1 Philosophical Foundations & Educational Thinkers · 1.1 Philosophical foundations of education
1.1.3 Pragmatism, realism, existentialism and Marxism in education
Pragmatism judges ideas by whether they work and teaches by doing (Dewey, Kilpatrick's project method); realism holds that the world of things is real and is known through the senses; existentialism puts the unique, free individual first (Kierkegaard); Marxism aims at a classless society through education joined to productive labour.
- APPSC Paper I
- Standard level
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Core facts
- Pragmatism
- Word from Greek pragma = action, a thing done, practical work. Also called instrumentalism and experimentalism (Dewey's names), and humanism (F.C.S. Schiller). Known as the indigenous philosophy of the USA.
- Founders: C.S. Peirce founded it (the pragmatic maxim, in his essay "How to Make Our Ideas Clear", 1878; the word itself first appeared in print in James's 1898 lecture, credited to Peirce); William James popularised it (Pragmatism, 1907); John Dewey applied it to education (the 2019 key calls pragmatic philosophy "the contribution of John Dewey").
- Core belief: truth is what works; truth is made, changing and tested by consequences; no fixed or absolute values; reality is "in the making". Experience is the key principle (2022 and 2025 keys).
- Aims: no fixed aim; growth, social efficiency, adjustment, democratic living, creating new values.
- Curriculum principles: utility, the child's interests, experience, activity, flexibility and integration (subjects linked around the child's activities, not taught in compartments).
- Method: learning by doing, problem-solving, project method, experimentation. Teacher = guide, friend, facilitator. Discipline = social discipline through shared activity.
- Slogan: no disinterested pursuit of knowledge, no intellectual education for its own sake (knowledge only for use).
- John Dewey (1859–1952), American
- Laboratory School, University of Chicago, 1896 (the "Dewey School").
- Books: *My Pedagogic Creed* (1897), *The School and Society* (1899), *The Child and the Curriculum* (1902), *How We Think* (1910), *Democracy and Education* (1916), *Experience and Education* (1938).
- Sayings: education is life itself, not a preparation for life; education is a continuous reconstruction of experience; the school is a miniature (embryonic) society; education is tripolar (teacher, child, society). His key principle is experience, and he stood for learner-centred education (2025 key).
- W.H. Kilpatrick (1871–1965), Dewey's student at Teachers College, Columbia: project method, 1918.
- Definition: a project is a "wholehearted purposeful activity proceeding in a social environment".
- Stevenson's definition: a problematic act carried to completion in its natural setting.
- Kilpatrick's four steps: purposing → planning → executing → judging. Textbooks expand them into six: providing a situation → choosing → planning → executing → evaluating → recording.
- Four types (Kilpatrick): producer (constructive: make something), consumer (aesthetic: enjoy or appreciate), problem (solve an intellectual difficulty), drill or specific-learning (acquire a skill).
- Realism
- Word from Latin res = thing. Arose as a reaction against idealism. The material world exists independently of the mind; knowledge comes through the senses (2025 key); the education that supports the scientific process is realist (2019 key).
- Aristotle is the father of realism.
- Forms: humanistic realism (Erasmus, Rabelais, Milton: classics for real life); social realism (Montaigne, Locke: education for practical, social life); sense realism (Mulcaster, Bacon, Ratke, Comenius: learning through the senses and science); neo-realism (Bertrand Russell, Whitehead: scientific method).
- Comenius (Czech): The Great Didactic; *Orbis Pictus* (1658), the first illustrated picture book for children. Bacon: inductive method; "knowledge is power".
- Aims: preparation for real life, happiness, vocational efficiency, knowledge of nature.
- Curriculum: science, mathematics, nature study, vocational subjects. Method: inductive, observation, experiment, excursions, teaching aids; concrete to abstract.
- Existentialism
- Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855, Danish) = father (founder) of existentialism (2025 key); gave it shape in *Either/Or* (1843); protested against Hegel's all-embracing system and against mass society and church routine.
- Others: Jean-Paul Sartre ("existence precedes essence"; "man is nothing but what he makes of himself"; Being and Nothingness, 1943), Gabriel Marcel (existential philosophy as a counsellor in crisis), Martin Heidegger, Karl Jaspers, Martin Buber (I and Thou, the I-Thou relation), Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir; Nietzsche is a forerunner.
- Core belief: each person is unique; freedom, choice and responsibility; feelings of loneliness, anxiety (angst) and dread of death (2025 key); truth is subjective; against mass society and conformity.
- Education: every individual is unique, so education must suit individual differences; mainly liberal education (2022 key).
- Curriculum: no prescribed curriculum; humanities, arts, literature, drama, history, ethics before science; elective subjects are counted as existentialism's contribution. Method: Socratic dialogue with each learner, discussion, self-expression, individual work. Teacher: respects the pupil's freedom; an I-Thou relation (Buber).
- Marxism (scientific socialism)
- Karl Marx (1818–1883) and Friedrich Engels: *The Communist Manifesto* (1848); *Das Kapital* (vol. I, 1867).
- Core belief: dialectical materialism (matter comes first) and historical materialism; history is class struggle; the goal is a classless society (2025 key: classless society = socialism).
- Education: free, compulsory, secular, state-run education for all; polytechnical education: study joined to productive labour; collective life over the individual; the school serves the socialist state.
- Marxism links schooling to mass production and polytechnic training (2025 match key).
- Soviet educators: Lenin, N. Krupskaya, A.S. Makarenko (labour colonies, education in and through the collective). Paulo Freire (Brazil), Pedagogy of the Oppressed (written 1968, published 1970): banking concept of education rejected, conscientisation (critical awareness).
Explained
1. One-page comparison of the schools (for match-the-list items). Idealism and naturalism are in EDU-FN-02; they are here so that all six schools sit side by side.
| School | Key names | Reality and knowledge | Aim of education |
|---|---|---|---|
| Idealism | Plato (father), Socrates, Berkeley, Kant, Hegel, Froebel | mind, ideas, spirit are real; eternal values | self-realisation; truth, beauty, goodness; exaltation of personality |
| Naturalism | Rousseau (Emile, 1762), Spencer, Comte, Hobbes | nature alone is real; matter | self-expression, self-preservation; return to nature |
| Pragmatism | Peirce, James, Dewey, Kilpatrick, Schiller | truth is what works; changing, made by experience | growth, social efficiency, democratic living |
| Realism | Aristotle, Bacon, Comenius, Locke, Russell | objects are real, independent of mind; known by senses | preparation for real life, happiness |
| Existentialism | Kierkegaard, Sartre, Heidegger, Buber | existence before essence; subjective truth | authentic, free, responsible individual |
| Marxism | Marx, Engels, Lenin, Makarenko | matter first; history = class struggle | classless society; socialist citizen |
| School | Curriculum | Method | Teacher and discipline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Idealism | humanities, religion, ethics, literature | lecture, discussion, Socratic questions | teacher central (gardener: Froebel); impressionistic discipline (teacher's example) |
| Naturalism | child's interests, nature study, games | learning by doing, heuristic, play-way | teacher a stage-setter or observer; discipline by natural consequences |
| Pragmatism | useful, integrated, activity subjects | project, problem-solving, experiment | guide, friend; social discipline |
| Realism | science, mathematics, vocational | inductive, observation, audio-visual aids | knows facts, presents them objectively; orderly discipline |
| Existentialism | arts, humanities, ethics | dialogue, self-expression | respects freedom; I-Thou; self-discipline |
| Marxism | science, technology, productive work | work-centred, collective activity | agent of the state; collective discipline |
Short tags examiners pair with each school (both papers used these):
- Learning by doing; experience; project method; democratic education → pragmatism.
- Knowledge comes through the senses; things are real; science → realism.
- The individual is unique; anxiety and loneliness; freedom of choice; liberal education → existentialism.
- Classless society; labour; mass production → Marxism / socialism.
- Truth, beauty, goodness; spiritual values; exaltation of human personality → idealism.
- Back to nature; negative education; education through the environment; self-expression → naturalism.
2. Pragmatism in the classroom. Because truth changes, the curriculum is not a fixed body of subjects but grows from the child's interests and present problems. Dewey's principles: utility, interest, experience, activity and integration (subjects joined around one activity, not taught in separate boxes). Learning starts from a real problem, and the class works it out together, so the school becomes a small democracy. Dewey's five steps of reflective thinking (How We Think): a felt difficulty → locating and defining it → possible solutions (hypotheses) → reasoning out each one → testing by action. These steps are the root of the problem-solving method.
3. Project method: how a project runs. The teacher sets up a situation where a need arises (for example, the class garden is dry). The pupils choose the project (lay a drip line), plan it (materials, cost, roles), execute it, evaluate it (did the plants survive, what went wrong) and record it in a project book. Principles behind it: purpose, activity, experience, utility, freedom, reality, social experience. Merits: learning by doing, cooperation, dignity of labour, correlation of subjects. Limits: time-consuming, uneven coverage of the syllabus, hard to fit textbooks and exams.
4. Realism: the maxims of teaching. Comenius and the sense realists first set out the ideas behind the maxims that every B.Ed. student learns (later listed as maxims of teaching, often credited to Herbert Spencer): from the known to the unknown, simple to complex, concrete to abstract, particular to general (induction), observation before explanation. The real thing, a model or a picture is shown before the word. This is why realism is linked with teaching aids, science and excursions. Realism is opposed to idealism on metaphysics (matter vs mind).
5. Existentialism: why the individual comes first. "Existence precedes essence": a person is not born with a fixed nature but makes himself by his choices, and must bear the responsibility. The fear of meaninglessness and death (angst) is part of being human. Education should therefore help each pupil choose freely and own the choice. Existentialists reject standardised mass schooling, rigid timetables and the treatment of pupils as numbers. Kierkegaard's three stages of life: aesthetic (pleasure), ethical (duty) and religious (faith); a 2025 match item paired existentialism with "aesthetic and ethical life".
6. Marxism and socialism in education. Marx wanted children over a certain age to combine schooling, productive work and physical training, so that the split between mental and manual labour, and between classes, would end. In the Soviet Union this became the polytechnical school; Makarenko reformed young offenders by collective labour and discipline (The Road to Life). In India the word socialist entered the Preamble by the 42nd Amendment (1976); the "socialistic pattern of society" is a planning goal, not Marxist schooling.
7. Humanism and constructivism (also in the BRAOU unit).
| School | Key names | Core idea | In the classroom |
|---|---|---|---|
| Humanism | Protagoras ("man is the measure of all things"), Erasmus, Corliss Lamont | man at the centre; reason, science and democracy; no supernaturalism | liberation of mind, welfare of humanity; discipline of kindness, self-imposed |
| Cognitive constructivism | Jean Piaget | the learner builds knowledge by assimilation, accommodation and equilibration | discovery, activity, readiness by stage |
| Social constructivism | Lev Vygotsky | knowledge is built through social interaction; culture is the prime factor | group work, scaffolding, the zone of proximal development |
| Radical constructivism | Ernst von Glasersfeld | all knowledge is formed by the observer | learner's own meaning |
- The 5E model (Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, Evaluate), by Rodger Bybee of BSCS, is a constructivist teaching cycle.
- Constructivist learning design has six elements: situation, grouping, bridging, questioning, exhibiting, reflecting.
- NCF 2005 (NCERT) is built on constructivism: connect knowledge to life outside school, move away from rote learning.
- Dewey is called the philosophical founder of constructivism: he wanted "directed living" in workshops instead of memorising.
8. Deschooling. Ivan Illich, *Deschooling Society* (1971, 2019 key): schools confuse schooling with learning and certificates with competence; he proposed learning webs (networks of people, skills and resources open to all) in place of compulsory schooling. Everett Reimer's School is Dead (1971) made a similar case.
Common traps
- ✗ "Pragmatism was founded by Dewey." ✓ Peirce coined the term, James popularised it; Dewey applied it to education. (If "Peirce" is not an option, as in 2019, the key is Dewey.)
- ✗ "The project method was given by Dewey." ✓ By his student Kilpatrick (1918); Dewey gave the problem-solving method and reflective thinking.
- ✗ "Learning by doing belongs only to naturalism." ✓ In exam keys it is the tag of pragmatism (naturalists also used it; if both are options, choose pragmatism when "experience" or "project" appears).
- ✗ "Realism: knowledge comes from reason or intuition." ✓ Realism: knowledge comes through the senses; reason and ideas point to idealism.
- ✗ "Sartre founded existentialism." ✓ Kierkegaard is the father (Either/Or, 1843); Sartre said "existence precedes essence".
- ✗ "Kilpatrick's project steps: planning, purposing, judging, executing." ✓ Purposing → planning → executing → judging.
- ✗ "Deschooling Society was written by Freire." ✓ By Ivan Illich (1971); Freire wrote Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
- ✗ "'Man is the measure of all things' is Sartre's." ✓ It is Protagoras, the root of humanism.
- ✗ "Orbis Pictus was written by Rousseau." ✓ By Comenius (realism); Rousseau wrote Emile (naturalism).
- ✗ "Classless society is the aim of democracy." ✓ It is the aim of socialism / Marxism.
- ✗ "The 2025 match item paired democratic values with pragmatism." ✓ Its key paired them with existentialism, because pragmatism had already gone to "learning by doing". In a single-choice item, democracy in education is the tag of pragmatism (Dewey, Democracy and Education).
Quick revision
- Pragmatism: pragma = action; Peirce, James, Dewey; truth = what works.
- Dewey: Laboratory School 1896; Democracy and Education 1916; education is life itself.
- Kilpatrick 1918 (Teachers College): project = wholehearted purposeful activity in a social environment.
- Project steps: purposing, planning, executing, judging; types: producer, consumer, problem, drill.
- Realism: res = thing; knowledge through senses; Aristotle, Bacon, Comenius (Orbis Pictus 1658).
- Existentialism: Kierkegaard (father, Either/Or 1843); Sartre: existence precedes essence; unique individual, electives, liberal education.
- Marxism: Marx and Engels, Manifesto 1848; classless society; education + productive labour.
- Illich: Deschooling Society 1971; Freire: against banking education; Protagoras: humanism; 5E: constructivism.
- Tags: doing = pragmatism; senses = realism; uniqueness = existentialism; labour = Marxism.
Go deeper: Deeper (beyond what APPSC Paper I usually asks)
Deeper Advanced
- Criticism of pragmatism: no fixed values, so morality becomes relative; stress on utility may neglect culture and the "disinterested" love of learning; activity programmes can leave gaps in systematic knowledge. Its legacy is huge: activity-based learning, experiential learning and project work in NEP 2020 all descend from Dewey.
- Criticism of realism: it gives too little place to emotion, art and the spiritual side; the senses can deceive. Its legacy: science teaching, the inductive method and teaching aids.
- Criticism of existentialism: it is individualistic and pessimistic, hard to run as a school system, and gives no common curriculum. Its legacy: respect for the learner's choice, humanistic education and counselling (Carl Rogers' learner-centred ideas are close to it).
- Criticism of Marxism: the individual is subordinated to the state and the party; one ideology is taught. Its legacy: work education, education for equality, Freire's critical pedagogy and adult literacy through dialogue.
- Eclecticism: Indian education draws from all schools: idealist aims (values, character), naturalist child-centredness, pragmatist methods (activity, projects), realist content (science) and the socialist goal of equal opportunity. Gandhi's basic education is often described as idealist in aim, naturalist in setting and pragmatist in method (see EDU-TH-01).
- Dewey and Gandhi: both joined learning to productive activity, but Dewey's activity is chosen from the child's interest and social problems, while Gandhi's is a productive craft with a moral and economic purpose.
Practise this topic. Questions on Schools of philosophy: idealism, naturalism, pragmatism, realism, existentialism (with western educators), with answers explained.
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