Tuesday, April 3, 2018

Eastern and Western Philosophies of Education


Eastern and western philosophers have different assumptions about the role of education in many different life fields; and in particular in the social life. Plato, as western Greek philosopher who started as a discipline of Socrates, and considered as an idealist, is one that had a great impact in the philosophy of education. According to him, people in their social life should concern themselves primarily with the search for truth. He believed also that people need, as much as possible, to free themselves from a concern with matter so that they can advance toward the good and this can be done by the use of dialectic, in which one moves from mere opinion to true knowledge. (Ozman, 2012).
       According to Plato, he agreed that education should not only stress development of mind but also encourage students to focus on all things of lasting value, and that is how one should act and believe through his social life, and that the value of any major work whether in arts, sciences or literature, should all lie in its carrying us to a higher point in our thinking. He added that, the proper function of education is to educate people to know and do their duty in ways that respect this demand, thus people who have a good will know what their duty is and conscientiously seek to do that duty, so one should never act in any manner other than how one would have all other people act through the social life.
       As Plato postulated, the main functions of education are to gain knowledge, to make future leaders, to search for the truth behind any event and also to build good characters for people. In addition, education aims in one’s self realization so that one knows his himself very well with the knowledge of what he wants, needs and at the same time to know what he has to do. All these ethical aspects will help people to stay within the standards of their society without being weird in some actions no matter what is the level of education they have reached.
      This philosophy was common according to western philosophers that are considered as realists also. Ozman claimed that their approach was dealing with the world as reflected through observations and studies and to verify the world as a whole, and the social, economical, and religious events in particular through experience and through the development of methods of rigorous inquiry (2012). Their aim of education was common with its general idea with the idealists with some methodological differences; they considered educational aim is to apply new information to understand it, and that life must be based on its organization, classification, categorizing, observation, lecturing and emphasis on all what is going around to discover its legend to deal with it in a logical, social-acceptable way.
       Easter philosophers have an opinion too. Siddhartha Gotama, an eastern philosopher who belongs to the Buddhism, was one philosopher that had a critical point of view in changing social life according to some criteria. He believed that people could find release from suffering in nirvana, a state of complete happiness and peace. To achieve nirvana, people had to free themselves from desires for worldly things. These are the eight precepts the Buddha taught that all beings must follow for their entire lives if they want to cultivate wisdom: 1. Right Understanding; 2. Right Thought; 3. Right Speech; 4. Right Conduct; 5. Right Vocation; 6. Right Effort; 7. Right Mindfulness; and 8. Right Concentration. Essentially, the correct way to think about all life is to view the world with compassion, wisdom, and love. Clear and kind thoughts build good character because a person is whatever he or she thinks about. Singer claimed that a person will earn respect for oneself and amongst his or her community building trust and good will, by speaking kindly and helpfully. Others will know a person from the way that he or she behaves no matter what attitude one’s words reflect. A person should never perform a job that causes harm to another being, nor seek happiness in the misfortunes of others (2004). All these beliefs are considered as the basics of living is a peaceful society.
      In addition to that, other eastern philosophies, unlike western ones, stress in intuition, inner peace, tranquility, attitudinal development and mysticism. They showed a strong bet toward the spiritual side of nature and their stories. Their main belief is to save the stable traditions; to keep the basics needs of people in many different fields, as morals, physiological and psychological needs conserved in societies.


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