ChristianPhilosophy What is Christian Philosophy? Because it requires faith in biblical revelation, you might assume that the Christian worldview cannot possibly have a philosophy of its own. According to the secular worldviews, naturalism and materialism are grounded firmly in modern scientific methodology and enlightened human experience. How can we as Christians, who are required to postulate existence or reality outside the material realm, ever hope to prove that our beliefs are true, reasonable, rational, and worth living and dying for? A Christian Philosophy of Education. By Dr. Paul W. Cates, Ph.D. From a Christian philosophy of education, thoughts and actions can be derived, implemented, and defended. The elements to be considered in developing a Christian philosophy of education range from theological and doctrinal to social and educational. The first step is the development of a Biblical base. The Bible becomes the skeleton on which the practical application of our philosophy can be arranged. Under consideration in this paper on a Christian school's educational philosophy shall be the Biblical base, implications for the teaching- learning process of the school, the role of the educator, and the role of the learner. The Biblical Base The importance of having a sound Biblical philosophy of education cannot be overemphasized. In referring to the importance of developing
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ChristianPhilosophy
What is Christian Philosophy? Because it requires faith in biblical revelation, you might
assume that the Christian worldview cannot possibly have a philosophy of its own. According to
the secular worldviews, naturalism and materialism are grounded firmly in modern scientific
methodology and enlightened human experience. How can we as Christians, who are required
to postulate existence or reality outside the material realm, ever hope to prove that our beliefs
are true, reasonable, rational, and worth living and dying for?
A Christian Philosophy of Education.
By Dr. Paul W. Cates, Ph.D.
From a Christian philosophy of education, thoughts and actions can be derived, implemented,
and defended. The elements to be considered in developing a Christian philosophy of education
range from theological and doctrinal to social and educational. The first step is the development
of a Biblical base. The Bible becomes the skeleton on which the practical application of our
philosophy can be arranged.
Under consideration in this paper on a Christian school's educational philosophy shall be the
Biblical base, implications for the teaching-learning process of the school, the role of the
educator, and the role of the learner.
The Biblical Base
The importance of having a sound Biblical philosophy of education cannot be
overemphasized. In referring to the importance of developing a distinctively Christian
philosophy, more Christian educators are beginning to realize that to be truly Christian, the
curriculum must be Bible integrated in theory and practice. By this the Bible is to provide more
than theoretical guidance and generalization. It is to be a vital part of the content of the
curriculum and integrated with all subject matter. The Bible should be the integrating factor
around which all other subject matter is correlated and arranged, and provides the criterion by
which all other subject matter is judged.
Since God is central in the universe and is the source of all truth, it follows that all subject matter
is related to God. Thus, the revelation of God must become the heart of the subject matter
curriculum. The Bible itself becomes the central subject in the school' curriculum. It, as God's
primary revelation to man, must become the integrating and correlating factor in all that is
thought and taught at the school. It is the basis by which all other channels of knowledge are
evaluated and used. Through the bible the inter-relatedness of all other subjects and truths is
made possible.
We may conclude therefore that the function of the bible in the subject matter curriculum is two-
fold. First, it provides content of its own. Second, it provides a service function to the other
subjects. The principles of Biblical truth should be applied to and in all other subjects. Claim to
truth from other areas should be tested and evaluated by the philosophical and theological
truths of the Word of God.
God's Christian Schools are built on the premise that all truth is God's truth and that the Word of
God is to be the key factor in the communication of knowledge. It is important to note that any
and all education that is received should have the word of God as its foundation. This is not to
imply that the Bible is a textbook on anything and everything; but rather, that the Bible is to be
the point of reference from which we can evaluate all other areas and sources of knowledge.
What one learns from God's natural revelation must be in harmony with what He has revealed in
His Word. Since God is the author of both revelations it is reasonable that they would not
contradict each other.
In summary some of the advantages of having a Biblical philosophy of education are as follows:
1. It co-ordinates the various spheres of life as a whole.
2. It relates knowledge systematically.
3. It examines the presuppositions, methods, and basic concepts of each discipline and group of
disciplines.
4. It strives for coherence, the formulation of a worldview.
5. Its method is to consult data from the total experience.
Rationalism
Rationalism is the philosophical stance according to which reason is the ultimate source
of human knowledge. It rivals empiricism according to which the senses suffice in justifying
knowledge. In a form or another, rationalism features in most philosophical tradition; in the
Western one, it boasts a long and distinguished list of followers, including Plato, Descartes, and
Kant.
Advanced Information
Philosophical rationalism encompasses several strands of thought, all of which usually share
the conviction that reality is actually rational in nature and that making the proper deductions is
essential to achieving knowledge. Such deductive logic and the use of mathematical processes
provide the chief methodological tools. Thus, rationalism has often been held in contrast to
empiricism.
Earlier forms of rationalism are found in Greek philosophy, most notably in Plato, who held that
the proper use of reasoning and mathematics was preferable to the methodology of natural
science. The latter is not only in error on many occasions, but empiricism can only observe facts
in this changing world. By deductive reason, Plato believed that one could extract the innate
knowledge which is present at birth, derived from the realm of forms.
However, rationalism is more often associated with Enlightenment philosophers such as
Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. It is this form of continental rationalism that is the chief
concern of this article.
Innate Ideas
Descartes enumerated different types of ideas, such as those which are derived from
experience, those which are drawn from reason itself, and those which are innate and thus
created in the mind by God. This latter group was a mainstay of rationalistic thought.
Innate ideas are those that are the very attributes of the human mind, inborn by God. As such
these "pure" ideas are known a priori by all humans, and are thus believed by all. So crucial
were they for rationalists that it was usually held that these ideas were the prerequisite for
learning additional facts. Descartes believed that, without innate ideas, no other data could be
known.
The empiricists attacked the rationalists at this point, arguing that the content of the socalled
innate ideas was actually learned through one's experience, though perhaps largely unreflected
upon by the person. Thus we learn vast amounts of knowledge through our family, education,
and society which comes very early in life and cannot be counted as innate.
Confucianism is a Chinese ethical and philosophical system developed from the teachings of the
Chinese philosopher Confucius ( 孔夫子 Kǒng Fūzǐ, or K'ung-fu-tzu, lit. "Master Kong", 551–479 BC).
Confucianism originated as an "ethical-sociopolitical teaching" during the Spring and Autumn Period, but
later developed metaphysical and cosmological elements in the Han Dynasty.[1] Following the
abandonment of Legalism in China after the Qin Dynasty, Confucianism became the official state ideology
of China, until it was replaced by the "Three Principles of the People" ideology with the establishment of
the Republic of China, and then Maoist Communism after the ROC was replaced by the People's
Republic of China in Mainland China.
The core of Confucianism is humanism,[2] the belief that human beings are teachable, improvable
and perfectible through personal and communal endeavour especially including self-cultivation and self-
creation. Confucianism focuses on the cultivation of virtue and maintenance of ethics, the most basic of
which are ren, yi, and li.[3] Ren is an obligation of altruism and humaneness for other individuals within a
community, yi is the upholding of righteousness and the moral disposition to do good, and li is a system of
norms and propriety that determines how a person should properly act within a community.[3] Confucianism holds that one should give up one's life, if necessary, either passively or actively, for the
sake of upholding the cardinal moral values of ren and yi.[4] Although Confucius the man may have been a
believer in Chinese folk religion, Confucianism as an ideology is humanistic[2] and non-theistic, and does
not involve a belief in the supernatural or in a personal god.
Cultures and countries strongly influenced by Confucianism include
mainland China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan and Vietnam, as well as various territories settled predominantly
by Chinese people, such as Singapore. Although Confucian ideas prevail in these areas, few people
outside of academia identify themselves as Confucian,[6][7] and instead see Confucian ethics as a
complementary guideline for other ideologies and beliefs, including democracy,[8] Marxism,[9] capitalism,[10] Christianity, Islam and Buddhism.
As most Greeks, the Stoics believed that a human being had a soul. For the Stoics, the
soul was corporeal, and was diffused throughout the body. (The individual soul was actually a
part of the world-soul.) Diogenes says, "And the soul is a nature capable of perception. And
they regard it as a breath of life, congenital with us; from which they infer that it is a body and
secondly that it survives death" (Lives, 156). The soul is that which comes into contact with
objects outside the perceiver by means of the five senses, which are called parts [or, better,
"functions"] of the soul. The perception of an object by the soul through one of the five senses
the Stoics called "presentation" (phantasia). Diogenes explains, "A presentation is an imprint on
the soul; the name having been appropriately borrowed from the imprint made by the seal upon
the wax" (Lives, 7.45). The soul is like a wax tablet and the object perceived is like a seal that
impresses a copy of itself into the wax. (Chrysippus warns, however, that one should not think
that literally an object impresses itself upon the soul [Lives, 7.50].) Diogenes quotes Diocles the
Magnesian concerning the importance of "presentation" in Stoic philosophy:
The Stoics agree to put in the forefront the doctrine of presentation and sensation,
inasmuch as the standard by which the truth of things is tested is generically a presentation, and
again the theory of assent and that of apprehension and thought, which precedes all the rest,
cannot be stated apart from presentation. For presentation comes first; then thought, which is
capable of expressing itself, puts into the form of a propositions that which the subject receives
from a presentation (Lives, 7. 49)
The Stoics, however, made a distinction between two types of presentation; the one is a
sensation (aisthêtikê) that corresponds to an external object, while the other is that conveyed by
the mind itself (Lives,7.51). Diogenes explains,
According to them some presentations are data of sense (aisthêtikai) and others are not: the
former are the impressions conveyed through one or more sense-organs; while the latter, which
are not data of sense, are those received through the mind itself, as is the case with incorporeal
things and all other presentations which are received by reason" (Lives, 7.51).
The distinction is between presentations that originate from external objects and those
that are the result of the operations of the soul or mind, usually connected to the perception of
an external object. When, for example, a person desires or fears an object, being aware of the
desire or fear is a presentation, which, although not originating from the external object, is yet
inseparable from it. Thus the Stoics distinguish between awareness of external, corporeal
objects and awareness of interior states or rational processes, which are incorporeal, but
connected usually with corporeal things.
Do you agree that "presentations" that originate from external objects are such that
they can be compared to an object leaving its imprint in wax? If not, what is the
nature of perception and how do perceptions relate to the hypothethical external
objects from which they originate?
The Philosophy of Epicureanism
Epicureanism was the philosophy founded by Epicurus at Athens near the end of the 4th
century B. c. Epicureanism propounded a simple, rational, dogmatic view of the nature of man
and the universe, through which men might attain real and enduring pleasure, in the sense of
peace of mind. The philosophy was never very popular and was attacked with extraordinary
violence and unfairness by philosophers of other schools and, later, by Christians. From these
attacks Epicureanism got its popular reputation as a mere self-indulgent cult of pleasure. But the
small groups that upheld Epicureanism were intensely devoted to their master. They regarded
his teaching as a true gospel, as good news about the nature of things that delivered those who
upheld it, presumably on strictly rational grounds, from the worst of human evils.
In the 1st century B.C. the school attracted some of the finest minds of the time, including
the Roman poet Lucretius, and for a time, Vergil. In the course of the 3d and 4th centuries A. D.
Epicureanism quietly died out. It seems to have been extinct as a school by the end of the 4th
centuryA.D.
The objective and the contents of Epicurean philosophy are known from the fragmentary
remains of Epicurus' own writings, supplemented by later sources. Much of the existing
knowledge of Epicurean doctrine comes from Lucretius' poem On The Nature of Things, and
there are other accounts in the writings of Cicero. The study of the doctrine is made easier by
the fact that it did not develop much after the time of Epicurus, and no schisms or subdivisions
grew up in the school. Epicureans were generally content to repeat the teachings of their master
with very little modification.
The Epicurean Objective
The great objective of Epicureanism, as of the contemporary Stoic and Skeptic schools, was
to free men from anxiety and bring them through knowledge of the truth to that untroubled
peace of mind they called ataraxia. But the route the Epicureans followed to this objective was
very different from that of their contemporaries. Epicurus thought that men reduced themselves
to utter misery by their worrying, particularly about worldly ambitions and the satisfaction of their
material needs. but most especially about death and the gods.
Widespread fear of the gods was promoted, according to Epicurus, not only by
popular superstition but even more by philosophical religion. A belief in an all-embracing and
inexorable Divine Providence governing every detail of life was something to be really frightened
of—if it truly existed. Epicurus proposed to deliver men from these fears by persuading them to
follow a way of life conformable to his rational view of the universe.
Philosophical Tenets
Epicurus divided philosophy into three parts: canonic, concerned with the rules for finding the
truth; physics, concerned with the nature of the world and the gods; and ethics, concerned with
morality.
The canonic basis of the doctrine was a simple one. There was only one means of knowledge:
some kind of direct physical perception based on the senses, which were considered absolutely
reliable. The general notions by which men recognize different kinds of things are a sort of
memory-deposit resulting from a large number of particular sense-perceptions.
Epicurean physics, the process of discovering the truth about the universe and the gods,
was a variation of the old atomism of Democritus. Nothing exists but atoms and the empty
space in which they endlessly move. Universes, including our own, and all in them, including
men, are just chance concatenations or chains of atoms, which are always coming into
existence and being dissolved in infinite space. In these atomistic universes, human thought
and action are completely undetermined and not subject to any fate or necessity. The gods live
in the gaps between the universes. They are peculiar atomic structures, immortal in that the flow
of atoms into them exactly balances the outflow. This is not the case with men, and hence men
die.
The gods have no power over the universes, but live a quiet happy life in the between-
worlds. They must exist because all men believe in them, but there is no need to fear them.
Philosophers can derive peace and joy from contemplating the ideal existence of the gods, and
it is possible that the gods approve of the philosophers, who are their equal in all except
immortality.
Philosophical analysis
Philosophical analysis (from Greek: Φιλοσοφική ανάλυση) is a general term for techniques typically used by philosophers in the analytic tradition that involve "breaking down" (i.e. analyzing) philosophical issues. Arguably the most prominent of these techniques is the analysis of concepts (known as conceptual analysis). This article will examine the major philosophical techniques associated with the notion of analysis, as well as examine the controversies surrounding it.
Method of analysis
While analysis is characteristic of the analytic tradition in philosophy, what is to be
analyzed (the analysandum) often varies. Some philosophers focus on analyzing linguistic phenomena, such as sentences, while others focus on psychological phenomena, such as sense-data. However, arguably the most prominent analyses are of concepts or propositions, which is known asconceptual analysis (Foley 1996).Conceptual analysis consists primarily in breaking down or analyzing concepts into their constituent parts in order to gain knowledge or a better understanding of a particular philosophical issue in which the concept is involved (Beaney 2003). For example, the problem of free will in philosophy involves various key concepts, including the concepts of freedom, moral responsibility, determinism, ability, etc. The method of conceptual analysis tends to approach such a problem by breaking down the key concepts pertaining to the problem and seeing how they interact. Thus, in the long-standing debate on whether free will is compatible with the doctrine of determinism, several philosophers have proposed analyses of the relevant concepts to argue for eithercompatibilism or incompatibles.A famous example of conceptual analysis at its best is Bertrand Russell's theory of descriptions. Russell attempted to analyze propositions that involved definite descriptions (such as "The tallest spy"), which pick out a unique individual, and indefinite descriptions (such as "a spy"), which pick out a set of individuals. Take Russell's analysis of definite descriptions as an example.[1]Superficially, definite descriptions have the standard subject-predicate form of a proposition. For example, "The present king of France is bald" appears to be predicating "baldness" of the subject "the present king of France". However, Russell noted that this is problematic, because there is no present king of France (France is no longer a monarchy). Normally, to decide whether a proposition of the standard subject-predicate form is true or false, one checks whether the subject is in the extension of the predicate. The proposition is then true if and only if the subject is in the extension of the predicate. The problem is that there is no present king of France, so the present king of France cannot be found on the list of bald things or non-bald things. So, it would appear that the proposition expressed by "The present king of France is bald" is neither true nor false. However, analyzing the relevant concepts and propositions, Russell proposed that what definite descriptions really express are not propositions of the subject-predicate form, but rather they express existentially quantified propositions. Thus, "The present king of France" is analyzed, according to Russell's theory of descriptions, as "There exists an individual who is currently the king of France, there is only one such individual, and that individual is bald." Now one can determine the truth-value of the proposition. Indeed, it is false, because it is not the case that there exists a unique individual who is currently the king of France and is bald—since there is no present king of France (Bertolet 1999).