1. Philosophical Roots of Education
Chapter 2

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

3. 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

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

5. 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)

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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.”