Analysis

a trend in modern analytic philosophy which maintains that the problem of

philosophy is the logical analysis of the language of science using instruments of
modern formal (mathematical) logic.
The emergence and development of the philosophy of logical analysis was
due to the increased interest in logical and methodological problems that has been
characteristic of 20th-century science and was related to the intensified
mathematization of science and to the development of methods of formalization.
However, the detailed investigation of logical problems in science was related by
the philosophy of logical analysis to a positivist negation of the significance of
philosophy as a world view.
The fundamental ideas of the philosophy of logical analysis were first
formulated by B. Russell. Russell advanced the thesis that any scientifically
meaningful philosophical problem is essentially one of formal logic. The ideas of
the philosophy of logical analysis were also developed in L. Wittgenstein’s
Tractatus logi-co-philosophicus and received their full expression in the logical
positivism of the Vienna circle. Beginning in the 1930’s, a number of other groups
of philosophers and individual philosophers, such as the logical pragmatists W.

16
Quine, N. Goodman, and A. Pap (USA), K. Popper (Great Britain), and K.
Ajdukiewicz, J. Łukasiewicz, and T. Kotarbiński (Poland), became adherents of the
philosophy of logical analysis.

B.7.Existentialism

A central proposition of Existentialism is that existence precedes essence, which

means that the most important consideration for individuals is that they are
individuals—independently acting and responsible, conscious beings ("existence")
—rather than what labels, roles, stereotypes, definitions, or other preconceived
categories the individuals fit ("essence"). The actual life of the individuals is what
constitutes what could be called their "true essence" instead of there being an
arbitrarily attributed essence others use to define them. Thus, human beings,
through their own consciousness, create their own values and determine a
meaning to their life. Although it was Sartre who explicitly coined the phrase,
similar notions can be found in the thought of existentialist philosophers such
as Heidegger, and Kierkegaard:

Existential Metaphysics

Existentialism began in the nineteenth century, but was more throughly

developed in the twentieth century by philosophers such as Martin Buber, Karl
Jaspers,and Jean Paul Sartre. It is often considered to be a protest type of
philosophy. Most philosphers ponder the nature of knowledge, but existentialists
ask how the nature of knowledge is educationally significant to the lives of
individuals. The existentialist sees the individual as lonely and livng in a
meaninless, absurd world. They have a sense of moral uncertainty about existence.
While the idealist might say "I think therefore I am", the existentialist might
respond, "Who am I?". Existentialists recognize individual differences and believe
that there is no one true life style. They believe that the more tragic side of life
more clearly describes human existence and human existence is filled with anxiety.
Many existentialists agree with Karl Marx that religion acts as a drug that allows
them to cope with the world, with the result that many people are exploited by the
few who have power and wealth. According to Ozman and Cramer "existentialists
call people to examine their lives and break away from superficial beliefs and
uncommitted action."

Existential Epistemology

A person knows only through experiences. There are two levels of experiences
in Existential, the first one is awareness of existence of things and beings in

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themselves , the second one is the awareness of functioning, The truth is always
relative to an individual`s judgement. Absolute truths are nonexistent. Each person
must decide what is true and what is significant for him

Existentialist Value Theory

Value is determined by the free choice of the individual person. Existence is

the basic value for any person. Human freedom demands that a person decide,
freely, his own commitment. In short, value is completely personal individual
matter.

Educational Implication of Existentialism

1. Aim of Education
The major purpose of education, according to Existentialist philosophers is to
serve the individual human being. It ought to guide him into an awareness of his
condition and to promote his successful comitment to a significant and meningful
existence.

Important specific goals are

a. To develop individual awareness

b. To provide opportunity for free, ethical choices
c. To encourage the development of self-knowledge
d. To develop a sense of self-responsibility
e. To awaken a sense of individual commitment.

Because humans have created ideas that are harmful, they can also create ideas
that will replace them and thus create a better world. The job of education is to
help the individual examine who they are and what their purpose in life truly is. A
good education emphasizes the individual and helps them to understand
themselves. It should also help them understand anxiety because much of life is
filled with tension. There should also be an emphasis on "possibility" as a goal in
education, enabling learners to become "wide awake" to the possibilites according
to Maxine Greene. By being constantly aware of all conditions and interpreting
daily experiences passiveness about extremes in life conditions can be overcome.
Teachers should not accept administrative hierarchies as inevitable. State
mandated testing and limiting curriculums are all up for examination. Education
should not be like a fish factory that produces many cans of the same product. All
students should not have to come out of an education with the same information,
values, and goals.

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2. Curriculum
Existential educator do not favor a subject-centered curriculum. Whatever is
studied is an instrument by which the person develops self-knowledge and self
responsibility. If one existentially oriented, the humanities would be most
important in the subject-centered curriculum. The ideal curriculum for the
Existentialist would stress

a. An activity curriculum
b. Pupil interest as the basis of planning and activity
c. Complete freedom for the pupil to work in groups or alone
d. A curriculum based on immediate needs
e. Recognition of individual differences in experiences.

The humanities play an important role in the existentialist curriculum because

they help to see humankind as it really is. There are no definite rules for
curriculum content because much of the content should be centered around the
needs of the children. The curriculum should revolve around the standpoint of the
learner rather than be a collection of "discrete" subjects. The disciplines involved
in the curriculum should provide learners with opportunities to make sense of the
world around them. Literature has an important role in this instance because
learners can use the various genres as a way to interpret the experiences of others.

3. Methods of Teaching
The Existential teacher must be democratic and must utilize a nondirective
technique

Democratic

It means that the teacher never imposes his personal goals upon the pupil ; his
function is to guide the pupil. The teacher is a resource person, and must therefore
make plans along with the pupil (democratically) based on their individual needs
and goals.

Nondirective

Exact and detailed lesson plans are unnecessary. With the teacher as guide, each
individual must be free to develop his own purposes and work out his own
learning

B.8.Communism

Communism explain the past, present, and the future of a man in terms of
economic determinism. Communist education is a creative process linked with
people’s active participation in the construction of communism, with the struggle
for a new society. The goal of communist education as the comprehensive
harmonious development of all the spiritual and physical resources of every
member of the society.

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Communistic Metaphysics

Communism is a materialistic philosophy of life that adheres to the belief

that matter is the only reality. It does not distinguish “matter and spirit” or “body
and soul”. As such, it does not believe in eternal life. Communist philosophy drives
from the theories of Karl Marx, who interpreted the universe in terms of
materialism. According to Marxist dogma, whatever exists must be material in its
ultimate nature. Man must strive for a life of material happiness , which can be
achieved only on a collective, rather than on an individual. All rights are sicoal. The
individual has no rights apart from society; one`s right, duties, and economic well-
being derive from the State.

Communistic Epistemology

Communist believe that absolute truth exists and that it exists in the ideal of
communism. Therefore, they hold that whatever is useful in the promotion of the
Communist State contains truth.

Communistic Value Theory

The ultimate value exist in the idea of communism as embodied in the

communist State. In the communist society, the ideal is to give everyone what he
needs and take from him what he is able to contibute to the whole. The communist
reject the idea that an individual person possesses individual inalienable rights.
Because all rights are social, all people must be viewed as creatures of society.

Educational Theory in a Communist Society

1. Aims of Education
The ultimate aim of education in a communist society is to provide for the
success of the communist state. The school is and must be a creature of society.
The goal of education is to provide basic training for all. This can be achieved by
directing the educative process toward labor, nature, and society. These will
supply and govern the content of instruction both in theory and practice.

2. Curriculum
In communist countries, the curriculum is subject-centered. Th essential
subjects are social science, the natural science, mathematics, and literature.
Vocational training is provided for those unable or unwilling to undertake
secondary education. Higher education is extremly competitive and is reserved
only for the best students.

3. Methods of Teaching
Allowing the students to work on their own. The students must feel himself as
a worker in a laboring society. In the communist school, the teacher is a leader in a
classroom where the lesson are carefully structured. In his teaching, the
communist teacher is expected to employ scientific principles of learning to impart
20
both knowledge of the factual material and political orthodoxy. In fact, the teacher
is quite authoritarian.

B.9. Democracy and Education

American school teacher have a basic area of agreement simply because they are
teachers in democracy of the United States. Certain aims and principles follow as a
result of teaching in such a democracy.

1. Critical Thinking.
We must develop citizens who are free to think and to express criticism.

2. Indoctrination
The school must create a climate where the pupil is free of any thought control by
the teacher.

3. Freedom and Responsibility

The school ought to develop citizens capable of enjoying the benefits of freedom,
and who know the responsibilities inherent in protecting the right of freedom.

4. Material Well-Being
Education in democtaric country must foster the development of vocational skills
to insure each citizens the opportunity of living a productive life.

5. Personality
The education of citizens ought not to be restricted to vocational concern alone.
Education must be concerned with the development of aesthetic and ethical values,
to insure that each person becomes capable of realizing his full potential as and
invidual personality.

6. Concerned Citizen
The school should encourage attitudes of social responsibility and concern for the
social problems of human society.

B.10.Problems of Excellence in Education

The meaning of excellence is always a problem when it is applied to education.

The problem, stated as a question, “ What kinds of educational experiences
constitute an excellence education?”. The level of excellence is different based on
our educator philosophy and changing in our society, urbanization, technology,
changing human values, economic prosperity, and international problems.
Excellence may be viewed in any one or more of the following ways :

1. Education is intellectual and ought to produce well-informed citizens.

2. Education ought to produce cultured citizens
3. Education ought to produce skilled workers
4. Education ought to produce socially concerned citizens
5. Education ought to produce highly trained specialist

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6. Education ought to produce self-diciplined individuals
7. Education ought to produce persons capable of enjoying life
8. Education ought to produce thinking citizens
9. Education ought to produce individuals capable of living successfully
10. Education ought to produce persons whose morals, socail, emotional, and
intellectual well-being is develop to the extent that they are capable of living
succesfully in a democratic social order.
Here are some basic democratic values that should be fullfilled in American
educational system :

1. The intristic worth and dignity of every person

2. The inalienable rights of each person to life, liberty, and happiness
3. The equality of all persons before the law
4. A belief in the perfectibility of a man as he strives for the development of his full
potential
5. Goverment of,by and for the people.
6. Equal protection for all.
7. Individual freedom.

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 REFERENCES

Chambliss, J. J., ed. 1996. Philosophy of education: An encyclopedia. Garland

Reference Library of the Humanities 1671. New York: Garland.

Dewey,John.The Essential Dewey. 1998. Two volumes. Bloomington: Indiana

University Press.

Narskii, I. S. Sovremennyi pozitivizm. Moscow, 1961. Chapter 1.

Phillips, D. C., ed. 2008. Philosophy of education. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of

Philosophy. Edited by Edward N. Zalta.

Russell, B. Istoriia zapadnoi filosofii. Moscow, 1959. Chapter 30. (Translated from
English.)

Siegel, H. 2010. Philosophy of education. In Encyclopaedia Britannica Online.

Hook, Sidney, Paul Kurtz, and Miro Todorivich, eds. The Philosophy of the
Curriculum : The Need for General Education. Bufallo, New York: Prometheus
Books.1975

Maritain, Jacques, An Introduction to Philosophy. Translated by E.I. Watkin. London:

Sheed and Ward, 1932

Damont, Corliss, The Philosophy of Humanism, 5th ed. New York:Frederick Ungar
Publishing Co., Inc., 1965.

Power, Edward J., Philosophy of Education. Studies in Philosophies, Schooling, and

Educational Policies. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. Inc., 1982.

Wingo, G. Max, The Philosophy of American Education. New York: D.C. Heat &
Company, 1965.

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