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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