1

Fundamentals of
Philosophy of
Education
Philosophy 2

 Philia [love] + Sophia [wisdom]

 Coined by Pythagoras
 Meta-activity [after-activity]
 Since philosophy involves investigating the most basic assumptions of a
discipline, it is required that a philosopher must already have a decent
amount of knowledge on the field in question.
 Umbrella Discipline
 Since philosophy was born and practiced widely before there were
formal schools and categorization of fields, philosophy seems to involve
all kinds of study.
 In the Philippines, Philosophy is taught usually in courses such as:
Philosophy of Man; Philosophy of the Human Person; Logic.
7 traditional branches of Philosophy 3

 Natural Philosophy – the study of nature; Science

 Metaphysics – the study of ultimate reality; after physics
 Epistemology – the study of the theories of knowledge
 Ethics – the study of what constitutes good and bad
 Politics – the study of governance, laws and citizenship
 Aesthetics – the study of art and beauty
 Logic – the study of the methods of correct and incorrect reasoning
Other Branches of Philosophy 4

 Philosophy of the Mind – the study of the nature and significant

issues on the human mind, consciousness and intellect
 Philosophy of the Unconscious – the study of unconscious
phenomenon and its implications
 Philosophy of Language – the study of the nature of language
 Philosophy of Media – the study of the mechanisms and social roles
of media, image and communication
 Philosophy Timeline 5

PRE-SOCRATIC
SOCRATIC
HELLENISTIC “DARK” AGES AGE OF REASON
ROMAN RENAISSANCE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT
ANCIENT MEDIEVAL MODERN
Ancient Philosophy 6
PRE-SOCRATIC philosophers
What is everything composed of?
 Thales Water
 Anaximenes Air
 Anaximander Apeiron [infinite boundless]
 Heraclitus Fire
 Pythagoras Numbers

SOPHISTS
- group of mentors who consider the truth to be plural and subjective
 Protagoras
- Man is the measure of all things.
IDEALISM, key figures 7

 Socrates
 Plato
 St. Augustine
 Rene Descartes
 George Berkeley
 Immanuel Kant
 GWF Hegel
Socrates 8

 An unexamined life is not worth living

 Know thyself.
 He emphasized the value of reason and contemplation.
 He called his style “Intellectual Midwifery” and Dialectic Method
 He rejects sophism and believes “Truth is absolute”
 The only thing I know is that I know nothing.
 He encouraged analysis and evaluation of popular ideas
 The doctrine of reminiscence
 Our soul or intellect already knows the truth, but our bodies make us
forget these knowledge. Therefore, to learn is not to discover facts but to
remember facts.
 Believes in a positive human nature; evil is ignorance of the good
Plato 9

 There is a difficulty distinguishing which teachings are Plato’s or

Socrates’. This is because all teachings of Socrates were written by
Plato.
 Introduced Dualism
 This world of matter only gives us particular truths while the other world, the
world of forms or ideas gives us universal or absolute truths.
 Wrote the famous “allegory of the cave”
 Founded the first “formal” school in Greece: Academia
 Schools do not actually teach but classifies pupils
 Plato believed that we are born with a fixed intellect that may be bronze,
silver or gold souls. Education allows one to identify what kind of soul one
has.
 Plato dreamed of a perfect city that eventually was too good to be
true and dbecame identified as utopia. It means “no place.”
Augustine of Hippo 10

 We must first believe in order that we may know.

 Religious Dualism
 So long as man is pre-occupied with matters of the flesh, he is a citizen of the
city of man. If a man allows himself to be an instrument of God and lives
according to His plans, he lives in the City of God.
 He used the Dialectic Method while exchanging letters with his son.
 truth is only revealed not discovered
 Doctored the Doctrine of Divine Grace
 Through one man [Adam] we are condemned; through one man [Jesus] we
are saved. God dispenses His grace for salvation.
 Endorses Contemplation, Meditation and Monasticism
 Knowledge is not a product of human effort but is a product of God’s grace.
All truth emanates from the divine. This gives us a rather absurd perspective that
one’s academic challenges are results of sin.
Rene Descartes 11

 Uses methodic doubt for clear and distinct ideas.

 Descartes was concerned with the absence of established truth/s in
philosophy during his time and sought for an absolute truth by denying all
assumptions. He doubted everything he can methodically until he can
no longer doubt that he is doubting.
 Cogito, ergo sum.
 I think, therefore I am. This implies that through methodic doubt,
Descartes hit an absolutely undeniable truth, that since he is thinking then
he must exist.
 Armchair philosophy.
 Descartes is one of those thinkers who are content in sitting in a room and
discovering all the truths of the world. This is in high contrast with scientific
methods of acquiring knowledge.
George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne 12

 Esse est percipi

 To be is to be perceived
 Berkeley felt insecure about the scientific progress and discoveries
during his time that he tried to re-establish the significance of religion
by imposing that things beyond human perception [planets, stars,
galaxies] exist because they can be perceived by an ultimate
perceiver, which is God.
Immanuel Kant 13

 There are 2 kinds of judgment: a priori and a posteriori

 A priori judgments come before observation. A posteriori judgment comes
after observation.
 Kant wanted to formulate a synthetic a priori judgment, meaning both
a priori and a posteriori. He failed.
 In matters of experience and perception, there is the phenomenon
(our experience of a thing) and the noumenon (the thing-in-itself)
 The noumenon is forever removed from our knowledge because we can
never experience a thing-in-itself
IDEALISM 14

 Methods:
 Holistic over Specialized learning, dialectic,
contemplation, comprehension over memorization and
classification,
 Curriculum:
 classic works, enduring ideas, great thinkers of the past
 Teacher:
 philosophically oriented, role model, guide
 Idealism is taken as identical to Perrenialism.
REALISM, Key Figures 15

 Aristotle
 Thomas Aquinas
 Francis Bacon
 John Locke
 John Searle
Aristotle 16

 Father of Logic and Biology

 Founded the Lyceum
 The Lyceum is considered the second formal school in Athens. This
school pays heavier attention to mathematics and science.
 Unity of Body and Soul
 For Aristotle, there is no dichotomy between the body and the soul. The
soul is found within the body. The soul is what he calls “telos” or the
purpose of the body to which the growth of the body is patterned
upon.
 We may study the particular to get to the universal.
 In contrast with his mentor Plato, Aristotle contends that it is also
important to study the physical world. The world of matter does not
necessarily distract us from the truth, but bridges us to universal truths.
Thomas Aquinas 17

 The Five Cosmological Proofs – they are called cosmological because

Aquinas wanted to derive his proofs not from scriptures or church
authority, but from the laws of nature.
 Motion
 Causality
 Contingency
 Degrees of Perfection
 Intelligent Design
 The most popular argument among the five. Aquinas argued that like a watch that
requires and intelligent designer, the universe exhibits an intelligent design. Therefore, the
universe must also have an intelligent designer which is God.

 The path to truth may be both intuition AND reason

Francis Bacon 18
 Popularized the inductive method
 Induction is the method of reasoning which uses a series of particular
observations in order to arrive at a general conclusion.
 Criticized A Priori judgments
 Bacon disliked how the church authorities would use a priori judgments in
different important matters including science. Such was the case of Galileo
Galilei.
 Four Idols of the Mind – these are 4 ways that we can be removed from
rational thinking.
 idols of the cave: is a form of hasty generalization, when one
generalizes in spite of insufficient cases
 Idols of the tribe: when one simply gives in to conformity
 Idols of the market: when one is persuaded through colorful language
 Idols of the theatre: when one assumes the truth of certain
religion/philosophies without evaluating thoroughly their rational worth
John Locke 19

 Objects have primary and secondary qualities

 According to Locke, primary qualities are inherent in the object while
secondary qualities are prescribed to the object by the perceiver.
Objects, therefore, are blue since the eyes of humans have the
capacity to see the color blue.
 The mind is a tabula rasa
 This immense contribution to the nature of the mind implied the
necessity of experience in order to acquire knowledge
John Searle 20

 He opposed solipsism, or those who affirm only that the self is real.
 He is an external realist, or one who believes that the external world
exists with or without human perception.
 He wrote the book, “The Construction of Social Reality” which
explains how many elements of reality are merely socially construed
but objective nonetheless.
 He proposed that there is no dichotomy between mental and
physical processes. Mental states are merely higher level physical
states.
REALISM 21
 Aims:
 Search for truth, we study nature to transcend matter
 develop methods of rigorous physical inquiry
 Skill development for basic fact acquisition: the essentials
 Methods:
 critical reason aided by observation and experimentation
 Didactic, Object Studies
 Curriculum:
 mental and physical development, emphasis on external objective reality, highly systematic
and organized approach
 Realism is identical to Essentialism
 22

PRAGMATISM
Jean Jacques Rousseau 23

 Civilization corrupts; promotes ‘Noble Savage’

 For Rousseau, the life in the city is not ideal. A retreat to the simple ways
of rural areas is advised.
 Emile and Sophie: Gender and Education
 In his highly acknowledged book Emile, Rousseau explained that men
must be educated to lead while women must be educated to support
the society.
 Child Psychology
 Teachers must adjust their methods according to the learner. Children
cannot be expected to focus and behave like adults. Maria Montessori
agrees with Rousseau on this.
Auguste Comte 24

 The father of Sociology

 His thoughts include the progressive stages of
the human history, from:
 theological stage where human is governed by fear,
irrationality and superstition
 metaphysical stage where human is guided by
abstractions such as final causes, telos, potentiality
and actuality, and similar transcendental concepts
 positive
stage were the limitation of knowledge is
admitted in favor of tying truths to observable and
demonstrable phenomena.
Charles Darwin 25

 The Origin of Species (1859)

 Became a deathblow to medieval metaphysics/religions. This book
initiated a new understanding of human nature that is more scientific
and less religious/superstitious.
 Being v Becoming
 The essence of man of being has always been significant until Darwin.
Since man is evolving, what is more significant is the process of change
that man undergoes, his becoming.
 Open-ended reality
 Since human history was, is, and will be shaped by humankind’s
constant adaptation to environment, the future becomes less
predictable.
Charles Sander Peirce 26

 Peirce (pronounced as “purse”) initiated the Pragmatic Philosophy

in the United States.
 Ideas are mere hypothesis; consequences must be evaluated
 The above implies that ideas are not true until they have been
demonstrated as true. The consequences of a certain theory must be
shown as satisfactory before the theory is labelled true.
William James 27

 He coined the term “Pragmaticism” to refer to his own brand of

pragmatism.
 Truth ‘happens’ to an idea
 This implies that truth is not a characteristic of an idea but is a result of
an idea being shown as effective or “working”
 The Will to Believe
 For James, it is important for an individual to believe in the possibility of
accomplishing something in order to accomplish that something.
 John Dewey 28

 Human difficulties are from human faulty thinking

 He believed that religion separates humanity from one
another.
 Experience is of and in nature; man is tied to a context
 Pragmatism involves acquiring new truths through new methods since
context is in constant flux
 Teach methods above abstractions
Pragmatism 29
 Aims
 1) must grow out of existing conditions
 2) must be tentative
 3) must be from the learner
 Education must provide growth
 Methods
 uses multiple approaches and instructional delivery to emphasize that each required
learning is different
 action-oriented education; practical problem-solving method
 meet the needs and interests of the child
 broad over specialized education
 the value of experimentation is emphasized
 Curriculum
 diversified, practical social problems are explored
 Teacher
 guide over taskmaster, helper over trainer
 30

The Existentialists
 Friedrich Nietzsche 31
 Perspectivism
 For Nietzsche, each individual has his own context, thus one’s views are always in a
perspective different from others.
 God is Dead
 Since the development of secularism and science, humankind’s progress has allowed himself
to live according to his own reason and no longer rely on supernatural sources.
 Ubermensch
 Nietzsche promotes one who is morally superior, that is, one who only follows his own moral
code. His morality must be shaped by his drive to become at his best or his will to power.
 Live dangerously; What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
Soren Aabye Kierkegaard 32
 Truth is subjectivity
 Kierkegaard believes that each person is unique. This implies that a person’s
belief and moral code must also be unique as compared to his fellow.
 3 stages: Aesthetic, ethical, and religious
 The first stage is aesthetic, that is, when one is ruled by beauty and desire. The
second stage is ethical, that is, when one is ruled by reason. The highest stage is
religious, that is, when one is ruled by an intimate relationship with God.
 Contra Religion
 Although Kierkegaard is a strong theist, he is against the existence of religion. He
believes that religious institutions remove the uniqueness of individuals and
pretends to be a mediator for God and man. Our intimate relationship with our
God does not involve a “mediator”.
 Abraham: The knight of faith
 Continue to work out your salvation with Fear and Trembling (Philippians
2:12)
Martin Heidegger 33

 Dasein v Das Man

 The being-in-the-world is the dasein; this is one who embraces his
unique place and history while the ordinary man or the das man is
one who fades into the crowd and does not embrace his own
authenticity
 Being-towards-death: Moribundus (that which cannot
grow)
 According to Heidegger, man only starts to make his life meaningful
once he realizes that he is a being-towards-death. This means that
once we become aware of the fact that our lives will one day end,
we try to leave a legacy and add purpose to our life.
Albert Camus 34

 Ennui
 Life is a boring mechanical routine.
 Life is absurd
 According to Camus, life is meaningless by default. There is no
purpose nor destiny for our existence. However, he advised us to
rebel against the meaninglessness of life and create our own
meaning, our own goal. This was contained in his books, Le Myth de
Sisyphe and L’Homme Revolte.
 Nobel Peace Prize for Literature 1957
Jean-Paul Sartre 35

 He coined the term “Existentialism”

 Existence precedes essence
 This means that before humans have any purpose or goal, he mnust first
exist. This implies that there is no default plan or purpose or meaning in
life.
 Man is condemned to be free; Man is what he is not.
 This implies that humans are free even at the expense of their own
identity.
 Sartrean Gaze: Objectification
 Bad Faith: destiny and pretense of determinism, powerlessness
 EXISTENTIALISM 36
 Aims
 focus on individual human reality; explore both the good and the
absurd parts of life; foster an understanding of anxiety
 Method
 student freedom, spontaneity, open expression of feelings, student
participation in the democracy; against conformity and obedience;
 Curriculum
 pedagogical encounter/ pedagogic paradox; arts, literature and
sciences are taught to help students gain meaning of life
 Teacher
 role model, has his own commitments and opinions but allows students
to make their own choices
 37

Thank you and good luck.