Socrates (469 BC-399 BC) Socrates
Socrates (469 BC-399 BC) Socrates
Socrates (469 BC-399 BC) Socrates
Socratic method
This is also called as the Method of Elenchus or Socratic Debate. Plato was the first to
describe it in the "Socratic dialogues". This is a method of philosophical inquiry used
for the assessment of key moral concepts. It is for this method that Socrates is
considered as the father and originator of moral philosophy and western ethics. The
method includes the following points:
The Socratic method is to search for the assumptions that shape one's sentiment.
These assumptions are pondered over and their consistency with other beliefs is
checked. A series of logical questions are asked with the objective of assisting a
person to discover the individual opinions regarding some topic.
Socrates philosophy
Socrates asserted that an individual must know himself in order to be wise. A life that
has not been examined is not worth living. The philosophy of Socrates can be learnt
through the writings of Plato. Socrates spoke that he was like a midwife. However, he
attended the souls of men when they were in trouble. His art won when he could
profoundly assess whether the thoughts that arose in the minds of the youth were false
icons or true and noble. He had the opinion that just like midwives he was also barren.
He was blamed that he asked questions for which he himself had no answer. He
replied that he was not astute or had nothing to demonstrate that was the invention of
his soul. However, those who would converse with him would necessarily gain
something. Socrates also said that the youth belonging to the richer class accosted him
of their own sweet will. They tried to ape him by examining others. There were many
such rich youth who assumed that they knew some facts, but in fact knew very less or
nothing. It so happened that the people examined by such rich youth rather than being
angry with themselves showered their wrath on Socrates. So, he was titled as the
"villainous misleader of the youth". These people could not tell precisely how
Socrates was wrong. Only as they were large in number they could effect loud
slander.
Plato (427—347 BCE)
Plato
Plato is one of the world’s best known and most widely read and studied
philosophers. He was the student of Socrates and the teacher ofAristotle, and he wrote
in the middle of the fourth century B.C.E. in ancient Greece. Though influenced
primarily by Socrates, to the extent that Socrates is usually the main character in
many of Plato’s writings, he was also influenced by Heraclitus, Parmenides, and
thePythagoreans.
There are varying degrees of controversy over which of Plato’s works are authentic,
and in what order they were written, due to their antiquity and the manner of their
preservation through time. Nonetheless, his earliest works are generally regarded as
the most reliable of the ancient sources on Socrates, and the character Socrates that
we know through these writings is considered to be one of the greatest of the ancient
philosophers.
Plato’s middle to later works, including his most famous work, the Republic, are
generally regarded as providing Plato’s own philosophy, where the main character in
effect speaks for Plato himself. These works blend ethics, political philosophy, moral
psychology, epistemology, and metaphysics into an interconnected and systematic
philosophy. It is most of all from Plato that we get the theory of Forms, according to
which the world we know through the senses is only an imitation of the pure, eternal,
and unchanging world of the Forms. Plato’s works also contain the origins of the
familiar complaint that the arts work by inflaming the passions, and are mere
illusions. We also are introduced to the ideal of “Platonic love:” Plato saw love as
motivated by a longing for the highest Form of beauty—The Beautiful Itself, and love
as the motivational power through which the highest of achievements are possible.
Because they tended to distract us into accepting less than our highest potentials,
however, Plato mistrusted and generally advised against physical expressions of love.
(Zeno of Citium, 300 - 260 B.C.)
Philosophy
1. One to live in accord with Nature; worldly Nature and human nature.
2. The Unity of All; all gods; all substance; all virtue; all mankind into a Cosmopolis
(Universal City).
3. That the external world is maintained by the natural interchange of opposites
(poioun / yin, paskhon / yang)
4. That everyone has a personal, individual connection to the All; a god within.
5. That every soul has Free Will to act and that the action of the soul is opinion.
6. Simple Living through moderation and frugality.
7. That spiritual growth comes from seeking the good.
8. That Virtue is the sole good, Vice the sole evil, and everything else indifferent.
9. That the Cardinal Virtues are Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance.
10. That the path to personal happiness and inner peace is through the extinguishing
of all desire to have or to affect things beyond ones control and through living for the
present without hope for or fear of the future; beyond the power of opinion.
11. The sequential reabsorption and recreation of the Universe by the Central Fire; the
Conflagration.
Comenius, John Amos
(1592–1670)
Contributions
Comenius is best known for his innovations in pedagogy, but one cannot gain an
adequate appreciation of his educational ideas without recognizing his religious and
metaphysical convictions. Despite the prevalent human suffering of his day,
Comenius remained optimistic about the future of mankind, as he believed in the
immanence of God and the imminence of God's kingdom on Earth. As God's
creations, humans were necessarily good, not corrupt. Comenius also felt that Christ's
Second Coming would end human strife but that people themselves could act in
ushering the new millennium by engaging in pansophy, or the lifelong study of an
encyclopedic system of human knowledge. By seeing the harmony among everything
in the universe, all human beings would come to acknowledge God's glory and
presence in themselves and in nature.
The skill and knowledge needed to order our actions in accordance with the laws of
nature; to treat our possessions and persons responsibly, and to avoid coming under
the absolute control of others (Yolton, p. 16)
Man becomes moral through education - humans have no innate ideas of God, no
innate moral truths, no natural inclination of virtue - Locke defined man as both
rational and moral Man is subject to the rule of natural law which was ultimately
God's law made known to man through the voice of reason Locke's denial of innate
ideas put a premium on individual effort, on the labor necessary to gain knowledge
from experience (Tarcov, P. 83). Man could be ruled and be free - man is endowed
with natural rights such as life, liberty and property (Cranston,, p. 12)
V. THEORY OF TRANSMISSION
The goal of the gentlemen's education cannot be achieved by sending him to a school.
Learning should be superintended by a tutor assisted by genuinely interested parents.
For working classes, poor children of both sexes between the ages of 3-14 should be
compelled to attend school with "teachers" Locke attacked ordinary method of
teaching - manners learned by example, latin learned by speaking. The best way to get
men to do what is wanted is not t terrify or force them but to motivate them, to arouse
and then rely on desires, while letting them think, not without justice, that they are
acting for their own sakes and of their own free will. Methods for poor - learn by
practice; for gentlemen - bring pupil to practice the activities of the gentlemanly ideal
until they become habitual. Curriculum for the poor: focus on regular worship for
sake of religion and moral improvement, handicrafts and agricultural skills,
vocational arts - may have intended that young should learn to read, write and do
math but made no statements to that effect Curriculum for gentlemen: health - the first
ingredient of personal happiness; development of good character - consisting of three
groups of habits - virtue, wisdom and breeding; to include reading, writing and
arithmetic, Latin, language and literature (Greek for scholars only) ; literature of
France and England, the natural and social sciences; the arts should occupy a minor
place -which Locke considered a useless or dangerous thing Learning -that
gentlemen should possess is general; detailed learning is only for those who would
become scholars; one should know in detail what is directly useful in managing
personal affairs.
Men possess these traits: 1) natural freedom - right to life and liberty; 2) necessity for
labor; and 3) capacity of reason - from # 1 & 2 - f lows right of property in things
which is chief factor in foundation of society
The child enters both a family and a nation. The family's duty being slowly to awaken
the child to virtue. The government must perform its part in the social contract - to
preserve the rights to life and liberty of all the citizens Each of these communities
should be guided by moral laws, laws devised from the laws of nature which are
God's laws
Goal of Education
The goal of education is not to impart knowledge, but to unfold the natural faculties
latent and hidden in every human being. In another words, educators need to focus on
the human being, a child, and not on education per se.
Pestalozzi presented two general purposes of education: for development of the
individual and for the improvement of society. On the individual level, educators
should strive to educate the whole child, not just their intellect. Physical or technical
knowledge, as well as emotional development, are also important. He stressed that
there should be balance between the head, hands, and heart, i.e. between intellectual
knowledge (head), physical and technical education (hands), and moral and religious
education (heart). Through developing a balance among these three areas, a person
becomes a "whole man."
On the social level, education provides the means for general development of the
whole society. In other words, the more the individuals in a society develop
intellectually, emotionally, morally, and socially through education, the more
educated and regenerated the whole society becomes. For Pestalozzi, therefore,
education plays a central role in the improvement of society.
Method of Education
Pestalozzi asserted that education should be centered on the child, not the curriculum.
Since knowledge lies within human beings, the purpose of teaching is to find the way
to unfold that hidden knowledge. Pestalozzi advocated direct experience as the best
method to accomplish this. He also advocated spontaneity and self-activity, in
contrast to the rigid, teacher-centered, and curriculum-based methods used in other
schools.
Teachers should not teach through words (giving children ready-made answers), but
allow children to discover answers themselves. Nothing is better than a direct sensory
experience. Thus, in early education, Pestalozzi recommended that children use no
books, but rather learn through direct experience.
He advocated an inductive method, in which the child first learns to observe, to
correct its own mistakes, and to analyze and describe the object of inquiry. The child
starts with simple objects and simple observation, and builds toward more complex
and abstract things. Only after that can the child start to use books.
In order to allow children to obtain more experience from nature, Pestalozzi expanded
the elementary school curriculum to include geography, natural science, fine art,
and music.
I think, hence I am, was so certain and of such evidence, that no ground of doubt,
however extravagant, could be alleged by the sceptics capable of shaking it, I
concluded that I might, without scruple, accept it as the first principle of the
philosophy of which I was in search.
It is strange that Descartes did not further pursue this line of reasoning, as he would
then likely have solved the problems of philosophy / knowledge.
2. I think I exist as a material body in space and that I can see and interact with other
material things in the space around me, including other thinking things (other
humans).
From this there is only one way to describe reality if we abide by the rules
of simplicity (Occam's Razor) and metaphysics (necessary connection). i.e. There are
many minds and material things - but they all seem to exist in one common space.
This leads to a simple deduction of the wave structure of matter in Space which then
deduces the fundamentals of physics (without any opinions), i.e. Quantum
Theory,Albert Einstein's Relativity and Cosmology.
I do find it strange though that many people now seem to reject Descartes argument
that we cannot doubt our thinking minds exist. As I see things, postmodernism has
become so skeptical that people even doubt that they exist as thinking things - they
take the idea that language is metaphor to illogical extremes. This is discussed more
on the Friedrich Nietzsche page.
"I experience seeing a tree." But of course this does not mean the tree necessarily
exist. The certain truth is the personal / subjective truth (what we experience with our
minds) not the objective truth (that the tree actually exists).
Thus all we can say with certainty is "I experience seeing a tree so this experience of
the tree exists."
Philosophy
Steiner schools have a unique and distinctive approach to educating children, aiming to enable
each stage of growth to be fully and vividly enjoyed and experienced. They provide a balanced
approach to the modern school curriculum. The academic, artistic and social aspects, or ‘head,
heart & hands’, are treated as complementary facets of a single program of learning, allowing
each to throw light on the others.
This is implemented by using art as a practice, and language to develop the feelings, by
nourishing the children with the rich heritage of wise folk tales, histories, fairy stories, poems,
music and games that are part of our world civilisation. This creates the cultural atmosphere in
which the children are taught reading, writing, arithmetic, nature study, geography, science,
languages, music and other subjects.
Steiner designed a curriculum that is responsive to the developmental phases of childhood and the
nurturing of the child’s imagination in a school environment. Steiner thought that schools should
cater to the needs of the child rather than the demands of the government or economic forces, so
he developed schools that encourage creativity and free-thinking. His teaching seeks to recognise
the individuality of the child and through a balanced education, allows them to go into the world
with confidence.
The unique quality of human beings is our capacity for conscious thought. Steiner schooling
strives to support the development of well rounded human beings who are able to feel deeply and
broadly, to think penetratingly and clearly, and then to act rightly out of conscious and free
choice. The best overall statement on what is unique about Steiner education is to be found in the
stated goals of the schooling:
Waldorf education is a unique and distinctive approach to educating children that is practiced in
Waldorf schools worldwide. Waldorf schools collectively form the largest, and quite possibly the
fastest growing, group of independent private schools in the world. There is no centralised
administrative structure governing all Waldorf schools; each is administratively independent, but
there are established associations which provide resources, publish materials, sponsor
conferences, and promote the movement.
B.F. SKINNER
Philosophy of education
Philosophy of education is the study of such questions as what education is and what
its purpose is, the nature of the knowing mind and the human subject, problems of
authority, the relationship between education and society, etc. Since at least
Rousseau, philosophy of education has been linked to greater or lesser degrees to
theories of human development. The philosophy of education recognizes that the
enterprise of civil society depends on the education of the young, and that to educate
children as responsible, thoughtful and enterprising citizens is an intricate,
challenging task requiring deep understanding of ethical principles, moral values,
political theory, aesthetics, and economics; not to mention an understanding of who
children are, in themselves and in society.
Critics have accused the philosophy of education of being one the weakest subfields
of both philosophy and education, disconnected from philosophy (by being
insufficiently rigorous for the tastes of many "real" philosophers) and from the
broader study and practice of education (by being too philosophical, too theoretical).
However, its proponents state that is is an exacting and critical branch of philosophy
and point out that there are few major philosophers who have not written on
education, and who do not consider the philosophy of education a necessity. For
example, Plato undertakes to discuss all these elements in The Republic, beginning
the formulation of educational philosophy that endures today.
There are certain key voices in philosophy of education, who have contributed in
large part to our basic understandings of what education is and can be, and who have
also provided powerful critical perspectives revealing the problems in education as it
has been practiced in various historical circumstances. There is one particular strand
in educational philosophy that stands out as of extreme importance in the present
time, which may be identified as the "Democratic Tradition", because it is a product
of philosophers who, seeking to establish or preserve democracy, turn to education as
a method of choice.
“To aid life, leaving it free, however, to unfold itself, that is the basic task of the
educator.
Ours was a house for children, rather than a real school. We had prepared a place for
children, where a diffused culture could be assimilated, without any need for direct
instruction... Yet these children learned to read and write before they were five, and
no one had given them any lessons. At that time it seemed miraculous those children
four and a half should be able to write, and that they should have learned without the
feeling of having been taught.
We puzzled over it for a long time. Only after repeated experiments did we conclude
with certainty that all children are endowed with this capacity to ‘absorb’ culture. If
this is true- we then argued- if culture can be acquired without effort, let us provide
the children with other elements of culture. And then we saw them ‘absorb’ far more
than reading and writing: botany, zoology, mathematics, geography, and all with the
same ease, spontaneously and without getting tired.
And so we discovered that education is not something which the teacher does, but that
it is a natural process which develops spontaneously in the human being. It is not
acquired by listening to words, but in virtue of experiences in which the child acts on
his environment. The teacher’s task is not to talk, but to prepare and arrange a series
of motives for cultural activity in a special environment made for the child.
My experiments, conducted in many different countries have now been going on for
forty years (Editor Note: now more than one hundred years), and as the children grew
up, parents kept asking me to extend my method to later ages. We then found that
individual activity is the one factor that stimulates and produces development, and
that this is not more true for the little ones of preschool age than it is for the junior,
middle, and upper- school children.
JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART
Philosophy
According to Herbart, begins with reflection upon our empirical conceptions, and
consists in the reformation and elaboration of these, its three primary divisions being
determined by as many distinct forms of elaboration. Logic, which stands first, has to
render our conceptions and the judgments and reasonings arising from them clear and
distinct. But some conceptions are such that the more distinct they are made the more
contradictory their elements become; so to change and supplement these as to make
them at length thinkable is the problem of the second part of philosophy,
or metaphysics. There is still a class of conceptions requiring more than a logical
treatment, but differing from the last in not involving latent contradictions, and in
being independent of the reality of their objects, the conceptions that embody our
judgments of approval and disapproval; the philosophic treatment of these
conceptions falls toAesthetic
Principles of Education
Herbart’s pedagogy emphasized the connection between individual development and
the resulting societal contribution. In Platonic tradition, Herbart espoused that only by
becoming productive citizens could people fulfill their true purpose: “He believed that
every child is born with a unique potential, his Individuality, but that this potential
remained unfulfilled until it was analysed and transformed by education in
accordance with what he regarded as the accumulated values of civilization” (Blyth
p. 70). Only formalized, rigorous education could, he believed, provide the
framework for moral and intellectual development. The five key ideas which
composed his concept of individual maturation were Inner Freedom, Perfection,
Benevolence, Justice, and Equity or Recompense (Blyth 72).
According to Herbart, abilities were not innate but could be instilled, so a thorough
education could provide the framework for moral and intellectual development. In
order to develop an educational paradigm that would provide an intellectual base that
would lead to a consciousness of social responsibility, Herbart advocated that teachers
utilize a methodology with five formal steps: “Using this structure a teacher prepared
a topic of interest to the children, presented that topic, and questioned them
inductively, so that they reached new knowledge based on what they had already
known, looked back, and deductively summed up the lesson’s achievements, then
related them to moral precepts for daily living” (Miller 114).
In order to appeal to learners’ interests, Herbart advocated using literature and
historical stories instead of the drier basal readers that were popular at the time.
Whereas the moralistic tales in many of the primers and readers of the period were
predictable and allegorical, Herbart felt that children would appreciate the
psychological and literary nuances of the masterpieces of the canon (Smith 111).
Though he died in 1841, his pedagogy enjoyed a renaissance of sorts in the mid-
nineteenth century; while Germany was its intellectual center, it “found a ready echo
in those countries such as the United Kingdom, France, and the United States in
which the development of Individuality into Character appeared particularly well
attuned to the prevailing economic, political and social circumstances” (Blyth 77).
The combination of individual potentiality and civic responsibility seemed to reflect
democratic ideals.
Though the emphasis on character building through literary appreciation diminished
somewhat after the movement toward utilitarianism following World War I, Herbart’s
pedagogy continues to influence the field by raising important questions about the
role of critical thinking, and literary appreciation in education.
LEIBNIZ, GOTTFRIED WILHELM
(both: gôt´frēt vĭl´hĕlm bärôn´ fan līp´nĭts) , 16461716, German philosopher and
mathematician, b. Leipzig. Although known primarily as a philosopher, Leibniz's
scholarship embraced the physical sciences, history, law, diplomacy, and logic. The
recognition of his work in logic came quite late; manuscripts published in the 20th cent.
mark him as the founder of symbolic logic.
Philosophy
Leibniz's philosophy is a consistent rationalism. The universe forms one context in which
each occurrence can be seen in relation to every other. Since the universe is the result of a
divine plan, Leibniz calls it the best of all possible worlds; for this he was satirized by
Voltaire in Candide. Leibniz's assertion, however, does not imply an unqualified
optimism, since evil is a necessary ingredient in even the best of all possible worlds. The
ultimate constituents of the universe, in his view, are monads or simple substances, each
of which represents the universe from a different point of view. Being simple, monads are
immaterial and thus cannot act. Apparent interaction is explained in terms of the principle
of preestablished harmony.
The principle of continuity as expressed in the phrase "nature makes no leaps" is another
part of Leibniz's rationalism. The monads are arranged in an infinitely ascending scale,
based on the distinctness with which each represents the universe. All monads have
perception (consciousness), but only rational monads have apperception (self-
consciousness). A basic distinction in Leibniz's logic is that made between "truths of
reason," or necessary propositions, whose principle is the law of noncontradiction, and
"truths of fact," or contingent propositions, based on the principle of sufficient reason.
The principle has its root in the divine intellect, and its most important expression is his
law of causality.
With the decline of interest in metaphysics in contemporary philosophy, recent studies
have tended to emphasize Leibniz's significance in mathematics and logic. However,
Leibniz's metaphysics have not been neglected but rather reinterpreted in light of his
mathematical and logical works.
Important Philosophical Works
Most of Leibniz's philosophical writings are occasional pieces, addressed to various
people. The two published in his lifetime wereEssais de Théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu,
la liberté de l'homme, et l'origine du mal (1710) and Monadology (1714). It was largely
these works that influenced Christian von Wolff, whose popularization of the Leibnizian
system became the standard academic philosophy in 18th-century Germany.
Leibniz's major philosophical work, Nouveaux Essais sur l'entendement humain (1704),
contains the views of Leibniz on points raised in Locke's Essay Concerning Human
Understanding. Because of Locke's death, however, it was not published until 1765. The
publication of Nouveaux Essais in 1765 was important because it revealed for the first
time the "true Leibniz" as opposed to the popularized version of Wolff, and it had a
decisive effect on Immanuel Kant and the whole German Enlightenment.