St. Thomas Aquinas College

OBJECTIVES
Learning outcomes - after reading this chapter, you will be able to:

Structure and Methodology of Philosophy THE BRANCHES OF PHILOSOPHY, pages 379-380

Philosophy drives persons to search for better answers and better understandings.
Three important branches of Philosophy: metaphysics, epistemology, and axiology.
Metaphysics is an area of philosophy that is concerned with questions about the nature of reality. Literally metaphysics means "beyond the physical". It deals with questions such as, What is reality, What is existence?
Metaphysics is the attempt to find coherence in the whole realm of thought and experience.
The questions in metaphysics, especially those about humanity and the universe, are extremely relevant to teachers and students.
Epistemology is a branch of philosophy that examines questions about how and what we know. What knowledge is true, and how does knowledge take place? Is knowing a special sort of mental act? Does knowing make any difference to the object that is known?
Epistemological questions deal with the essence of knowledge.
Deals with areas such as: scientific inquiry, intuition, senses and feelings, inductive logic, deductive logic.
Axiology is an area of philosophy that deals with the nature of values.
It includes such questions as "what is good?" and "What is value?"
This study of values is divided into ethics (moral values and conduct) and aesthetics (values in the realm of beauty and art).

THINKING AS A PHILOSOPHER, pages 381-385

Philosophy provides the tools people need to think clearly.
Two ways of thinking: analytic thinking and prophetic thinking.
Analytic thinking: when philosophers encounter a contemporary problem, they often spend time analyzing it: attempting to clarify or fine the "real" problem, not just the surface issues. To do so philosophers use abstraction, imagination and generalization, and logic.
Abstraction: What are its underlying characteristics?
Imagination and generalization. Imagination assists the process of abstraction by filling in the details of an idea, selecting details, and relating ideas to one another.
Imagination: you focus on an idea, you make an assumption, give some evidence, and come to a conclusion.
The last step of the imaginative exploration process is sometime referred to as generalization because it ultimately results in the development of a comprehensive set of ideas.
Logic examines the principles that allow us to move from one argument to the next. What can I conclude?
In contrast to the search for underlying universal principles that is the focus of an analytic way of thinking, prophetic thinking seeks to uncover multiple, even divergent realities or principles.
A prophetic thinker is one who goes beyond abstraction.
Cornel West identifies four basic components of prophetic thinking: discernment, connection, tracking hypocrisy, and hope.
Discernment is the capacity to develop a vision of what should be out of a sophisticated understanding of what has been and is.
Connection: a prophetic thinker must relate to or connect with others. Rather than considering humankind in the abstract, prophetic thinkers value and have empathy for other human beings.
Tracking hypocrisy: while the relationship between empathy and teaching is important, it is equally important for the prophetic teacher to identify and make know the "gap between principles and practice, between promise and performance, between rhetoric and reality." It is examining the relationship between what is said and what is practiced.
Hope: without hope, all thought is meaningless.

Schools of philosophy and their influence on education IDEALISM, pages 386-389

Idealists believe that ideas are the only true reality.
Idealism is a school of philosophy that holds those ideas or concepts are the essence of all that is worth knowing.
Educational implication: education is idea-centered rather than subject-centered or child-centered.
Plato and Socrates stated that truth is the central reality.
Immanuel Kant, a German Philosopher (1724-1804) believed in freedom, the immortality of the soul, and the existence of God. "It is only through reason that we acquire knowledge of the world"
Jane Roland Martin (b.1929) is a contemporary disciple of Plato's. For Martin, to be educated is to engage in a conversation that stretches back in time. She is noted for her work describing how women have historically been excluded from the conversation that constitutes Western educational thought.

REALISM, pages 389-392

Realism lies in the thinking of Aristotle Realism is a school of philosophy that holds that reality, knowledge, and value exist independent of the human mind.
See figure 10.1 on page 390 for the dualistic position of idealism and realism.
Realists place considerable importance on the role of the teacher in the educational process.

PRAGMATISM, pages 392-393

Pragmatism is a late 19^th century American philosophy that affected educational and social thought.
It stresses becoming rather than being.
For pragmatists, truth is what works. Therefore, truth is relative.
See figure 10.2 on page 392.

EXISTENTIALISM, pages 393-397

In existentialism, reality is lived existence and the final reality resides within the individual.
Existentialists believe that we live an alien, meaningless existence on a small planet in an indifferent universe.
There is no ultimate meaning.
The only certainty for the existentialist is that we are free.

EASTERN AND NATIVE NORTH AMERICAN WAYS OF KNOWING, pages 397-402

Eastern ways of knowing: a varied set of ideas, beliefs, and values from the Far, Middle, and Near East that stress inner peace, tranquility, attitudinal development, and mysticism.
Native North American ways of knowing: a varied set of beliefs, philosophical position, and customs that span different tribes in North America.

E-Mail: mfitzpat@stac.edu