Naturalism in Education

What is Existentialism?

Respuesta: Existentialism is a philosophical movement formally initiated by the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard during the second half of the 19th century and was developed and popularized by the famous French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre during the postwar period. Taking from the root word “existence”, existentialism is generally considered as a philosophy of life. To be specific, it is generally considered as the philosophy of the “meaning of life”. Hence, existentialism stresses the individual’s unique position as a self-determining agent responsible for making meaningful, authentic choices. Existentialism, therefore, is characterized by its concern with individual existence, freedom, and choice. Existentialism’s emphasis on the idea of a “meaningful life” or “meaningful existence” suggests that life, as it appears and experienced, is characterized by “absurdity”. Philosophically speaking, the term “absurd” refers to “the conflict between the human tendency to seek inherent value and meaning in life, and the human inability to find any in a purposeless, meaningless or chaotic and irrational universe.” Thus, what is common among different brands of existential philosophy is the view that life is “absurd”, that it seemingly appears to be meaningless, purposeless. However, despite the fact that life appears to be absurd, existential philosophers believe that humans can make rational decisions and eventually define their own meaning in life. And for the existential philosophers, one of the best ways to make life meaningful is to embrace it despite the absurdities it harbors. As we may already know, this existential attitude is expressed most visibly in Friedrich Nietzsche’s notion of Amor Fati, or “the love of one’s fate”, which is also understood as a resolute, enthusiastic acceptance of everything that has happened in one’s life.

What is Rationalism?

Respuesta: Rationalism is a philosophical doctrine that holds the view that knowledge is derived from reason rather than experience. Hence, for the rationalists, reason is the ultimate source of knowledge and the test of its validity. Rationalism is characterized by three major theses, namely: 1. Knowledge is derived from intuition (or rational insight) and deductive reasoning, rather than from sense perception; 2. The ideas or concepts that constitute the mind’s ability to think are innate; and, therefore, 3. Knowledge of a particular thing is innate. What these three points suggest for the rationalists is that reality has an intrinsically logical structure, which contains certain truths that can be accessed by the mind. For this reason, the rationalists believe that truths exist and that the intellect can grasp them directly. And for the rationalists, these truths are fundamental so that denying them would cause us to fall into contradiction. In other words, these truths are self-evidently true and that their negation is self-evidently false. Consider, for example, this proposition: “All triangles have three angles”. Logically speaking, this proposition is absolutely true because as long as an object is a triangle, it must have three angles. Also, for the rationalists, the knowledge of this proposition is not derived from experience but from reason. For sure, we need not resort to experience in order to say that indeed all triangles have three angles. Through thinking alone, that is through the use of reason, we can arrive at the knowledge that all triangles have three angles. René Descartes, a 17th century French philosopher, was the leading figure in rationalism. He believed that the information one gathers through the senses are not accurate. Through the application of his famous “Methodic Doubt”, Descartes was convinced that knowledge can be attained not through experience but through pure reason. In fact, Descartes believes that a strict application of pure reason to all epistemological problems is the only way to attain knowledge and certainty.

What is Empiricism?

Respuesta: Empiricism is a philosophical doctrine that holds the view that knowledge is derived from experience. Hence, for the empiricists, all knowledge begins with experience and that the mind is like a “blank sheet” (Tabula rasa) that the human person fills with ideas as she experiences the world through her five external senses. The empiricists, therefore, deny the contention of the rationalists that ideas are innate, that is, humans are born with imprinted ideas, knowledge, and principles. It must be noted that there are many types of experience. For example, we may talk of “inner” experience, such as dreaming, imagining, and fantasizing. However, this type of experience is not the one dealt with in empiricism. This is because when we talk of experience in philosophy, particularly in empiricism, we are specifically and exclusively referring to “sensory experience”. In particular, the adherents of empiricism are interested in explaining the origin of knowledge, with emphasis on how the human mind acquires knowledge and conceptual understanding. In fact, John Locke, a 17th century British philosopher, devoted Book II of his seminal work titled An Essay Concerning Human Understanding to explaining the origin and development of knowledge. Locke says that first, there is the relationship between the subject (knower) and object (the thing known). The subject then perceives the object through the five external senses. According to Locke, through this process of sensation, the human mind forms simple ideas, such as the idea of a “table” or a “book”. When we put together simple ideas, as Locke contends, we form complex ideas through the process of reflection. Locke understands reflection as the “perception of the operations of our own mind within us, as it is employed about the ideas it has got”.

What is Realism?

Respuesta: Realism, in philosophy, refers to the view that the “reality” of any material objects exists in the external world independently of the human mind. Put differently, realism holds that what one perceives is real and is out there existing in concrete reality. For example, the “maple tree” that I see with my naked eyes is existing in concrete reality and is not just an abstract concept produced by the mind as the idealists would have us believe. Hence, the fact that the maple tree exists in the external world and has properties of its own such as hardness and thickness, that maple tree is independent of anyone’s perception—it is therefore “real”. Contrary to nominalism, which holds that universals do not exist independently from particulars, realism holds that both universals and particulars exist independently from each other. On the one hand, in metaphysics, the term “particulars” refers to concrete, spatiotemporal entities or objects, such as a tree or a book. Often times, the term “individuals” is used interchangeably with “particulars”. One of the most distinctive characteristics of “particulars” is that they cannot be in more than one place at the same time. For example, if a specific maple tree is existing in a specific time and place, it cannot be in another time and place at the same time. On the other hand, the term “universals” refers to the properties or characteristics possessed by a particular, concrete spatiotemporal object, such as color or hardness. For example, the “whiteness” of a book can also be instantiated in the “whiteness” of a dress or a paper. Scholars in philosophy believed that it was Aristotle who first popularized realism when he opposed Plato’s idealism and argued that the “real” exists in the sensible world which can be known through experience. As we can see, it was Aristotle who provided the fundamental structure of the development of realism and its penetration in other disciplines, such as in arts and politics.

What is Idealism?

Respuesta: Idealism is a philosophical doctrine which holds the view that ideas are the only reality. Hence, for the idealists, there is no external reality and that the world consiste of ideas. For this reason, the idealists argue that material things do not really exist. In fact, for the idealists, material things are not real because they are mutable and destructible. This is because whatever that is mutable and destructible keeps on changing, and whatever that keeps on changing cannot be considered real. Only ideas, therefore, are real for the idealists because ideas do not change—they are immutable and indestructible. Idealism is normally contrasted with realism, a philosophical doctrine which holds the view that material objects are independent of the human mind; thus, they exist on their own. For the realists, therefore, material objects are real. Contrary to the contention of the realists, the idealists associate reality with the “mind” rather than with material things. Hence, the mind for the idealists is the essence of reality and that ideas are the only permanent reality. The ancient Greek philosopher Plato was the well-known figure in idealism. As is well known, Plato believed that the physical world is not real. As we can see, because the physical world constantly changes, one cannot really tell what it really is. In his seminal work titled The Republic, Plato introduced the two kinds of world, namely, the World of Forms or Ideas and the World of Matter. According to Plato, any material object that exists in the World of Matter is just a copy of the object that exists in the World of Forms. Take for example a tree. For Plato, the tree that we experience in the World of Matter is not real because it is mutable, destructible, and changeable. The real “tree” is the one that exists in the World of Form, that is, the tree the exists on the level of idea. Indeed, our conception of any material objects, for example a tree, is the “Form” of those material objects. In other words, the idea of a tree is, for Plato, the “Form” of that tree. For Plato, that is the “real” tree.

What is Essentialism?

Respuesta: The term essentialism is derived from the word “essence”, which means the true or permanent nature of the being of a phenomenon as opposed to the “accidents” understood as the characteristics or features that may or may not be necessary in a particular being or something. In classical philosophy, particularly Aristotelian philosophy, essence denotes that which makes being a “being”. It is that something which remains constant throughout the entire process of change. Let’s consider, for example, Aristotle definition of man. For Aristotle, man is a rational animal. In this statement, “rationality” is the essence of man. In other words, it is “rationality” that makes man truly human, at least for Aristotle. Indeed, rationality as the “essence” of man is that something which remains true or permanent in the entire process or development of the human person. So, as the person grows older (from 1 year old to 20, 40, 60, and so on), we may notice physical changes, such as the color of the hair, waist measurement, height, and weight. All these characteristics are simply “accidents”, that is, things or something that are not necessary for a person to be called truly a person. For example, the blackness of one’s hair does not define what a person truly is. In fact, the hair itself does not significantly contribute in the making of the person for, truly, there are persons who are bald, yet they remain persons. Again, this explains why for Aristotle, “rationality” is the essence of the human person. Young and old alike are defined by “rationality” according to Aristotle. This is why, for Aristotle, a dead man is no longer a man because, in the first place, it already dead. It does not any longer possess reason, which Aristotle understands as the “soul”. As we can see, one of the earliest and fullest accounts of essentialism is given by Aristotle in Book Gamma of The Metaphysics, where “essence” is taken to be synonymous with the intrinsic properties of a phenomenon, and where it is stated that the task of philosophy is to get to know both the essence of things and their accidents. The ability to do so is assumed to be an intrinsic property of human reason or nous. Although the term is still used in its traditional or technical sense, “essentialism” can also be employed in a critical and pejorative sense, particularly within modern “Feminism”, which has, from Simone de Beauvoir onwards, always challenged the view that there exists an unchanging or external “female nature”. It is also argued that those forms of feminism that stress women’s differences to the exclusion of everything else lapse into essentialism. Luce Irigaray, for example, has been criticized for reducing women’s sexuality to a biological essence and for invoking a physic essentialism by invoking an inherently female libido, which perpetuates the myth of the eternal feminine. Whilst Gayatri Spivak is another critic of essentialism, she also insists that there is a need for a moment of “strategic essentialism”, when it becomes necessary to abandon universalism so as to speak “as a woman” or “as an Asian” in order to contest the hegemony of colonial discourse.

What is Marxism?

Respuesta: Broadly construed, Marxism refers to the body of thought associated with and inspired by the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, which comprises a system of political economy, a theory of politics, and a materialist philosophy of history and nature. As is well known, Marxism was one of the most influential intellectual forces of the twentieth century. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Marxism, which is now also known as Marxism-Leninism, became the official “political ideology” of the Soviet Union and, subsequently, of the so-called “People’s Democracies” of Eastern Europe and China. Paradoxically, Marxism has always flourished best under non-Marxist regimes and the many variants of Western Marxism are much more sophisticated than anything developed in the “socialist” countries. A similar paradox can be noted outside the “socialist bloc”, where Communist parties usually developed a reductive and mechanistic form of Marxism, and where the most creative developments have been the work of relatively marginal organizations and individuals. This suggest that Marxism may outlive the collapse of communism in the East. Although Marxism takes many different forms, its core concepts, which are derived from two main sources, remain the same. On the one hand, the political economy elaborated by the British political theorists, such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo, is developed and transformed into the critical account of the capitalist economy advanced in the three volumes of Marx unfinished Capital and in numerous shorter texts, such as the Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy and Wages, Price and Profit. On the other hand, a philosophy of history, famously known as “Historical Materialism”, which is centered on the idea that history is driven by a “dialectic” of conflict between social classes, is derived from the Hegelian tradition. This is expressed most clearly in Marx’s political writings, many of which deal with the history and politics of nineteenth-century France, and especially in the programmatic Communist Manifesto, which, together with Marx’s lapidary “Theses on Feuerbach”, is certainly the most widely read of all Marxist texts. The former provided the international movement with its most rousing slogan: “The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working men of all countries, untie!” The last of the eleven “Theses” neatly summarizes Marxism’s philosophical-political ambitions: “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.” It must be noted that the elaboration of “dialectical materialism” as a philosophy of nature and science is largely the work of Engels. The most significant of Marx’s early writings are the so-called “Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts”. These manuscripts were not intended for publication, and did not appear in print until 1932, when, together with The German Ideology, they were found to contain a theory of “alienation” and “ideology”, which explains human consciousness in terms of the material reality of human existence. Whereas the earlier Hegelian tradition had viewed history as the product of the development of ideas and consciousness, Marx contended that consciousness was determined by social existence and that the alienation and “commodity fetishism” characteristic of capitalist society were effects of the property relations that estranged men from the product of their own labor. Although these early writings are dismissed by Louis Althusser as deriving from a Hegelian “problematic” and as being “pre-Marxist”, they provide the basis for the many varieties of Marxist humanism and for the earliest work of the New Left. Marxist economics centers on the analysis of the commodity, defined as an object that satisfies a human need, or as having a use-value. Commodities also have an exchange-value to the extent that they can be exchanged for other commodities. The common property that makes it possible for commodities to be exchange-values is the quantity of human labor-power or value contained in them. The value of the commodity is determined by the quantity of labor-time required to produce it, and therefore by historical and social variations in the productivity of labor. The value of labor-power itself is determined by the value of the necessities required to reproduce it, or in other words to sustain the wage-laborer or proletarian. Under capitalism, according to Marxist economic theory, the wage-laborer does not, however, simply reproduce the value of his wage. He also produces surplus-value, or value in excess of the cost of reproducing his wages. According to Marx, this is the source of the capitalist profit without which the system cannot work. The ratio between the time spent on reproducing the value of labor-power and the time spent on producing surplus-value is referred to as the rate of surplus-value. The rate of surplus-value is variable, and is the subject of both negotiations and conflict between workers and capitalists, but surplus-value must always be produced. Whilst working conditions can be improved up to a point, the need to extract surplus-value means that the traditional demand for a “fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work” is meaningless. Hence, under capitalism, wages are always paid on an “unfair basis”. Ultimately, the system cannot be reformed for the benefit of the wage-earning proletarian, and it is for this reason that Marx demands for the overthrow of the capitalist system. The Communist Manifesto proclaims that the history of all society hitherto has been the history of class struggles in which classes defined by economic relations of production come into conflict and either reconstitute society through revolution or destroy one another. In the age of capitalism, the struggle is one between the bourgeoisie, which owns the means of production, and the proletariat, which has nothing but the labor-power it is forced to sell in order to survive. According to Marx, by creating the modern capitalist “mode of production”, and the proletariat exploited by that system, the bourgeoisie has created the means of its own destruction. This is why Marx likens capitalism to a person carrying his own coffin to the grave and bury his own self there. Marx also believes that capitalism has reduced the whole of human existence to naked self-interest and the cash nexus that destroy human relations. Being the product of the capitalist mode of production, the proletariat is both its enemy and its heir, and the continued development of modern industry threatens to reduce the working classes to extreme poverty. For Marx, therefore, it is in the interest of the proletarians to abolish classes by abolishing the private ownership of property and capitalist relations of production and, eventually, establish a dictatorship of the proletariat. For Marx, only then will it be possible to establish an association of citizens in which “the free development of each person is the condition for the free development of all”. As we can see, Marxist economics provides the basis for the analysis of culture, ideology and politics in accordance with the base/superstructure model. However, as some scholars see it, this is notoriously Marxism’s weak point. This is because it has a marked tendency to reduce all phenomena from ideological service to the state (that is, classically as the agency for the political dictatorship of an economic class) to mere expressions or reflections of the economic base and to deny them any real autonomy.