Anthroposophy and the spiritualized understanding of the human being as basis for education

Author(s):

Marek Bronislaw MajorekBo Dahlin

Conference:

ECER 2009

Network:

13. Philosophy of Education - Standard submissions

Format:

Paper

Session Information

13 SES 04 B, Spiritual Education, Moral Development

Paper Session

Time:

2009-09-28

16:00-17:30

Room:

HG, HS 42

Chair:

James Charles Conroy

Contribution

Recently, calls for a scientific grounding of educational practices have been getting increasingly loud. However, science increasingly portrays the human being as a kind of a hybrid of the animal and the computer with devastating consequences for the self-perception of individuals (no free will, no responsibility, love as well as other feelings merely a result of interaction of hormones and genes in the brain) as well as for social life (violence, especially youth violence, sexualization of culture and of childhood). Is such an image of man the right basis for educational praxis? Does the reductionist-materialistic paradigm supply the only possible methods for attaining a measure of certainty of our knowledge of the human being? The proposed paper is questioning the possibility of an objective scientific basis for education as long as science does not admit the reality of the spiritual aspects of the human being.

Method

Survey of the current scientific literature bearing on the question of the image of the human being; survey of some of the key problems of the current scientific research paradigm; conceptual analysis of the idea of objectivity; survey of the current philosophical literature concerned with widening of the current (narrow) materialistic-reductionistic scientific horizons

Expected Outcomes

The experimental scientific methodology cannot claim to be able to generate objective knowledge of the world. Thus its conclusions about the nature of the human being do not have to be regarded as the “last word” on the issue. Alternative research methodology based on transforming and expanding human cognitive faculties is available. Its application reveals that man is primarily a spiritual-soul being who repeatedly incarnates in the physical body. Rudolf Steiner/Waldorf School educational system is an attempt to establish an educational praxis informed by this central insight.

References

Bache, C. M. (2006). Reincarnation and the Akashic field. A dialogue with Ervin Laszlo. World Futures, 62, 114-126. Benz, E. (1983). The Mystical Sources of German Romantic Philosophy. Allison Park, Penn.: Pickwick Publications. Dahlin, B. (2007). The Waldorf School - Cultivating Humanity? Karlstad: Karlstad University Studies. Horst, S. (2007). Beyond Reduction. Oxford etc.: Oxford University Press. Laughlin, R.B. (2005). A Different Universe. New York: Basic Books. Majorek, M. B. (2002). Objektivität: ein Erkenntnisideal auf dem Prüfstand. Rudolf Steiners Geisteswissenschaft als ein Ausweg aus der Sackgasse. Tübingen & Basel: A. Francke Verlag. Magee, G. A. (2001). Hegel and the Hermetic tradition. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. Okruhlik, K. (1994): Gender and the Biological Sciences. The Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Supplementary Volume 20; 21-42. Vondung, K., & Pfieffer, K. L. (Eds.). (2006). Jenseits der entzauberten Welt. Naturwissenschaft und Mystik in der Moderne. München. Young, L. J. (2008). Being Human: Love: Neuroscience reveals all. Nature, 457;148-150.

Author Information

Marek Bronislaw Majorek

Rudolf Steiner Schule Basel

Philosophy

Himmelried

Bo Dahlin

Karstad universty

education

Karlstad

186

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