Philosophical Roots of Education Chapter 2 Branches of

Philosophical Roots of Education Chapter 2

Branches of Philosophy: Metaphysics • Metaphysics: What is the nature of reality, what is real? What exists? • Reality is permanent and unchanging (absolute) or dynamic and evolving (relative) • Reality…a priori, apart from human experience or a posteriori, only existing after and because we experience it • Idealism versus Realism • Basic human nature: good, bad, neutral

Branches of Philosophy: Epistemology • How do we know what is real? What is knowable? • Arriving at truth: authority, sensory experience, empiricism, logic, intuition, revelation • Knowledge by acquaintance…hands on sensory experience • Knowledge by description…through books, lecture, internet

Branches of Philosophy: Axiology • What is of value? • Ethics…concerned with right conduct • Aesthetics…addresses standards of beauty • Are values absolute or relative?

Branches of Philosophy: Politics • Politics is concerned with justice, the allocation of power in society, between individuals and groups, the distribution of resources • Educational authority is either positional, rule-bound or anthropological (Benne)

Traditional Philosophies of Education • Idealism: the school as ivory tower, learning for its own sake, divorced from the workaday world • Reality lies in the mind. There is absolute truth. Truth pursued through logic. Deductive reasoning is best. • “All inquiry and all learning is but recollection. ” (Plato) • Born with wisdom…our own reasoning • Hutchins and Adler: Great Books

Realism • Reality can be found in the world available to the senses • Through observation and orderly analysis we find common features, generalizations, rules • Careful study inductively leads to valid and better ideas • Aristotle: truth lays in reason based on systematic observation

Realists • Aristotle: The disorganized life is not worth living • Thomas Aquinas: From concrete observation to abstract conclusions • John Locke: tabula rasa, reason and good behavior develop from daily practice and good habits • Johann Pestalozzi: Nature is the best teacher…the natural universe is a guide to truth • Rousseau: Emile “Everything is good as it leaves the hands of the Author of things; everything degenerates in the hands of man. ”