Educational progressivism is the belief that education must be based on the principle that humans are social animals

who learn best in real-life activities with other people. Most progressive educators believe that children learn as if they were scientists, following a process similar to John Dewey's model of learning: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Become aware of the problem. Define the problem. Propose hypotheses to solve it. Evaluate the consequences of the hypotheses from one's past experience. Test the likeliest solution.

Given this view of human nature, a progressivist teacher desires to provide not just reading and drill, but also real-world experiences and activities that center on the real life of the students. Typical progressivist slogans are "Learn by Doing!" and "Learn by Discovery."

Philosophy
Progressive education is a pedagogical movement that began in the late nineteenth century and has persisted in various forms to the present. More recently, it has been viewed as an alternative to the test-oriented instruction legislated by the No Child Left Behind educational funding act. The term "progressive" was engaged to distinguish this education from the traditional curriculum of the 19th century, which was rooted in classical preparation for the university and strongly differentiated by socioeconomic level. By contrast, progressive education finds its roots in present experience. Most progressive education programs have these qualities in common:
y y y y y y y y y y y y

Emphasis on learning by doing hands-on projects, expeditionary learning, experiential learning Integrated curriculum focused on thematic units Strong emphasis on problem solving and critical thinking Group work and development of social skills Understanding and action as the goals of learning as opposed to rote knowledge Collaborative and cooperative learning projects Education for social responsibility and democracy Integration of community service and service learning projects into the daily curriculum Selection of subject content by looking forward to ask what skills will be needed in future society De-emphasis on textbooks in favor of varied learning resources Emphasis on life-long learning and social skills Assessment by evaluation of childs projects and productions

[edit] Development in the United States

The most famous early practitioner of progressive education was Francis Parker; its best-known spokesperson was the philosopher John Dewey.

In 1875 Francis Parker became superintendent of schools in Quincy, Massachusetts after spending two years in Germany studying emerging educational trends on the continent. Parker was opposed to rote learning, believing that there was no value in knowledge without understanding. He argued instead schools should encourage and respect the childs creativity. Parkers Quincy System called for child-centered and experience-based learning. He replaced the traditional curriculum with integrated learning units based on core themes related to the knowledge of different disciplines. He replaced traditional readers, spellers and grammar books with childrens own writing, literature, and teacher prepared materials. In 1883 Parker left Massachusetts to become Principal of the Cook County Normal School in Chicago, a school also served to train teachers in Parkers methods. In 1894 Parkers Talks on Pedagogics, which drew heavily on the thinking of Frbel, Pestalozzi and Herbart, became one of the first American writings on education to gain international fame. That same year, philosopher John Dewey moved from the University of Michigan to the newly established University of Chicago where he became chair of the department of philosophy, psychology and education. He and his wife enrolled their children in Parkers school before founding their own school two years later. Whereas Parker started with practice and then moved to theory, Dewey began with hypotheses and then devised methods and curricula to test them. By the time Dewey moved to Chicago at the age of thirty-five, he had already published two books on psychology and applied psychology. He had become dissatisfied with philosophy as pure speculation and was seeking ways to make philosophy directly relevant to practical issues. Moving away from an early interest in Hegel, Dewey proceeded to reject all forms of dualism and dichotomy in favor of a philosophy of experience as a series of unified wholes in which everything can be ultimately related. In 1896, John Dewey opened what he called the laboratory school to test his theories and their sociological implications. With Dewey as the director and his wife as principal, the University of Chicago Laboratory school, was dedicated to discover in administration, selection of subjectmatter, methods of learning, teaching, and discipline, how a school could become a cooperative community while developing in individuals their own capacities and satisfy their own needs. (Cremin, 136) For Dewey the two key goals of developing a cooperative community and developing individuals own capacities were not at odds; they were necessary to each other. This unity of purpose lies at the heart of the progressive education philosophy. In 1912, Dewey sent out students of his philosophy to found The Park School of Buffalo and The Park School of Baltimore to put it into practice. These schools operate to this day within a similar progressive approach. At Columbia, Dewey worked with other educators such as Charles Eliot and Abraham Flexner to help bring progressivism into the mainstream of American education. In 1917 Columbia established the Lincoln School of Teachers College as a laboratory for the working out of an elementary and secondary curriculum which shall eliminate obsolete material and endeavor to work up in usable form material adapted to the needs of modern living. (Cremin, 282) Based on Flexners demand that the modern curriculum include nothing for which an affirmative case can not be made out (Cremin, 281) the new school organized its activities around four fundamental

fields: science, industry, aesthetics and civics. The Lincoln School built its curriculum around units of work that reorganized traditional subject matter into forms embracing the development of children and the changing needs of adult life. The first and second grades carried on a study of community life in which they actually built a city. A third grade project growing out of the day to day life of the nearby Hudson river became one of the most celebrated units of the school, a unit on boats, which under the guidance of its legendary teacher Miss Curtis, became an entre into history, geography, reading, writing, arithmetic, science, art and literature. Each of the units was broadly enough conceived so that different children could concentrate on different aspects depending on their own interests and needs. Each of the units called for widely diverse student activities, and each sought to deal in depth with some critical aspect of contemporary civilization. Finally each unit engaged children working together cooperatively and also provided opportunities for individual research and exploration. From 1919 to 1955 the Progressive Education Association founded by Stanwood Cobb and others worked to promote a more student-centered approach to education. During the Great Depression the organization conducted an Eight Year study evaluating the effects of progressive programs. More than 1500 students over four years were compared to an equal number of carefully matched students at conventional schools. When they reached college, the experimental students were found to equal or surpass traditionally educated students on all outcomes: grades, extracurricular participation, dropout rates, intellectual curiosity, and resourcefulness. Moreover, the study found that the more the school departed from the traditional college preparatory program, the better was the record of the graduates. (Kohn, Schools, 232) By mid-century many public school programs had also adopted elements of progressive curriculum. At mid-century Dewey believed that progressive education had not really penetrated and permeated the foundations of the educational institution.(Kohn, Schools, 6,7) As the influence of progressive pedagogy grew broader and more diffuse, practitioners began to vary their application of progressive principles. As varying interpretations and practices made evaluation of progressive reforms more difficult to assess, critics began to propose alternative approaches. The seeds of the debate over progressive education can be seen in the differences of Parker and Dewey. These have to do with how much and by whom curriculum should be worked out from grade to grade, how much the childs emerging interests should determine classroom activities, the importance of child-centered vs. societalcentered learning, the relationship of community building to individual growth, and especially the relationship between emotion, thought and experience. In 1955 the publication of Rudolf Flesch's Why Johnny Cant Read leveled criticism of reading programs at the progressive emphasis on reading in context. The conservative McCarthy era raised questions about the liberal ideas at the roots of the progressive reforms. The launching of Sputnik in 1957 at the height of the cold war gave rise to number of intellectually competitive approaches to disciplinary knowledge, such as BSCS biology PSSC physics, led by university professors such as Jerome Bruner and Jerrold Zacharias.

Interestingly, some of the cold war reforms incorporated elements of progressivism. For example, the work of Zacharias and Bruner was based in the developmental psychology of Jean Piaget and incorporated many of Deweys ideas of experiential education. Bruners analysis of developmental psychology became the core of a pedagogical movement known as constructivism, which argues that the child is an active participant in making meaning and must be engaged in the progress of education for learning to be effective. This psychological approach has deep connections to the work of both Parker and Dewey and led to a resurgence of their ideas in second half of the century. In 1963 President Johnson inaugurated the Great Society and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act suffused public school programs with funds for sweeping education reforms. At the same time the influx of federal funding also gave rise to demands for accountability and the behavioral objectives approach of Robert F. Mager and others foreshadowed the No Child Left Behind Act passed in 2002. Against these critics eloquent spokespersons stepped forward in defense of the progressive tradition. The Open Classroom movement, led by Herb Kohl and George Dennison, recalled many of Parker's child centered reforms. More recently Alfie Kohn has been an outspoken critic of the No Child Left Behind Act and a passionate defender of the progressive tradition.[1][2][3][4][5] Taxpayer revolts, leading to cuts in funding for public education in many states, have led to the founding of an unprecedented number of independent schools, many of which have progressive philosophies. The charter school movement has also spawned an increase in progressive programs. Most recently, public outcry against No Child Left Behind testing and teaching to the test has brought progressive education again into the limelight. Despite the variations that still exist among the progressive programs throughout the country, most progressive schools today are vitalized by these common practices:
y y y y y

The curriculum is more flexible and is influenced by student interest Teachers are facilitators of learning who encourage students to use a wide variety of activities to learn Progressive teachers use a wider variety of materials allowing for individual and group research. Progressive teachers encourage students to learn by discovery Progressive education programs often include the use of community resources and encourage service-learning projects.

[edit] Education outside of schools

Organizations like the Boy Scouts of America rose, even amidst concerns by opponents of the progressive movement in the United States, because some people felt that social welfare of young men should be maintained through education alone. After decades of growing interest in and development of experiential education and scouting (not Scouting) in the United States, and the emergence of the Scout Movement in 1907, in 1910 Boy Scouts of America was founded in the merger of three older Scouting organizations: Boy Scouts of the United States, the National Scouts of America and the Peace Scouts of California.[6] Its founder, Chicago publisher W. D. Boyce was visiting London, in 1909, when he met the Unknown Scout and learned of the

Scouting movement.[7] Soon after his return to the U.S., Boyce incorporated the Boy Scouts of America on February 8, 1910.[8] Edgar M. Robinson and Lee F. Hanmer became interested in the nascent BSA program and convinced Boyce to turn the program over to the YMCA for development.[9][10] Robinson enlisted Ernest Thompson Seton, Daniel Carter Beard and other prominent leaders in the early youth movements. After initial development, Robinson turned the movement over to James E. West who became the first Chief Scout Executive and the Scouting movement began to expand in the U.S.[10][11] As BSA grew, it absorbed other Scouting organizations. See also: History of the Boy Scouts of America See also: Girl Scouts of the USA See also: Camp Fire Girls

[edit] Recent developments

Changes in educational establishments came about as Americans and Europeans felt they had fallen behind the Soviet Union technologically after the success of Sputnik in October, 1957. A rethinking of education theory followed that, together with the prevailing conservative political climate, helped to cause progressivism to fall from favor. However, today many schools use progressive education methods, such as hands on activities and science experiments in Junior High Schools. Numerous schools also self-identify as progressive in educational philosophy. Behaviorism (or behaviourism), also called the learning perspective (where any physical action is a behavior), is a philosophy of psychology based on the proposition that all things that organisms doincluding acting, thinking and feelingcan and should be regarded as behaviors.[1] The behaviorist school of thought maintains that behaviors as such can be described scientifically without recourse either to internal physiological events or to hypothetical constructs such as the mind.[2] Behaviorism comprises the position that all theories should have observational correlates but that there are no philosophical differences between publicly observable processes (such as actions) and privately observable processes (such as thinking and feeling).[3] From early psychology in the 19th century, the behaviorist school of thought ran concurrently and shared commonalities with the psychoanalytic and Gestalt movements in psychology into the 20th century; but also differed from the mental philosophy of the Gestalt psychologists in critical ways.[citation needed] Its main influences were Ivan Pavlov, who investigated classical conditioning although he did not necessarily agree with Behaviorism or Behaviorists, Edward Lee Thorndike, John B. Watson who rejected introspective methods and sought to restrict psychology to experimental methods, and B.F. Skinner who conducted research on operant conditioning.[3] In the second half of the 20th century, behaviorism was largely eclipsed as a result of the cognitive revolution.[4][5] While behaviorism and cognitive schools of psychological thought may not agree theoretically, they have complemented each other in practical therapeutic applications, such as in cognitivebehavioral therapy that has demonstrable utility in treating certain

pathologies, such as simple phobias, PTSD, and addiction. In addition, behaviorism sought to create a comprehensive model of the stream of behavior from the birth of the human to his death (see Behavior analysis of child development).

Versions
There is no generally agreed-upon classification, but some titles have been given to the various branches of behaviorism and they include:
y y

y y

y y

Methodological: The behaviorism of Watson; the objective study of behavior; no mental life, no internal states; thought is covert speech. Radical: Skinner's behaviorism; is considered radical since it expands behavioral principles to processes within the organism; in contrast to methodological behaviorism; not mechanistic or reductionistic; hypothetical (mentalistic) internal states are not considered causes of behavior, phenomena must be observable at least to the individual experiencing them. Willard Van Orman Quine used many of radical behaviorism's ideas in his study of knowing and language. Teleological: Post-Skinnerian, purposive, close to microeconomics. Focuses on objective observation as opposed to cognitive processes. Theoretical: Post-Skinnerian, accepts observable internal states ("within the skin" once meant "unobservable", but with modern technology we are not so constrained); dynamic, but eclectic in choice of theoretical structures, emphasizes parsimony. Biological: Post-Skinnerian, centered on perceptual and motor modules of behavior, theory of behavior systems. Psychological behaviorism: Arthur W. Staats' unifying approach to behaviorism and psychology. He merges psychological concepts like "personality" within a behavioral model like BBR Basic Behavioral Repertoires.

Two subtypes are:

y y

Hullian and post-Hullian: theoretical, group data, not dynamic, physiological; Purposive: Tolman's behavioristic anticipation of cognitive psychology

[edit] Definition

B.F. Skinner was influential in defining radical behaviorism, a philosophy codifying the basis of his school of research (named the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, or EAB.) While EAB differs from other approaches to behavioral research on numerous methodological and theoretical points, radical behaviorism departs from methodological behaviorism most notably in accepting feelings, states of mind and introspection as existent and scientifically treatable. This is done by identifying them as something non-dualistic, and here Skinner takes a divide-andconquer approach, with some instances being identified with bodily conditions or behavior, and others getting a more extended "analysis" in terms of behavior. However, radical behaviorism stops short of identifying feelings as causes of behavior.[1] Among other points of difference were a rejection of the reflex as a model of all behavior and a defense of a science of behavior complementary to but independent of physiology. Radical behaviorism has considerable overlap with other western philosophical positions such as American pragmatism.[6]

[edit] Experimental and conceptual innovations

This essentially philosophical position gained strength from the success of Skinner's early experimental work with rats and pigeons, summarized in his books The Behavior of Organisms[7] and Schedules of Reinforcement.[8] Of particular importance was his concept of the operant response, of which the canonical example was the rat's lever-press. In contrast with the idea of a physiological or reflex response, an operant is a class of structurally distinct but functionally equivalent responses. For example, while a rat might press a lever with its left paw or its right paw or its tail, all of these responses operate on the world in the same way and have a common consequence. Operants are often thought of as species of responses, where the individuals differ but the class coheres in its function-shared consequences with operants and reproductive success with species. This is a clear distinction between Skinner's theory and SR theory. Skinner's empirical work expanded on earlier research on trial-and-error learning by researchers such as Thorndike and Guthrie with both conceptual reformulationsThorndike's notion of a stimulusresponse "association" or "connection" was abandoned; and methodological onesthe use of the "free operant", so called because the animal was now permitted to respond at its own rate rather than in a series of trials determined by the experimenter procedures. With this method, Skinner carried out substantial experimental work on the effects of different schedules and rates of reinforcement on the rates of operant responses made by rats and pigeons. He achieved remarkable success in training animals to perform unexpected responses, and to emit large numbers of responses, and to demonstrate many empirical regularities at the purely behavioral level. This lent some credibility to his conceptual analysis. It is largely his conceptual analysis that made his work much more rigorous than his peers, a point which can be seen clearly in his seminal work Are Theories of Learning Necessary? in which he criticizes what he viewed to be theoretical weaknesses then common in the study of psychology. An important descendant of the experimental analysis of behavior is the Society for Quantatative Analysis of Behavior.[9]
[edit] Relation to language

As Skinner turned from experimental work to concentrate on the philosophical underpinnings of a science of behavior, his attention turned to human language with Verbal Behavior[10] and other language-related publications;[11] Verbal Behavior laid out a vocabulary and theory for functional analysis of verbal behavior, and was strongly criticized in a review by Noam Chomsky.[12] Skinner did not respond in detail but claimed that Chomsky failed to understand his ideas,[13] and the disagreements between the two and the theories involved have been further discussed.[14][15] In addition; innate theory is opposed to behaviorist theory which claims that language is a set of habits that can be acquired by means of conditioning. According to some, this process that the behaviorists define is a very slow and gentle process to explain a phenomenon complicated as language learning. What was important for a behaviorist's analysis of human behavior was not language acquisition so much as the interaction between language and overt behavior. In an essay republished in his 1969 book Contingencies of Reinforcement,[16] Skinner took the view that humans could construct linguistic stimuli that would then acquire control over their behavior in the same way that external stimuli could. The possibility of such "instructional control" over behavior meant that contingencies of reinforcement would not always produce the same effects on human behavior as they reliably do in other animals. The focus of a radical behaviorist

analysis of human behavior therefore shifted to an attempt to understand the interaction between instructional control and contingency control, and also to understand the behavioral processes that determine what instructions are constructed and what control they acquire over behavior. Recently a new line of behavioral research on language was started under the name of Relational Frame Theory.

[edit] Molar versus molecular behaviorism

Skinner's view of behavior is most often characterized as a "molecular" view of behavior; that is, behavior can be decomposed into atomistic parts or molecules. This view is inconsistent with Skinner's complete description of behavior as delineated in other works, including his 1981 article "Selection by Consequences".[17] Skinner proposed that a complete account of behavior requires understanding of selection history at three levels: biology (the natural selection or phylogeny of the animal); behavior (the reinforcement history or ontogeny of the behavioral repertoire of the animal); and for some species, culture (the cultural practices of the social group to which the animal belongs). This whole organism then interacts with its environment. Molecular behaviorists use notions from melioration theory, negative power function discounting or additive versions of negative power function discounting.[18] Molar behaviorists, such as Howard Rachlin, Richard Herrnstein, and William Baum, argue that behavior cannot be understood by focusing on events in the moment. That is, they argue that behavior is best understood as the ultimate product of an organism's history and that molecular behaviorists are committing a fallacy by inventing fictitious proximal causes for behavior. Molar behaviorists argue that standard molecular constructs, such as "associative strength", are better replaced by molar variables such as rate of reinforcement.[19] Thus, a molar behaviorist would describe "loving someone" as a pattern of loving behavior over time; there is no isolated, proximal cause of loving behavior, only a history of behaviors (of which the current behavior might be an example) that can be summarized as "love".

[edit] Behaviorism in philosophy

Behaviorism is a psychological movement that can be contrasted with philosophy of mind. The basic premise of radical behaviorism is that the study of behavior should be a natural science, such as chemistry or physics, without any reference to hypothetical inner states of organisms as causes for their behavior. A modern example of such analysis would be Fantino and colleagues' work on behavioral approaches to reasoning.[20] Other varieties, such as theoretical behaviorism, permit internal states, but do not require them to be mental or have any relation to subjective experience. Behaviorism takes a functional view of behavior. There are points of view within philosophy of language and analytic philosophy that have called themselves, or have been called by others, behaviorist. When language is investigated, life forms will be involved. Linguistical behavior is the 'intelligent design' of nature. It is sometimes argued that Ludwig Wittgenstein, defended a behaviorist position (e.g., the beetle in a box argument), but while there are important relations between his thought and behaviorism, the claim that he was a behaviorist is quite controversial. Mathematician Alan Turing is also sometimes

considered a behaviorist,[citation needed] but he himself did not make this identification. In logical behaviorism (as held, e.g., by Rudolf Carnap and Carl Hempel), the meaning of psychological statements are their verification conditions, which consist of performed overt behavior. W.V. Quine made use of a type of behaviorism, influenced by some of Skinner's ideas, in his own work on language. Gilbert Ryle defended a distinct strain of philosophical behaviorism, sketched in his book The Concept of Mind. Ryle's central claim was that instances of dualism frequently represented "category mistakes", and hence that they were really misunderstandings of the use of ordinary language. Daniel Dennett likewise acknowledges himself to be a type of behaviorist.[21], though he offers extensive criticism of radical behaviorism and refutes Skinner's rejection of the value of intentional idioms and the possibility of free will. (see "Skinner Skinned" in Brainstorms)

[edit] 21st century behavior analysis

As of 2007, modern-day behaviorism, known as "behavior analysis", is a thriving field. The Association for Behavior Analysis: International (ABAI) currently has 32 state and regional chapters within the United States. Approximately 30 additional chapters have also developed throughout Europe, Asia, South America, and Australia. In addition to 34 annual conferences held by ABAI in the United States and Canada, ABAI held the 5th annual International conference in Norway in 2009. The interests among behavior analysts today are wide ranging, as a review of the 30 Special Interest Groups (SIGs) within ABAI indicates. Such interests include everything from developmental disabilities and autism, to cultural psychology, clinical psychology, verbal behavior, Organizational Behavior Management (OBM; behavior analytic I/O psychology). OBM has developed a particularly strong following within behavior analysis, as evidenced by the formation of the OBM Network and the influential Journal of Organizational Behavior Management (JOBM; recently rated the 3rd highest impact journal in applied psychology by ISI JOBM rating). Modern behavior analysis has also witnessed a massive resurgence in research and applications related to language and cognition, with the development of Relational Frame Theory (RFT; described as a "Post-Skinnerian account of language and cognition").[22] RFT also forms the empirical basis for the highly successful and data-driven Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). In fact, researchers and practitioners in RFT/ACT have become sufficiently prominent that they have formed their own specialized organization, known as the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS). Some of the current prominent behavior analytic journals include the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (JABA), the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior (JEAB) JEAB website, the Journal of Organizational Behavior Management (JOBM), Behavior and Social Issues (BSI), as well as the Psychological Record. Currently, the U.S. has 14 ABAI accredited MA and PhD programs for comprehensive study in behavior analysis.

[edit] Behavior analysis and culture

Cultural analysis has always been at the philosophical core of radical behaviorism from the early days (As seen in Skinner's Walden Two, Science & Human Behavior, Beyond Freedom & Dignity, and About Behaviorism.) During the 1980s, behavior analysts, most notably Sigrid Glenn, had a productive interchange with cultural anthropologist Marvin Harris (the most notable proponent of "Cultural Materialism") regarding interdisciplinary work. Very recently, behavior analysts have produced a set of basic exploratory experiments in an effort toward this end.[23]
Educational essentialism is an educational philosophy whose adherents believe that children should learn the traditional basic subjects thoroughly and rigorously. In this philosophical school of thought, the aim is to instill students with the "essentials" of academic knowledge, enacting a back-to-basics approach. Essentialism ensures that the accumulated wisdom of our civilization as taught in the traditional academic disciplines is passed on from teacher to student. Such disciplines might include Reading, Writing, Literature, Foreign Languages, History, Mathematics, Science, Art, and Music. Moreover, this traditional approach is meant to train the mind, promote reasoning, and ensure a common culture.

Principles of Essentialism
Essentialism is a relatively conservative stance to education that strives to teach students the knowledge of our society and civilization through a core curriculum. This core curriculum involves such areas that include the study of the surrounding environment, basic natural laws, and the disciplines that promote a happier, more educated living.[1] Other non-traditional areas are also integrated as well in moderation to balance the education. Essentialists' goals are to instill students with the "essentials" of academic knowledge, patriotism, and character development through traditional (or back-to-basic) approaches. This is to promote reasoning, train the mind, and ensure a common culture for all Americans.[2] Essentialism is the most typically enacted philosophy in American classrooms today. Traces of this can be found in the organized learning centered around teacher and textbooks, in addition to the regular assignments and evaluations typical in essentialist education.
[edit] Essentialism as a Teacher-Centered Philosophy

The role of the teacher as the leader of the classroom is a very important tenet of Educational essentialism. The teacher is the center of the classroom, so they should be rigid and disciplinary. Establishing order in the classroom is crucial for student learning; effective teaching cannot take place in a loud and disorganized environment. It is the teacher's responsibility to keep order in the classroom.[3] The teacher must interpret essentials of the learning process, take the leadership position and set the tone of the classroom. These needs require an educator that is academically well-qualified with an appreciation for learning and development. The teacher must control the students with distributions of rewards and penalties.[4]

[edit] History of Essentialism

The Essentialist movement first began in the United States in the year 1938. In Atlantic City, New Jersey, a group met for the first time called "The Essentialist's Committee for the Advancement of Education".[5] Their emphasis was to reform the educational system to a rational-based system. The term essentialist first appeared in the book An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education which was written by Michael John Demiashkevich.[6] In his book, Demiashkevich labels some specific educators (including William C. Bagley) as essentialists." Demiashkevich compared the essentialists to the different viewpoints of the Progressive Education Association. He described how the Progressives preached a hedonistic doctrine of change where as the essentialists stressed the moral responsibility of man for his actions and looked toward permanent principles of behavior (Demiashkevich likened the arguments to those between the Socratics and the Sophists in Greek philosophy).[7] In 1938 Bagley and other educators met together where Bagley gave a speech a speech detailing the main points of the essentialism movement and attacking the public education in the United States. One point that Bagley noted was that students in the U.S. were not getting an education on the same levels as students in Europe who were the same age.[8] A recent branch has emerged within the essentialist school of thought called "neoessentialism." Emerging in the eighties as a response to the essentialist ideals of the thirties as well as to the criticism of the fifties and the advocates for education in the seventies, neoessentialism was created to try to appease the problems facing the United States at the time.[9] The most notable change within this school of thought is that it called for the creation of a new discipline, computer science.
[edit] Renowned Essentialists

William Bagley (18741946) was an important historical essentialist. William C. Bagley completed his undergraduate degree at Michigan Agricultural College in 1895. It wasnt until after finishing his undergrad studies that he truly wanted to be a teacher.[10] Bagley did his Graduate studies at the University of Chicago and at Cornell University. He acquired his Ph.D. in 1900 after which he took his first school job a Principal in a St. Louis, Missouri Elementary School.[11] Bagleys devotion increased during his work at Montana State Normal School in Dillon, Montana. It was here where he decided to dedicate his time to the education of teachers and where he published The Educative Process, launching his name across the nation. Throughout his career Bagley argued against the conservative position that teachers were not in need of special training for their work.[12] He believed that liberal arts material was important in teacher education. Bagley also believed the dominant theories of education of the time were weak and lacking.[13] In April 1938, he published the Essentialist's Platform, in which he outlined three major points of essentialism. He described the right of students to a well-educated and culturally knowledgeable teacher. Secondly, he discussed the importance of teaching the ideals of

community to each group of students. Lastly, Bagley wrote of the importance of accuracy, thoroughness and effort on part of the student in the classroom.[14] Another important essentialist is E.D. Hirsch (1928-). Hirsch was Founder and Chairman of the Core of Knowledge Foundation and author to several books concerning fact-based approaches to education. Now retired, he spent many years teaching at the University of Virginia while also being an advocate for the "back to basics" movement. In his most popular book, Cultural Literacy What Every American Needs To Know, he offers lists, quotations, and information regarding what he believes is essential knowledge.[15] See also Arthur Bestor.

[edit] Schools Enacting an Essentialist Curriculum

Although it is difficult to maintain a pure and strict essentialist-only curriculum, the Coalition of Essential Schools does contain hard traces of the philosophy. This coalition of two hundred schools was initially headed by Ted Sizer and emphasizes the academic rigor of the disciplines that is at the core of essentialism. The schools do enact a "less is more" approach as it focuses on few disciplines in depth, but focuses on the complete mastery of those skills. Moreover, it views the student as a "worker" and the teacher as the "coach," a common theme in teacher-centered classrooms.[16] Please see the entire site for more details.[17]

[edit] Criticism of Essentialism

One of the positive critiques of essentialism is the stability of the education. Because essentialism is relatively conservative and focuses on disciplines which are relatively stable, it is a rather consistent form of education. The same disciplines are taught consistently and in a progressive manner. It is not persuaded by the fads of the time, but instead focuses on the basics that students need to know to be productive members of society. However, because Essentialism is largely teacher-centered, the role of the student is often called into question. Presumably, in an essentialist classroom, the teacher is the one designing the curriculum for the students based upon the core disciplines. Moreover, he or she is enacting the curriculum and setting the standards to which the students must meet. As a result, the students begin to take on more of a passive role in their education as they are forced to meet and learn such standards and information.[18] Furthermore, there is also speculation that an essentialist education helps in promoting the cultural lag.[19] This philosophy of education is very traditional in the mindset of passing on the knowledge of the culture via the academic disciplines. Thus, students are forced to think in the mindset of the larger culture, and individual creativity is often squelched. EXISTENTIALISM IN EDUCATION.

INTRODUCTION : A keen study of quite an amount of existentialist philosophy would reveal that to write about existentialism is neither easy nor simple but a challenging and complex one. If doubts and confusions are left uncleared, one can only say that contradictions and inconsistencies are fundamental to their thought.1 Some illustrations of such paradoxes are - Heideggers statement -: analyse death to understand life, Jaspers : Renounce your world and you will return to it, Santre : You are a free man if you deny God, Kierkegaard : You are a free man if you accept God, etc. When once a critique drew the attention of Sartre by his remark. Your philosophy is problematic and ambiguous, Sartres reply was Man does seem to me to be ambiguous.2 Not only their thought, even their language is obscure. Here is an example of existentialist dialectical confusion : Nothing is revealed in dread, but not as something that is. Neighter can it be taken as an object. Dread is not an apprehension of Nothing. We would say rather : in dread Nothing functions as if at one with WHAT-IS-IN-TOTALITY?3 Another very significant source of confusion arises out of the different personal lives and convictions of existential philosophers. Kierkegaard, Marcel and Jaspers are theists whereas Sartre and Heideggar are agnostics. Jaspers is a protestant whereas Marcel is a staunch Roman Catholic. Less said the better about the diversities of other existentialist philosophers like Berdyaev, Buber, Tillich and Neibhur. HISTORICAL OVERVIEW -: Just as the whole of Indian philosophy is either an extension, interpretation, criticism and corroboration of the Vedas and in it the Upanishads or an outright revolt against them, similarly it may be remarked of western philosophy as either a clarification of Socrates or his rejection. One would be still right in saying that the whole of western philosophy is an appendix on Socrates. So it is even true with existentialism that Socrates has been considered to be the first existentialist. Socrates statement : I am and always have been a man to obey nothing in my nature except the resoning which upon reflection, appears to me to be the best. Right from Plato down to (Spinoza, Leibnitz) Descartes, the majority of western thinkers have been believing in the immutability of ideas and the rest of the thinkers have been suggesting correctives to it. Anyhow their frame of reference has always been Essence Precedes Existence, essense being referred to ideas, values, ideals, thoughts, etc. and existence being referred to our lives. The last in the series was Hegal who carried farthest this effort to understand the world rationally. But by the middle of the 19th Century there sprang up a Danish philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) who not only rejected the platonic view but reversed the order itself. Kierkegaard who may considered to be the founder of the philosophy of existence contradicted Hegal and asserted that Existence Precedes Essence.6 It is against any kind of rationalisations, universalities and generalities in philosophy. There is the extreme subjectivism in it. His major work Either/or/to be or not to be.

Atleast for the western world, the first half of the twentieth century has been an age marked by anxieties, conflicts, sufferings, tragic episodes, dread, horrow, anguish, persecusion and human sacrifices caused by the two intermittent world wars. As Harper writes : Tragedy, death, guilt, suffering all force one to appraise ones total situation, much more than do happiness, joy, success, innocence, since it is in the former that momentous choices must be made.7 So, there sprang up a group of philosophers spread all over Germany, France and Italy which were the places of social crisis. Significant among these philosophers were Karl Jaspers and Martin Heidegaar from Germany. France contributed two other existentialists -: Gabriel Marcel and Jean Paul Sartre. There are quite a few gentlemen who are associated remotely with the philosophy of existentialism like Schelling, Nietsche, Pascal, Hussrell who have influenced existential thought but cannot be rigidly classified as existentialists.8 Existentialism thus has a short history of nearly two centuries. MEANING OF EXISTENTIALISM -: There are numerous ways to analyse the currents of existential thinking. As a system of philosophy or a school of thought, existentialism is a revole against traditional metaphysics. As a theory of human development, it is an approach to highlight the existence of being the process of becoming. Since a person, in the becoming state, always exists in a constantly dynamic phase, his life may be regarded as a journey on which he finds ever newer experiences and gains greater insights. Existentialism represents a protest against the rationalism of traditional philosophy, against misleading notions of the bourgeois culture, and the dehumanising values of industrial civilization. Since alienation, loneliness and self-strangement constitute threats to human personality in the modern world, existential thought has viewed as its cardinal concerns a quest for subjective truth, a reaction against the negation of Being and a perennial search for freedom. From the ancient Greek philosopher, Socrates, to the Twentieth Century. French philosopher, Jean Paul, Sartre, thinkers have dealt with this tragic sense of ontological reality the human situation within a comic context. ETYMOLOGICAL MEANING -: Etymological meaning of existence from two German words -: ex-sistent meaning that which stands out, that which emerges suggests that existentialism is a philosophy that emerges out of problems of life. EXISTENTIALISM DEFINED -: Various definitions of existentialism have been proposed by different authors. Blackham (1952) has described existenalism as a philosophy of being a philosophy of attestation and acceptance, and a refusal of the attempt to rationalize and to think Being.

The peculiarity of existentialism, according to Blackham is that, it deals with the separation of man from himself and from the world, which raises the question of philosophy not by attempting to establish some universal form of justification which will enable man to readjust himself but by permanently enlarging and lining the separation itself as primordial and constitutive for personal existence.12 Harries and Leveys (1975) defined existentialism as any of several philosophic systems, all centred on the individual and his relationship the universe or to God. 13 Tiryakian (1962) defines it as an attempt to reaffirm the importance of the individual by rigorous and in many respects radically new analysis of the nature of man.14 In the opinion presented here, existentialism is a humanistic perspective on the individual situation, a philosophy of existence, of being, of authenticity and of universal freedom. It is a quest, beyond despaire, for creative identity. It is the philosophy that is a counsellor in crisis, a crisis in the individuals life, which calls upon him to make a choice regarding his subsequent existence.15 In brief, Existence does not mean living alive alone, it means to maintain perfect, powerful, selfconscious, responsible and intelligent life. Man should get opportunity for subjective consciousness. Truth is realised only in inner life. As modern mechanical and industrial life has taken away individual freedom from man, Existentialism lays emphasis on Freedom and Individual Responsibility. It has an Eye-view on human weakness and insecurity as man is leading a lonely life, being surrounded by anxieties, frustrations, fear, feeling of guilt etc. His individuality is being crushed. BASIC TENETS AND FUNDAMENTAL POSTULATES -: 1) The centre of existence is man rather than truth, laws, principles or essence.

Man is characterized by decisions, will and choice. Although existentialists emphasize mans place in the world, or mans relationship to Being, or even mans relationship to God, they still indicate that there is a certain uniqueness and mystery about the human person. The phenomenon of man is life as it is lived, and the mystery is an awareness of mans deep and complex meaning, science and rational thinking cannot grasp or explain it. 2) This notion of the uniqueness and mystery man implies that previous definitions of man have been completely unsatisfactory. The uniqueness of man comes from his emotions, feelings, perception and thinking. The philosophy of existentialism stresses meaning, only through development of meaning in his life, man can make something of the absurdity which surrounds him. Man is the maker, and, therefore, the master of culture. It is man who imposes a meaning on his universe, although that universe may well function without him. Man cannot be taught what the world is about. He must create this for himself.

3)

Man is not alone in the world.

He is connected to other men; he communicates with others; therefore, he cannot live in a state of anarchy. Life is seen as a gift, which, in part is a mystery. Man is free to choose commitments in life, in his choice, he becomes himself. He is the product of his choices. He is, therefore, an individual who is different from other persons. The real living person is more important than any statement we can make about him. Mans existence is more important than his essence. 4) Existentialism propounds the belief that man cannot accept the ready-made concepts of existence forced upon him. He is a free agent capable of shaping of shaping his own life and choosing his own destiny. Thus we cannot treat people as machines, first pulling one lever, than another, and expect predictable results. Therefore, we cannot say that the stimulus response or conditioning is a sufficient description of mans behaviour. Man can transcend both himself and his culture. 5) A synthesis of immanency and transcendency, guided by a primordial sense of ontological wonder and subjective knowledge constitutes existence. 6) People are able to appreciate human fortitude only through extreme situations, sorrow, disappointment and death enable humans to achieve authentic life. In short the main tenets of existentialism involve a kind of subjective and direct approach upholding the emergence of the person in a rather impersonal environment. SOME CONCEPTS USED IN EXISTENTIALISM -: 1) Existence precedes essence

It was Plato who said that the surrounding world is a world of essences - ideas, values, ideals, thought etc. and the purpose of life is to discover these essences. Essences are already there and they precede existence. Even existence is an embodiment of an essence - the self, which is a part of an universal essence - the self. The majority of other Western philosopher carried forward this theory. Descartes even affirmed the reality of existence because of its essence - thinking as he said, I think, therefore, I am. Bergson even went to the extreme of saying that I do not think it (essence) thinks in me,16 thereby striking a transcendental, desperately deterministic note on human existence. Similarly naturalist philosophers rejected this type of a transcendental determinism but replaced it by a naturalistic determinism by identifying essences in nature as preceding existence. On the other hand pragmatists spoke of social determinism. As such, exstentialism is a revolt against any kind of determinism and an affirmation of the free nature of man. They affirm that existence is prior to essence that man is fundamentally free to create his essences.

As Blackham writes, There is no creater of man. Man discovered himself. His existence came first, he now is in the process of determining his essence. Man first is, then he defines himself.17 As Sartre himself explains his concept to us, what is meant here by saying that, existence precedes essence? It means that, first of all, man exists, turns up, appears on the scene, and only afterwards defines himself. It mean, as the existentialist sees him is indefinable, it is because at first he is nothing. Only afterwards will be something and he himself will have made what he will be18 Therefore, it can be easily observed that when idealists believe in transcendental values, Naturalists believe that values are resident in nature, pragmatists believe that values arise out of social life, existentialists affirm that the individual alone creates values. Reality is a state of becoming. Existence increases with every moment of life and essence is a consequence of this perpetual becoming. 2) Contingency of human life is the giveness or throw ness of human life.

Existentialists believe that existence of a person means his period from birth to death. There was nothing before birth and would be nothing beyond death. In between we have been thrown into a social life and the characteristics of this social life are the contingent circumstances of our life. This contingency is often characterised by experiences of dread, horror, anguish, solitude, bewilderment, uncertainty and finally limited by death.19 As Jean Wahl puts it : Man is in this world, a world limited by death and experienced in anguish; is aware of himself as essentially anxious; is burdened by his solitude within the horizen of his temporality.20 Therefore, we are all aware of our situation in life, limited by death and existentialists rightly remark that man is the only being in the world who knows that some time he will die. That is why his existence is throughout permeated by dread, anxiety and fear. He cannot escape or transcend this situations. He must learn to live with anguish, dread and anxiety. He must learn to love death (Justices Socrates, Lincoln, Kennedy, Gandhi and a score of other great men for whom dying for a meaningful cause was of greater significance than living a purposeless life.) INDIAN PHILOSOPHY AND EXISTENTIAL CONCEPT -: There are a number of correlates in Indian philosophy for existential concepts for e.g., anguish, Dukha, dread and horror; Bhagya, Bhiti etc. But when existentialism advises us to live with these categories of contingency, Indian philosophy counsels us to transcend them. This is very clearly evident in the concepts of a sthithaprajna21 in the Gita. One sloke runs like this :? ?: ? ?

 ? : ? : 22 (He who is not depressed by anguish, elated by joy and at times of fear, anxiety love, horror and anger maintains his equanimity and poise as a sage). 23 Even the India attitude towards death is similar to that of existentialism. As an illustration, to quota Gita -: (For a man enjoying popular esteem infancy is worse than death) Gandhi once had said that death in freedom is sweeter than life in bondage.25 3) Freedom is identical with existence -:

According to Sartre freedom is identical with existence. As such existentialism has even been described as a search for ways in which mans freedom to create may be widely established and understood. In Marjorie Grenes terms -: The revolutionary philosophy turns out to be philosophy of freedom - not just the philosophy of those who seek freedom but the philosophy of the very free act itself.27 According to existentialists, man is not only free but he is condemned to be free. He is only not free, not to be free. This is the tragedy of human life. This infinite freedom entails upon him a heavy sense of responsibility and this situation of being burdened with a heavy responsibility is the cause of dread, anguish and anxiety. The peculiar quality of human reality is that it is without excuse.28 A bold, honest, responsible and authentic existence would help man to face this situation. 4) Being

According to existentialist, education should make a man subjective and should make him conscious for his individuality or self. Being self conscious he will recognise his self and he will get an understanding of his being. 5) Authentic man

Existentialists have a special connotation of the Authentic man, they say is one who has permeation of his values and choices by clear awareness of his situation, especially regarding the fact of death. If a man considers death imminent he leads authentic existence. 6) Individuality

Individuality lies on self-realisation, a motivating force, which makes the inner life of man centre of concentration free from anxiety. There is a basic desire and inclination for the existence of individuality in man. It should be recognised. If this existential individuality is recognised, his life becomes purposeful and important. At the same time he becames conscious for his self. 7) Subjectivity (self consciousness)

It means nature of knower. But Chaube, S.P. and Akhilesh (1981, p.225) writes -: Kierkegeard says, Because I exist, because I think, therefore, I think that I exist. According to the statement I think it is clear that I exists and it has existence. I that exists is always subjective and not

objective. Objectivity always proves an impossible notion. It gives only ideas but these ideas can be realised only by becoming introvert and subjective. If we use we in place of I the existence of I is lost and objectivity replaces subjectivity. Existential subjectivity means only selfexistence. Objective knowledge is realised mentally only when a person ponders over it subjectively. But objective knowledge is without object, because as soon as the self-realises it, it becomes devoid of object and by becoming centre of self-consciousness, becomes comprehensive and subjective. Now the person because of knowing the object does not desire to know the object, but he emerges himself in knowing the self. (Note -: The concept meaning and existence is already discussed) FUNDAMENTALS -: 1) 2) For the existentialist Reality I s Being or existence of an individual. Existentialism wants man to be without metaphysics.

3) They wish to restore the status of man which he has lost in this advanced technological and mechanised society. 4) Man is not man but humanity. It implies that each mans actions, while subjectively inspired influence by other people. 5) The existentialists aver that the persons mind is the source and substance of all knowledge. 6) 7) The realisation of existence proceeds from the inwardness of man. That knowledge is valid which is of value to the individual.

8) They do not believe in absolute values. They argue that as long as the empirical spirit remains alive, it must remain open to revision and correction and hence it cannot adhere to fixed values. 9) 10) Values should be generated by our free decisions. Freedom is the source of ultimate values.

11) The emphasis on personal existence and subjectivity in existentialism has led to an emphasis on mans freedom, Choice and Action. 12) Freedom is the raw material of his being. Man owes his being to freedom, which is the basis of all human activity. To be free is to be free to change to do, to act, to inflict oneself on the world, to change the world.29 13) The idea of death should be accepted gracefully.

14) Existence precedes essence. It means a person lives before he dies. Until a person dies he can always change his essence by doing good things and then he will die a noble death. 15) Even if God exists, that would make no difference for a man who needs to know that nothing can save him from himself, not even the valid proof of the existence of God. 16) Human development is seen as independent of external forces, guided by the creative forces of the integral self. It is the development that is a self-directed synthesis of self-destined energy, potential, aspirations and needs. 17) The individual has freedom of choice, which implies a capacity to change. It is a freedom that helps with the self-emerging process. 18) Identify and security attained at the cost of freedom constitude bad faith. Likewise, to question the dynamic of the personality is an act of bad faith. 19) Development consists of a uniquely subjective style by which the individual relates to others and to the processes of being and becoming. 20) The individuality of man is supreme. This individuality is greater and more important than the existence of man, nation and the world. It is very much near to the individual life of man.30 21) The existence of self is related with the existence of the other.

V.R. Taneja Writes -: Existentialists do not believe in absolute values. Indirectly, however, they concede absolute values like awareness of death, fidelity, sincerity, integrity etc. Existentialism is an ethic of integrity in which running away from oneself is evil, facing oneself is good. It is the integrity of character and action rather than of vision alone that is to be prized. Treat every man as an end and never as means. Everyone must choose without reference to pre-established values. Everyone has to invent a law for oneself. Man makes himself. He is not found readymade. He makes himself by the choice of his morality. He cannot choose anything else except his morality. Such is the pressure of circumstances upon him. The heart and centre of existentialism is the absolute character of free commitment through which he realise himself.31 EDUCAIONAL IMPLICATIONS OF EXISTENTIALISM -: The philosophy of existentialism has not displayed any particular interest in eduction.32 Therefore, it has been observed that the educational implications are derived and deduced from their philosophy rather than that are developed by existentialists. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF EDUCTION AND EXISTENTIALISM 1) Education is that which helps an individual to realise the best that he is capable of. In doing so eduction must help the individual to realise the facticity (contingency) of his existence to

face the categories of this facticity - dread, anguish, anxiety and fear - resolutely and courageously and finally prepare him to meet death with pleasure.33 2) Education for happiness is a dangerous doctrine because there can be no happiness without pain and no ecstasy without suffering.34 Therefore, existentialists would welcome an education, which throws open to children human suffering, misery, anguish and the dreadful responsibilities of adult life. 3) Students must develop a consistent scale of values, authenticate their existence by being committed to these values and so act as to be prepared to die for these values than to live without them. Dyning for ones own country constituted the supreme sacrifice. 4) Every individual is unique. Education must develop in him this uniqueness. It must cater to individual differences. 5) Education must make pupil aware of the infinite possibilities of his freedom and the responsibilities he must bear in life. 6) The most important aim in education is the becoming of a human person as one who lives and makes decisions about what he will do and be. Knowing in the sense of knowing oneself, social relationship, and biological development, are all the parts of becoming. Human existence and the value related to it is the primary factory in eduction. 7) Education for complete development of personality. 8) More importance to subjective knowledge than objective knowledge. 9) Education for perfection of man in his environment. 10) Education should create consciousness for self.

11) Eduction should train men to make better choices and also give the man the idea that since his choices are never perfect, the consequences cannot be predicted. 12) The ultimate aim of education is to make man conscious of his destination, to give understanding of his being and ultimately lead him to his heavenly abode. So, it is clear that the existentialism accepts the principle of liberal education.35 In short, the objective of education is to enable every individual to develop his unique qualities, to harness his potentialities and cultivate his individualities. It means the implication of existentialist formulations for child rearing education and counselling practises are many. Since existentialists behold human life as unique and emerging a child is to be recognised as a full person and not simple as an in complete adult. The practices by which the child is socialized varied from culture to culture.

CURRICULUM OF EXISTENTIALISM -: 1) Since the existentialists believe in the individuals freedom, they do not advocate any rigid curriculum. 2) They recognise the individual differences and wish to have diverse curricula suiting the needs, abilities and aptitudes of the individual. 3) Curriculum, they say should not primarily satisfy the immediate needs but also ultimate needs. 4) The central place is given to humanities, poetry, drama, music, art, novels etc. as they exert the human impact in revealing mans inherent quilt, sin, suffering, tragedy, death, late and love. Humanities have spiritual power. Art and Literature, they say should be taught, as they represent a priori (cause effect) power of human nature. Through these the students profit from the ideas and judgement of others. 5) Second place is given to social sciences as they lead the man to feel that he is nothing more than an object. They however, wish to teach social sciences for inculcating moral obligation and for knowing the relationship of the individual to a group.36 6) History should be taught in order to help the students to change the course of history and to mould future. 7) The specialization in any field must be complemented by liberalising studies for it is the man who counts and not the profession. 8) The study of the worlds religion should be taught so as to develop religious attitude freely within the students. The ideal school permits religious unfolding in according with whatever doctrine the student wishes to accept or to reject. Religion keeps him aware of death. 9) Realisation of self-forme part of the curriculum. Self-examination and social obedience is the first lesson. The child must be saved from his own unexamined self and from those who interfere with the free exercise of his moral decision. 10) Scientific subjects and mathematics should be included in the curriculum but they should not be given more stress, as they deal with objective knowledge. Self-knowledge precedes universal knowledge.37 In short, they dont believe in formal curriculum consisting of set of body of studies to be pursued but a curriculum, which features the reverberatory effect upon heart, and mind of passionate good reading and then personal contact. The curriculum should be chosen, sorted out and owned by the learner. INSTUCTIONAL TECHNIQUE AND EXISTENTIALISM -:

1) Existentialists favour the Socratic Approach to teaching, as Socratic Method is personal, intimate and an I-thou affair. As Kneller put it, The existentialist favours the Socratic method, not so much because it involves induction or the collection and analysis of all available evidence, nor because of its complementary process of definition, whereby general values are reached from particular instances; but chiefly because it is a method that tests the inner-life-as a stesthoscope sounds the heart.38 2) Socratic Problem Method should be accepted if the problem originates in the life of the one who has to work out the solutions. But it is unacceptable if the problem is derived from the needs of the society. 3) Like Socrates, personal reading should be stressed. 4) They reject the group method, because in-group dynamic, the superiority of the group decision over individual decision is prominent. There is a danger of losing unique individualism and free choice. 5) Methods of teaching must develop the creative abilities in children. The world and man reveal themselves by their undertakings. COUNSELLING AND EXISTENTIALISM -: 1) It is from the psychological interpretations of existential thought that counselling thinkers get much of their intellectual grounding. 2) Counselling have become an integral part of education and are playing an important role in helping young people to meet the challenge and to develop a positive view of self. 3) It insists that the aim of counselling in education is to promote maximum self-development by enhancing the individuals powers to choose for, and direct himself. THE COUNSELLORS ROLE -: 1) The counsellors efforts are directed through towards helping each of the counsellors to formulate a set of unique beliefs and a way of practising them. He does not emphasize and right values. 2) All learning aims are formulating the aspirations and desires of the unique individuals, so that he can understand himself and through this build up personal regard for others. 3) Counselling theory takes a dynamic view of personality. Each human being started with what he has by heredity and should continue to change and grow through experiences during his lifetime. THE TEACHER AND EXISTENTIALISM -:

1) Existentialists do not wish the teacher to be social minded umpire or provider of free social activity (as the pragmatists want) or a model personality (as the Idealists say) to be limited, by the students. He must himself be a free personality, engaged in such relations and projects with individual students that they get the idea that they are too are free personalities. 2) He may indirectly influence them about his values but he should impose his cherished values on them, test his values become the code of conduct for the students, who may begin to accept them without thought. Instead of expecting them to imitate he should help them to be original and authentic. 3) His effort should be that students mind should have autonomous functioning so that they become free, charitable and self-moving. 4) The role of teacher is very important because he is the creator of such as educational situation in which the student can establish contact with his self by becoming conscious of his self and can achieve self-realization. 5) It is the teacher who impresses up on the students to work hard and make the best of life and accept death as something inevitable but tell them that death can be gloomy as well as glorious. It is he who inculcates in the students the idea that a life lived lazily, selfishly or improperly is a life not worthy living. Dying for ones country is glorious. So, the role of the teacher is very important. 6) The teacher must build positive relationships between himself and his students.

7) Teachers should avoid applying labels to children (such as lazy, slow learner etc.) for individuals may indeed come to think of themselves this way. 8) of self. The teacher is also changing and growing as he guides the pupil in his discovery

THE CHILD AND THE EXISTENTIALISM -: 1) The existentialists want to give full freedom to the child. But the child should know the nature of his self and recognise his being and convert imperfection into perfection. 2) They do not want the child to become selfish, autocratic and irresponsible. Freedom is needed only for natural development. 3) Education should be provided according to the childs powers and the needs. The relation of the child with his self should be strengthened rather than severed. 4) The child has to make choices and decisions.

5) Child thrives better when relieved from intense competition, harsh discipline, and fear of failure. Thus each child can grow to understand his own needs and values and take charge

of the experiences for changing him. In this way self-evaluation is the beginning and end of the learning process, as learning proceeds, child is freely growing, fearless, understanding individual. 6) Primary emphasis must always be on the child, as learner and not on the learning programme. 7) Child needs positive evaluation, not labels.

SCHOOL ORGANIZATION AND THE EXISTENTIALISM -: 1) way. The school should provide an atmosphere where the individuals develop in a healthy

2) Any subjectin school (even extra activities like athletics, music etc.) can present existential situations for teaching and the development of human beings. 3) The aim of school tasks should be to nurture self-discipline and cultivate selfevaluation. 4) 5) Mass teaching and mass testing are not advocated in schools. The schedule must be flexible and open.

6) Democratic ideals should pervade the school. Democracy must be the soil in which the individual grows. It should be the democracy of unique individuals who value differences and respect one another. Self-government, pupil participation in planning and the encouragement of a free atmosphere characterize the school. 7) Mechanization and impersonality should be counteracted in school. Students timetables and work programmes are computerized. And thus the relationships between the individual students and the school programme becomes an impersonal one. Besides this, the use of programmed instruction, teaching machines and other equipments tend to decrease the personal contact between teachers and pupils. This impersonality is a hazard to the individual development and growth of the childs personality. Concern and respect for the individual student should be a feature of the school. VALUE JUDGEMENT AND LIMITATION -: 1) After studying the philosophy of Existentialism, the question will arise in anybodys mind : how can the aims, curricula and methods in a school depend upon the individuals choice and freedom? Organization of such a programme would be impossible and bring about chaos. 2) The teachers individual relationship and close understanding of every pupils personality would require a great deal of time and effort.

3) The concepts of Being, meaning, Person are not very clear and appear nebulous. It is not easy to build up an educational programme when the terminology for the objectives of the educational process are not clear. 4) Where there is child-rearing education and counselling practices are many the practices by which the child is socialized varies from one culture to another. If the emphasis in the culture is on mundane security and the value of world essence, then the individual may experience neurotic growth through the conflict between these unsuitable values and the persons inner forces of creativity that continue to aspire for unique emergence and subjective expression. The extent to which a child is accepted or rejected, succeeds or fails, and develops satisfactorily of is retarded depends on the experiences and processes which explain the meaning of things (persons, objects, situations) in relation to the childs being. 5) Educational standards and practices that manipulate the childs behaviours in an arbitrary manner violate the principle of free choice. 6) Many teaching practices, testing procedures, and bureaucratic system of classifying children may be questioned. 7) Over structured public and parochical school systems enslave rather than liberate young souls. Such institutions serve a political rather than a truly educational purpose, promoting the manufacture of efficient robot rather than inspired, enlightened, and creative individuals. As a result various contemporary educational theories are radicalising the institutionalised structures of learning. 8) Teachers who have learned to provide existential encounters for their students enable the learners, to create meanings in a cosmos devoid of objective meaning to find reasons for being in a society with fewer and fewer open doors. 9) If the purpose of education is to build character, to optimise potential and creativity and to enhance the quality of life through knowledge, then from an existentialist perspective bureaucratisation needs to be replaced by humanization. That the existential goal is not being achieved today is illustrated by such evidence as that product in a study of students values indication that American students predominantly seek to learn survival skills rather than to develop a social conscience, a situation contrary to an existentialist view of satisfactory development. This crisis in education is not confined to the west but is observed in Eastern Cultures as well. 10) In the realm of counselling existential intervention is conceptualised as a conscioms attitudinal perspective toward rebuilding the impaired self. The existential influences on counselling practices, though not fully acknowledged nor duly assessed, have been far-reaching. Some form of existential intervention is employed by such a range of practioners as those using gestalt therapy, antipsychiatry, rational-emotive psychotherapy, psychodrama, transactional analysis communication and cognitive approaches, encounter groups, and reality therapy.

CONCLUSION -: The existential view of development is not without its critics, many of whom view of theory and its practices as representing a neurotic, narcissistic philosophy of pain and anguish. In contrast, existentialisms protagonists see it as the only hope for human survival as in existentialism. 1) interest is directed on the man - his genuine or authentic self, his choices made with full responsibility of consequences, and freedom. 2) It describes and diagnoses human weaknesses, limitations and conflicts.

3) It traces the origin of all these and anticipates that man will overcome them. These arise, they say when a man comes to have a sense of meaninglessness of his life. 4) They do not want man to be philistine (one whose interests are material and common place) or mediocre who submerges himself. 5) They want the transcendence of man, which means that he should become more and more authentic. 6) Man cannot be explained by reason as the idealists emphasise.

7) Since existentialism is optimistic, the preaches the doctrine of action and emphasises the concept of freedom, responsibility and choice, it has exerted an increasing appeal to the educator, who has been shown the new horizons. In short, Existentialism is an attitude and outlook that emphasises human existence, the qualities of individual persons rather than man in abstract of nature and the world in general. Education, therefore, must edify and enrich mans mind so that it may be respectable in his own eyes and in the eyes of the, others. It should help him to make him human. Perennialists believe that one should teach the things that one deems to be of everlasting importance to all people everywhere. They believe that the most important topics develop a person. Since details of fact change constantly, these cannot be the most important. Therefore, one should teach principles, not facts. Since people are human, one should teach first about humans, not machines or techniques. Since people are people first, and workers second if at all, one should teach liberal topics first, not vocational topics. A particular strategy with modern perennialists is to teach scientific reasoning, not facts. They may illustrate the reasoning with original accounts of famous experiments. This gives the students a human side to the science, and shows the reasoning in action. Most importantly, it shows the uncertainty and false steps of real science.

Although perennialism may appear similar to essentialism, perennialism focuses first on personal development, while essentialism focuses first on essential skills. Essentialist curricula thus tend to be much more vocational and fact-based, and far less liberal and principle-based. Both philosophies are typically considered to be teacher-centered, as opposed to student-centered philosophies of education such as progressivism. However, since the teachers associated with perennialism are in a sense the authors of the Western masterpieces themselves, these teachers may be open to student criticism through the associated Socratic method, which, if carried out as true dialogue, is a balance between students, including the teacher promoting the discussion.

Secular perennialism
The word perennial in secular perennialism suggests something that lasts an indefinitely long time, recurs again and again, or is self-renewing. As promoted primarily by Robert Hutchins and Mortimer Adler, a universal curriculum based upon the common and essential nature of all human beings is recommended. This form of perennialism comprises the humanist and scientific traditions. Hutchins and Adler implemented these ideas with great success at the University of Chicago, where they still strongly influence the curriculum in the form of the undergraduate Common Core. Other notable figures in the movement include Stringfellow Barr and Scott Buchanan (who together initiated the Great Books program at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland), Mark Van Doren, Alexander Meiklejohn, and Sir Richard Livingstone, an English classicist with an American following. Secular perennialists espouse the idea that education should focus on the historical development of a continually developing common western base of human knowledge and art, the timeless value of classic thought on central human issues by landmark thinkers, and revolutionary ideas critical to historical western paradigm shifts or changes in world view. A program of studies which is highly general, nonspecialized, and nonvocational is advocated.[1] They firmly believe that exposure of all citizens to the development of thought by those most responsible for the evolution of the Western tradition is integral to the survival of the freedoms, human rights and responsibilities inherent to a true Democracy. Adler states: ...our political democracy depends upon the reconstitution of our schools. Our schools are not turning out young people prepared for the high office and the duties of citizenship in a democratic republic. Our political institutions cannot thrive, they may not even survive, if we do not produce a greater number of thinking citizens, from whom some statesmen of the type we had in the 18th century might eventually emerge. We are, indeed, a nation at risk, and nothing but radical reform of our schools can save us from impending disaster... Whatever the price... the price we will pay for not doing it will be much greater.[2] Hutchins writes in the same vein: The business of saying... that people are not capable of achieving a good education is too strongly reminiscent of the opposition of every extension of democracy. This opposition has always rested on the allegation that the people were incapable of exercising the power they

demanded. Always the historic statement has been verified: you cannot expect the slave to show the virtues of the free man unless you first set him free. When the slave has been set free, he has, in the passage of time, become indistinguishable from those who have always been free... There appears to be an innate human tendency to underestimate the capacity of those who do not belong to "our" group. Those who do not share our background cannot have our ability. Foreigners, people who are in a different economic status, and the young seem invariably to be regarded as intellectually backward...[3] As with the essentialists, perennialists are educationally conservative in the requirement of a curriculum focused upon fundamental subject areas, but stress that the overall aim should be exposure to history's finest thinkers as models for discovery. The student should be taught such basic subjects as English, languages, history, mathematics, natural science, philosophy, and fine arts.[4] Adler states: "The three R's, which always signified the formal disciplines, are the essence of liberal or general education."[5] Secular perennialists agree with progressivists that memorization of vast amounts of factual information and a focus on second-hand information in textbooks and lectures does not develop rational thought. They advocate learning through the development of meaningful conceptual thinking and judgement by means of a directed reading list of the profound, aesthetic, and meaningful great books of the Western canon. These books, secular perennialists argue, are written by the world's finest thinkers, and cumulatively comprise the "Great Conversation" of mankind with regard to the central human questions. Their basic argument for the use of original works (abridged translations being acceptable as well) is that these are the products of "genius". Hutchins remarks: Great books are great teachers; they are showing us every day what ordinary people are capable of. These books come out of ignorant, inquiring humanity. They are usually the first announcements for success in learning. Most of them were written for, and addressed to, ordinary people."[3] It is important to note that the Great Conversation is not static, which is the impression that one might obtain from some descriptions of perennialism, a confusion with religious perennialism, or even the term perennialism itself. The Great Conversation and the set of related great books changes as the representative thought of man changes or progresses, and is therefore representative of an evolution of thought, but is not based upon the whim or fancy of the latest cultural fads. Hutchins makes this point very clear: In the course of history... new books have been written that have won their place in the list. Books once thought entitled to belong to it have been superseded; and this process of change will continue as long as men can think and write. It is the task of every generation to reassess the tradition in which it lives, to discard what it cannot use, and to bring into context with the distant and intermediate past the most recent contributions to the Great Conversation. ...the West needs to recapture and reemphasize and bring to bear upon its present problems the wisdom that lies in the works of its greatest thinkers and in the discussion that they have carried on.[3]

Perennialism was a solution proposed in response to what was considered by many to be a failing educational system. Again Hutchins writes: The products of American high schools are illiterate; and a degree from a famous college or university is no guarantee that the graduate is in any better case. One of the most remarkable features of American society is that the difference between the "uneducated" and the "educated" is so slight.[3] In this regard John Dewey and Hutchins were in agreement. Hutchins's book The Higher Learning in America deplored the "plight of higher learning" that had turned away from cultivation of the intellect and toward anti-intellectual practicality due in part, to a lust for money. In a highly negative review of the book, Dewey wrote a series of articles in The Social Frontier which began by applauding Hutchins' attack on "the aimlessness of our present educational scheme.[6] Perennialists believe that reading is to be supplemented with mutual investigations (between the teacher and the student) and minimally-directed discussions through the Socratic method in order to develop a historically oriented understanding of concepts. They argue that accurate, independent reasoning distinguishes the developed or educated mind and they thus stress the development of this faculty. A skilled teacher would keep discussions on topic and correct errors in reasoning, but it would be the class, not the teacher, who would reach the conclusions. While not directing or leading the class to a conclusion, the teacher may work to accurately formulate problems within the scope of the texts being studied. While the standard argument for utilizing a modern text supports distillation of information into a form relevant to modern society, perennialists argue that many of the historical debates and the development of ideas presented by the great books are relevant to any society, at any time, and thus that the suitability of the great books for instructional use is unaffected by their age. Perennialists freely acknowledge that any particular selection of great books will disagree on many topics; however, they see this as an advantage, rather than a detriment. They believe that the student must learn to recognize such disagreements, which often reflect current debates. The student becomes responsible for thinking about the disagreements and reaching a reasoned, defensible conclusion. This is a major goal of the Socratic discussions. They do not advocate teaching a settled scholarly interpretation of the books, which would cheat the student of the opportunity to learn rational criticism and to know his own mind.

[edit] Religious perennialism

Perennialism was originally religious in nature, developed first by Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century in his work De Magistro (The Teacher). In the nineteenth century, John Henry Newman presented a detailed defense of educational perennialism in The Idea of a University. Discourse 5 of that work, Knowledge its Own End, is still relevant as a clear statement of a Christian educational perennialism.

Christian philosophy may refer to any development in philosophy that is characterised by coming from a Christian tradition.

Origins of Christian philosophy

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Jesus: The life and teachings of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels form the basis of Christianity, see also Ministry of Jesus.

In the case of Reformational philosophy the law-idea of Creation in relation to Fall and Redemption clarifies the understanding of the exceptional role of Jesus the Christ in Creation through the law-modalities that set the conditions of existence for all creatures. There is no record of any writing by Jesus, nor of any systematic philosophy or theology in the formal sense. Several accounts of his life and many of his teachings are recorded in the New Testament, and form the basis for some Christian philosophies.
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St. Paul: Saul of Tarsus was a Jew who persecuted the early Christian church and who helped to facilitate the martyrdom of St Stephen, a Greek-speaking Jewish-Christian. Saul underwent a dramatic conversion. He became a Christian leader who wrote a number of epistles, or letters, to early churches, in which he taught doctrine and theology. In some ways he functioned in the manner of the popular marketplace philosophers of his day (Cynics, Skeptics, and some Stoics). A number of his speeches and debates with Greek philosophers are recorded in the Biblical book of Acts. His letters became a significant source for later Christian philosophies. See also Paul of Tarsus and Judaism.

[edit] Hellenistic Christian philosophers

Hellenism is the traditional designation for the Greek culture of the Roman Empire in the days of Jesus, Paul, and for centuries after. Classical philosophies of the Greeks had already expired and diluted beyond recognition except for small bands of continuators of the traditions of the Pythagoreans, of Plato, and Aristotle (whose library was lost for centuries). The new philosophies of the Hellenistic world were those of the Cynics, Skeptics, and increasingly the Stoics; it's these thinkers and ranters who bring us into the world of Hellenistic philosophy. Slowly, a more integral and rounded tendency emerged within Hellenism, but also in certain respects in opposition at times to it in regard to one philosophical problem or another, or an ensemble of problems. Here are some of those thinkers most closely associated with Hellenistic Christian philosophies, listed more or less in chronological order:
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Justin Martyr Tertullian: Tertullian was a philosopher before he converted to Christ; after that change of direction he remained a prolific writer in the second century A.D., and is commonly called the "Father of the Western Church." He was the first church father to use the term Trinitas in reference to the Godhead and developed the doctrine of traducianism, or the idea that the soul was inherited from the parents, the idea that God had corporeal

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(although not fleshly) existence, and the doctrine of the authority of the gospels. He fought voraciously against Marcionism, and considered Greek philosophy to be incompatible with Christian wisdom. Toward the end of his life, he joined the heterodox sect of Montanism, and thus has not been canonized by the Catholic Church. Irenaeus of Lyons: Irenaeus is best known for his writings arguing for the unity of God, and against Gnosticism. He argued that original sin is latent in humanity, and that it was by Jesus' incarnation as a man that he "undid" the original sin of Adam, thus sanctifying life for all mankind. Irenaeus maintained the view that Christ is the Teacher of the human race through whom wisdom would be made accessible to all. Clement of Alexandria Origen: Origen was influential in integrating elements of Platonism into Christianity. He incorporated Platonic idealism into his conceptions of the Logos, and the two churches, one ideal and one real. He also held a strongly Platonic view of God, describing him as the perfect, incorporeal ideal. He was later declared a heretic for subscribing to the "too Platonistic" doctrine of the preexistence of the soul. Augustine of Hippo: Augustine developed classical Christian philosophy, and the whole of Western thought, largely by synthesizing Hebrew and Greek thought. He drew particularly from Plato, the Neoplatonism of Plotinus, and Stoicism, which he altered and refined in light of divine revelation of Christian teaching and the Scriptures. Augustine wrote extensively on many religious and philosophical topics; he employed an allegorical method of reading the Bible, further developed the doctrine of hell as endless punishment, original sin as inherited guilt, divine grace as the necessary remedy for original sin, baptismal regeneration and consequently infant baptism, inner experience and the concept of "self", the moral necessity of human free will, and individual election to salvation by eternal predestination. He was a key influence in the development of Western Catholic theology as well as Protestant Reformed theology, particularly that of French theologian, John Calvin. Athanasius of Alexandria: father of trinitarian orthodoxy involved in the formation of the Nicene Creed, who vehemently opposed Arius, the bishop of Alexandria who held that Christ was a created being, and his following. John Chrysostom The Cappadocian Fathers: Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Basil the Great.

[edit] Medieval Christian philosophers

See also: Scholasticism and History of science in the Middle Ages
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Bothius Johannes Scotus Eriugena Anselm of Canterbury: Anselm is best known for the Ontological Argument for God's existence, i.e.: God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived. But to exist is greater than not to exist. If God does not exist then he wouldn't be "that than which nothing greater can be conceived." Therefore, God exists. Anselm's argumentation was used as a theological directive for conceptualizing divine perfection. He was one of the first Western thinkers to directly engage the reintroduction of Aristotle to the West.

However, he didn't have all of Aristotle's works and those he had access to were from Arabic translations and Islamic commentaries. Thomas Aquinas: Aquinas was the student of Albert the Great, a brilliant Dominican experimentalist, much like the Franciscan, Roger Bacon, of Oxford in the 13th century. Aquinas synthesized Aristotelian philosophy with Christianity. He believed that there was no contradiction between faith and secular reason, but that they complemented each other epistemically. He thought Aristotle had achieved the pinnacle of human striving for truth apart from divine revelation and thus adopted Aristotle's philosophy as a framework in constructing his theological and philosophical outlook. Thomas Aquinas was a professor at the prestigious University of Paris, a contemporary of Bonaventure, a Franciscan Professor at the University of Paris whose approach differed significantly from Aquinas' in favor of the more traditional Augustinian Platonism. John Duns Scotus: John Duns Scotus is known as the "subtle doctor" whose hair-splitting distinctions were important contributions in scholastic thought and the modern development of logic. Scotus was also a Professor at the University of Paris, but not at the same time as Aquinas. Along with Aquinas, he is one of the two giants of Scholastic philosophy, which led ultimately to the thought of William of Ockham

[edit] Renaissance and Reformation Christian philosophers

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Desiderius Erasmus (14661536, originally of Rotterdam, Netherlands) was not a philosopher strictly speaking; indeed, he wrote excoriatingly about philosophers. He consolidated the space of "Humanism" in the late Medieval scholarship of letters, and came to represent its acme. He was a leader of the development of the humanities into a department of European scholarly activities. He bent his studies to recovery and exegesis of the Hebrew Bible's ancient languages and began building the first critical text, and the New Testament became a formal scholarly text. He wrote astutely about issues relevant to the Catholic Church and its ignorance. He spent six years in an Augustinian monastery; he was a joyful satirist; and became most famous for his book The Praise of Folly. Martin Luther (14831546, Augustinian monk, later of Wittenburg) -- also not strictly a philosopher, although he knew something of William of Occam and nominalist epistemology), from an earlier era of European thought. He had also studied some philosophical materials of Augustine of Hippo, and did not follow Thomas Aquinas. Luther followed Erasmus in developing a critical text of the Biblical manuscripts. Luther went a step beyond Erasmus in actually translating the Bible into the vernacular. His next step was to encourage literacy in the Lutheran kingdoms. Luther's German Bible had a tremendous impact on the development of the German language and its literature. John Calvin (15091564, Paris, Strasbourg, Geneva; real name Jean Cauvin). Le pasteur grise was a dogmatician (systematic theology), as exhibited in his Institutes (several original editions were published before his death), and an exegete who over time translated the Bible from the "original languages" in the form of his grand series of Commentaries on all but one of its books (the Book of Revelation, which provided a problem to him in its metaphory, not yielding robustly to his binomial formula of letter and spirit: either literal, or figurative). He courageously tried to avoid allegorizing,

which had had a long history ever since Philo of Alexandria had interpreted "The Book of Moses" (Pentateuch) in an allegorical fashion that de-literalized and over-metaphorized (into symbolic systems) many passages of the ancient manuscripts of the Bible (now and developingly a critical text itself). Calvin tried to distance himself from the allegorical method of Christian interpretation of the Bible, attempted distance certainly from the method's primacy, while facing in the Gospels "the parabolic message of the Cross" (Leon Morris, etc.). Not strictly a philosopher, he had a major impact on the quest for a Protestant philosophy (see Jacob Klapwijk, "John Calvin" in the volume he edited with Griffioen and Groenewoud, Bringing into Captivity Every Thought (Eng trans 1991; pp 241266)). Calvin's seed begat Reformational philosophy 450 years after he planted it. Huldrych Zwingli (14841531, Zurich) was a leading Reformer who was influenced by a party in his church congregation to de-metaphorize the understanding of the Lord's Supper into a memorial only (no real presence, and no communion of saints, therefore no eschatological community of saints composed of the believers at the Communion Table).

In most cases, these writers reference something in an earlier philosopher, without adding to the ongoing problem-historical shape of Western philosophical knowledge. Between Calvin, and Arminius, born four years before Calvin's death, a Protestant Scholasticism took from various loci and authorities of the Western Middle Ages. It begins already with Luther's colleague Philip Melancthon, who turned from Luther's sola Scriptura to philosophical theology; but Protestant Scholasticism's Reformed variants are diverse. There were no real alternatives until Herman Dooyeweerd and D. H. Th. Vollenhoven in the last century.
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Jacobus Arminius (real name Jacob Harmenszoon, 15601609, the Netherlands). A preacher, theologian, and church court operative. Hugo Grotius (15831645, the Netherlands). His early work on the law of the seas was outdistanced by On the law of war and peace (1625).

[edit] Modern and Contemporary Christian philosophers

An alphabetical listing:
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Karl Barth: a Swiss Reformed neo-orthodox theologian, he wrote the massive Church Dogmatics (German, Kirchliche Dogmatik)unfinished at about six million words by his death in 1968. Barth emphasized the distinction between human thought and divine reality, and that while humans may attempt to understand the divine, our concepts of the divine are never precisely aligned from the divine reality itself, although God reveals his reality in part through human language and culture. Barth strenuously disavowed being a philosopher; he considered himself a dogmatician of the Church and a preacher. Jay Budziszewski, a political philosopher who develops the natural law -tradition. Joseph Butler John D. Caputo: American Catholic deconstructionist theologian. G. K. Chesterton: a British Catholic author, he applied Christian thought in the form of non-fiction, fiction, and poems addressing a variety of theological, moral, political, and

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economic issues, particularly the importance of seeking truth, distributism, and opposition to eugenics. Gordon Clark, American Calvinist philosopher and defender of Platonic realism. He developed one variety of philosophical apologetics known as presuppositional apologetics. William Lane Craig, Evangelical apologist, philosopher and theologian; frequently participates in debate on topics related to Christianity and theism. He is known especially for his articulation and defense of the kalam cosmological argument. Herman Dooyeweerd, who wrote the monumental trilogy, A New Critique of Theoretical Thought Mary Baker Eddy: author of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. Eddy's "Christian Science" teaching is described in the Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy as a renewal of ancient Oriental panpsychism, the most radical form of philosophical idealism. Jacques Ellul John Frame: an American Calvinist philosopher focused in the areas of epistemology and ethics tienne Gilson, who wrote The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy, The Spirit of Thomism, Being and Some Philosophers, and many other works. In the field of Thomism he is considered one of the main figures credited with starting the movement within Thomism known as Existential Thomism, which emphasis the primacy of the act of Being (Esse) in understanding everything else that is. Luigi Giussani, an Italian priest of 1922-2005, who wrote the Why the Church? Francis Hutcheson Immanuel Kant, a theistic Prussian philosopher whose religious orientation is a matter of dispute, known for his critical philosophy in which he addressed the question of the possibility of synthetic a priori judgements. Sren Kierkegaard, the father of existentialist philosophy and particularly the school of Christian existentialism. Peter Kreeft, at Boston College C. S. Lewis, a literary critic of the first order, a mythographer in his children's fantasies, and an apologist for the Christian faith to which he adhered in the latter half of his life. He claimed not to be a philosopher, but his apologetics are foundational to the formation of a Christian worldview for many modern readers. Knud Ejler Lgstrup Bernard Lonergan: He was a Canadian Jesuit. Lonergan Institute is a center specializing in his works. Gabriel Marcel Jacques Maritain, a French philosopher in the Thomistic tradition John Henry Newman, a Catholic philosopher, converted from Anglicanism Pope John Paul II, who wrote Fides et Ratio Craig J. N. de Paulo, Historian of Philosophy, wrote on the influence of St. Augustine of Hippo on Martin Heidegger. Josef Pieper, a German Catholic philosopher whose work concentrates particularly on Plato and Thomas Aquinas

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Alvin Plantinga. moderately Calvinist American philosopher, one of the key figures in the movement of Reformed epistemology, which synthesizes Analytical Philosophy and Christian philosophical concerns. He is professor emeritus at the University of Notre Dame. Michael C. Rea Peter Rollins Egbert Schuurman, the leading philosopher of technology who actively espouses a Christian philosophical approach Pope Shenouda III, (b. Nazeer Gayed, 1923) Pope of Alexandria (1971-present) has written on almost every aspect of Oriental Orthodox Christianity. Has pioneered Christian ecumenism and written over 150 books on many topics including theology, dogma, comparative theology, spiritual theology, and church history. Melville Y. Stewart, editor, author of books in philosophy of religion, and a Series on Science and Religion (5-volume Series in Chinese, and 2-volume Series in English). Visiting Philosopher at various universities in China. Paul Tillich Rather than beginning his philosophical work with questions of God or gods, Tillich began with a "phenomenology of the Holy." His basic thesis is that religion is Ultimate Concern. What a person is Ultimately Concerned with in regard to their Ultimate meaning and being can be understood as religion because, "There is nobody to whom nothing is sacred because no one can rid themselves of their humanity no matter how desperately they may try" (Young-Ho Chun, Tillich and Religion, 1998, pg. 14. Richard Swinburne Peter van Inwagen, a metaphysician who is one of the leading figures in contemporary philosophy of religion Cornelius Van Til: Dutch-American Calvinist philosopher, who contributed especially in epistemology and developed one variety of philosophical apologetics known as presuppositional apologetics. D. H. Th. Vollenhoven: Vollenhoven's Calvinism and the Reformation of Philosophy (Dutch, 1933) launched a philosophical movement that, after the massive re-inforcing effect of his brother-in-law Herman Dooyeweerd's first trilogy, Philosophy of the LawIdea (193536), led to the formation of the Association for Calvinist Philosophy in 1936. For decades, Vollenhoven served as president of the aforementioned association, which has become the Association for Reformational Philosophy / Vereniging voor Reformatorische Wijsbegeerte (VRW), still based in the Netherlands but with everenlarging interest in the rest of the world. It is disputed whether Vollenhoven's, his colleague Herman Dooyeweerd's, and many among the subsequent generations of philosophers in the Reformational philosophy movement are best described as "modern" or "postmodern," since they anticipated numerous themes that resurfaced in postmodernism, yet remain steadfastly and would-be distinctively Christian and nonRoman. Ravi Zacharias: an Indian-Canadian Christian apologist. He is currently the president of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, an apologetic evangelistic ministry that reaches out mainly to intellectuals and university students. His method is mildly presuppositional, his style conversational.

Dallas Willard: notable Christian philosopher at the University of Southern California. Willard has written extensively in philosophy but also in practical Christian theology with an emphasis in Christian spiritual formation.

[edit] Reconciling Christianity with philosophy

Some people feel that Christianity and some philosophy or another must be 'reconciled' in some way.[citation needed] Obviously such a reconciliation is effected if someone is able to argue from the religion to the philosophy or vice versa, as many Christian philosophers have done. Apologetics is a defense of the faith against rational criticism, and is found not only in Christianity but in Judaism and Islam, and in atheism as well. Lutheran scholasticism endeavors to 'organize' Lutheran religion by philosophy. Some Christian philosophers do not believe they must reconcile their religion and their philosophy.

[edit] Interaction between Christian and non-Christian philosophers

There has been considerable interaction between Christian philosophy, Jewish philosophy and Islamic philosophy. Many Christian philosophers are well read in the works of their Jewish and Islamic counterparts, and arguments developed in one faith often make their way into the arguments of another faith. For example, Christian philosopher William Lane Craig is a popular proponent of the Islamic Kalam cosmological argument for the existence of God. Some modern day Islamic philosophers explore issues in common with modern Catholic philosophers. Reformational philosophy dialogues across acknowledged differences with many other approaches to philosophizingwith Christian synthetist views of many kinds, also with some Jewish schools of philosophical thought, as well as some secular philosophies such as NeoMarxism along with other atheist philosophical schools; whereas the dialogue with Islamic philosophies is just beginning. It's important to note there is not one single philosophy embraced by all philosophers in any of the great religious traditions, not all are dialogical, and atheist-humanist schools are as much in conflict among themselves as are Christian and other self-acknowledged religious schools of philosophizing.
In epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" (Lacey 286). In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive" (Bourke 263). Different degrees of emphasis on this method or theory lead to a range of rationalist standpoints, from the moderate position "that reason has precedence over other ways of acquiring knowledge" to the more extreme position that reason is "the unique path to knowledge" (Audi 771). Given a pre-modern understanding of reason, "rationalism" is identical to philosophy, the Socratic life of inquiry, or the zetetic interpretation of authority (open to the underlying or essential cause of things as they appear to our sense of certainty). In recent decades, Leo Strauss sought to revive Classical Political Rationalism as a

discipline that understands the task of reasoning, not as foundational, but as maieutic. Rationalism should not be confused with rationality.

Background
Since the Enlightenment, rationalism is usually associated with the introduction of mathematical methods into philosophy, as in Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza (Bourke 263). This is commonly called continental rationalism, because it was predominant in the continental schools of Europe, whereas in Britain empiricism dominated. Rationalism is often contrasted with empiricism. Taken very broadly these views are not mutually exclusive, since a philosopher can be both rationalist and empiricist (Lacey 286287). Taken to extremes the empiricist view holds that all ideas come to us through experience, either through the five external senses or through such inner sensations as pain and gratification, and thus that knowledge is essentially based on or derived from experience. At issue is the fundamental source of human knowledge, and the proper techniques for verifying what we think we know (see Epistemology). Proponents of some varieties of rationalism argue that, starting with foundational basic principles, like the axioms of geometry, one could deductively derive the rest of all possible knowledge. The philosophers who held this view most clearly were Baruch Spinoza and Gottfried Leibniz, whose attempts to grapple with the epistemological and metaphysical problems raised by Descartes led to a development of the fundamental approach of rationalism. Both Spinoza and Leibniz asserted that, in principle, all knowledge, including scientific knowledge, could be gained through the use of reason alone, though they both observed that this was not possible in practice for human beings except in specific areas such as mathematics. On the other hand, Leibniz admitted that "we are all mere Empirics in three fourths of our actions" (Monadology 28, cited in Audi 772). Rationalism is predicting and explaining behavior based on logic.

[edit] Philosophical usage

The distinction between rationalists and empiricists was drawn at a later period, and would not have been recognized by the philosophers involved. Also, the distinction was not as clear-cut as is sometimes suggested; for example, the three main rationalists were all committed to the importance of empirical science, and in many respects the empiricists were closer to Descartes in their methods and metaphysical theories than were Spinoza and Leibniz.

[edit] History
[edit] Socrates (ca 470 399B.C.E.) Main article: Socrates

Socrates firmly believed that before humans can understand the world, they first need to understand themselves; the only way to accomplish that is with rational thought. To understand what this means, one must first appreciate the Greek understanding of the world. Man is composed of two parts: a body and a soul. The soul itself has two principal parts: an Irrational part, which is the emotions and desires; and a Rational part, which is our true self. In our everyday experience, the irrational soul is drawn into the physical body by its desires and merged with it, so that our perception of the world is limited to that delivered by the physical senses. The rational soul is beyond our awareness, but sometimes communicates via images, dreams, and other means. The task of the philosopher is to refine and eventually extract the irrational soul from its bondage, hence the need for moral development, and then to connect with the rational soul in order to become a complete person, manifesting the higher spiritual essence of the person while in the physical body. True rationalism is therefore not simply an intellectual process, but a shift in perception and a shift in the qualitative nature of the person. The rational soul perceives the world in a spiritual manner - it sees the Platonic Forms - or the essence of what things are. To know the world in this way requires that one first know oneself as a soul, hence the requirement to 'know thyself', i.e. to know who you truly are. Socrates did not publish or write any of his thoughts, but he was constantly in discussion with others. He would usually start by asking a rhetorical, seemingly answerable question, to which the other would give an answer. Socrates would then continue to ask questions until all conflicts were resolved, or until the other could do nothing else but admit to not knowing the answer (which was what most of his discussions ended with). Socrates did not claim to know the answers, but that did not impair his ability to critically and rationally approach problems. His goal was to show that, ultimately, our intellectual approach to the world is flawed, and we must transcend this to obtain true knowledge of what things are.
[edit] Ren Descartes (1596 1650) Main article: Ren Descartes

Descartes thought that only knowledge of eternal truths including the truths of mathematics, and the epistemological and metaphysical foundations of the sciences could be attained by reason alone; other knowledge, the knowledge of physics, required experience of the world, aided by the scientific method. He also argued that although dreams appear as real as sense experience, these dreams cannot provide persons with knowledge. Also, since conscious sense experience can be the cause of illusions, then sense experience itself can be doubtable. As a result, Descartes deduced that a rational pursuit of truth should doubt every belief about reality. He elaborated these beliefs in such works as Discourse on Method, Meditations on First Philosophy, and Principles of Philosophy. Descartes developed a method to attain truths according to which nothing that cannot be recognised by the intellect (or reason) can be classified as knowledge. These truths are gained "without any sensory experience", according to Descartes. Truths that are attained by reason are broken down into elements that intuition can grasp, which, through a purely deductive process, will result in clear truths about reality.

Descartes therefore argued, as a result of his method, that reason alone determined knowledge, and that this could be done independently of the senses. For instance, his famous dictum, cogito ergo sum, is a conclusion reached a priori and not through an inference from experience[citation needed] . This was, for Descartes, an irrefutable principle upon which to ground all forms of other knowledge. Descartes posited a metaphysical dualism, distinguishing between the substances of the human body ("res extensa") and the mind or soul ("res cogitans") . This crucial distinction would be left unresolved and lead to what is known as the mind-body problem, since the two substances in the Cartesian system are independent of each other and irreducible.
[edit] Baruch Spinoza (1632 1677) Main article: Philosophy of Spinoza

The philosophy of Baruch Spinoza is a systematic, logical, rational philosophy developed by him in the seventeenth century in Europe.[1][2][3] Spinoza's philosophy is a system of ideas constructed upon basic building blocks with an internal consistency with which Spinoza tried to answer life's major questions and in which he proposed that "God exists only philosophically."[3][4] He was heavily influenced by thinkers such as Descartes[5] and Euclid[4] and Thomas Hobbes[5] as well as theologians in the Jewish philosophical tradition such as Maimonides,[5] but his work was in many respects a departure from the Judeo-Christian tradition. Many of Spinoza's ideas continue to vex thinkers today and many of his principles, particularly regarding the emotions, have implications for modern approaches to psychology. Even top thinkers have found Spinoza's "geometrical method"[3] difficult to comprehend: Goethe admitted that he "could not really understand what Spinoza was on about most of the time."[3] His magnum opus, Ethics, contains unresolved obscurities and has a forbidding mathematical structure modeled on Euclid's geometry.[4] Spinoza's philosophy attracted believers such as Albert Einstein[6] and much intellectual attention.[7][8][9][10][11]
[edit] Gottfried Leibniz (1646 1716) Main article: Gottfried Leibniz

Leibniz was the last of the great Rationalists who contributed heavily to other fields such as mathematics. He did not develop his system, however, independently of these advances. Leibniz rejected Cartesian dualism and denied the existence of a material world. In Leibniz's view there are infinitely many simple substances, which he called "monads" (possibly taking the term from the work of Anne Conway). Leibniz developed his theory of monads in response to both Descartes and Spinoza. In rejecting this response he was forced to arrive at his own solution. Monads are the fundamental unit of reality, according to Leibniz, constituting both inanimate and animate things. These units of reality represent the universe, though they are not subject to the laws of causality or space (which he called "well-founded phenomena"). Leibniz, therefore, introduced his principle of preestablished harmony to account for apparent causality in the world.
[edit] Immanuel Kant (1724 1804) Main article: Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant started as a traditional rationalist, having studied the rationalists Leibniz and Wolff, but after studying David Hume's works, which "awoke [him] from [his] dogmatic slumbers", he developed a distinctive and very influential rationalism of his own, which attempted to synthesise the traditional rationalist and empiricist traditions. Kant named his branch of epistemology Transcendental Idealism, and he first laid out these views in his famous work The Critique of Pure Reason. In it he argued that there were fundamental problems with both rationalist and empiricist dogma. To the rationalists he argued, broadly, that pure reason is flawed when it goes beyond its limits and claims to know those things that are necessarily beyond the realm of all possible experience: the existence of God, free will, and the immortality of the human soul. Kant referred to these objects as "The Thing in Itself" and goes on to argue that their status as objects beyond all possible experience by definition means we cannot know them. To the empiricist he argued that while it is correct that experience is fundamentally necessary for human knowledge, reason is necessary for processing that experience into coherent thought. He therefore concludes that both reason and experience are necessary for human knowledge.

[edit] Political rationalism

Main article: Rationalism (politics) In political contexts, the term rationalism is used to define the political belief that is mid-way between realism and internationalism.[12]
[edit] Definition

It is used to describe the political belief that the world political order is not as chaotic as suggested by realists, but maintains a certain degree of order where nation-states do not violate others' sovereignty unless absolutely necessary.
[edit] Contradiction with other political philosophies

Rationalism is often seen as the mid-point between realism and internationalism. Whereas internationalism advocates a purely global and orderly approach to international affairs, and realism a purely individual and chaotic approach, rationalism appears to combine these two philosophies.[citation needed] In philosophy, empiricism is a theory of knowledge which opposes other theories of knowledge, such as rationalism, idealism and historicism. Empiricism asserts that knowledge comes (only or primarily) via sensory experience as opposed to rationalism which asserts that knowledge comes (also) from pure thinking. Both empiricism and rationalism are individualist theories of knowledge, whereas historicism is a social epistemology. While historicism also acknowledges the role of experience, it differs from empiricism by assuming that sensory data cannot be understood without considering the historical and cultural circumstances in which observations are made. Empiricism should not be mixed up with empirical research because different epistemologies should be considered competing views on how best to do studies, and there is

near consensus among researchers that studies should be empirical. Today empiricism should therefore be understood as one among competing ideals of getting knowledge or how to do studies. As such empiricism is first and foremost characterized by the ideal to let observational data "speak for themselves", while the competing views are opposed to this ideal. The term empiricism should thus not just be understood in relation to how this term has been used in the history of philosophy. It should also be constructed in a way which makes it possible to distinguish empiricism among other epistemological positions in contemporary science and scholarship. In other words: Empiricism as a concept has to be constructed along with other concepts, which together make it possible to make important discriminations between different ideals underlying contemporary science. Empiricism is one of several competing views that predominate in the study of human knowledge, known as epistemology. Empiricism emphasizes the role of experience and evidence, especially sensory perception, in the formation of ideas, over the notion of innate ideas or tradition[1] in contrast to, for example, rationalism which relies upon reason and can incorporate innate knowledge. Empiricism then, in the philosophy of science, emphasizes those aspects of scientific knowledge that are closely related to evidence, especially as discovered in experiments. It is a fundamental part of the scientific method that all hypotheses and theories must be tested against observations of the natural world, rather than resting solely on a priori reasoning, intuition, or revelation. Hence, science is considered to be methodologically empirical in nature.

Etymology and usage

The term "empiricism" has a dual etymology. It comes from the Greek word , which translates to the Latin experientia, from which we derive the word experience. It also derives from a more specific classical Greek and Roman usage of empiric, referring to a physician whose skill derives from practical experience as opposed to instruction in theory.[2]

[edit] Philosophical usage

John Locke, founder of British empiricism

The term "empirical" was originally used to refer to certain ancient Greek practitioners of medicine (Empiric school) who rejected adherence to the dogmatic doctrines of the day (Dogmatic school), preferring instead to rely on the observation of phenomena as perceived in experience.[2] The notion of tabula rasa ("clean slate" or "blank tablet") dates back to Aristotle, and was developed into an elaborate theory by Avicenna[3] and demonstrated as a thought experiment by Ibn Tufail.[4] The doctrine of empiricism was later explicitly formulated by John Locke in the 17th century. He argued that the mind is a tabula rasa (Locke used the words "white paper") on which experiences leave their marks. Such empiricism denies that humans have innate ideas or that anything is knowable without reference to experience. According to the empiricist view, for any knowledge to be properly inferred or deduced, it is to be gained ultimately from one's sense-based experience.[5] As a historical matter, philosophical empiricism is commonly contrasted with the philosophical school of thought known as "rationalism" which, in very broad terms, asserts that much knowledge is attributable to reason independently of the senses. However, this contrast is today considered to be an oversimplification of the issues involved, because the main continental rationalists (Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz) were also advocates of the empirical "scientific method" of their day. Furthermore, Locke, held that some knowledge (e.g. knowledge of God's existence) could be arrived at through intuition and reasoning alone. Similarly, Robert Boyle, a prominent advocate of the experimental method, held that we have innate ideas.[6] [7] [8] [9] Some important philosophers commonly associated with empiricism include Aristotle, Alhazen, Avicenna, Ibn Tufail, Robert Grosseteste, William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, Robert Boyle, John Locke, George Berkeley, David Hume, Leopold von Ranke and John Stuart Mill.

[edit] Scientific usage Main articles: Empirical method and Empirical research

A central concept in science and the scientific method is that all evidence must be empirical, or empirically based, that is, dependent on evidence that is observable by the senses. It is differentiated from the philosophic usage of empiricism by the use of the adjective "empirical" or the adverb "empirically". Empirical is used in conjunction with both the natural and social sciences, and refers to the use of working hypotheses that are testable using observation or experiment. In this sense of the word, scientific statements are subject to and derived from our experiences or observations. In a second sense "empirical" in science and statistics may be synonymous with "experimental". In this sense, an empirical result is an experimental observation. The term semi-empirical is sometimes used to describe theoretical methods that make use of basic axioms, established scientific laws, and previous experimental results in order to engage in reasoned model building and theoretical inquiry.

[edit] History
[edit] Early empiricism See also: Tabula Rasa and Nous

Aristotle writes of the unscribed tablet, or tabula rasa, in his treatise Peri Psuch s (De Anima or On the Soul). During the middle ages, Aristotle's theory of tabula rasa remained standard amongst Islamic philosophers starting from Al Farabi, which in turn had an influence upon the development of philosophy in western Europe. What the mind (nous) thinks must be in it in the same sense as letters are on a tablet (grammateion) which bears no actual writing (grammenon); this is just what happens in the case of the mind. (Aristotle, On the Soul, 3.4.430a1). Aristotle's explanation of how this was possible, was not strictly empiricist in a modern sense, but rather based on his theory of potentiality and actuality, and experience of sense perceptions still requires the help of the active nous. But Aristotle was considered to give a more important position to sense perception than Plato, and commentators in the middle ages summarized one of his positions as "nihil in intellectu nisi prius fuerit in sensu" (Latin for "nothing in the intellect without first being in the senses").

A drawing of Ibn Sina (Avicenna) from 1271

Ibn Sina (known as "Avicenna" in the Western world), for example, recited the Aristotelian position that the human intellect at birth is rather like a tabula rasa, a pure potentiality that is actualized through education, and that knowledge is attained through "empirical familiarity with objects in this world from which one abstracts universal concepts" which is developed through a "syllogistic method of reasoning; observations lead to propositional statements, which when compounded lead to further abstract concepts." But the intellect itself developing from the material intellect (al-aql al-hayulani), which is a potentiality "that can acquire knowledge to the active intellect (al-aql al-fail), the state of the human intellect in conjunction with the perfect source of knowledge".[3] So the immaterial "active intellect", separate from any individual person, is still essential for understanding to occur. During the 12th century, the Andalusian Arab philosopher and novelist Ibn Tufail (known as "Abubacer" or "Ebn Tophail" in the West) demonstrated the theory of tabula rasa as a thought experiment through his Arabic philosophical novel, Hayy ibn Yaqdhan, in which he depicted the development of the mind of a feral child "from a tabula rasa to that of an adult, in complete isolation from society" on a desert island, through experience alone. The Latin translation of his philosophical novel, entitled Philosophus Autodidactus, published by Edward Pococke the Younger in 1671, had an influence on John Locke's formulation of tabula rasa in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.[4] A similar Islamic theological novel, Theologus Autodidactus, was written by the Arab theologian and physician Ibn al-Nafis in the 13th century. It also dealt with the theme of empiricism through the story of a feral child on a desert island, but departed from its predecessor by depicting the development of the protagonist's mind through contact with society rather than in isolation from society.[10]

During the 13th century, St. Thomas Aquinas argued for the Aristotelian position that the senses are essential to mind, bringing it to the forefront of Christian thought. These notions contrasted with Platonic notions of the human mind as an entity that pre-existed somewhere in the heavens, before being sent down to join a body on Earth (see Plato's Phaedo and Apology, as well as others). St. Bonaventure (1221-1274), one of Aquinas' fiercest intellectual opponents, offered some of the strongest arguments in favour of the Platonic idea of the mind.
[edit] Renaissance Italy

In the late renaissance in Tuscany, various writers began to question the medieval and classical understanding of knowledge acquisition in a more fundamental way. In political and historical writing Niccol Machiavelli and his friend Francesco Guicciardini initiated a new realistic style of writing. Machiavelli in particular was scornful of writers on politics who judged everything in comparison to mental ideals, and demanded that people should study the "effectual truth" instead. Their contemporary, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) said,[11]
If you find from your own experience that something is a fact and it contradicts what some authority has written down, then you must abandon the authority and base your reasoning on your own findings.

The decidedly anti-Aristotelian and anti-clerical music theorist Vincenzo Galilei (ca. 1520 1591), father of Galileo and the inventor of monody, made use of the method in successfully solving musical problems, firstly, of tuning such as the relationship of pitch to string tension and mass in stringed instruments, and to volume of air in wind instruments; and secondly to composition, by his various suggestions to composers in his Dialogo della musica antica e moderna (Florence, 1581). The Italian word he used for "experiment" was esperienza. It is known that he was the essential pedagogical influence upon the young Galileo, his eldest son (cf. Coelho, ed. Music and Science in the Age of Galileo Galilei), arguably one of the most influential empiricists in history. Vincenzo, through his tuning research, found the underlying truth at the heart of the misunderstood myth of 'Pythagoras' hammers' (the square of the numbers concerned yielded those musical intervals, not the actual numbers, as believed), and through this and other discoveries that demonstrated the fallibility of traditional authorities, a radically empirical attitude developed, passed on to Galileo, which regarded "experience and demonstration" as the sine qua non of valid rational enquiry.
[edit] British empiricism

British empiricism, though it was not a term used at the time, derives from the 17th century period of early modern philosophy and modern science. The term became useful in order to describe differences perceived between two of its founders Francis Bacon, described as empiricist, and Rene Descartes, who is described as a rationalist. Thomas Hobbes and Baruch Spinoza, in the next generation, are often also described as an empiricist and a rationalist respectively. John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume were the primary exponents of empiricism in the 18th century Enlightenment, with Locke being the person who is normally known as the founder of empiricism as such.

In response to the early-to-mid-17th century "continental rationalism" John Locke (16321704) proposed in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) a very influential view wherein the only knowledge humans can have is a posteriori, i.e., based upon experience. Locke is famously attributed with holding the proposition that the human mind is a tabula rasa, a "blank tablet," in Locke's words "white paper," on which the experiences derived from sense impressions as a person's life proceeds are written. There are two sources of our ideas: sensation and reflection. In both cases, a distinction is made between simple and complex ideas. The former are unanalysable, and are broken down into primary and secondary qualities. Complex ideas combine simple ones, and divide into substances, modes, and relations. According to Locke, our knowledge of things is a perception of ideas that are in accordance or discordance with each other, which is very different from the quest for certainty of Descartes.

Bishop George Berkeley

A generation later, the Irish Anglican bishop, George Berkeley (16851753), determined that Locke's view immediately opened a door that would lead to eventual atheism. In response to Locke, he put forth in his Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710) an important challenge to empiricism in which things only exist either as a result of their being perceived, or by virtue of the fact that they are an entity doing the perceiving. (For Berkeley, God fills in for humans by doing the perceiving whenever humans are not around to do it). In his text Alciphron, Berkeley maintained that any order humans may see in nature is the language or handwriting of God.[12] Berkeley's approach to empiricism would later come to be called subjective idealism.[13][14] The Scottish philosopher David Hume (17111776) responded to Berkeley's criticisms of Locke, as well other differences between early modern philosophers, and moved empiricism to a new level of skepticism. Hume argued in keeping with the empiricist view that all knowledge derives from sense experience, but he accepted that this has implications not normally acceptable to philosophers. He wrote for example, "Mr. Locke divides all arguments into demonstrative and

probable. In this view, we must say, that it is only probable all men must die, or that the sun will rise to-morrow."[15] And, "Mr. Locke, in his chapter of power, says that, finding from experience, that there are several new productions in nature, and concluding that there must somewhere be a power capable of producing them, we arrive at last by this reasoning at the idea of power. But no reasoning can ever give us a new, original, simple idea; as this philosopher himself confesses. This, therefore, can never be the origin of that idea.[16] Hume divided all of human knowledge into two categories: relations of ideas and matters of fact (see also Kant's analytic-synthetic distinction). Mathematical and logical propositions (e.g. "that the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the two sides") are examples of the first, while propositions involving some contingent observation of the world (e.g. "the sun rises in the East") are examples of the second. All of people's "ideas", in turn, are derived from their "impressions". For Hume, an "impression" corresponds roughly with what we call a sensation. To remember or to imagine such impressions is to have an "idea". Ideas are therefore the faint copies of sensations.[17]

David Hume's empiricism led to numerous philosophical schools

Via his skeptical arguments he maintained that all knowledge, even the most basic beliefs about the natural world, cannot be conclusively established by reason. Rather, he maintained, our beliefs are more a result of accumulated habits, developed in response to accumulated sense experiences. Among his many arguments Hume also added another important slant to the debate about scientific method that of the problem of induction. Hume argued that it requires inductive reasoning to arrive at the premises for the principle of inductive reasoning, and therefore the justification for inductive reasoning is a circular argument.[17] Among Hume's conclusions regarding the problem of induction is that there is no certainty that the future will resemble the past. Thus, as a simple instance posed by Hume, we cannot know with certainty by inductive reasoning that the sun will continue to rise in the East, but instead come to expect it to do so because it has repeatedly done so in the past.[17]

Hume concluded that such things as belief in an external world and belief in the existence of the self were not rationally justifiable. According to Hume these beliefs were to be accepted nonetheless because of their profound basis in instinct and custom. Hume's lasting legacy, however, was the doubt that his skeptical arguments cast on the legitimacy of inductive reasoning, allowing many skeptics who followed to cast similar doubt.
[edit] Phenomenalism Main article: Phenomenalism

Most of Hume's followers have disagreed with his conclusion that belief in an external world is rationally unjustifiable, contending that Hume's own principles implicitly contained the rational justification for such a belief, that is, beyond being content to let the issue rest on human instinct, custom and habit.[18] According to an extreme empiricist theory known as Phenomenalism, anticipated by the arguments of both Hume and George Berkeley, a physical object is a kind of construction out of our experiences.[19] Phenomenalism is the view that physical objects, properties, events (whatever is physical) are reducible to mental objects, properties, events. Ultimately, only mental objects, properties, events, exist hence the closely related term subjective idealism. By the phenomenalistic line of thinking, to have a visual experience of a real physical thing is to have an experience of a certain kind of group of experiences. This type of set of experiences possesses a constancy and coherence that is lacking in the set of experiences of which hallucinations, for example, are a part. As John Stuart Mill put it in the mid-19th century, matter is the "permanent possibility of sensation".[20] Mill's empiricism went a significant step beyond Hume in still another respect: in maintaining that induction is necessary for all meaningful knowledge including mathematics. As summarized by D.W. Hamlin:
[Mill] claimed that mathematical truths were merely very highly confirmed generalizations from experience; mathematical inference, generally conceived as deductive [and a priori] in nature, Mill set down as founded on induction. Thus, in Mill's philosophy there was no real place for knowledge based on relations of ideas. In his view logical and mathematical necessity is psychological; we are merely unable to conceive any other possibilities than those that logical and mathematical propositions assert. This is perhaps the most extreme version of empiricism known, but it has not found many defenders.[14]

Mill's empiricism thus held that knowledge of any kind is not from direct experience but an inductive inference from direct experience.[21] The problems other philosophers have had with Mill's position center around the following issues: Firstly, Mill's formulation encounters difficulty when it describes what direct experience is by differentiating only between actual and possible sensations. This misses some key discussion concerning conditions under which such "groups of permanent possibilities of sensation" might exist in the first place. Berkeley put God in that gap; the phenomenalists, including Mill, essentially left the question unanswered. In the end, lacking an acknowledgement of an aspect of "reality" that goes beyond mere "possibilities of sensation", such a position leads to a version of subjective idealism. Questions of how floor beams continue to support a floor while unobserved, how trees continue to grow while unobserved and untouched by human hands, etc., remain unanswered, and perhaps unanswerable in these terms.[14][22] Secondly, Mill's formulation leaves open the unsettling possibility that the "gap-filling entities are purely possibilities and not actualities at all".[22] Thirdly, Mill's position,

by calling mathematics merely another species of inductive inference, misapprehends mathematics. It fails to fully consider the structure and method of mathematical science, the products of which are arrived at through an internally consistent deductive set of procedures which do not, either today or at the time Mill wrote, fall under the agreed meaning of induction.[14][22][23] The phenomenalist phase of post-Humean empiricism ended by the 1940s, for by that time it had become obvious that statements about physical things could not be translated into statements about actual and possible sense data.[24] If a physical object statement is to be translatable into a sense-data statement, the former must be at least deducible from the latter. But it came to be realized that there is no finite set of statements about actual and possible sense-data from which we can deduce even a single physical-object statement. Remember that the translating or paraphrasing statement must be couched in terms of normal observers in normal conditions of observation. There is, however, no finite set of statements that are couched in purely sensory terms and can express the satisfaction of the condition of the presence of a normal observer. According to phenomenalism, to say that a normal observer is present is to make the hypothetical statement that were a doctor to inspect the observer, the observer would appear to the doctor to be normal. But, of course, the doctor himself must be a normal observer. If we are to specify this doctor's normality in sensory terms, we must make reference to a second doctor who, when inspecting the sense organs of the first doctor, would himself have to have the sense data a normal observer has when inspecting the sense organs of a subject who is a normal observer. And if we are to specify in sensory terms that the second doctor is a normal observer, we must refer to a third doctor, and so on (also see the third man).[25][26]
[edit] Logical empiricism Main article: Logical positivism

Logical empiricism (aka logical positivism or neopositivism) was an early 20th century attempt to synthesize the essential ideas of British empiricism (e.g. a strong emphasis on sensory experience as the basis for knowledge) with certain insights from mathematical logic that had been developed by Gottlob Frege and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Some of the key figures in this movement were Otto Neurath, Moritz Schlick and the rest of the Vienna Circle, along with A.J. Ayer, Rudolf Carnap and Hans Reichenbach. The neopositivists subscribed to a notion of philosophy as the conceptual clarification of the methods, insights and discoveries of the sciences. They saw in the logical symbolism elaborated by Frege (d. 1925) and Bertrand Russell (18721970) a powerful instrument that could rationally reconstruct all scientific discourse into an ideal, logically perfect, language that would be free of the ambiguities and deformations of natural language. This gave rise to what they saw as metaphysical pseudoproblems and other conceptual confusions. By combining Frege's thesis that all mathematical truths are logical with the early Wittgenstein's idea that all logical truths are mere linguistic tautologies, they arrived at a twofold classification of all propositions: the analytic (a priori) and the synthetic (a posteriori).[27] On this basis, they formulated a strong principle of demarcation between sentences that have sense and those that do not: the so-called verification principle. Any sentence that is not purely logical, or is unverifiable is devoid of meaning. As a result, most metaphysical, ethical, aesthetic and other traditional philosophical problems came to be considered pseudoproblems.[28]

In the extreme empiricism of the neopositivistsat least before the 1930sany genuinely synthetic assertion must be reducible to an ultimate assertion (or set of ultimate assertions) that expresses direct observations or perceptions. In later years, Carnap and Neurath abandoned this sort of phenomenalism in favor of a rational reconstruction of knowledge into the language of an objective spatio-temporal physics. That is, instead of translating sentences about physical objects into sense-data, such sentences were to be translated into so-called protocol sentences, for example, "X at location Y and at time T observes such and such."[29] The central theses of logical positivism (verificationism, the analytic-synthetic distinction, reductionism, etc.) came under sharp attack after World War 2 by thinkers such as Nelson Goodman, W.V. Quine, Hilary Putnam, Karl Popper, and Richard Rorty. By the late 1960s, it had become evident to most philosophers that the movement had pretty much run its course, though its influence is still significant among contemporary analytic philosophers such as Michael Dummett and other antirealists.
[edit] Integration of empiricism and rationalism: Pragmatism

In the late 19th and early 20th century several forms of pragmatic philosophy arose. The ideas of pragmatism, in its various forms, developed mainly from discussions that took place while Charles Sanders Peirce and William James were both at Harvard in the 1870s. James popularized the term "pragmatism", giving Peirce full credit for its patrimony, but Peirce later demurred from the tangents that the movement was taking, and redubbed what he regarded as the original idea with the name of "pragmaticism". Along with its pragmatic theory of truth, this perspective integrates the basic insights of empirical (experience-based) and rational (concept-based) thinking.

Charles Sanders Peirce

Charles Peirce (18391914) was highly influential in laying the groundwork for today's empirical scientific method.[citation needed] Although Peirce severely criticized many elements of Descartes' peculiar brand of rationalism, he did not reject rationalism outright. Indeed, he concurred with the main ideas of rationalism, most importantly the idea that rational concepts

can be meaningful and the idea that rational concepts necessarily go beyond the data given by empirical observation. In later years he even emphasized the concept-driven side of the then ongoing debate between strict empiricism and strict rationalism, in part to counterbalance the excesses to which some of his cohorts had taken pragmatism under the "data-driven" strictempiricist view. Among Peirce's major contributions was to place inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning in a complementary rather than competitive mode, the latter of which had been the primary trend among the educated since David Hume wrote a century before. To this, Peirce added the concept of abductive reasoning. The combined three forms of reasoning serve as a primary conceptual foundation for the empirically based scientific method today. Peirce's approach "presupposes that (1) the objects of knowledge are real things, (2) the characters (properties) of real things do not depend on our perceptions of them, and (3) everyone who has sufficient experience of real things will agree on the truth about them. According to Peirce's doctrine of fallibilism, the conclusions of science are always tentative. The rationality of the scientific method does not depend on the certainty of its conclusions, but on its self-corrective character: by continued application of the method science can detect and correct its own mistakes, and thus eventually lead to the discovery of truth".[30] In his Harvard "Lectures on Pragmatism" (1903), Peirce enumerated what he called the "three cotary propositions of pragmatism" (L: cos, cotis whetstone), saying that they "put the edge on the maxim of pragmatism". First among these he listed the peripatetic-thomist observation mentioned above, but he further observed that this link between sensory perception and intellectual conception is a two-way street. That is, it can be taken to say that whatever we find in the intellect is also incipiently in the senses. Hence, if theories are theory-laden then so are the senses, and perception itself can be seen as a species of abductive inference, its difference being that it is beyond control and hence beyond critique in a word, incorrigible. This in no way conflicts with the fallibility and revisability of scientific concepts, since it is only the immediate percept in its unique individuality or "thisness" what the Scholastics called its haecceity that stands beyond control and correction. Scientific concepts, on the other hand, are general in nature, and transient sensations do in another sense find correction within them. This notion of perception as abduction has received periodic revivals in artificial intelligence and cognitive science research, most recently for instance with the work of Irvin Rock on indirect perception.[31][32]

William James

Around the beginning of the 20th century, William James (18421910) coined the term "radical empiricism" to describe an offshoot of his form of pragmatism, which he argued could be dealt with separately from his pragmatism - though in fact the two concepts are intertwined in James's published lectures. James maintained that the empirically observed "directly apprehended universe needs ... no extraneous trans-empirical connective support",[33] by which he meant to rule out the perception that there can be any value added by seeking supernatural explanations for natural phenomena. James's "radical empricism" is thus not radical in the context of the term "empiricism", but is instead fairly consistent with the modern use of the term "empirical". (His method of argument in arriving at this view, however, still readily encounters debate within philosophy even today.) John Dewey (18591952) modified James' pragmatism to form a theory known as instrumentalism. The role of sense experience in Dewey's theory is crucial, in that he saw experience as unified totality of things through which everything else is interrelated. Dewey's basic thought, in accordance with empiricism was that reality is determined by past experience. Therefore, humans adapt their past experiences of things to perform experiments upon and test the pragmatic values of such experience. The value of such experience is measured by scientific instruments, and the results of such measurements generate ideas that serve as instruments for future experimentation.[34] Thus, ideas in Dewey's system retain their empiricist flavour in that they are only known a posteriori.