STUDENT NAME MUHAMMAD RIZWAN MANZOOR

STUDENT ID 0000374055
ASSIGMENT NO 01
COURSE CODE 8609
Semester autumn 2023
B.ED 1.5 YEAR

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Q.1 What role is played by philosophy in the development of
educational curriculum?
The philosophy of education is the branch of applied philosophy that investigates
the nature of education as well as its aims and problems. It includes the examination
of educational theories, the presuppositions present in them, and the arguments for
and against them. It is an interdisciplinary field that draws inspiration from various
disciplines both within and outside philosophy, like ethics, political philosophy,
psychology, and sociology. These connections are also reflected in the significant
and wide-ranging influence the philosophy of education has had on otherdisciplines.
Many of its theories focus specifically on education in schools but it alsoencompasses
other forms of education. Its theories are often divided into descriptiveand normative
theories. Descriptive theories provide a value-neutral account of whateducation is and
how to understand its fundamental concepts, in contrast to normative theories, which
investigate how education should be practiced or what is the right form of education.

One of the difficulties in giving a more precise definition is the great variety of topics
that are being discussed in the philosophy of education. Some studies focus on its
fundamental concepts, like the concepts of education, teaching, learning, and
student. Such studies often take the form of conceptual analysis, which aims toclarify
concepts by discovering their fundamental constituents. Many discussions center
around the aims of education, i.e. issues like why individuals should be educated and
what purposes should be pursued in the process. There is wide agreement that these
aims include passing on knowledge as well as the developmentof the abilities of good
reasoning, judging, and acting. But theories describing morespecific goals and their
relative importance are usually controversial. Prominent suggestions include
curiosity, creativity, rationality, morality, freedom, autonomy,
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and open-mindedness. An important discussion concerning the epistemic aims of
education is whether education should focus mainly on the transmission of true
beliefs or rather on the ability to reason and arrive at new knowledge on one's own.
In this context, many theorists emphasize the importance of critical thinking in
contrast to indoctrination. Critical thinking is a form of reasoning that is reflective,
careful, and focused on determining what to believe or how to act. It also involves
the ability to challenge unwarranted claims by epistemic authorities, in contrast to
indoctrination, which is primarily concerned with instilling certain beliefs into the
student's mind without regard to their evidential status. Another debate about the
aims of education is whether the primary beneficiary is the individual educated or
the society having this individual as its member.

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Many of the more specific discussions in the philosophy of education concern the
contents of the curriculum. This involves the questions of whether, when, and in
what detail a certain topic, like sex education or religion, should be taught. Other
debates focus on the specific contents and methods used in moral, art, and science
education. Some philosophers investigate the relation between education and power,
often specifically regarding the power used by modern states to compel children to
attend school, a practice rejected by some advocates of the movements of
deschooling and unschooling. A different issue is the problem of the equality of
education, i.e. the demand that all students should be treated equally in public
education. This is often understood in the sense that education should open the same
opportunities to everyone. This ideal is threatened by various sources of inequality,
like active discrimination and unequal distribution of wealth. In regard to
educational research, some philosophers of education promote a quantitative
approach, which follows the example of the natural sciences by using wide
experimental studies. Others prefer a qualitative approach, which is closer to the
methodology of the social sciences and tends to give more prominence to individual
case studies. A topic that came to particular prominence in the contemporary
discussion is the role of standardized testing in public schools.

Various schools of philosophy have developed their own perspective on the main
issues of education. Existentialists emphasize the role
of authenticity while pragmatists give particular prominence to active learning and
discovery. Feminists and postmodernists often try to uncover and challenge biases
and forms of discrimination present in current educational practices. Other
philosophical movements include perennialism, classical
education, essentialism, critical pedagogy, and progressivism. The history of the
philosophy of education started in ancient philosophy and has remained an

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important topic to the present day. Despite its long and diverse history, it only
emerged as a systematic branch of philosophy in the latter half of the 20th century.
In universities, the philosophy of education usually forms part of departments or
colleges of education. [1][2][3][4]

The philosophy of education is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature,
aims, and problems of education.[5][6][7][4] As the philosophical study of education, it
investigates its topic similar to how other discipline-specific branches of philosophy,
like the philosophy of science or the philosophy of law, study their topics.[8][9] A
central task for the philosophy of education is to make explicit the various
fundamental assumptions and disagreements at work in its field and to evaluate the
arguments raised for and against the different positions. [8][5] The issue of education
has a great many manifestations in various fields. Because of this, both the breadth
and the influence of the philosophy of education are significant and wide-ranging,
touching many other branches of philosophy, such as ethics, political philosophy,
epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind.[8][5][9] Its theories are often
formulated from the perspective of these other philosophical disciplines.[6] But due
to its interdisciplinary nature, it also attracts contributions from scholars belonging
to fields outside the domain of philosophy.[5][9]]

 Fundamental concepts of education[edit]

The starting point of many philosophical inquiries into a field is the examination and
clarification of the fundamental concepts used in this field, often in the form
of conceptual analysis. This approach is particularly prominent in the analytic
tradition. It aims to make ambiguities explicit and to uncover various implicit and
potentially false assumptions associated with these terms.[8][5]

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Theorists in this field often emphasize the importance of this form of investigation
since all subsequent work on more specific issues already has to assume at least
implicitly what their central terms mean to demarcate their field. For example, in
order to study what constitutes good education, one has to have a notion of what the
term "education" means and how to achieve, measure, and evaluate it.[13] Definitions
of education can be divided into thin and thick definitions. Thin definitions are
neutral and descriptive. They usually emphasize the role of the transmission of
knowledge and understanding in education. Thick definitions include additional
normative components, for example, by stating that the process in question has to
have certain positive results to be called education.[13] According to one thick
definition, education means that the person educated has acquired knowledge and
intellectual skills, values these factors, and has thus changed for the better. These
characteristics can then be used to distinguish education from other closely related
terms, such as "indoctrination".[5][7][6] Other fundamental notions in the philosophy
of education include the concepts of teaching, learning, student, schooling, and
rearing.[8][5][13]

 Aims of education[edit]
A central question in the philosophy of education concerns the aims of education,
i.e. the question of why people should be educated and what goals should be pursued
in the process of education. [8][5][7][14] This issue is highly relevant for evaluating
educational practices and products by assessing how well they manage to realize
these goals. There is a lot of disagreement and various theories have been proposed
concerning the aims of education. Prominent suggestions include that education
should foster knowledge, curiosity, creativity, rationality, and critical thinking while
also promoting the tendency to think, feel, and act morally. [8][5][7] The individual
should thereby develop as a person, and achieve self-actualization by realizing

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their potential. Some theorists emphasize the cultivation of liberal ideals, suchas
freedom, autonomy, and open-mindedness, while others stress the importance of
docility, obedience to authority, and ideological purity, sometimes also with a focus
on piety and religious faith.[8][5][7] Many suggestions concern the social domain, such
as fostering a sense of community and solidarity and thus turning the individual into
a productive member of society while protecting them from the potentially negative
influences of society. The discussion of these positions and the arguments cited for
and against them often include references to various disciplines in their
justifications, such as ethics, psychology, anthropology, and sociology.[8][5][7][15]

There is wide consensus concerning certain general aims of education, like that it
should foster all students, help them in the development of their ability to reason,
and guide them in how to judge and act. But these general characteristics are usually
too vague to be of much help and there are many disagreements about the more
specific suggestions of what education should aim for.[5][14] Some attempts have been
made to provide an overarching framework of these different aims. According to one
approach, education should at its core help the individual lead a good life. All the
different more specific goals are aims of education to the extent that they serve this
ultimate purpose.[16][5] On this view, it may be argued that fostering rationality and
autonomy in the students are aims of education to the extent that increased rationality
and autonomy will result in the student leading a better life.[5]

The different theories of the aims of education are sometimes divided into goods-
based, skills-based, and character-based accounts. Goods-based accounts hold that
the ultimate aim of education is to produce some form of epistemic good, such as
truth, knowledge, and understanding. Skills-based accounts, on the other hand, see
the development of certain skills, like rationality as well as critical and independent
thinking as the goal of education. For character-based accounts, the
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character traits or virtues of the learner play the central role, often with an emphasis
on moral and civic traits like kindness, justice, and honesty.[13]

Q.2 Discuss the aims of education provided by the philosophy of

realism. (20)

 Realism in Education

Realism is also an outlook of looking at the phenomenon of the universe. It puts

more value on the independent existence of a thing.

Realism means ‘about a thing’ or ‘concerning some object’. Hence, it is a perspective

according to which, things as we see and perceive are realities. Realists firmly hold
that only knowledge acquired through senses is true. Hence, what we perceive and
see using our senses is real in nature and the only true entity of the world.

In today’s world, religious faiths do not cause conflicts, though to a certain extent
they breed racial and communal rivalries. Today’s world is a victim of rival political
faiths, and nations endeavour to secure not the victory of any religious faith, but that
of ..

 Abstract
This introductory article explains the coverage of this book, which is about the
philosophical aspects of education. It explains that the philosophy of education is
the branch of philosophy that addresses philosophical questions concerning the
nature, aims, and problems of education. The book examines the problems
concerning the aims and guiding ideals of education. It also explores the problems

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concerning students' and parents' rights, the best way to understand and conduct
moral education, and the character of purported educational ideals.

 Philosophy of Education
Philosophy of education is the branch of applied or practical philosophy concerned
with the nature and aims of education and the philosophical problems arising from
educational theory and practice. Because that practice is ubiquitous in and across
human societies, its social and individual manifestations so varied, and its influence
so profound, the subject is wide-ranging, involving issues in ethics and
social/political philosophy, epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind and
language, and other areas of philosophy. Because it looks both inward to the parent
discipline and outward to educational practice and the social, legal, and institutional

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contexts in which it takes place, philosophy of education concerns itself with both
sides of the traditional theory/practice divide. Its subject matter includes both basic
philosophical issues (e.g., the nature of the knowledge worth teaching, the character
of educational equality and justice, etc.) and problems concerning specific
educational policies and practices (e.g., the desirability of standardized curricula and
testing, the social, economic, legal and moral dimensions of specific funding
arrangements, the justification of curriculum decisions, etc.). In all this the
philosopher of education prizes conceptual clarity, argumentative rigor, the fair-
minded consideration of the interests of all involved in or affected by educational
efforts and arrangements, and informed and well-reasoned valuation of educational
aims and interventions.

 1. Problems in Delineating the Field

 2. Analytic Philosophy of Education and Its Influence

 3. Areas of Contemporary Activity

o 3.1 The Content of the Curriculum and the Aims and Functions of
Schooling

o 3.2 Social, Political and Moral Philosophy

o 3.3 Social Epistemology, Virtue Epistemology, and the Epistemology

of Education

o 3.4 Philosophical Disputes Concerning Empirical Education Research

 4. Concluding Remarks

 Bibliography

 Academic Tools

 Other Internet Resources

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1. Problems in Delineating the Field
The inward/outward looking nature of the field of philosophy of education alluded
to above makes the task of delineating the field, of giving an over-all picture of the
intellectual landscape, somewhat complicated (for a detailed account of this
topography, see Phillips 1985, 2010). Suffice it to say that some philosophers, as
well as focusing inward on the abstract philosophical issues that concern them, are
drawn outwards to discuss or comment on issues that are more commonly regarded
as falling within the purview of professional educators, educational researchers,
policy-makers and the like. (An example is Michael Scriven, who in his early career
was a prominent philosopher of science; later he became a central figure in the
development of the field of evaluation of educational and social programs. See
Scriven 1991a, 1991b.) At the same time, there are professionals in the educational
or closely related spheres who are drawn to discuss one or another of the
philosophical issues that they encounter in the course of their work. (An example
here is the behaviorist psychologist B.F. Skinner, the central figure in the
development of operant conditioning and programmed learning, who in works such
as Walden Two (1948) and Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1972) grappled—albeit
controversially—with major philosophical issues that were related to his work.)

d genre also find a home in the field of philosophy of education.

As a result of these various factors, the significant intellectual and social trends of
the past few centuries, together with the significant developments in philosophy, all
have had an impact on the content of arguments and methods of argumentation in
philosophy of education—Marxism, psycho-analysis, existentialism,
phenomenology, positivism, post-modernism, pragmatism, neo-liberalism, the

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several waves of feminism, analytic philosophy in both its ordinary language and
more formal guises, are merely the tip of the iceberg.

2. Analytic Philosophy of Education and Its Influence

No doubt it somewhat over-simplifies the complex path of intellectual history to
suggest that what happened in the twentieth century—early on, in the home
discipline itself, and with a lag of a decade or more in philosophy of education—is
that philosophical analysis came to be viewed by some scholars as being the major
philosophical activity (or set of activities), or even as being the only viable or
reputable activity. In any case, as they gained prominence and for a time hegemonic
influence during the rise of analytic philosophy early in the twentieth century
analytic techniques came to dominate philosophy of education in the middle third of
that century (Curren, Robertson, & Hager 2003).

The pioneering work in the modern period entirely in an analytic mode was the short
monograph by C.D. Hardie, Truth and Fallacy in Educational Theory (1941; reissued
in 1962). In his Introduction, Hardie (who had studied with C.D. Broad and
I.A. Richards) made it clear that he was putting all his eggs into the ordinary-
language-analysis basket:

The Cambridge analytical school, led by Moore, Broad and Wittgenstein, has
attempted so to analyse propositions that it will always be apparent whether the
disagreement between philosophers is one concerning matters of fact, or is one
concerning the use of words, or is, as is frequently the case, a purely emotive one. It
is time, I think, that a similar attitude became common in the field of educational
theory. (Hardie 1962: xix)

About a decade after the end of the Second World War the floodgates opened and a
stream of work in the analytic mode appeared; the following is merely a sample. D.

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J. O’Connor published An Introduction to Philosophy of Education (1957) in which,
among other things, he argued that the word “theory” as it is used in educational
contexts is merely a courtesy title, for educational theories are nothing like what bear
this title in the natural sciences. Israel Scheffler, who became the paramount
philosopher of education in North America, produced a number of important works
including The Language of Education (1960), which contained clarifying and
influential analyses of definitions (he distinguished reportive, stipulative, and
programmatic types) and the logic of slogans (often these are literally meaningless,
and, he argued, should be seen as truncated arguments), Conditions of Knowledge
(1965), still the best introduction to the epistemological side of philosophy of
education, and Reason and Teaching (1973 [1989]), which in a wide-ranging and
influential series of essays makes the case for regarding the fostering of
rationality/critical thinking as a fundamental educational ideal (cf. Siegel 2016). B.
O. Smith and R. H. Ennis edited the volume Language and Concepts in Education
(1961); and R.D. Archambault edited Philosophical Analysis and Education (1965),
consisting of essays by a number of prominent British writers, most notably R. S.
Peters (whose status in Britain paralleled that of Scheffler in the United States), Paul
Hirst, and John Wilson. Topics covered in the Archambault volume were typical of
those that became the “bread and butter” of analyticphilosophy of education (APE)
throughout the English-speaking world—educationas a process of initiation, liberal
education, the nature of knowledge, types of teaching, and instruction versus
indoctrination.

Q.3 Compare the role of teacher supported by the philosophies of

realism and naturalism?
 Philosophical Rationale of Realism

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Realism is interested in objects and facts. In general, realists believe in the
independent existence of the experiential universe. They have a healthy respect for
the “facts” of both the sciences and the social sciences.

Let us look at the old question about the falling tree on the desert island for a
moment. The question is usually as follows: “If a tree falls on a desert island and
there is no one there to hear it, is there any sound?” How would the idealist and the
realist differ in looking at and answering this particular question? If objects exist
independent of any knowledge about them, it is obvious that we have an
irreconcilable dispute between the realists and the idealists. Where an idealist would
say that a tree in the middle of the desert exists only if it is in some mind, or if there
is knowledge of it; the realist would hold that whether or not anyone or anything is
thinking about the tree, it nonetheless exists. The realist has revolted against the
doctrine that things that are in the experiential universe are dependent upon a knower
for their existence.

 The Universe (Ontology or Metaphysics)

There is great variety in the metaphysical beliefs of realists. There is so much variety,
in fact, that realists could never be grouped together if they did not have certain
common ground. They believe that the universe is composed of matter in motion. It
is the physical world in which we live that makes up reality. We can, on the basis of
our experiences, recognize certain regularities in it about which we generalize and
to which we grant the status of laws. The vast cosmos rolls on despite man. It is
ordered by natural laws which control the relationships himself with it or not. It is
not unlike a giant machine in which man is both participant and spectator. This
machine not only involves the physical universe, it operates in the moral, social and

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economic sphere as well. The realist sees the immutable laws governing man’s
behavior as part of the machine; they are natural law.

The realist may be a monist, believing in one substance; a dualist, believing in two;
or a pluralist, believing in many. Whichever he is, he believes that all substances
have a real existential status independent of the observer. He sees the world as having
an orderly nature and composition which exists independent of consciousness but
which man may know.

Of the several, different answers to the problem of GOD, it is likely that everyone is
upheld by some member of the family of realists. Of course, there are realists who
are atheistic. Those who define mind in terms of matter or physical process, and who
think of the cosmos in the thoroughly naturalistic sense,ofcourse have no place for
God in there metaphysics.

 Knowledge and Truth (Epistemology)

. Basically, there are two different schools of epistemological thought in the realist
camp. While both schools admit the existence and externality of the “real” world,
each views the problem of how we can know it in a different way. The realists have
been deeply concerned with the problems of epistemology. Realists pride themselves
on being “hard-nosed” and not being guilty of dealing with intellectual abstractions

The first position or presentational view of knowledge holds that we know the real
object as it exists. This is the positions of the New Realists. When one perceives
something, it is the same thing that exists in the “real” world. Thus, mind becomes
the relationship between the subject and the object. In this school of thought there
can be no major problems of truth since the correspondence theory is ideally

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applicable. This theory states that a thing is true is as it corresponds to the real world.
Since knowledge is by definition correspondence, it must be true.

These real entities and relations can be known in part by the human mind as they are
in themselves. Experience shows us that all cognition is intentional or relational in
character. Every concept is of something; every judgment about something.

 Concept of Good (Axiology)

The realist believes in natural laws. Man can know natural law and live the good life
by obeying it. All man’s experience is rooted in the regularities of the universe or
this natural law. In the realm of ethics this natural law is usually referred to as the
moral law. These moral laws have the same existential status as the law of gravity
in the physical sciences or the economic laws which are supposed to operate in the
free market. Every individual has some knowledge of the moral and natural law.

Realist believes that those qualities of our experience, which we prefer or desire, and
to which we attach worth, have something about them which makes them preferable
or desirable. But according to the second theory, the key to the evaluation is to be
found in the interest.

Social Value- The moral good can be defined from the vantage point of society as
“the greatest happiness of the greatest number.”

 Religious Value
One aspect of the relation of axiology and metaphysics can be seen by looking again
at what has been said about realism and belief in God,. For those who do not believe
in God, experience will not be rooted in a Divine Being whom we can worship,
reverence, and in whom we can place our trust. Faith and hope will not have validity
16
as religious attitudes because they will have no real object.. But there are also realists
who believe in God: and for them many traditional religious values are rooted in
realty and therefore are valid.

 Concept of Beauty (Aesthetics)

There is a close relation between the refinement of perception and the ability to enjoy
aesthetic values. It holds that ultimate values are essentially subjective. In other
words, he believes that no goal or object is bad or good in itself. Only the means for
acquiring such goals or objects can be judged good or bad insofar as they enable the
individual or the group to attain them.

Since the realist place so much value on the natural law and the moral law as found
in the behavior or phenomena in nature, it is readily apparent that the realist will find
beauty in the orderly behavior of nature. A beautiful art form reflects the logic and
order of the universe. Art should attempt to reflect or comment on the order of nature.
The more faithfully and art form does this, the more aesthetically pleasing it is.

 Logic of Realism
It can be seen that for realism there is logic of investigation as well as a logic of
reasoning. The one functions largely at the level of sense perception, the other more
especially at the conceptual level. Both are important in any effective adjustment to
the real world and in any adequate control of our experience.

Montague suggests still other ‘ways of knowing’ which have their contribution to
make to the material of logic

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(1)The accepting of authoritative statements of other people, he says ‘ must always
remain the great and primary source of our information about other man’s thoughts
and about the past

’(2)Intuition, of the mystical sort, ay also be a source of truth for us, but we should
always be careful to put such knowledge to the test of noninituitative methods before
accepting it

.(3) Particularly in the realm of practical or ethical matters, the pragmatic test, ‘how
effective it is in practice’ may be a valid source of truth

(4) And even skepticism also has its value in truth-seeking; it may not yield any
positive truth for us but it can save us from cockiness and smugness, and help us to
be tolerant and open minded.

Bertrand Russell, who came to philosophy by way of mathematics, has always held
that particular science in high repute as an instrument of truth. As is the case with
many realists. He feels that traditional logic needs to be supplemented by the science
of mathematics because of the inaccuracy and vagueness both of words and
grammer.He thinks that if logical relations are to be stated accurately .they must be
represented by mathematical symbols and equations, words are too bungle some.

 Naturalism in Education
Naturalism is a Philosophical viewpoint that describes about all the natural
occurrences in terms of natural laws. Nature is the ultimate reality, described using
concepts such as motion and energy.

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Positivism is another name for Naturalism, which implies that natural phenomena
can be explained through scientific laws and fall within the scope of one or more
positive sciences. The founder of Positivism, a French thinker named August Comte,
played a critical role in shaping this philosophical perspective. Naturalists believe
natural laws are universal and necessary, affirming the principle of Nature’s
uniformity. As a result, different natural occurrences are considered to transpire
mechanically and without any purpose.

 What is Naturalism in Education

Naturalism in education is a philosophical approach that believes nature is the
ultimate source of knowledge and values. It holds that education should be based on
the natural processes of human development and that the role of the educator is to
facilitate and support the natural growth of the learner.
According to Naturalism, education should be centered on the needs and interests of
the learner rather than on the demands of society or the curriculum. It emphasizes
the importance of experiential learning, where learners are encouraged to explore
the natural world and discover knowledge through their observations and
experiences. In Naturalism, the teacher is seen as a guide or facilitator rather than an
authoritarian figure. The teacher’s role is to provide a supportive and stimulating
environment that encourages the learner to discover their potential and develop their
interests and abilities.

Naturalism also emphasizes the importance of individuality and diversity in

education. It recognizes that each learner is unique and has talents, interests, and
learning styles. Therefore, instruction should be tailored to the individual needs of
each learner rather than following a standardized approach.

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  Meaning of Naturalism in education
Naturalism in education refers to a philosophical approach that asserts that education
should be based on natural human development and learning processes. It believes
that the natural world is the ultimate source of knowledge and values and that
education should be centered on the learner’s interests, needs, and experiences.

 Define Naturalism in Education

According to Naturalism, the educator’s role is to facilitate the learner’s growth by
providing an environment that encourages them to explore and discover knowledge
through their observations and experiences. This approach emphasizes the
importance of experiential learning, which allows the learner to interact with their
environment and gain knowledge through direct engagement with the natural world.
 Concept of Naturalism in Education
Naturalism in education also highlights the importance of individuality and diversity
in the learning process. It recognizes that each learner is different and has their own
talents, interests, and ways of learning. Because of this, each learner’s education
should be made to fit their own needs.

Naturalism in education prioritizes the learner’s holistic growth and development,

appreciation for the natural world, and the cultivation of their own potential. It is a
philosophy that places great emphasis on the value of biological processes and
experiences in the learning process.

 Philosophical Presuppositions of Naturalism

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Naturalism is a philosophy that regards Nature as the ultimate reality. According to
this view, the material world is what exists. In epistemology, naturalists are
empiricists, which means they believe that knowledge is acquired through the senses
and the brain. They do not accept that all ability is innate, as rationalists do.

In modern Western philosophy, British philosophers John Locke, Bishop Berkeley,

and David Hume were empiricists who believed in the possibility of direct
knowledge.

Regarding Axiology, Naturalists believe living according to Nature is the best way
of life. Their slogan is “Follow Nature,” and their motto is “Be natural.” They are
pluralists because Nature has created each person differently.

 Philosophical Forms or Types of Naturalism

From the standpoint of philosophical principles, the following three forms of
Naturalism are distinguished:

1. The naturalism of the Physical World

2. Mechanical Positivism.
3. Biological Naturalism
 The naturalism of the Physical World
 The Naturalism of the physical world seeks to explain human actions,
experiences, emotions, and feelings based on the principles of physical
sciences. It aims to understand the entire universe through the lens of physical
sciences.

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However, its impact in the field of education is limited as it places science above all
other forms of knowledge. Naturalism posits that science is the only valid form of
knowledge, including philosophical knowledge, which it regards as worthless.

 Mechanical Positivism
Mechanical Positivism is a principle that views the universe as a machine made of
matter and driven by self-driving energy. It suggests that everything that exists is a
form of matter, making it a form of materialism. Human beings are seen as active
machines that are activated by environmental influences. This principle influenced
the behavioral school in psychology, which explained human behavior in terms of
stimulus and response, without acknowledging any separate consciousness.
Behaviorists also explain mental processes such as imagination and memory in
physiological terms. This school sees no distinction between humans and animals,
as both can be explained in terms of stimulus and response. As a result, Mechanical
Positivism has had a significant impact on education.

Q.4 How does existentialism criticize the philosophies of idealism

and naturalism?

 Approaches to understanding idealism

What idealism is may be clarified by approaching it in three ways: through its basic
doctrines and principles, through its central questions and answers, and through its
significant arguments.
Basic doctrines and principles

Six common basic conceptions distinguish idealistic philosophy:

The union of individuality and universality

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Abstract universals—such as “canineness,” which expresses the common nature
or essence that the members of a class (e.g., individual dogs or wolves) share with
one another—are acknowledged by many philosophers. Many idealists, however,
emphasize the concept of a concrete universal, one that is also a concrete reality,
such as “humankind” or “literature,” that can be imagined as gatherable into one
specific thing. As opposed to the fixed formal abstract universal, the concrete
universal is essentially dynamic, organic, and developing. Thus, universality and
individuality merge.
The contrast between contemporaneity and eternity

Benedict de Spinoza
Dutch philosopher Benedict de Spinoza, painting by an anonymous artist; in the
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, Germany.(more)
Whereas most philosophers tend to focus on matters of contemporary concern,
idealists always seek a much wider perspective that embraces epochs and eras in the

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broad sweep of history. In the words of the 17th- century
rationalist philosopher Benedict de Spinoza, they strive to view the contemporary
world “under the aspect of eternity.” Thus, in spite of the extensive formative
influence of culture, idealists claim that their philosophy transcends the parochialism
of a particular culture; and idealisms are found, in fact, in all the major cultures of
the world.
The doctrine of internal relations and the coherence theory of truth

It seems natural to suppose, as nonidealists usually do, that the consideration of two
things in their relatedness to one another can have no effect on the things
themselves—i.e., that a relation is something in addition to the things or terms
related and is thus external. On that basis, truth would be defined as a relation of
correspondence between a proposition and a state of affairs. The idealist believes,
however, that reality is more subtle than that. The relationship between a mineral
deposit and the business cycle, for example, is an internal one: the deposit of an ore
changes when prices render it profitable to mine the mineral. Similarly, it is part of
the essence of a brick that it is related to a wall or pavement. Thus, terms and
relations logically determine one another. Ultimate reality is therefore a system of
judgments or propositions, and truth is defined in terms of the coherence of those
propositions with one another to form a harmonious whole. Thus, a successful spy
is judged either a hero or a villain only in relation to a total system of international
relations, an accepted philosophy of history, and the moral judgments involved.
There are therefore degrees of reality and degrees of truth within a system of truth
cohering by internal relations, and the truth of a judgment reflects its place in that
system.
The dialectical method

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Idealism seeks to overcome contradictions by penetrating into the overall
coherent system of truth and continually creating new knowledge to be
integrated with earlier discoveries. Idealism is thus friendly to all quests for truth,
whether in the natural or behavioral sciences or in art, religion, and philosophy. It
seeks the truth in every positive judgment and in its contradictory as well. Thus, it
traditionally uses the dialectical method of reasoning to remove the contradictions
characteristic of human knowledge. Such removal leads to a new synthetic judgment
that incorporates in a higher truth the degree of truth that was present in each of the
two lower judgments.

The centrality of mind in knowledge and being

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Idealism is not reductive, as are opposing philosophies that identify mind with matter
and reduce the higher level of reality to the protons and electrons of mathematical
physics. On the contrary, idealism defends the principle that the lower is explained by
the higher—specifically, that matter can be explained by mind but that mind cannot
be explained by matter. The word spirit can be substituted for mind or even
placed above it, and at one time “spiritualism” was used, especiallyin Europe, as a
synonym for idealism.
The transmutation of evil into good

Arthur Schopenhauer
German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, 1855.
Nearly all idealists accept the principle that the evils with which humankind has to
deal may become ingredients in a larger whole that overcomes them. The American
Hegelian Josiah Royce held that the larger whole is the Absolute Mind, which keeps

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evils under control as a person might hold a viper under the sole of his boot. Along
with that doctrine of the sublimation or transmutation of evil, Royce incorporated
into his metaphysics a point from the irrationalism of Arthur Schopenhauer, itself
a voluntaristic form of idealism, that is to say that “the world is my idea.”
Schopenhauer, however, was probably the only idealist who defended the
converse principle that good is transmuted into evil.
Naturalism

Naturalism is an approach to philosophical problems that interprets them as tractable

through the methods of the empirical sciences or at least, without a distinctively a
priori project of theorizing. For much of the history of philosophy it has been widely
held that philosophy involved a distinctive method, and could achieve knowledge
distinct from that attained by the special sciences. Thus, metaphysics and
epistemology have often jointly occupied a position of “first philosophy,” layingthe
necessary grounds for the understanding of reality and the justification of knowledge
claims. Naturalism rejects philosophy’s claim to that special status. Whether in
epistemology, ethics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, or other areas,
naturalism seeks to show that philosophical problems as traditionally conceived are
ill-formulated and can be solved or displaced by appropriately naturalistic methods.
Naturalism often assigns a key role to the methods and results of the empirical
sciences, and sometimes aspires to reductionism and physicalism. However, there
are many versions of naturalism and some are explicitly non- scientistic. What they
share is a repudiation of the view of philosophy as exclusively a priori theorizing
concerned with a distinctively philosophical set of questions.
Naturalistic thinking has a long history, but it has been especially prominent since
the last decades of the twentieth century, and its influence is felt all across

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philosophy. This article looks at why and in what ways it is prominent and describes
some of the most influential versions of naturalism.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Basic Elements of Naturalism Concerning Reality and Knowledge
a. What There Is
b. How We Know
3. Naturalism in Various Versions and Various Contexts
. Naturalism in Ethics
a. Naturalism in the Philosophy of Mind
4. Overview of the Debate About Naturalism
. Conclusion
5. References and Further Reading
1. Introduction
“Naturalism” is a term that is applied to many doctrines and positions in philosophy,
and in fact, just how it is to be defined is itself a matter of philosophical debate. Still,
the overall landscape of naturalism can be surveyed, and that is what we will do here.
This discussion will not present a defense or critique of one or another specific
version of naturalism. Its aim is to characterize the broad range of views typically
identified as naturalistic and to say something about what motivates them. It will
also locate the debate about naturalism in the larger setting of philosophical inquiry
and theorizing overall.

Different periods in the history of philosophy exhibit different emphases in what are
the most prominent and pressing concerns, and there are reasons why different issues

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2. Basic Elements of Naturalism Concerning Reality and Knowledge
The debate about naturalism ranges across many areas of philosophy, including
metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and philosophy of mind, just to mention areas
where it is especially prominent. There are two basic dimensions in which the debate
takes place. One of them concerns (to put it simply) what there is, and the other
concerns methods of acquiring belief and knowledge. There are several affiliated
issues (supervenience, objectivity, various realism/antirealism debates, the character
of norms of epistemic justification, the theory of meaning, and so forth) but they are
all connected through those two main concerns.
a. What There Is
With respect to the first, the naturalist maintains that all of what there is belongs to
the natural world. Obviously, a great deal turns on how nature is understood. But the
key point is that an accurate, adequate conception of the world does not (according
to the naturalist) include reference to supernatural entities or agencies. According to
the naturalist, there are no Platonic forms, Cartesian mental substances, Kantian
noumena, or any other agents, powers, or entities that do not (in some broad sense)
belong to nature. As a very loose characterization, it may suffice to say that nature
is the order of things accessible to us through observation and the methods of the
empirical sciences. If some other method, such as a priori theorizing, is needed to
have access to the alleged entity or to the truth in question, then it is not a real entity
or a genuine truth. According to the naturalist, there is only the natural order. If
something is postulated or claimed to exist, but is not described in the vocabulary
that describes natural phenomena, and not studied by the inquiries that study natural
phenomena, it is not something we should recognize as real.
Unsurprisingly, the success of the sciences has been one of the main motivations for
thinkers to embrace naturalism.

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Q.5 What is deductive reasoning? How does it correspond to
rationalism?

Deductive reasoning
Deductive reasoning is the mental process of drawing deductive inferences. An
inference is deductively valid if its conclusion follows logically from its premises,
i.e. it is impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion to be false.

For example, the inference from the premises "all men are mortal" and "Socrates is
a man" to the conclusion "Socrates is mortal" is deductively valid. An argument
is sound if it is valid and all its premises are true. Some theorists define deduction in
terms of the intentions of the author: they have to intend for the premises to offer
deductive support to the conclusion. With the help of this modification, it is possible
to distinguish valid from invalid deductive reasoning: it is invalid if the author's
belief about the deductive support is false, but even invalid deductive reasoning is a
form of deductive reasoning.

Psychology is interested in deductive reasoning as a psychological process, i.e. how

people actually draw inferences. Logic, on the other hand, focuses on the deductive
relation of logical consequence between the premises and the conclusion or how
people should draw inferences. There are different ways of conceptualizing this
relation. According to the semantic approach, an argument is deductively valid if
and only if there is no possible interpretation of this argument where its premises are
true and its conclusion is false. The syntactic approach, on the other hand, holds that
an argument is deductively valid if and only if its conclusion can be deduced from
its premises using a valid rule of inference. A rule of inference is a schema of
drawing a conclusion from a set of premises based only on their logical form.

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determining their performance.[3][5] Deductive inferences are found both in natural
language and in formal logical systems, such as propositional logic.[1][13]

 History of rationalism
Epistemological rationalism in ancient philosophies

Pythagoras
Pythagoras, contorniate medallion engraved between 395 and 410 CE; in the
Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.(more)
The first Western philosopher to stress rationalist insight was Pythagoras, a shadowy
figure of the 6th century BCE. Noticing that, for a right triangle, a square built on its
hypotenuse equals the sum of those on its sides and that the pitches of notes sounded
on a lute bear a mathematical relation to the lengths of the strings, Pythagoras held
that these harmonies reflected the ultimate nature of reality. He summed up the
implied metaphysical rationalism in the words “All is number.” It is probable that
he had caught the rationalist’s vision, later seen by Galileo (1564–1642), of a world
governed throughout by mathematically formulable laws.

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The difficulty in this view, however, is that, working with universals and their
relations, which, like the multiplication table, are timeless and changeless, it assumes
a static world and ignores the particular, changing things of daily life. The difficulty
was met boldly by the rationalist Parmenides (born c. 515 BCE), who insisted that
the world really is a static whole and that the realm of change and motion is
an illusion, or even a self-contradiction. His disciple Zeno of Elea (c. 495–c. 430
BCE) further argued that anything thought to be moving is confronted with a row of
points infinite in number, all of which it must traverse; hence it can never reach its
goal, nor indeed move at all. Of course, perception tells us that we do move,but Zeno,
compelled to choose between perception and reason, clung to reason.

Plato
Plato, marble portrait bust, from an original of the 4th century BCE; in the Capitoline
Museums, Rome.(more)
The exalting of rational insight above perception was also prominent in Plato (c.
427–c. 347 BCE). In the Meno, Socrates (c. 470–399 BCE) dramatized the

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innateness of knowledge by calling upon an illiterate slave boy and, drawing a square
in the sand, proceeding to elicit from him, step by step, the proof of a theorem
in geometry of which the boy could never have heard (to double the size of a square,
draw a square on the diagonal). Such knowledge, rationalists insist, is certain,
universal, and completely unlearned.

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