Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A. (Socio, Phil) B.Sc. M. Ed, Ph.D.
Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India
Mrs Sudha Rani Maheshwari, M.Sc (Zoology), B.Ed.
Former Principal,A.K.P.I.College, Roorkee, India
The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.
James A. Baldwin
It is possible that philosophy is not a well-defined discipline. But philosophies regard themselves as having something of a method, and something of a subject matter. The method, for analytically philosophies, anyway, is based on careful, critical analysis of ideas, concepts, and statements, and an effort to arrive at developed philosophical theories of important subjects: justice, rationality, equality, relativism, social construction. The subject matter is a little harder to specify. But there is an open-ended set of subjects that have drawn philosophers’ attention for the past several hundred years: empirical knowledge, , the nature of the mind, moral truth, political justice, and the foundations of religious belief, for example.
One clear area of intersection is the philosophy of “knowledge of society” — the philosophy of social science.
Another area where philosophy is relevant to society is normative social philosophy — the theory of justice, human well-being, or community oriented /liberalism, for example. Here the philosophies brings some organized thinking about values, ethical theory, and the messy facts of human social arrangements into the discussion. Here again, it is fairly clear how rigorous philosophical thinking can illuminate these questions; philosophy can help our understanding of these issues to progress.
But in addition to these fairly clear examples of philosophy about society, there seems to be another domain of intersection between philosophy and society that isn’t as well charted. This is “empirically and historically informed study of social metaphysics.
Idealism- concept of Society
Plato described a utopian society in which “education to body and soul all the beauty and perfection of which they are capable” as an ideal.
Plato believed in the importance of state involvement in education and in moving individuals from concrete to abstract thinking. He believed that individual differences exist and that outstanding people should be rewarded for their knowledge. With this thinking came the view that girls and boys should have equal opportunities for education. In Plato’s society there were three social classes of education; workers, military personnel, and rulers. He believed that the ruler or king would be a good person with much wisdom because it was only ignorance that led to evil.
The idealist relies for much of his social view on the accumulate wisdom of the past. Particularly that wisdom which is either symbolic of/or representative of, the Ideal. In general, therefore, the idealist stresses an intellectual pattern for conservation of the cultural heritage. This is a conservative position, typical of any system based on the belief that reality has a coercive order of its own and that we must wait to progress until we have this order made clear to us.
Realism- Concept of Society
From the foregoing, it should now be apparent that the social position of this philosophy would closely approximate that of idealism. Since the concern of this position is with the known, and with the transmission of the known, it tends to focus on the conservation of the cultural heritage. This heritage is viewed as all those things that man has learned about natural laws and the order of the universe over untold centuries. The realist position sees society as operating in the framework of natural law. As man understands the natural law, he will understand society.
Since the laws of nature cannot be change, or even amended, society must function in a particular way. All man can do is serve as a spectator of the society excerpt where he as an individual fits into the jigsaw puzzle order of natural law and become a participant. Basically, however, man serves to pass on what is know to be true knowledge of the immutable laws operating in the moral, economic, and scientific realms.
Pragmatism- concept of society
For the pragmatist, society is a process in which individuals participate. Society is the source from which people derive all that makes them individual while at the same time society is a product of the complex series of interactions among the individuals whose lives and activities impinge upon each other.
Man derives his values from the society and since these values help determine much of what his life will be, society and its relationship to the individual may be one of the most important concerns for contemporary pragmatists. Society is a basic concept in contemporary pragmatism since all actions must be considered in the light of their social designed to pass along the cultural heritage from one generation to the next, must be concerned with society and with its students as members of society.
Pragmatism sees the school as vitally concerned with and interested in social change since it needs to prepare the adults of the future to deal with the planning necessarily involved in the process called society.
With the move from the rural agrarian social structure which existed before the turn of the century, and with the increase in urbanization, transportation, communication and industrialization, over the last 50 years, the need for social planning has increased at an unbelievable rate. With the growth of new problems such the uses of atomic energy, pollution, conservation of natural resources, other space, drugs, increasing crime rates, education of disadvantaged children, others too numerous to list , the school has become the seed-bed for society. Never before argue the pragmatists, has there been such a need for social concern and social planning. Simply let society run rampant down an unplanned path. To do this is court destruction not just for society. But for the world.
Since the pragmatic position strongly advocates wholehearted involvement in society by all citizens, and because it views group decision in the light of consequence as important, and because it places responsibility on the individual as a member of society, it has been called the philosophy of Democracy.
Humanism- Concept of Society
Humans evolved as social animals, which is the only reason humanity has developed culture and civilization, and now in fact depends on them. This means that even in the neutral terms of differential reproductive success, humanity’s future as a species depends on developing and maintaining a healthy and productive culture and civilization. Any behavior contrary to that end threatens humanity’s survival and the survival of one’s neighbors, kin, and descendants. Likewise, this means humans have been “designed” by blind natural forces to require a healthy society in order to flourish and feel happy and content. Therefore the pursuit of human happiness requires the pursuit of a healthy society so people can live in it, interact with it, and benefit from it.
Humanism is in tune with today’s enlightened social thought. Humanists are committed to civil liberties, human rights, church-state separation, the extension of participatory democracy not only in government but in the workplace and education, an expansion of global consciousness and exchange of products and ideas internationally, and an open-ended approach to solving social problems, an approach that allows for the testing of new alternatives.
Humanism is, in sum, a philosophy for those in love with life. Humanists take responsibility for their own lives and relish the adventure of being part of new discoveries, seeking new knowledge, exploring new options. Instead of finding solace in prefabricated answers to the great questions of life, Humanists enjoy the open-endedness of a quest and the freedom of discovery that this entails.
The Humanist Manifesto goes on to state, “we can discover no divine purpose or providence for the human species. While there is much that we do not know, humans are responsible for what we are or will become. No deity will save us; we must save ourselves.”
According to them, if there is a benevolent God supervising humanity, then why is it that a majority of the human population is in the throes of misery and suffering? If there is a just God above us, then why is there so much injustice on the earth, against the poor and deprived sections of society?”
And humanism has a firm position on ethics. “Moral values derive their source from human experience. Ethics is autonomous and situational.” In other words, morals are not derived from absolutes given by God, but are determined by the individual from situation to situation. By and large, the humanists deplore any reference to them as being “religious.”.
Naturalism- concept of society
Society is therefore considered less organic in naturalism than in pragmatism, as well as in idealism. It is an aspect or portion of Nature, not so much an organism that has rhythms and patterns which, while not contrary to or above Nature, are yet its won rhythms and patterns. Individual man is therefore considered as Nature’s offspring, not a child of society or a segment of society whose very being depends upon the social organism. Although dependent upon Nature, he stands on his own feet, more or less, as far as his relations to society are concerned. There are what might be called certain necessities which make it expedient for him to relate himself somewhat effectively socially; but these are not necessities arising from the operation of society as an organism, so much as they are accidents or exigencies to be avoided by working out some kind of social organization to correct them.
Rousseau’s naturalism rooted man in Nature rather than society. So much did he regard man as a child of Nature, as over against society, that he proposed in his Emile to keep Emile away from society until adolescences. In his Social Contract he reveals how the problem of social organization is complicated by the importance of the freedom of man. Individual man, he contended, is not a man unless he is free; if he is in bondage, he is less than a man. Yet unbridled freedom is neither in harmony with his own welfare not the welfare of society. Evidently some social organization is needed, but one which preserves for man his freedom. This is a rather big order, but one which can be filled rather satisfactorily by democracy. For in democracy, although individual man sacrifices his own individual freedom by participation in the decisions which determine what the will of the state is to be.
It would seem that for naturalism social values are synthetic values which result from agreements in which individual men bind themselves together. They are secondary goods, not so much preferred as individual goods, which result indirectly as a consequence of the desire to avoid the grater evils which accompany anarchy. They are not organic values which are determined in part by the very nature of society and which would never be possessed by individual men separately, even if they did not need to be saved from conflict and chaos by some kind of social organization
Existentialism – concept of Society
Existentialistic ideas came out of a time in society when there was a deep sense of despair following the Great Depression and World War II. There was a spirit of optimism in society that was destroyed by World War I and its mid-century calamities. This despair has been articulated by existentialist philosophers well into the 1970s and continues on to this day as a popular way of thinking and reasoning (with the freedom to choose one’s preferred moral belief system and lifestyle).
Each basically agrees that human life is in no way complete and fully satisfying because of suffering and losses that occur when considering the lack of perfection, power, and control one has over their life. Even though they do agree that life is not optimally satisfying, it nonetheless has meaning. Existentialism is the search and journey for true self and true personal meaning in life.
Most importantly, it is the arbitrary act that existentialism finds most objectionable-that is, when someone or society tries to impose or demand that their beliefs, values, or rules be faithfully accepted and obeyed. Existentialists believe this destroys individualism and makes a person become whatever the people in power desire thus they are dehumanized and reduced to being an object. Existentialism then stresses that a person’s judgment is the determining factor for what is to be believed rather than by arbitrary religious or secular world values.
Perennialism – concept of society
Theperennialists, despite their claims tothe contrary, are advocates of a regressivephilosophy. Theywould have us solve our presentcentury problems by turning back the clock to a system of beliefs prevalent in the thirteenth century. They would have us turned the clock back to a time when the source of authority was to man and when man stood in the very centre of the universe; to a time when, the perennialists would have us believe, man was at amoral and spiritual peak from which he has since declined. The moral, intellectual, and spiritual reaction that the perennialists advocates is seen as coming, of necessity, from the church and the university. The lower schools have little to do with social change, since the school must transcend society and deal with the teaching of first principle, the permanent bases of Eternal Truth which is true in all times and in all places.
It is important to note that for the ecclesiastical perennialist the nature and shape of society, in any positive sense, is less important than the concern for whether or not the Catholic church can continue to exist within that society. Democracy, as we know it ,is, according to McGucken,….considered by church and scholastics as a legally possible government. Not, however the only possible form. The church can adopt itself to any form of government ,except the totalitarian state where the rights of the individual, the family, and the church are flouted.
Despite McGucken apparent disclaimer, the church has been able to adapt itself to totalitarian form of government where these governments gave their support to the church.
Marxism- concept of society
“The education of all children, from the moment that they can get along without a mother’s care, shall be in state institutions.”
In Communist countries the state is regarded as the sole educational agency. The leaders of the revolution recognized that education was the most powerful weapon at their disposal in their efforts to effect the radical change in society. In fact, they viewed education as the only means of transforming an individualistic capitalistic society to a socialistic, classless one. The ultimate aim of education was bluntly stated as “strengthening the state and the building of a classless society.” All other goals are subsidiary to this final one.
In order to destroy the influence of the family in the education of children, state-sponsored nursery schools were established as rapidly as possible. When a child was three years old he was placed in these nursery schools so that he could be given the “proper start” in his educational career and so that his mother could participate in productive labor and the political life of the nation.
Little proof is needed to show that the Church’s influence in education has been negated completely. The Marxist dictum that “religion is the opiate of the people” is the key to the Communist attitude toward any Church involvement in education.
With the family and the Church “out of the show” the state has a free hand in designing an educational program to serve its needs. The centralization of educational power in the state is absolute. “School are opened, approved and run by the state. The state determines the curriculum and methods of instruction to insure that education are in line with Party and State Policy and that it can be planned and directed for the Nation as a whole.” All adult education is state owned and controlled. Even the few seminaries conducted by the Orthodox Church must follow state curricula and methods.
Some countries have centralized control of education. But this control is in the hands of educators. In the Communist countries, the party leaders decree what the schools shall teach it, and how it shall be taught. Centers for educational research exist, but their findings can be applied in the schools only when they are approved by party authorities. The only criterion applied to such research regarding its acceptability is whether or not it serves the needs of the state and is in harmony with Marxist ideology.
In this modern technological age, mass-communication media (radio, television, newspapers, periodicals) can be considered important educational agencies. In the Western democracies a significant amount of political, aesthetic, and intellectual education is carried on by these means. Even when the state owns or controls these media different points of view are presented. But in Communist countries all broadcasts and publications have one basic purpose, the service of the state. The Gordian knot has been tied again by the all-powerful dictatorship of the proletariat: there is only one educational agency, the state.
Society honors its living conformists and its dead troublemakers.