Motivation for the Course Video Lecture | Philosophy of Education: Introductory Course - Self Help Learning

say a few words about the structure of
the the course that we were about to
embark upon before ending this unit here
so far what we've done is spoken about
philosophy of education in a general way
talking through the major contours of
education as a profession and then
unpacking that a little bit to bring out
significant philosophical issues that
bear directly on education and so I've
itemized four kinds of philosophical
questions that the answers to which
systematically integrated form
philosophy questions of human nature
metaphysics ethics and epistemology what
we will then do for the next four units
of the course is focus on philosophy as
a discipline so what I want to do in the
next unit for example is take up
metaphysics as a subject matter will
plunge in we'll do some metaphysics get
familiar with the territory the range of
opinion that is possible in a
metaphysical issues at least on a few
important metaphysical issues then
having done that move on to
epistemological issues we will plunge in
and do some histological issues and then
again on a couple of very important
issues that are central to education
focus on the range of opinion that's
that's available there then turn to
issues of human nature in the third unit
kick around some some core issues in
human nature on both sides or all sides
of a controversy there and then finally
turn to some questions of ethics values
and virtues and again plunge in do some
of the debates over ethical issues and
get a sense for what it is to do ethical
philosophy and unlearn the range of
opinion there in each of the four units
we'll also after talking about the
philosophical issues involve pay some
special attention to the educational
implications how if one takes this
particular metaphysical position there
are these metal implications if by
contrast you take this metaphysical
position there are these different
educational implications and so we can
see the connection between the
philosophical theory and the educational
practice that I think is an important
theme philosophy of course has a
reputation for being
abstract and it often is very abstract
it often has its reputation for being
distant from from everyday concerns and
not being particularly practical and
certainly I think is true of some
philosophies but I would make the claim
and I'll give you this as a promissory
note that I will make good on over the
course of the connection of the course
of the of the the unit's here the
philosophy is a highly practical
discipline that for all of its
theoretical abstraction the kinds of
decisions that one makes at a very
theoretical and abstract level those
have very important implications for
one's practical life and certainly very
important implications for one's
educational practice life and in many
cases the disagreements we have over
educational pedagogy or whether to
include this or that on the curriculum
in many cases those debates are at root
philosophical issues and people have
made different philosophical commitments
leading to very different commitments in
their educational practice all right so
first part of the course then will be a
four unit series of going through
questions in each of the four major
branches of philosophy and seeing the
the implications for them in in
education second part of the course will
be a more expansive part of the course
and that will be a seven unit section
here what I want to do is then start to
look at packages of positions
philosophically what I'm going to call
the isms the is ms to have that heaven
isn't that is to say a worked out
philosophy and to have a worked out
philosophy is to have a position on
human nature or a position on
metaphysics a position on ethics and a
position on on epistemological issues
having worked all through all of those
issues formed one's answers and
hopefully form answers that are
consistent and hang together and even
more importantly are in your judgment
true and operational what is it to have
a whole philosophy of life right so to
speak and what I will be doing is
talking through seven such philosophies
idealism realism pragmatism
existentialism behaviorism Marxism and
post-modernism all of them are isms as
you can
from the endings here so collectively I
will refer to them in that way now the
reason I've picked these seven is that
in my judgment in twentieth-century
American education and now that we're in
the 21st century American education all
seven of these philosophies abstract
philosophies that they may be all of
them have had and continue to have an
enormous influence on how education is
done particularly in the American
context right from which I am speaking
here idealism and realism are the two
most ancient philosophical traditions
going well back to the Greeks there are
some also some pragmatic traditions that
one can read into early Greek philosophy
as well but for most of human
philosophical history and the Western
tradition it's been an ongoing debate
between the idealist and the realists in
to some extent the pragmatists as well
as the educational world became more
complicated as our culture became more
complicated by the end of the 19th
century and on into the 20th century the
world of philosophy became more
professionalized it became more
complicated and so there began to be
developed more philosophical schools
that had their own uniqueness and their
own integrity to the point that they
came to be given their own ISM kinds of
labels until we get to the the mid or
later parts of the 20th century or we
can say there have been that articulated
many different schools of philosophical
thought to a hydric level of
professionalism the seven that I have on
the on the board here and all of them to
one degree or another have had a great
deal of influence on educational
practice