REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES

SORSOGON STATE UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES (SGS) OFFICE OF ADVANCED EDUCATION
4700 SORSOGON CITY

ASSIGNMENT No. 5 DAPYAWIN, GERALDINE MAE B.

Date Due: July 16, 2021 A.Y. 2020-2021 MAED FILIPINO

EDUCATION 502: Philosophical, Sociological and Psychological Foundations of Education

Stephen Henry S. Totanes, Ph.D.

Associate Professor V

What is History, Philosophy, Sociology, and Psychology? : Understanding the

Disciplines

This paper aims to discuss History, Philosophy, Sociology, and Psychology as academic
disciplines that make significant contributions to the world by articulating the theoretical
foundations in their field of study. These disciplines use knowledge from one or more disciplines
to solve problems related to the world around us. The disciplines will be defined to gain a better
understanding of the field of study under focus.
Can people live in a society where there was no knowledge of the past? No, because
knowledge of the past will guide people on how to live in the present and prepares for the future.
Without knowledge of the past, we would be without identity, we would be lost. As many
historians say, history is not the reconstruction of the past but is the body of knowledge about the
past. According to a British Historian, Professor Arthur Marwick, history has this vital
importance for society so it must be as accurate as possible, it must be based on evidence and
logical thought, not on specious theory or political ideology. He also gave a firm distinction
between history as “the bodies of knowledge about the past produced by historians”, and “the
past” as “everything which happened, whether known or written, about by historians or not.”
Historians are the people who study the past. They do not simply narrate what happened in the
past but they analyze, evaluate and interpret the data from secondary and primary sources to
produce knowledge of the past. They must be skeptical and cautious in handling the data to give
a well-substantiated and logical interpretation of the past rather than being subjective and
hypothetical.
There are two sources in acquiring knowledge of the past, it is through primary and
secondary sources. The former are the “raw materials” of history, it is the relics and traces
recovered from the past societies, while the latter are the articles and books written and published
by historians. It is not true that primary source means more truthful that makes secondary source
less truthful. That is not a distinction at all. Secondary sources can be as reliable as primary
sources. Sometimes it is through the secondary sources that one becomes beware of the gaps in
knowledge of the past and the problems unsolved from the primary sources. Primary sources
may have imperfections and prejudices. It is the historian or the author of the source who makes
mistakes, not the evidence itself. Sometimes authors committed mistakes in interpreting the
evidence because they are influenced by the attitudes, values, and culture to which they belong.
They must convey their findings as clearly and explicitly as possible. Avoid stating metaphoric
and rhetoric interpretations that may lead to confusion. If you want to have logical knowledge of
the past it is better to validate the sources first by conducting your research, return throughout the
stages of research, and have your validated findings.
History must be a scholarly discipline, it must be based on thorough analysis of the
shreds of evidence. In writing history, it is important to be cautious and precise in language use.
It must be structured and must pay attention to the methods and principles of that discipline.
Most importantly, it must be communicated to wider audiences. To understand the past is to
explain existence.
If history lets people understand the past to explain existence, the next academic
discipline will encourage people to test their existence by frequently asking, “What am I doing
here? Why am I living as I am?” This discipline is what we called Philosophy. Etymologically,
philosophy is derived from two Greek words, Philia and Sophia which means love and wisdom
respectively, hence the literal meaning of philosophy, ‘love of wisdom.’ Love in this context
means to have a strong affection for something and wisdom means the ability to apply relevant
knowledge in an insightful way, especially to different situations. Therefore, philosophy as the
love of wisdom means the strong desire for humans to possess knowledge and apply it correctly
to different situations (Nweke and Uyanwune, 2020).
What do philosophers do? They love to ask questions, literally, odd questions that will
make people think and become self-reflective. According to Professor Robert Paul Woff (2009),
a professor of Afro-American Studies and Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts,
philosophy is the systematic, critical examination of how people judge, evaluate, and act, to
make ourselves wiser, more self-reflective, and therefore better men and women. He also added
that the best way to find out what philosophers do is to take a look at one of them, and his first
choice was the most famous philosopher of all times, Socrates. He believed that Socrates is a
perfect example to exhibit what philosophers do.
Professor Woff in his tenth edition book “About Philosophy”, introduced Socrates as the
first great philosopher, who thought of philosophy as a process of self-examination, the purpose
of which is to arrive at correct principles of judging, choosing, and acting. He narrated that
Socrates developed the practice of going into the public squares and meeting places of Athens to
draw his fellow townsmen into discussions about how men ought to live their lives. Socrates
always asked hard embarrassing questions that forced others to think a good deal more than they
wanted to. He quizzed important politicians and famous teachers in Athens, forcing them to
examine their own lives and they often get offended. The rulers of Athens decided that Socrates
was more than an annoyance; he was becoming a threat to their political security. So they
trumped up some charges against him and put him on trial. Socrates could have fled but he chose
instead to defend himself and his life without excuses or apologies. His death only confirmed
what his life had already proved --- that for him, the relentless examination of every human
action and belief was more important than survival itself. As Socrates said at his trial, “The
unexamined life is not worth living.” He would rather die honorably in the cause of that principle
than flee in dishonor to some foreign refuge.
People make countless decisions in life that affect personal life and the lives of other
people. It can be simple decisions like what to wear, what to eat, or where to go. Sometimes life
requires people to make big decisions, like what career to pursue, or whom to marry. Indeed, it is
very hard to make decisions in life because it may determine life and death. Socrates reminded
people that these decisions must be questioned, examined, and criticized first to live truly good
and happy lives. Maybe most of the people who are miserable in life failed to follow this simple
advice from Socrates, they are quick to make decisions without really asking themselves what
principles they are basing their choices on, and in the latter part when everything seems to be
going wrong, they will start to question themselves, “What am I doing here?" “What happened to
me?”
 Philosophy will teach people to slow down things, to always examine themselves to be
truly and completely human. To achieve genuine happiness, people must be self-reflective, the
truth lies within themselves. No one can teach anyone else to be happy and find the truth in one’s
life, it is oneself who can reveal it to yourself. Socrates emphasized the first act of true wisdom is
to admit that you are ignorant. It is okay to admit that you know nothing other than being self-
important, self-confident but in the end, became deflated because you can’t defend what you
thought you knew. To address this problem, Socrates developed his Socratic Method, a technique
of probing questions, for purpose of pushing and provoking unreflective persons into realizing
their lack of rational understanding of their principles of thought and action so that they can set
out on the path to wisdom. For Socrates, this method was a powerful weapon for deflating
inflated egos.
Socrates is a great philosopher who thought us the importance of philosophy as a
discipline that will teach people to find themselves through relentless self-examination, to reveal
one’s identity. Just like Socrates, there are lots of philosophers who can explain the importance
of philosophy to people. But again, the truths in your life must be discovered by thyself no one
can do it for you.
Philosophy is regarded as the mother of all other disciplines because it gave birth to every
other discipline and the relationship that exists between philosophy and other disciplines is the
relationship between a mother and her children and it continues to play the mother role by
questioning their fundamental assumptions, fine-tuning their basic principles and guiding their
activities (Obi, 2016).
There is a relationship between philosophy and religion. Philosophy plays a vital role in
religion in the sense that it employs philosophical methods to analyze critically the concept of
religion. However it should be noted that philosophy does not aims at destroying religious
practices, nor does it tend to defending religion or theological positions, rather, it aims at making
sense out of it by critically scrutinizing it with a critical mind. Philosophy has always been
quietly at work in the background of science. Philosophy explores what science is, how science
works, the logic used in building up scientific knowledge, how much evidence are needed in
other for a hypotheses to be accepted. The field of science has gained so much from philosophy.
Philosophy also plays an important role in the formulation of legal theories. Leiter and Sevel
(2016) argued that philosophy examines the nature of law especially in relation to human values,
attitudes, norms, practices and political communities. Another relationship is philosophy and
education that are two sides of the same coin as they play a complimentary role. Philosophy is
the theory while education is the practical. Philosophy provides education with the theoretical
framework needed in the classroom. From the aforementioned relationships, philosophy mostly
provides the fundamental principles that underpin various disciplines and continues to play often
indispensable roles in various academic and practical fields of human endeavor.
If philosophy encourages people to practice self-examination before doing decisions in
life, the next discipline will focus on what influences the way people think, feel and act. This
discipline studies the influence of the social world on individuals. It is called sociology. The
word sociology is derived from the Latin word, socius, meaning associate, and the Greek word
logus or science. Hence, sociology is the study of interaction on human behavior. It is interested
in the laws and principles that govern social relationships and interactions. Auguste Comte, a
Frenchman, was the one who coined the word “sociology” to apply to the proposed general
social science of human behavior. Because of his initial significant efforts to advance sociology
to the frontiers of human knowledge, he has been known as the “Father of sociology” (Tulio,
2000).
Sociology in other definition is the study of society and culture, what makes up society
and what people do in society? Why is it necessary to study those? Learning sociology will help
people understand how social forces influence goals, attitudes, behavior, and personality. People
became more sensitive towards social issues. Furthermore, learning sociology helps to cast aside
own biased assumptions, stereotypes, and ethnocentric thinking and practices becoming more
critical, broad-minded, and respectful in interpersonal and inter-group relationships. By learning
sociology, people became to be more humane and people-centered, give high value to human
dignity.
Just like philosophy, sociology increases self-knowledge. Learning sociology can provide
self-enlightenment. Gain more knowledge about the conditions of own lives, about the way
society and social system function. As such knowledge increases, people became more
empowered to influence the direction of forces and circumstances that affect lives. Be more
responsive to the various policies set by governments; and can suggest own policy initiatives and
alternatives (Giddens, 1982). In addition, sociology has certain practical benefits called applied
sociology. It is the application of sociological knowledge, principles, methods, concepts, and
theories to provide solutions to contemporary social problems. Sociology plays a practical role in
addressing today’s most crucial social problems. Sociologists can gather systematic information
that will serve as a basis in making a decision, it provides an overview into what is happening in
a situation, and give possible recommendation that may give a solution.
According to Dr. Doris Tulio (2000), in his book, “Foundations of Education,” he
explained that just like any other disciplines, sociology have its relation to other Social Sciences.
In history, it is important to know the data of men’s past relationships with one another. In
anthropology, sociology can learn much about human relationships under different cultures. In
geography, man’s relationships with his fellow men are conditioned by physical environment.
Some of the concrete facts of human relationships that sociology must build upon are tuned up
by economics and political sciences. And since sociology is concerned with relation between
individuals it starts with certain psychological facts and overlaps with the part of psychology
which is interactive with the social science of individual behavior.
If sociology focuses on how people act and interact under different social situations, and
how they relate themselves to one another, this next discipline studies human behavior, of how
person acts and reacts under different situations, consciously or unconsciously, mentally,
physiologically, physically, overtly, or covertly. Human beings are driven to know the reasons
behind various events happening around them. Whenever a person meet somebody, he or she
tries to understand as to why this person is doing this kind of activity. People try to understand
own experiences and behaviors in different situations. The eagerness and curiosity guide people
to think as to how they are different from each other in terms of their intellect, aptitude and
temperament. It is the study of man’s reactions to life stimulations. This discipline is called
psychology.
Psychology is defines formally as a systematic and scientific study of mental processes,
experiences and behaviors – both overt and covert. The word psychology has its origin in two
Greek words psyche and logos. The word psyche in Greek language refers to spirit or soul and
the word logos refers to discourse or study. Psychology as a study of experience, helps the
psychologist to understand the personal world of the individual. Psychology as the study of
mental processes tries to investigate the activities happening in the brain which are primarily non
psychological in nature. These mental processes include perception, learning, remembering and
thinking. The study of behavior in psychology is very broad. Behaviors are responses or
reactions of people in different activities. These behaviors are either observed directly through
naked eyes or are measured through instruments.
There are four main goals of psychology, those are to describe, explain, predict and
change the behavior and mental processes of others. Describing a behavior or cognition is the
first goal of psychology. This can enable researchers to develop general laws of human behavior.
Once researchers have described general laws behavior, the next step is to explain how or why
this trend occurs. Psychologists will propose theories which can explain a behavior. Psychology
aims to be able to predict future behavior from the findings of empirical research. If a prediction
is not confirmed, then the explanation it is based on might need to be revised. Once psychology
has described, explained and made predictions about behavior, changing or controlling a
behavior can be attempted (Mcleod, 2019).
Human behavior is determined by many factors, and one can explain behavior from
various viewpoints. That is why interest of psychology overlaps with that of some other social or
behavioral sciences. Parameswaran and Beena (2002) have described the relationship of
psychology with some other disciplines. In anthropology, psychological theories have also
contributed in understanding the origin of culture, customs, religious practices etc.
Psychoanalysts like Freud, Jung and others have made notable or significant contributions in this
regard. Thus there is a reciprocal relationship between anthropology and psychology. In fact,
psychoanalytic anthropology and psychological anthropology attempt to explain the origin of all
customs, cultures and practices on the basis of psychological factors. Sociology and psychology
is also related to each other, for sociological researches have contributed a lot to the field of
psychology. This is particularly so in understanding the behavior of groups of people and
organizations and also in understanding the impact of groups, group standards, group
expectations and others on behavior. Psychology is also closely related to economics. The
economic structure of society and economic factors like income, facilities etc. have been found
to influence behavior. Psychologists have been interested in the analysis of the influence of
economic factors like income, on the development of behavior. There is also a very close
interaction between political science and psychology. Attempts have been made to study and
analyze the influence of the political system on human character and behavior. Psychologists
have also attempted to study the role of psychological factors in leadership. Thus, the lives of
several political leaders have been analyzed from a psychological angle to understand their
behavior and the factors which made them successful leaders. Of course, psychology has been
intimately connected to education. The field of education is primarily concerned with the
development of effective approaches and techniques for imparting knowledge and skills which
would make the people personally successful and happy and socially productive. Educators have
to consider the psychological factors such as the nature of learning process abilities of
individuals, their needs and proper methods of teaching among other factors. With all these
relationships, psychology is truly multidisciplinary in nature.
From the definitions and contributions of psychology it is now clear that it addresses a
variety of issues related to mental and behavioral functioning of an individual. The study helps
people to develop a basic understanding about human nature and helps to deal with a number of
personal and social problems.
The value of bringing together multiple disciplines is it brings to the table a unique and
distinct set of tools and approaches. It is a must to know the past or history because what
happens in the present and what will happen in the future is much governed by what happened in
the past. Philosophy as a discipline asks questions about everything that there is to ask. It serves
other disciplines because it provides the base from which other disciplines emanated. It is
regarded as the science of all sciences and the mother of all arts. Sociology is the scientific study
of society. It is interested in how human beings interact with each other. And psychology as a
discipline has a vast scope. It tries to explore mental processes and potentials to facilitate
achieving a better quality of life. These disciplines make significant contributions to the world by
relating their existing knowledge to real-world situations.

SOURCES:
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Nweke et al. (2020). Relevance of Philosophy to Any Discipline. International

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