The Educational

Philosophies of the World’s

Greatest Philosophers
a. Every individual should devote his life to what is
best fitted for him to do.
b. The important function is to determine what every
individual is by nature capable and fitted of doing
things.
c. Poor leadership will lead to wrong decisions.
d. The physical objects are not permanent
representations of unchanging ideas and the ideas
alone give true knowledge as they are known by the
mind.
e. Social justice is giving what is due to whom it is due.
f. Intellectual aristocracy is the rule of the intellectual
elite.
g. An individual who should lead society should be
endowed with superior intelligence and possessed
impeccable integrity.
a. The end of education is not knowledge alone. It is
the union of the innate intellect of the individual
and his will. It is knowledge expressed in action
b. Virtue which is moral excellence, goodness and
righteousness is not possession of knowledge. It is the
state of the will.
c. The process of correct thinking can be
reduced to ruled like physics and geometry,
and taught to any normal mind.
d. Advocates the practice of moderation.
e. Vices are irrational habits or practices because they
often stem from passion which often goes beyond
reason.
f. Advocates scientific approaches to education.
a. Knowledge is wisdom which, in effect,
means virtue.
b. The problem of evil is the results of
ignorance.
c. Knowledge is virtue and ignorance is vice.
d. Knowledge is the basis of all right actions
including the art of living.
a. Development of moral and ethical principles to
promote peace and order and to preserve human
dignity.
b. The family should serve as model for correct
relations among men.
c. Postulated the golden rule for all men to follow
“Treat others as you wish them to treat you”
d. Order and harmony should begin in the inner
nature of men.
e. Man can enjoy inner peace and harmony
and happiness by observing God’s law which is
enshrined in every individual conscience.
f. Emphasized the importance of self-control:
“He who conquers others are strong; he who
conquers himself is the greatest victor.
g. Justice and love always go together.
a. He emphasized the virtue of passivity, humility and
frugality.
b. To achieve happiness, men should bring themselves
into harmony with the TAO which he was not a god
but the supreme and governing principle of the
universe.
c. To achieve happiness is: “Be yourself, be natural;
live in accordance with your true, good and best
nature.
a. Development of the whole man before he becomes
professional.
b. Effective learning is done through the use of the
vernacular.
c. Train for character development.
d. Both boys and girls should be included in education
regardless of their socio-economic status.
e. Advocated the use of visual aids in classroom
teaching.
a. “Tabula rasa” or “blank slate” theory – A child is
born with a blank mind neither good nor bad.
b. Education can help shape the pupil according to
the disposition of the teacher.
c. Emphasized formal discipline moral and physical
education.
d. Methods of instruction should consider habit
formation through drill and exercise, memorization
and reasoning.
a. Man is by nature good and virtuous.
b. Development of the child according to his inherent
endowments.
c. The child is the most important component of the
school system.
d. Use of instinctive tendencies as the starting point in
any educational pursuit.
e. “Everything is good as it comes from the hand of
the author of nature.”
a. Education is a social process of organized growth
and development.
b. Lesson were to be learned through direct
experience with objects and places through
observation, inquiry and reasoning.
c. Knowing consists of sensation and abstraction
d. Subject matter curriculum should be humanistic
a. “Father of Kindergarten”
b. Creative expression should be encouraged.
c. Education should be accompanied with spirit of
informality and joy
d. Self-activity as a means of development
e. Individual differences should be respected
f. Knowing is the rethinking of latent ideas.
g. Values are eternal
h. Play, a spontaneous activity should be utilized to
promote self-realization
a. Principles of apperception and doctrine of interest
b. Learning should lead to character formation
c. Aim of education should be ethical and moral
d. The leader gets meaning from previous experiences
to which it is related
e. Preparation-recall of old ideas in the learner’s
experience to which the new instruction can be
related
f. Preparation – a story, demonstration, experiment or
a reading assignment that included facts or new
materials or ideas of the new material.
g. Comparison – connections and associations between
the old and the new.
h. Generalization – general principles that are formed
from the lessons
i. Application – putting the new idea to work
a. Knowledge acquired that is best for use in life is also
the best for the development of power.
b. Emphasis on physical activity.
c. Societies are bound to change
d. Opposed to public education; those who really
want an education should work hard to acquire the
means to attain it
a. Learning by doing
b. Education is life, not preparation for life
c. Education is a social process
d. Education is growth and a continuous
reconstruction of experience
e. The center for education is the child’s own social
activities
f. The school is primarily a social institution
Philosophical Thoughts of
Great Thinkers in
Education
 Education as a Necessity of Life
 Education makes possible continuance /
renewal of social life

 Education is a self-renewing instrument of a

complex society
 Education as a Social Function
 Education provides the social environment
that leads to the development of attitudes
necessary for continuous and progressive
life.
 Education as Growth
 Growth in education is not physical but
growth in sight and understanding of
relationship between various experiences
and learning episodes
 Education as Preparation
 Education is preparation when it
progressively realizes present possibilities,
thus, making the individual better fitted to
cope with later requirements
 Education as Formative
 Education is formation when it consists of
the selection and coordination of native
activities so that the subject matter of the
social environment is utilized
 Education as Training of faculties
 Education is not mere “exercise” of the
faculties of the mind but the development
of initiative, inventiveness, and adaptability
 Education as recapitulation and
retrospection
 Education is not “repeating” the past but
utilizing but as a resource in developing the
future.
 Education as a democratic social
function
 Education gives the individuals a personal
interest in social relationship and controls
the habits of the mind which secure social
changes without introducing disorder.