Idealism in education

1. Submitted to: Martin Thomas
By Anwarullah
Class:M.ed

2. What is Philosophy
Etymological meaning:-
Greek origin :- Philos + Sophia
 Philos=Love
Sophia=Wisdom
 Philosophy = love for wisdom.

3. What is Education
Etymological Meaning:
Education has been derived from
the Latin words:
Educare – to raise up or nourish
Educere – to draw out
Educatum – the act of teaching or
training

4. philosophy and education
 Philosophy determines the real
destination towards which education has
to go.
 Philosophy determines the various
aspects of education.
 Great Philosophers have been great
educationists also.

5. Branches of Philosophy
Meta Physics
• Nature of Reality
Epistemology
• Theory of Knowledge
Axiology
• Values

6. Educational Perspectives of
Major Philosophies
Major Philosophies Edu. Philosophies
Idealism+ Realism Essentialism
Realism Perennialism
Pragmatism Progressivism
Pragmatism Reconstructionism

7. Definition of
Idealism:
Metaphysics:
Reality is an unchanging world of perfect ideas and
universal truths.
Epistemology:
Knowledge is obtained when ideas are brought into
consciousness through self-examination and
discourse.
Axiology:
Wisdom of goodness: discipline, order, self-control,
preservation of cultural heritage of the past.

8. History of Idealism
 PLATONIC IDEALISM (427-347 B. C.)
 SAINT AUGUSTINE (354-430)
 RENE DESCARTES(1596-1650)
 BENEDICT DE ESPINOZA (1632-1677)
 GOTTRIED WILHELM von LEIBNIZ(1646-1716)
 GEORGE BERKELEY (1646-1716)
 IMMANUEL KANT (1724-1804)
 GEORGE HEGEL (1770-1831)

9. PLATONIC
IDEALISM
(427-347 B. C.)
 A Greek philosopher, who was remarkably equipped with
natural endowments.
 He became an ardent admirer and disciple of Socrates.
 He opened up his own school, the Academy in Athens
and there developed and expounded his doctrines as a
teacher.
 Two of his most famous works are “The Republic” and
“The Dialogue.”
 Plato did not think that man created knowledge. Rather,
man discovered knowledge.

10. SAINT
AUGUSTINE
(354-430)
 He lived in a crucial period in the history of
Christianity.
 He was a very outstanding teacher of oratory.
 He rejected the doctrine of pantheistic conception that
the human soul is part of the World soul.
 He incorporated in his own theory of knowledge the
Neo-Platonic doctrine that the ultimate in knowledge
is a mystical intuition of the Supreme Reality, which
only a few can experience.

11. RENE
DESCARTES
(1596-1650)
 A French philosopher, mathematician and scientist
 His philosophy became known as the Cartesian
philosophy.
 His basic proposition: I think, therefore I am.
 He thought the world consisted of two kinds of
substances: thinking substance (mind) and extended
substance (matter)
 He struggled with how mind and matter interacted.
 He became the father of dualism insofar as he divided
brain and mind into separate but equal parts.

12. BENEDICT DE
ESPINOZA
(1632-1677)
 A Spanish Jew who lived in Holland.
 He accepted Descartes’ idea that the universe is
divided into mind and matter.
 But he saw, that if mind and matter are separate
substances, they cannot interact.
 He held that people’s highest happiness consists
in coming to understand and appreciate the truth
and that they are tiny parts of an all-inclusive,
pantheistic God. (Pantheism believes that all is
God and God is all.)

13. GOTTRIED WILHELM von
LEIBNIZ
(1646-1716)
 A German scholar, mathematician and
philosopher
 The characteristic aspect of his philosophy is his
concept of monadism (Monadology or
Leibnizianism). In his philosophy, each person or
thing is a monad (a completely separate being)
whose existence is in harmony with God and is
separate from outer experience.
 According to him, there are different monads:
simple, complex (soul), and more complex type of
monad (spirit). God is the monad of the last type
according to him.

14. GEORGE
BERKELEY
(1646-1716)
 He spent most of his professional life as a minister.
 As an Anglican Bishop and philosopher, he was a
deeply religious man who tied to reconcile the
science of his day with the doctrines of Christianity.
 His 2 prime doctrines are: “To be is to be perceived;”
and this being the character of knowledge, the
necessary substratum of the objective world is
revealed to the Spirit, Infinite Mind, God.
 Things exist even when nobody is perceiving them
because they are being thought about by God.

15. IMMANUEL KANT
(1724-1804)
 Some of the ethical values of idealism that he mentioned are:
1. There are universal, moral laws.
2. Man has a feeling of obligation to act in obedience to
these moral laws.
3. It is possible for an individual to act purely out of desire or
intention to do good, to fulfill the moral law.
4. The immortality of the soul.
5. Belief in the existence of God. God is your ought – the
motivating factor.

16. GEORGE
HEGEL
(1770-1831)
 In 1818, he became a professor of philosophy at the University of
Berlin and there became a prominent and an overriding figure in
philosophy.
 Three major aspects of his system are logic, nature, and spirit.
 This system led some of Hegel’s followers to believe in foreordained
destiny in the face of which individuals are mere parts of the greater,
more complete and unified whole – the state.
 The word “dialectic” best fits Hegel’s logic. The all-inclusive Hegelian
triad is:
1. Thesis – ideas
2. Antithesis – otherness of the ideas
3. Synthesis – Mind or Spirit

17. What is Education in
Idealism:
Education is transformation
and Ideas can change lives.

18. What should be
Curriculum:
 The curriculum emphasizes the study of the
humanities.
 The proper study of mankind, history, and literature
are the center of the idealist curriculum. Literary
pieces considered the masterworks of humanity
occupy an important place in the ideal curriculum.
 Pure mathematics is also included in the curriculum
as it is based upon universal a priori principles and
provide methods of dealing with abstractions.

19. Role of Teacher in
Idealism:
 The teacher occupies a crucial position
in the idealist school.
 The teacher serves as a living example
of what the student can become
intellectually, socially, and ethically.
 The teacher’s role is to pass on the
knowledge of reality as he or she
stands closer to the Absolute than do
the students.

20. Method of Instructions
in Idealism:
Lecture from time to time, but
primary method of teaching is
the dialectic…discuss, analyze,
synthesize, and apply what they
have read to contemporary
society.