Pursuing an Educational
Philosophy
Chapters 2&3 in Breitborde and
Swiniarski
Philosophy of Education
Essential Questions:
What can be known?
What is the good life?
What is the nature of the learner?
What is the nature of the subject matter?
What is the nature of the learning process
The value of philosophy
1. Brings new interpretation and syntheses as
well as analyzing, refining, modifying
existing concepts and procedures
2. Acts as a clearinghouse for analyzing and
clarifying ideas and problems
3. Offers a source of ethical guidance
4. Induces habits of mind like tolerance,
impartiality, and suspension of judgment
Philosophy
Love of wisdom , the quest for
knowledge
Philosophers often concerned with such
things as power, provocation,
personality offering ideas to people
caught up in the whirlwinds of social
crisis, ideological arguments
Philosophers of education concerned
with questions of schools and society
My approach to life is…
1. Live for today, tomorrow 100%
we die.
2. Reach for the stars.
3. Expect little and you won‟t
be disappointed.
4. It doesn‟t matter what you
believe as long as you‟re
sincere. 0% 0% 0%
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Metaphysics
Greek word – “what is the nature of reality?”
What is real – “real nature” or “ideas?”
Is reality absolute and unchanging?
Is reality ever changing and evolving?
Some of our understandings are a priori
Some of our understandings are a posteriori
I believe that the world (reality) is…
1. Changeless, eternal,
and absolute
2. Evolving, dynamic
and unstable
50% 50%
Changeless, etern... Evolving, dynamic...
Branches of Philosophy
Metaphysics…what is the nature of reality
For Schools: What is worth Knowing?
Epistemology…what can be known and what is the nature of what is known
For Schools: What is Learning? What is good teaching?
Axiology…ethics and aesthetics: the good, the true and the beautiful
For Schools: What is the role of the school in society?
Logic…principles of right reasoning: induction and deduction
For Schools: What is good thinking?
Politics…what is just?
What is the role of school in society?
Socrates, Plato, Aristotle
Socrates (470-399B.C.E.) philosophy was a way of
life to Socrates Socratic dialogue, dialectic method
of questions and answers…what makes humans sin
is the lack of knowledge
Plato (427-347B.C.E.) founder of the Academy The
Republic outlines a plan for a perfect society ruled
by the philosopher king, knowledge consistent with
temperance and justice…for women as well as men
Aristotle (384-322B.C.E.) founded the Lyceum, the
first person to classify knowledge by dividing and
subdividing, developed syllogistic, deductive logic
Idealism
Roots in ancient Greece….
Reality lies in the mind….
Deductive Reasoning…our power to reason
clearly from general principles.
The opposite of Idealism is…
Nihilism – the absolute belief that no meaning
or ideals or understanding can be found by
human beings.
Note: Teenagers often „flirt‟ with varieties of
nihilism.
Plato
From text, The Republic. Plato recounts the
teaching and dialogues of Socrates.
Socratic Dialogue.
“The Allegory of the Cave.”
Realism
Reality can be found in the world available to
the senses.
A sensible, orderly functioning.
Empiricism
Roots in Aristotle …the „forms.‟
Enlightenment Values
Empiricism– Francis Bacon
Tabula Rasa– John Locke
Aristotle
Focuses philosophical attention on the „real
world.‟
Perception…the senses.
Categories
Logical Propositions.
Foundational to Western Scientific Method
All fish can swim. This is a fish.
Therefore….
1. This is a Platonic
dialectic
2. This is Socratic
questioning
25% 25%
3. This is Aristotelian
logic (a syllogism)
4. This is metaphysics 25% 25%
This is a Platoni... This is Socratic...
This is Aristotel... This is metaphysics
Breitborde & Swiniarski‟s “Isms”
Perennialism
Essentialism
Behaviorism
Romantic Naturalism
Progressivism
Existentialism
Reconstructionism
Liberationism
Versions of Idealism
Perennialism…there are absolute truths and
standards…related to idealism, experiences
are a mental representation rather than a
representation of the world, classical
humanism refers to the Greek philosophers
dedicated to discovering reason and truth for
humankind
Essentialism…preserve the basic elements of
human culture and transmit them to the
young
Romantic Idealism….innocence of
youth…truth in natural world (senses).
Versions of „Realism‟
Behaviorism….behavior can be managed,
shaped, reinforced. Learning is the “real”
consequence of sensory input. Mechanistic.
Pragmatism….a compromise between the Ideal
and the Realistic….Education should be „what
works.‟ In its Progressive form, Pragmatism
was associated with democratic ideals; i.e. the
work of John Dewey.
For me, life is ….
1. A trial to be
endured
2. A wonderful gift
from the creator
25% 25%
3. Survival of the
fittest
4. Without any 25% 25%
particular meaning
A trial to be end... A wonderful gift ...
Survival of the f... Without any parti...
Notions of Philosophy in Education
Modern –Postmodern
Existentialism….truth is impossible. Life is absurd, only
„existence.” Some existentialism shades toward the ideal; i.e.
if we must endure our trial in life, it is best to „live as if‟ truth,
god, beauty, etc. were possible to achieve.
Reconstructionism…seeks to reconstruct society through
education. Based on Progressive notions, civil rights era
learnings, and multicultural realities of a Postcolonial world.
Anticipated by Gandhi….
Liberationism….basis in Marx. Class struggle, political
literacy, critical literacy. An impetus toward the dynamic of
„critical reflection.‟
Existentialism
What is it like to be an individual living in the world?
What we have is existence…nothing else.
Life characterized by absurdity and imminence of
death.
Passionate encounter with the problems of life and
the inevitability of death
Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, Camus,
Buber, Simone de Beauvoir
Important decisions with limited knowledge
Reconstructionism
Origins in Dewey, so progressive. World
needs workable change (progress). Learning is
about construction of worthwhile societal
structures.
Global, trans-cultural perspective.
George Counts – reaction to U.S. Depression:
Something new needed to be built….
Paulo Freire: Pedagogy of the
Oppressed (1970); Liberationism
“This then is the great humanistic and
historical task of the oppressed: to liberate
themselves and their oppressors as well….True
generosity lies in striving so that these hands
whether of individuals or of whole peoples–
need be extended less and less in supplication,
so that more and more they become human
hands which work, and working, transform the
world.”
Philosophies of Education
Postmodernism…de-centers the subject
There is no linear path to truth. Truth is
variable, flexible, flattened. “The World is
Flat.”
Postmodernism
Roots in 1950s world of art
Themes including truth, language and its
relation to thought, human nature and the self,
the Other
“What kind of power is embedded in
educational issues, problems, and traditions?”
Michel Foucault, Cleo Cherryholmes
Indian Philosophy
Karma…what a person does influences what
will happen to that person in the future
Study, meditation, yoga can lead one to
transcend cares and suffering
Buddha…Siddhartha Gautama (6th century
B.C.E.)…all suffering is based on an inability
to discern what is real and what is fictitious
Gandhi (1869-1948) nonviolence toward living
things Satyagraha…holding fast to the truth
Far Eastern Philosophy
21st century technology, global commerce, and population
demographics demand that we know something of Eastern
philosophy
Confucianism…concerned with ethics and morality
(foundation of Chinese civilization) five key relationships:
ruler and subject, father and son, husband and wife, elder
brother and younger brother, friend and friend
Confucius (Kung Fu-tzu, 551-479B.C.E.)those most
capable, should govern…moral and ethical men make the
best rulers, principle of li…courtesy and ceremony
Confucianism…a language of morals and laws
Taoism…oneness with nature, noninterference
Michel Foucault
“Power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a
certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one
attributes to a complex strategical situation in a particular
society.”
“The work of an intellectual is not to mould the political
will of others; it is, through the analyses that he does in his
own field, to re-examine evidence and assumptions, to shake
up habitual ways of working and thinking, to dissipate
conventional familiarities, to re-evaluate rules and institutions
and to participate in the formation of a political will (where he
has his role as citizen to play).”