AIOU Solved Assignment 1&2 Code 831 Autumn & Spring 2024

AIOU Solved Assignments code 831 Autumn & Spring 2024 Assignment 1& 2  Course: Foundation of Education (831)   Spring 2024. AIOU past papers

ASSIGNMENT No:  1& 2
Foundation of Education (831)   Semester
Autumn & Spring 2024

AIOU Solved Assignment 1& 2 Code 831 Autumn & Spring 2024

The word Islam defined by the Quran itself means submission to the Supreme Being and compliance with His laws, which constitutes Nature. Islam lays special emphasis on the acquisition of knowledge. Concept of vicegerent of man: According to Quran, Allah has made man as a vicegerent due to knowledge (IIm-ul-Asma), when angels argues about the vicegerent of man than Allah (SWT) taught Adam the names of some things and then Adam told them and hence proved his ability for vicegerent on earth. This shows the importance of acquiring knowledge from the Quranic point of view (Surah AL-Baqra Foruth Ruku). It is obligatory alike for both Muslim male and female. Knowledge is of two types, revealed knowledge and acquired knowledge. Revealed knowledge has been given to human beings, through prophets by Allah. Acquired knowledge is that which is being acquired by the human beings though the study of natural phenomena, attitude of man and through the study of society. Quran says that for the prosperous life on earth both kinds of knowledge, revealed and acquired is necessary. It shows the basis of the educational set-up in Islam where the children are not only equipped with religious knowledge but also with acquired that is scientific knowledge so that they can live a righteous and prosperous life. That is why the knowledge in Islam is considered as the greatest gift of Allah to Man. It helps man to attain righteous and prosperous life. Education is the process through which knowledge is transmitted from a section of society to another section. It also reflects the philosophy on which it is based. Islamic philosophy derives its origin from the spirit of teachings of the Quran and Hadith (the saying of the Holy Prophet may peace be upon him). The Qayas and Fiqqah, are also the crucial components.
The word Quran literally means reading or recitation. Islamic education aims to discovering and formulating Allah’s will. Quran indicated basic principles that lead a Muslim to observation of the universe and Nature, where he can find the answers to many question by his own efforts.
We would certainly appreciate that how nicely Quran gives hints in respect of various branches of learning and advises man to use intellect. So much so that Quran says in Surah Al-Aaraf that those who do not us their abilities us as intellect, eyes and ears will enter into the fire of hell because they are inferior than animals. It should be noted that the Quran explains the actual practical shape of life by demarking the borders of the various aspect of life. Quran being a complete code of life says “We have sent down to you the book, as an explanation for everything.”
The Quranic text is divided into 114 chapters. Each chapter is called “Surah” which consist of a certain number of verses each called “Ayah”. The revelations continued in Quran were not all revealed on one occasion but at long intervals and in response to special needs to the prophet (peace be upon him) lived at Mecca for thirteen years and at Medina for ten years. The revelations which the Prophet (peace be upon him) received in Mecca period are mostly concerned with general percepts that urges strongly and earnestly the man to righteousness. Quran is not a book of science or any other particular field of knowledge but it deals, mainly with basis principals of human life. Therefore, Quranic concept of education is that it explicitly teaches its readers principles in each and every sphere of life so that its followers have complete knowledge about their pattern of life. Quran is the fountain head of wisdom, from which all other sources of knowledge derive their authority. It consist of very words of Allah, revealed on Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) in twenty three years, first in Mecca and completed in Medina. The Holy Quran says, “This day have I perfected for you, your religion and completed My favor on your, and chosen for you Islam as a religion. Islamic education system comprises of the following principles:

  1. Belief in the oneness, immateriality, absolute power, mercy and supreme compassionateness of the Creator.

1) Charity and brotherhood among mankind.

2) Subjugation of passion.

3) The outpouring of a grateful heart to the Giver of all good.

4) Accountability of human actions in another existence.

5) Developing a sense of social consciousness i.e. enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong.
Hadith
The next source of Islamic foundations of education is the Hadith, Ahadith as plural. Hadith derives its authority and validity from Holy Quran. Quran says ‘obey Allah and obey the Messenger’ (4:49). Thus, Hadith offers best explanation or interpretation to Quran.
Ahadith are not only explanatory to the Quranic text but also complementary to it. Prophet (peace be upon him) is a teacher appointed by Allah who not only teaches the Book and philosophy but purifies the soul as well. He (peace be upon him), himself was a role model who presented ideal practical life in the light of those limits enunciated by the Quran. Thus, the Quran declared the Prophet (peace be upon him) to be the interpreter of Quranic texts. Hadith is the index and vehicle of the Sunnah which gives concrete shape to the Quranic teachings. A Hadith is a statement of the Prophet (peace be upon him). A sunnah may be embodied in a Hadith, but is not itself a Hadith. His (peace be upon him) Sunnah is both an instrument for the institutionalization and practice of Allah’s will, as well as a strong force for the propagation of Islam. As we studied earlier that the man is expected to learn through experiments on the foundations given by the Quran and whose example is preserved in the life, activities and saying of Prophet (peace be upon him). The Prophet (peace be upon him) before emigration (Hijrat) to Medina deputed a teacher, there to arrange the education of the believers. After the Hijrat, the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina became the center of education. A covered platform called Suffa, was built in front of the Prophet (peace be upon him) house to give instructions in the Quran and Hadith. On the other hand the Prophet’s wives (MAPT) were in charge of the education of women. The foundations laid by Hadith and Sunnah for Islamic education is that children should not only be taught theoretically but there should be a practical guidance for them to adapt in practical life. That is why prophet Muhammad (PBUH) was given the task to teach his companions, Quran, practically. There are hundreds of Hadith which emphasize on necessity and supreme value of gaining knowledge. Some of them are the following: He dies not who takes from learning. The ink of the scholar is more holy than the blood of the martyr. He who leaves home in search of knowledge walks in the path of Allah. The acquisition of knowledge is a duty incumbent on every Muslim male or female. Seek after knowledge even though it may in China. To be present in a circle of learned men is better than prostrating oneself in prayer a thousand times or visiting a thousand sick persons and attend a thousand funerals.
A word of wisdom is like the lost treasure of a believer who has got the best right to secure it wherever he might have found it. In Islam to acquire knowledge is an act piety, he/she who speak of it praise Allah, he/she who seeks it adores Allah and he/she who imparts it performs an act of devotion.

AIOU Solved Assignment 1& 2 Code 831 Autumn & Spring 2024

The term “naturalism” has no very precise meaning in contemporary philosophy. Its current usage derives from debates in America in the first half of the last century. The self-proclaimed “naturalists” from that period included John Dewey, Ernest Nagel, Sidney Hook and Roy Wood Sellars. These philosophers aimed to ally philosophy more closely with science. They urged that reality is exhausted by nature, containing nothing “supernatural”, and that the scientific method should be used to investigate all areas of reality, including the “human spirit” (Krikorian 1944, Kim 2003).

So understood, “naturalism” is not a particularly informative term as applied to contemporary philosophers. The great majority of contemporary philosophers would happily accept naturalism as just characterized—that is, they would both reject “supernatural” entities, and allow that science is a possible route (if not necessarily the only one) to important truths about the “human spirit”.

Even so, this entry will not aim to pin down any more informative definition of “naturalism”. It would be fruitless to try to adjudicate some official way of understanding the term. Different contemporary philosophers interpret “naturalism” differently. This disagreement about usage is no accident. For better or worse, “naturalism” is widely viewed as a positive term in philosophical circles—only a minority of philosophers nowadays are happy to announce themselves as “non-naturalists”.[1] This inevitably leads to a divergence in understanding the requirements of “naturalism”. Those philosophers with relatively weak naturalist commitments are inclined to understand “naturalism” in a unrestrictive way, in order not to disqualify themselves as “naturalists”, while those who uphold stronger naturalist doctrines are happy to set the bar for “naturalism” higher.[2]

Rather than getting bogged down in an essentially definitional issue, this entry will adopt a different strategy. It will outline a range of philosophical commitments of a generally naturalist stamp, and comment on their philosophical cogency. The primary focus will be on whether these commitments should be upheld, rather than on whether they are definitive of “naturalism”. The important thing is to articulate and assess the reasoning that has led philosophers in a generally naturalist direction, not to stipulate how far you need to travel along this path before you can count yourself as a paid-up “naturalist”.

As indicated by the above characterization of the mid-twentieth-century American movement, naturalism can be separated into an ontological and a methodological component. The ontological component is concerned with the contents of reality, asserting that reality has no place for “supernatural” or other “spooky” kinds of entity. By contrast, the methodological component is concerned with ways of investigating reality, and claims some kind of general authority for the scientific method. Correspondingly, this entry will have two main sections, the first devoted to ontological naturalism, the second to methodological naturalism.

Of course, naturalist commitments of both ontological and methodological kinds can be significant in areas other than philosophy. The modern history of psychology, biology, social science and even physics itself can usefully be seen as hinging on changing attitudes to naturalist ontological principles and naturalist methodological precepts. This entry, however, will be concerned solely with naturalist doctrines that are specific to philosophy. So the first part of this entry, on ontological naturalism, will be concerned specifically with views about the general contents of reality that are motivated by philosophical argument and analysis. And the second part, on methodological naturalism, will focus specifically on methodological debates that bear on philosophical practice, and in particular on the relationship between philosophy and science.

Making a Causal Difference

A central thought in ontological naturalism is that all spatiotemporal entities must be identical to or metaphysically constituted by physical[3] entities. Many ontological naturalists thus adopt a physicalist attitude to mental, biological, social and other such “special” subject matters. They hold that there is nothing more to the mental, biological and social realms than arrangements of physical entities.

The driving motivation for this kind of ontological naturalism is the need to explain how special entities can have physical effects. Thus many contemporary thinkers adopt a physicalist view of the mental realm because they think that otherwise we will be unable to explain how mental events can causally influence our bodies and other physical items. Similar considerations motivate ontologically naturalist views of the biological realm, the social realm, and so on.

It may not be immediately obvious why this need to account for physical effects should impose any substantial naturalist constraints on some category. After all, there seems nothing a priori incoherent in the idea of radically unscientific “supernatural” events exerting a causal influence on physical processes, as is testified by the conceptual cogency of traditional stories about the worldly interventions of immaterial deities and other outlandish beings.

However, there may be a posteriori objections to such non-natural causal influences on the physical world, even if there are no a priori objections. We shall see below how modern scientific theory places strong restrictions on the kinds of entities that can have physical effects. Given that mental, biological and social phenomena do have such effects, it follows that they must satisfy the relevant restrictions.

Modern Science and Causal Influence

There is an interesting history to modern science’s views about the kinds of things that can produce physical effects (Papineau 2001). It will be worth rehearsing this history in outline, if only to forestall a common reaction to ontological naturalism. It is sometimes suggested that ontological naturalism rests, not on principled grounds, but on some kind of unargued commitment, some ultimate decision to nail one’s philosophical colours to the naturalist mast.[4] And this diagnosis seems to be supported by the historical contingency of ontologically naturalist doctrines, and in particular by the fact that they have become widely popular only in the past few decades. However, familiarity with the relevant scientific history casts the matter in a different light. It turns out that naturalist doctrines, far from varying with ephemeral fashion, are closely responsive to received scientific opinion about the range of causes that can have physical effects.

A short version of this history runs like this: (1) the mechanistic physics of the seventeenth century allowed only a very narrow range of such causes; (2) early Newtonian physics was more liberal, and indeed did not impose any real restrictions on possible causes of physical effects; (3) however, the discovery of the conservation of energy in the middle of the nineteenth century limited the range of possible causes once more; (4) moreover, twentieth-century physiological research has arguably provided evidence for yet further restrictions.

Let us now rehearse this story more slowly.

(1) The “mechanical philosophers” of the early seventeenth century held that any material body maintains a constant velocity unless acted on, and moreover held that all action is due to impact between one material particle and another. So stated, the mechanical philosophy immediately precludes anything except impacting material particles from producing physical effects. Leibniz saw this clearly, and concluded that it discredited Descartes’ interactive dualism, which had a non-material mind influencing the physical world (Woolhouse 1985). (Of course, Leibniz did not therewith reject dualism and embrace the physicalist view that minds are composed of material particles, but instead opted for “pre-established harmony”. Views which avoid ontological naturalistic views of the mind by denying that mental events have any physical effects will be discussed further in section 1.6 below.)

(2) At the end of the seventeenth century Newtonian physics replaced the mechanical philosophy of Descartes and Leibniz. This reinstated the possibility of interactive dualism, since it allowed that disembodied forces, as well as impacts, could cause physical effects. Newtonian physics was open-ended about the kinds of forces that exist. Early Newtonians posited fundamental mental and vital forces alongside magnetic, chemical, cohesive, gravitational and impact forces. Accordingly, they took sui generis mental action in the material world to be perfectly consistent with the principle of physics. Moreover, there is nothing in the original principles of Newtonian mechanics to stop mental forces arising autonomously and spontaneously, in line with common assumptions about the operation of the mind (Papineau 2001: Section 7).

(3) In the middle of the nineteenth century the conservation of kinetic plus potential energy came to be accepted as a basic principle of physics (Elkana 1974). In itself this does not rule out fundamental mental or vital forces, for there is no reason why such forces should not be “conservative”, operating in such a way as to compensate losses of kinetic energy by gains in potential energy and vice versa. (The term “nervous energy” is a relic of the widespread late nineteenth-century assumption that mental processes store up a species of potential energy that is then released as kinetic energy in action.) However, the conservation of energy does imply that any such special forces must be governed by strict deterministic laws: if mental or vital forces arose spontaneously, then there would be nothing to ensure that they never led to energy increases.

(4) During the course of the twentieth century received scientific opinion became even more restrictive about possible causes of physical effects, and ruled out any sui generis mental or vital causes, even of a law-governed and predictable kind. Detailed physiological research, especially into the operation of nerve cells, gave no indication of any physical effects that cannot be explained in terms of basic physical forces that also occur outside living bodies. By the middle of the twentieth century, belief in sui generis mental or vital forces had become a minority view. This led to the widespread acceptance of the doctrine now known as the “causal closure” or the “causal completeness of the physical”, according to which all physical effects have fully physical causes.

The Rise of Physicalism

This historical sequence casts light on the evolution of ontologically naturalist doctrines. In the initial seventeenth-century mechanical phase, there was a tension, as Leibniz observed, between the dominant strict mechanism and interactive dualism. However, once mechanism was replaced by a more liberal understanding of forces in the second Newtonian phase, science ceased to raise any objections to dualism and more generally to non-physical causes of physical effects. As a result, the default philosophical view was a non-naturalist interactive pluralism which recognized a wide range of fundamental non-physical influences, including spontaneous mental influences (or “determinations of the soul” as they would then have been called).

In the third phase, the nineteenth-century discovery of the conservation of energy continued to allow that sui generis non-physical forces can interact with the physical world, but required that they be governed by strict force laws. Sui generis mental and vital forces were still widely accepted, but an extensive philosophical debate about the significance of the conservation of energy led to a widespread recognition that any such forces would need to be law-governed and thus amenable to scientific investigation. We might usefully view this as a species of ontological naturalism that falls short of full physicalism. Mental and other special forces were still sui generis and non-physical, but even so they fell within the realm of scientific law and so could not operate spontaneously. (As many commentators at the time recognized, this weaker form of naturalism already carried significant philosophical implications, particularly for the possibility of free will.[5])

In the final twentieth-century phase, the acceptance of the casual closure of the physical led to full-fledged physicalism. The causal closure thesis implied that, if mental and other special causes are to produce physical effects, they must themselves be physically constituted. It thus gave rise to the strong physicalist doctrine that anything that has physical effects must itself be physical.

In support of this understanding of the twentieth-century history, it is noteworthy how philosophical arguments in favour of physicalism began to appear from the 1950s onwards. Some of these arguments appealed explicitly to the causal closure of the physical realm (Feigl 1958, Oppenheim and Putnam 1958). In other cases, the reliance on causal closure lay below the surface. However, it is not hard to see that even in these latter cases the causal closure thesis played a crucial role.

Thus, for example, consider J.J.C. Smart’s (1959) thought that we should identify mental states with brain states, for otherwise those mental states would be “nomological danglers” which play no role in the explanation of behaviour. Or take David Lewis’s (1966) and David Armstrong’s (1968) arguments that, since mental states are picked out by their causal roles, and since we know that physical states play these roles, mental states must be identical with those physical states. Finally, consider Donald Davidson’s (1970) argument that, since the only laws governing behaviour are those connecting behaviour with physical antecedents, mental events can only be causes of behaviour if they are identical with those physical antecedents. At first sight, it might not be obvious that these arguments require the causal closure thesis. But a moment’s thought will show that none of these arguments would remain cogent if the closure thesis were not assumed, and it were thus left open that some physical effects (the movement of matter in arms, perhaps, or the firings of the motor neurones which instigate those movements) were not determined by prior physical causes at all, but by sui generis mental causes.

Sometimes it is suggested that the indeterminism of modern quantum mechanics creates room for sui generis non-physical causes to influence the physical world. However, even if quantum mechanics implies that some physical effects are themselves undetermined, it provides no reason to doubt a quantum version of the causal closure thesis, to the effect that the chances of those effects are fully fixed by prior physical circumstances. And this alone is enough to rule out sui generis non-physical causes. For such sui generis causes, if they are to be genuinely efficacious, must presumably make an independent difference to the chances of physical effects, and this in itself would be inconsistent with the quantum causal closure claim that such chances are already fixed by prior physical circumstances. Once more, it seems that anything that makes a difference to the physical realm must itself be physical.

Reductive and Non-Reductive Physicalism

It will be worth being explicit about the way the causal closure principle supports physicalism. First we assume that mental causes (biological, social, …) have physical effects. Then the causal closure principle tells us that those physical effects have physical causes. So, in order to avoid an unacceptable proliferation of causes for those physical effects (no “systematic overdetermination”), we need to conclude that the mental (biological, social, …) causes of those effects are not ontologically separate from their physical causes.

However, even if this general line of argument is accepted, there is room for differing views about exactly what its denial of ontological separateness requires. Let us agree that causes are “events” (or “facts”) that involve instantiations of properties.[6] So, if some special cause is not ontologically separate from some physical cause, the property instantiations that it involves cannot themselves be ontologically separate from the property instantiations involved in the physical cause. At this point, however, there are divergent views about how tight a constraint this imposes.

One school holds that it requires type-identity, the strict identity of the relevant special properties with physical properties. On the other side stand “non-reductive” physicalists, who hold that the causal efficacy of special causes will be respected as long as the properties they involve are “realized by” physical properties, even if they are not reductively identified with them.

Type-identity is the most obvious way to ensure the non-separateness of special and physical causes: if exactly the same properties comprise the special and physical cause, the two causes will themselves be fully identical. Still, type-identity is a very strong doctrine. Type identity about thoughts, for example, would imply that the property of thinking about the square root of two is identical with some physical property. And this seems highly implausible. Even if all human beings with this thought must be distinguished by some common physical property of their brains—which itself seems unlikely—there remains the argument that other life-forms, or intelligent androids, will also be able to think about the square root of two, even though their brains may share no significant physical properties with ours (Fodor 1974, Bickle 2013).

This “variable realization” argument has led many philosophers to seek an alternative way of reconciling the efficacy of mental and other special causes with the causal closure thesis, one which does not require the strict identity of non-physical and physical properties. The general idea of this “non-reductive physicalism” is to allow that instantiations of a given special property will always be grounded in or metaphysically determined by instantiations of physical properties, but to add that these “realizing” physical properties might be different in different cases. So, for example, any being who thinks about the square root of two will do so in virtue of instantiating some physical properties, but these can be different physical properties in different cases—in one human being it may be one set of neural arrangements, in another a different set, and in other life forms it might involve nothing like neural properties at all.

There are various more detailed ways of filling out this idea of non-reductive physicalism. A common feature is the requirement that special properties should metaphysically supervene on physical properties, in the sense that any two beings who share the realizing physical properties will necessarily share the same special properties, even though the physical properties which so realize the special ones can be different in different beings. This arguably ensures that nothing more is required for any specific instantiation of a special property than its physical realization—even God could not have created your brain states without thereby creating your feelings—yet avoids any reductive identification of special properties with physical ones. (This is a rough sketch of the supervenience formulation of physicalism. For more see Stoljar 2015).

AIOU Solved Assignment 1& 2 Code 831 Autumn & Spring 2024

The question of the nature and plausibility of realism arises with respect to a large number of subject matters, including ethics, aesthetics, causation, modality, science, mathematics, semantics, and the everyday world of macroscopic material objects and their properties. Although it would be possible to accept (or reject) realism across the board, it is more common for philosophers to be selectively realist or non-realist about various topics: thus it would be perfectly possible to be a realist about the everyday world of macroscopic objects and their properties, but a non-realist about aesthetic and moral value. In addition, it is misleading to think that there is a straightforward and clear-cut choice between being a realist and a non-realist about a particular subject matter. Rather, one can be more-or-less realist about a particular subject matter. Also, there are many different forms that realism and non-realism can take.

The question of the nature and plausibility of realism is so controversial that no brief account of it will satisfy all those with a stake in the debates between realists and non-realists. This article offers a broad brush characterization of realism, and then fills out some of the detail by looking at a few canonical examples of opposition to realism. The discussion of forms of opposition to realism is far from exhaustive and is designed only to illustrate a few paradigm examples of the form such opposition can take. Note that the point of this discussion is not to attack realism, but rather to give a sense of the options available for those who wish to oppose realism in a given case, and of the problems faced by those main forms of opposition to realism.

There are two general aspects to realism, illustrated by looking at realism about the everyday world of macroscopic objects and their properties. First, there is a claim about existence. Tables, rocks, the moon, and so on, all exist, as do the following facts: the table’s being square, the rock’s being made of granite, and the moon’s being spherical and yellow. The second aspect of realism about the everyday world of macroscopic objects and their properties concerns independence. The fact that the moon exists and is spherical is independent of anything anyone happens to say or think about the matter. Likewise, although there is a clear sense in which the table’s being square is dependent on us (it was designed and constructed by human beings after all), this is not the type of dependence that the realist wishes to deny. The realist wishes to claim that apart from the mundane sort of empirical dependence of objects and their properties familiar to us from everyday life, there is no further (philosophically interesting) sense in which everyday objects and their properties can be said to be dependent on anyone’s linguistic practices, conceptual schemes, or whatever.

In general, where the distinctive objects of a subject-matter are abc, … , and the distinctive properties are F-nessG-nessH-ness and so on, realism about that subject matter will typically take the form of a claim like the following:

Generic Realism:
ab, and c and so on exist, and the fact that they exist and have properties such as F-nessG-ness, and H-ness is (apart from mundane empirical dependencies of the sort sometimes encountered in everyday life) independent of anyone’s beliefs, linguistic practices, conceptual schemes, and so on.

Non-realism can take many forms, depending on whether or not it is the existence or independence dimension of realism that is questioned or rejected. The forms of non-realism can vary dramatically from subject-matter to subject-matter, but error-theories, non-cognitivism, instrumentalism, nominalism,relativism, certain styles of reductionism, and eliminativism typically reject realism by rejecting the existence dimension, while idealism, subjectivism, and anti-realism typically concede the existence dimension but reject the independence dimension. Philosophers who subscribe to quietism deny that there can be such a thing as substantial metaphysical debate between realists and their non-realist opponents (because they either deny that there are substantial questions about existence or deny that there are substantial questions about independence).

Three preliminary comments are needed. Firstly, there has been a great deal of debate in recent philosophy about the relationship between realism, construed as a metaphysical doctrine, and doctrines in the theory of meaning and philosophy of language concerning the nature of truth and its role in accounts of linguistic understanding (see Dummett 1978 and Devitt 1991a for radically different views on the issue). Independent of the issue about the relationship between metaphysics and the theory of meaning, the well-known disquotational properties of the truth-predicate allow claims about objects, properties, and facts to be framed as claims about the truth of sentences. Since:

‘The moon is spherical’ is true if and only if the moon is spherical,

the claim that the moon exists and is spherical independently of anyone’s beliefs, linguistic practices and conceptual schemes, can be framed as the claim that the sentences ‘The moon exists’ and ‘The moon is spherical’ are true independently of anyone’s beliefs, linguistic practices, conceptual schemes and so on. As Devitt points out (1991b: 46) availing oneself of this way of talking does not entail that one sees the metaphysical issue of realism as ‘really’ a semantic issue about the nature of truth (if it did, any question about any subject matter would turn out to be ‘really’ a semantic issue).

Secondly, although in introducing the notion of realism above mention is made of objects, properties, and facts, no theoretical weight is attached to the notion of a ‘fact’, or the notions of ‘object’ and ‘property’. To say that it is a fact that the moon is spherical is just to say that the object, the moon, instantiates the property of being spherical, which is just to say that the moon is spherical. There are substantial metaphysical issues about the nature of facts, objects, and properties, and the relationships between them (see Mellor and Oliver 1997 and Lowe 2002, part IV), but these are not of concern here.

Thirdly, as stated above, Generic Realism about the mental or the intentional would strictly speaking appear to be ruled out ab initio, since clearly Jones’ believing that Cardiff is in Wales is not independent of facts about belief: trivially, it is dependent on the fact that Jones believes that Cardiff is in Wales. However, such trivial dependencies are not what are at issue in debates between realists and non-realists about the mental and the intentional. A non-realist who objected to the independence dimension of realism about the mental would claim that Jones’ believing that Cardiff is in Wales depends in some non-trivial sense on facts about beliefs, etc.

Field’s point is not simply, echoing Benacerraf, that no causal account of reliability will be available to the platonist, and therefore to the platonic realist. Rather, Field suggests that not only has the platonic realist no recourse to any explanation of reliability that is causal in character, but that she has no recourse to any explanation that is non-causal in character either.

(T)here seems prima facie to be a difficulty in principle in explaining the regularity. The problem arises in part from the fact that mathematical entities as the [platonic realist] conceives them, do not causally interact with mathematicians, or indeed with anything else. This means we cannot explain the mathematicians beliefs and utterances on the basis of the mathematical facts being causally involved in the production of those beliefs and utterances; or on the basis of the beliefs or utterances causally producing the mathematical facts; or on the basis of some common cause producing both. Perhaps then some sort of non-causal explanation of the correlation is possible? Perhaps; but it is very hard to see what this supposed non-causal explanation could be. Recall that on the usual platonist picture [i.e. platonic realism], mathematical objects are supposed to be mind- and language-independent; they are supposed to bear no spatiotemporal relations to anything, etc. The problem is that the claims that the [platonic realist] makes about mathematical objects appears to rule out any reasonable strategy for explaining the systematic correlation in question. (1989: 250–1)

This suggests the following dilemma for the platonic realist:

  1. Platonic realism is committed to the existence of acausal objects and to the claim that these objects, and facts about them, are independent of anyone’s beliefs, linguistic practices, conceptual schemes, and so on (in short to the claim that these objects, and facts about them, are language- and mind-independent).
  2. Any causal explanation of reliability is incompatible with the acausality of mathematical objects.
  3. Any non-causal explanation of reliability is incompatible with the language- and mind-independence of mathematical objects.
  4. Any explanation of reliability must be causal or non-causal.
  5. There is no explanation of reliability that is compatible with both the acausality and language- and mind-independence of mathematical objects.

Therefore,

  1. There is no explanation of reliability that is compatible with platonic realism.

Whether there is a version of platonic realism with the resources to see off Field’s epistemological challenge is very much a live issue (see Hale 1994, Divers and Miller 1999. For replies to Divers and Miller see Sosa 2002, Shapiro 2007 and Piazza 2011, Paseau 2012).

Field’s alternative proposal to platonic realism (1980, 1989) is that although mathematical sentences such as ‘7 is prime’ are false, the utility of mathematical theories can be explained otherwise than in terms of their truth. For Field, the utility of mathematical theories resides not in their truth but in their conservativeness, where a mathematical theory S is conservative if and only if for any nominalistically respectable statement A (i.e. a statement whose truth does not imply the existence of abstract objects) and any body of such statements NA is not a consequence of the conjunction of N and S unless A is a consequence of N alone (Field 1989: 125). In short, mathematics is useful, not because it allows you to derive conclusions that you couldn’t have derived from nominalistically respectable premises alone, but rather because it makes the derivation of those (nominalistically respectable) conclusions easier than it might otherwise have been. Whether or not Field’s particular brand of error-theory about arithmetic is plausible is a topic of some debate, which unfortunately cannot be pursued further here (see Hale and Wright 2001).

There are, no doubt, kinds of moral realism which do have the consequence that moral reality may transcend all possibility of detection. But it is surely not essential to any view worth regarding as realist about morals that it incorporate a commitment to that idea. (1992: 9)

So, if the debate between a realist and a non-realist about the independence dimension doesn’t concern the plausibility of semantic realism as characterised by Dummett, what does it concern? (Henceforth a non-error-theoretic, non-expressivist style of non-realist is referred to as an anti-realist). Wright attempts to develop some points of contention, (or ‘realism-relevant cruces’ as he calls them) over which a realist and anti-realist could disagree. Wright’s development of this idea is subtle and sophisticated and only a crude exposition of a couple of his realism-relevant cruces can be given here.

The first of Wright’s realism-relevant cruces to be considered here concerns the capacity of states of affairs to figure ineliminably in the explanation of features of our experience. The idea that the explanatory efficacy of the states of affairs in some area has something to do with the plausibility of a realist view of that area is familiar from the debates in meta-ethics between philosophers such as Nicholas Sturgeon (1988), who believe that irreducibly moral states of affairs do figure ineliminably in the best explanation of certain aspects of experience, and opponents such as Gilbert Harman (1977), who believe that moral states of affairs have no such explanatory role. This suggests a ‘best explanation test’ which, crudely put, states that realism about a subject matter can be secured if its distinctive states of affairs figure ineliminably in the best explanation of aspects of experience. One could then be a non-expressivist, non-error-theoretic, anti-realist about a particular subject matter by denying that the distinctive states of affairs of that subject matter do have a genuine role in best explanations of aspects of our experience. And the debate between this style of anti-realist and his realist opponent could proceed independently of any questions concerning the capacity of sentences in the relevant area to have potentially recognition-transcendent truth values.

For reasons that needn’t detain us here, Wright suggests that this ‘best explanation test’ should be superseded by questions concerning what he calls width of cosmological role (1992, Ch.5). The states of affairs in a given area have narrow cosmological role if it is a priori that they do not contribute to the explanation of things other than our beliefs about that subject-matter (or other than via explaining our beliefs about that subject matter). This will be an anti-realist position. One style of realist about that subject matter will say that its states of affairs have wide cosmological role: they do contribute to the explanation of things other than our beliefs about the subject matter in question (or other than via explaining our beliefs about that subject matter). It is relatively easy to see why width of cosmological role could be a bone of contention between realist and anti-realist views of a given subject matter: it is precisely the width of cosmological role of a class of states of affairs—their capacity to explain things other than, or other than via, our beliefs, in which their independence from our beliefs, linguistic practices, and so on, consists. Again, the debate between someone attributing a narrow cosmological role to a class of states of affairs and someone attributing a wide cosmological role could proceed independently of any questions concerning the capacity of sentences in the relevant area to have potentially recognition-transcendent truth values.

Wright thinks that it is arguable that moral discourse does not satisfy width-of-cosmological role. Whereas a physical fact—such as a pond’s being frozen over—can contribute to the explanation of cognitive effects (someone’s believing that the pond is frozen over), effects on sentient, but non-conceptual creatures (the tendency of goldfish to cluster towards the bottom of the pond), effects on us as physically interactive agents (someone’s slipping on the ice), and effects on inanimate matter (the tendency of a thermometer to read zero when placed on the surface), moral facts can only to contribute to the explanation of the first sort of effect:

[I]t is hard to think of anything which is true of sentient but non-conceptual creatures, or of mobile organisms, or of inanimate matter, which is true because a … moral fact obtains and in whose explanation it is unnecessary to advert to anyone’s appreciation of that moral fact (1996: 16).

Thus, we have a version of anti-realism about morals that is non-expressivist and non-error-theoretic and can be framed independently of considerations about the potential of moral sentences to have recognition-transcendent truth-values: moral sentences are truth-apt, sometimes true, and moral states of affairs have narrow cosmological role.

AIOU Solved Assignment 1& 2 Code 831 Autumn & Spring 2024

Educational psychology is a subfield of psychology. It takes theories, research, principles, and knowledge from psychology, and uses them in education.

Education includes a wide range of teaching and learning situations, from children being taught by a teacher and learning in a classroom at school, to university students learning from an instructor in a lecture or a tutorial, to individuals teaching themselves a new skill at home. Essentially education can include any situation in which someone acquires knowledge by means of a process.

When the word “teacher” is used in this book, it refers to any person who is involved in a formal educational process. Thus it includes professors, instructors, lecturers, coaches, and trainers, amongst others. Further, while this introduction to educational psychology focuses on the school and the school classroom, it is also relevant to other educational settings such as universities and colleges.

Educational psychologists define the field

There are many varying definitions of educational psychology in the literature.

Robert Slavin defines educational psychology quite narrowly as the systematic study of learners, learning, and teaching (1994, 25). Bruce Tuckman and David Monetti’s definition is slightly broader. They define educational psychology as the study of human behavior applied to the teaching and learning processes (2011, 5).

Investigations of another educational psychologist, Anita Woolfolk, show distinct changes in the research focus of educational psychologists over time. In earlier decades educational psychologists tended to study individual differences, assessment, and learning behaviors. More recently they have studied cognitive development and learning, specifically concept learning, memory, and retention. Most recently educational psychologists have focused on studying the effects of society and culture on learning and development (2010, 10).

How do educational psychologists work?

Educational psychologists work in a number of ways. They carry out research to find answers to questions about teaching and learning. This research is often based on observing classroom practice to find out what works best under what circumstances and why. They use their findings (and the findings of other educational psychologists) to train teachers to teach more effectively, to advise education policy makers on how to improve education, and to help schools develop, apply, and interpret diagnostic tests and enrolment procedures such as school readiness tests.

Some educational psychologists work more directly with learners. For example, they often counsel learners on matters that affecting academic performance, such as behavior, or relationships with other people.

At universities and colleges educational psychologists develop and teach courses in educational psychology, mostly in departments of teacher education.

What questions do educational psychologists research?

Educational psychologists research many different questions that might have an impact on teaching and learning. Finding answers to these questions helps to make education more effective. Some questions to educational psychologists try to answers include:

How do learners think and learn?

Is one method of teaching better than another method of teaching? If so, why is this?

How does the way a learner thinks and learns develop as he or she becomes older?

Does the motivation of a learner affect his or her learning?

What impact does the relationship between a teacher and a learner have on learning?

How does the social or cultural background of a learner affect his or her learning?

How can a teacher help a learner overcome learning difficulties that are caused by a physical or mental disability-or that are caused by an emotional or social problem- that he or she has?

How can a teacher control the behavior of learners in the classroom?

What are the most effective ways of assessing the performance of learners?

Educational psychology in an interactive context

Tuckman and Monetti (2011, 6) describe some of the difficulties that teachers have to deal with on a daily basis. Teaching is a profession that depends almost entirely on interaction with other people. Teachers have to manage this interaction with students so that students learn what they are supposed to learn. This is difficult because interpersonal interactions are complex and have different dimensions. These almost always have to be managed at the same time. For example, teachers have to schedule, observe, record, evaluate, and react to a large number of students who may all be doing different things. Further, teacher behavior and student behavior are often dependent on each other. This means that teachers cannot delay their actions in the classroom. They must think quickly to react to the challenges that they face.

Educational psychology prepares teachers for these challenges by providing them with theories and principles about teaching and learning. It encourages teachers to reflect (think) about the needs of their learners and to be sensitive to the issues that learners might be facing in achieving their learning goals. In this way, educational psychology helps teachers become more effective and improves the chances of their learners achieving success in the classroom.

Research by psychologists has shown that human behavior is very complex. For example, although developmental psychologists such as Erik Erikson (insert dates) have suggested that there are a number of key stages of human development that are the same for everyone, these stages are not easily or clearly defined. This means that

Another example is that cognitive psychologists have shown that

Similarly, humans have several identifiable dimensions, such as a bodily or physical dimension, a cognitive or thinking dimension, an affective or emotional dimension, and social and ethical or moral dimensions. The interplay of these dimensions in specific people is highly complex. Each dimension affects the others in a variety of ways. The factors which underlie individual behaviors and capacities are interrelated in ways that are impossible to explain in terms of simple cause and effect. In other words, it is difficult to identify what makes someone a good or poor learner, what constitutes intelligence, or which are the most effective sources of motivation.

The role and function of educational psychology

Berliner (1993, in Woolfolk 2010: 14) provides two very good, yet closely- related reasons why people practice educational psychology.

Educational psychologists develop educational theories that explain, for example, how language develops, how learning takes place and under what circumstances, and what activities motivate learners and what don’t. Basically, they offer teachers many different ways of understanding the challenges they face, thereby improving their chances of achieving success in and outside the classroom.

Educational psychology aims to uncover the principles of teaching in order to improve learning. Principles are uncovered when research studies repeatedly come up with the same conclusions. These principles they can be used by teachers to deal with specific problems. For example, one of the principles of classroom management is to establish good interpersonal relationships with learners in order to build mutual trust and respect.

Educational psychology provides teachers with a body of knowledge

Educational psychology provides teachers with a body of knowledge about teaching and learning. This body of knowledge includes knowledge of human development, intelligence, memory, motivation, assessment, instructional strategies, and classroom management. It is made available to trainees, including aspiring teachers, mainly at universities and colleges of education to help them prepare for their teaching careers.

Educational psychology contributes to better educational practice

Educational psychologists are seldom satisfied with the body of knowledge they have uncovered or the teaching methods they have experimented with, recommended, and implemented. Educational psychologists are continually asking questions, and conducting research, about how teaching and learning can be improved. By questioning current practices and experimenting with new teaching methods, educational psychologists and professional teachers can ensure that classroom practices remain at the cutting edge of educational innovation.

4.2 Educational psychology challenges teachers to disciplined enquiry and research

Educational psychology constantly develops new theories and principles about teaching and learning. With a dynamic and changing field, teachers are challenged to n keep up to date with developments by reading articles published in educational newsletters and journals, and by sharing and discussing-for example, at staff meetings, teacher centers, workshops, and conferences-information about what works and what does not in their different subject areas. This helps them improve their teaching, and become ever more effective teachers as they progress in their careers.

Educational psychology encourages a reflective mindset

Effective teaching that results in successful learning depends on thought and critical reflection. Educational psychology assists teachers to examine their own attitudes, teaching practices, and the outcomes of their teaching.

Reflective teachers ask themselves before, during, and after every lesson why they do what they do and the way that they do it. They check their performance against the background knowledge provided by their training and their classroom experience. They examine their teaching methods and experiment to find out if there are better ways of doing what they are doing. Through reflective teaching, teachers develop the cognitive tools for creatively solving problems that may arise in their classrooms.

AIOU Solved Assignment 1& 2 Code 831 Autumn & Spring 2024

Education and politics enjoy a symbiotic relationship, that is, education affects politics and vice versa. Education, or lack thereof, influences the collective intellect, goals, and values of the body politic. The way in which a society is educated will thus determine who is able to hold office; how those in office are elected (or chosen); how much power and control those in office will have at their disposal; what laws are considered reasonable and unreasonable; and how those representing the state will choose to regulate, promote, and establish educational institutions.

The last point is critical as it shows how the cycle comes full circle. Just as much as educational institutions have a role in creating, maintaining, and limiting the state, the political has immense power over the educational. Look at how the modern state has control over how much schools are funded and what they can and can’t teach (evolution, sexual education, the way in which history is framed, among many other examples). Indeed, there are many states that strictly prohibit secular education, as it is in their interest to keep their populations misinformed. Why? Precisely because the more informed (educated) their population, the more likely it is that their stranglehold on power will be overthrown.

One of the earliest political philosophers Plato has put this as follows:

“It is the government which must flow from the education and not education from the government.”

Plato gives more importance to education to the extent that it must produce the best of the governments.

What we commonly see is the education system is dependent on the government. It is the government which decides how the education must be. Rather, what requires is that the education must decide who should be governing, and what should be the kind of government.

Plato writes: “Until the philosophers become the kings, and the princes of the world have the spirit and power of philosophy….. cities will never have rest from their evils.”

Now if we have to put this in the present times, the word king is applicable to all the rulers either democratic or not. And cities should be read as States (meaning countries).

Plato gives an extensive Theory of Education that would create such philosophers who were eligible to rule. It includes elementary education (10 years of physical training plus two years of moral education). And this was to be completed by the age of twenty. The disqualified were to take up the role of producers.

Next was higher education (for 10 years) that included physical and mental training. The failures at this stage were to form the warriors.

Further, the third stage was preparation for the philosopher king. It included 5 years of training in the art of dialectics and 15 years of practical training. So, a philosopher king would emerge after 12+10+20 =42 years of vigorous training at the age of 50 years.

If we were to test our present day politicians, almost no one will fit Plato’s “philosopher king or say the ideal ruler” at least in India. When Sri Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan became the President, he was acclaimed as a philosopher king. Even former President Sir APJ Abdul Kalam would fit to this criteria though nobody used this phrase for him.

Education is encapsulated in the political environment of the nation state. Each nation state from liberal democracies to totalitarian systems uses education as one of their state apparatus to transmit their political ideologies. In discussing the nexus between education and politics, the various educational polities in Malaysia will be critically examined, with particular reference to the various educational acts starting from the Razak Report of 1956 till the Education Act of 1996. The social, economic and political factors leading to the educational policies will be discussed. The current educational issues such as the teaching of maths and science in English, replacing the primary school evaluations and the lower secondary assessment examinations with school based exams, among others, will also be discussed. The Malaysian Blue-Print on Education (2013 – 2025) will be critically reviewed.

A recurring theme in the debates about “political education” is the effect that schools or other educational institutions have on influencing the political involvement of students. One of the theoretical objectives of education is to achieve politically active individuals. Now, to what extent are education and political ideas related? And what is the nature of that relationship?

We focus on the effects that formal education has on political life. Obviously, education covers much more than what happens in purely academic life, but this is a great factor to consider. In this sense, the “political effects” that we are going to take into account in this article are: political implication, political attitude and political knowledge.

External variables that affect education and political ideas

At the statistical level, when we talk about modulating variables, external or third variables, we refer to the external factor that causes a correlation between two variables. For example, the number of hospitals and prisons in a city correlate, those cities that have more hospitals have more prisons. This is due to a third variable that affects both: the population.

In the case of education and political ideas, there are external factors that affect these two variables explaining part of their correlation. Among these factors, the most relevant are: cognitive abilities, personality and socio-economic level. In the case of cognitive abilities, the relationship is quite obvious. A higher verbal capacity, an abstract reasoning, a good memory, together with other capacities, help to progress both in formal education and in political capacity. Regarding personality, it is important to understand that certain attitudes can affect education and political ideas. For example, all those predispositions to learn, browse or research will go in favor of greater academic achievement and greater notions of policy. The searching for a cheap essay writing service, for example, is also affected by the current attitudes of most students.

Another key aspect is the socio-economic level, since political life and higher formal education are socially restricted domains. Many people can’t study for a career because they do not have the necessary resources to do so. In the same way, those with a low socio-economic status do not usually spend time in political life; either because they are expelled from it directly or because they spend most of their time trying to survive in precarious working conditions.

Direct variables in education that affect political ideas within the great variability that exist within formal education and we find that different ways of organizing such as education causes differences in what we have called political capacity. This shows us that both variables have a direct relationship between them. But what specific aspects affect this relationship? The most relevant are: the contents of the curriculum and the educational values.

The contents of the curriculum can have a direct influence on the political knowledge acquired by students. For obvious reasons, the direct instruction of political concepts generates future citizens with a greater capacity for political analysis. In addition, the nature of these contents greatly affects the student’s political position. That is to say, a political education that highlights the advantages of liberalism will probably generate people more related to this current. Education in values based on dialogue, debate and a critical vision of the facts is essential to generate a political attitude in the students. If individuals receive a closed and hierarchical education, they become accustomed to the dogmas and authority that do not support a critical attitude towards politics.

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