The document provides a synthesis of the major philosophies of naturalism, idealism, realism, pragmatism, and existentialism. It summarizes their main propositions regarding metaphysics, epistemology, axiology, implications for religion and education, as well as their strengths and weaknesses. The philosophies are compiled by Johny S. Natad from the book "Four Philosophies and Their Practices in Education and Religion" by Donald J. Butler.

1. Synthesis of Major Philosophy
(Naturalism, Idealism, Realism, Pragmatism, Existentialism)
Its Main Propositions
Compiled by Johny S. Natad
Masterand
Bukidnon State University
Graduate School

2. Naturalism
• Nature is all the reality there is. (Leucippus, Democritus, Epicurus, Lucretius, and Spencer)
• Reality is comprised of bodies moving in space. (Leucippus, Democritus, Epicurus, Lucretius,
and Hobbes)
• Ultimate reality is force or energy. (Spencer)
• The most acceptable life is possessed by keeping close to the simple and peaceful ways of
nature. (Leucippus, Democritus, Epicurus, Lucretius, and Rousseau)
Source:
Four Philosophies and Their
Practices in Education and
Religion
By: Donald J. Butler
Synthesis of Major Philosophy Compiled by Johny S. Natad October 2009 Page 2 of 10

3. PHILOSOPHY METAPHYSICS EPISTEMOLOGY AXIOLOGY ISM IN RELIGION ISM IN EDUCATION STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES
• Nature is all • There is no • To preserve • Reduces Religion • Education must • Contributes a • Oversimplifies
there is, and all higher tribunal natural goodness to a phenomenon satisfy the inborn simplifying life and existence
NATURALISM basic truths are for truth than and virtue of human needs of the influence, and does not go
truths of nature natural itself experience individual neutralizing deep enough in
• Nature is good; • Science is the • God is that • Education is confusion of self its attempted
society is evil best way to structure in the geared to the and society explanations
and crafty explore the world which makes individual growth effect
• Nature offers us processes of possible the • Education is not measurable
freedom and the universe realization of simply mental in benefits
necessity, if we and that those values nature
live close to her; processes are
society offers what modern
tyranny and science is
authority striving to
• Nature has understand
smooth-flowing
rhythms which
choose their
own time
Synthesis of Major Philosophy Compiled by Johny S. Natad October 2009 Page 3 of 10

4. Idealism
• Ultimate reality is of the same substance as ideas. (Plato and Hegel)
• Behind the phenomenal world is an infinite Spirit that is both substructure and creator of
cosmos. (Leibniz and Berkeley)
• One of the two attributes of God is thought. (Spinoza)
• The existence of God is made necessary by certain factors in selfhood –
The fact that I have an idea of perfect being necessitates that perfect being exist.
(Descartes)
The fact that I have perceived qualities in the objective world necessitates a God
to create these qualities. (Berkeley)
The fact that there is a category of imperatives in self necessitates God as the
one who guarantees contentment as the accompaniment of moral obedience.
(Kant)
On selfhood
• The self is the prime reality in the experience of a person. (Descartes, Berkeley, and Kant)
• Human selves are like God that there are spirits, unlike Him in that they are finite.
(Leibniz)
• Man as a thinking being is a part of God. (Spinoza)
• The human self has freedom of will. (Leibniz and Kant)
On knowledge
• By examining his own ideas and testing their consistency, man can achieve truth. (Plato,
Leibniz, and Hegel)
• The self reads meaning and unity into the objective.
• Value and meaning are obtained by relating parts and an whole. (Spinoza)
Source:
Four Philosophies and Their
Practices in Education and
Religion
By: Donald J. Butler
Synthesis of Major Philosophy Compiled by Johny S. Natad October 2009 Page 4 of 10

5. PHILOSOPHY METAPHYSICS EPISTEMOLOGY AXIOLOGY ISM IN RELIGION ISM IN EDUCATION STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES
• Reality is spiritual • Knowing is the • Values are • Religion provides • The curriculum is • Can live with • The abundance
or mental and rethinking of absolute and structure for based upon the science, value it, of
IDEALISM unchanging latent ideas eternal intellectualizing idea or assumption and join in its misconceptions
• All of reality is • All knowledge is • Values are religious faith and of the spiritual advancement, • The idea about
reducible to one independent of rooted either in experience nature of man but at the same man is irrelevant
fundamental sense a personal God • A subject –matter time it can also in our present
substance – spirit experience or in an or curriculum must insist, as it doer, historic setting
• Matter is not • The act of impersonal spirit emphasize the great on the • It is subjective to
real, rather it is a knowing takes force of nature and enduring ideas superiority of which nothing
notion, an place within the of the culture the human and exists except in
illustrations of mind • Subjects must be personal over the mind of the
the mind • The mind is essential for the scientific individual
• It is only the active and realization of achievement
mind that is real contains innate mental and moral
capacities for development
organizing and
synthesizing the
data derived
through
sensation
Synthesis of Major Philosophy Compiled by Johny S. Natad October 2009 Page 5 of 10

6. REALISM
On the Physical Word
• Nature is a primary self evident reality, a starting point in philosophizing. (Aristotle)
• The physical world is real, at least for the duration of the temporal order. (Saint Thomas
and Descartes)
• There is no thought without extension. (Spinoza)
• The primary qualities of experience exist in the physical world. (Locke)
• There is something which produces my sensations and perceptions, the thing-in-itself,
which cannot be known to be mental character. (Kant)
On the Character of Mind
• Mind is like a mirror receiving images from the physical world. (Comenius)
• The mind of a child at birth is similar to a blank sheet of paper upon which the world
proceeds to write its impression. (Locke)
• Mind is a manifold of ideas and concepts. (Herbart)
• Consciousness is not a substance, it is an awareness of experiences, and experience is a
medium in which objects and organisms are related. (James)
Source:
Four Philosophies and Their
Practices in Education and
Religion
By: Donald J. Butler
Synthesis of Major Philosophy Compiled by Johny S. Natad October 2009 Page 6 of 10

7. PHILOSOPHY METAPHYSICS EPISTEMOLOGY AXIOLOGY ISM IN RELIGION ISM IN EDUCATION STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES
• Reality consists of • Knowledge is • Values are simply • There is basis for • A pupil shall be • Whatever is • Reality is
REALISM many substances independent on indefinable worship of a God taught with strong real is capable of
(pluralism) mind • A value is dependent who is real in states of personal independent interpretation
• There is privation • The instrument of upon the attitude of actual world discipline of every finite • Embrace
of will (free will) knowledge are sentient • Pupil must be individual who pluralism in
• The self consists experience (sensory • Anything consistent provided with may know it preference to a
of body(material – perceptual with nature is essential knowledge • Realism more or
principle) and experience); valuable required for survival demands and essence side
soul(rational- authoritarianism • Standards of value in natural world recognizes of • Conception of
spiritual (church, school and are • Curriculum is best relation to pupil is not
principle) in man state, and found(determine) by organized according that which is adequate
• The world is revelation) means of act of to subject – matter beyond self • Realism places
made of real, • At birth, the mind of reason • Curriculum should too much
substantial, and man is blank • Value judgment is also emphasized the confidence in
material entities (tabula rasa) never considered to effects of the social transmission of
• Man can capitalized be factual, it is a environment on the content
on this knowledge subjective judgment individual’s life • Too much
by using reason to based on feeling • Subjects are taught stress upon the
discover objects & • Accepted values by a teacher who is formation of
relationships which conforms with the impersonal and the pupil
he does not or prevailing opinion of objective and knows
cannot perceive society the subject fully
• Common sense • Prevailing opinion of • The teaching
shows that it is society reflects the method
reasonable to status quo of social recommended are
assume that objects reality authoritative
exist independent • Social reality
of one’s mind and represents the truth
that man can that is out there,
discover these beyond the mind
things by using
senses
Synthesis of Major Philosophy Compiled by Johny S. Natad October 2009 Page 7 of 10

8. PRAGMATISM
• All things flow, nothing remains the same. (Heraclitus and Dewey)
• It is impossible to gain knowledge of ultimate reality. (The Sophists and Dewey)
• Hypothesis tested by experience constitute the nearest approach to knowledge which we
have. (The Sophists and Dewey)
• Science should become a special pursuit by being applied cooperatively to the study of all
the problems of a man. (Bacon, Comte and Dewey)
• In order to determine the meaning of an idea, it must be put into practice; the
consequences which follow constitute the meaning of the idea. (James and Dewey)
Source:
Four Philosophies and Their
Practices in Education and
Religion
By: Donald J. Butler
Synthesis of Major Philosophy Compiled by Johny S. Natad October 2009 Page 8 of 10

9. PHILOSOPHY METAPHYSICS EPISTEMOLOGY AXIOLOGY ISM IN RELIGION ISM IN EDUCATION STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES
• Reality is the • Knowing • Values are • There is no • School must aim at • Offers wise • Being practical
interaction of an results from situational or supernatural base developing those counsel for would sometimes
PRAGMATISM individual with experiencing relative for religious experiences that day-to-day loose our moral
environment or use of scientific • Ultimate values experience will enable one to living which values
experience: it is method cannot exist for • Good and evil are lead a good life may help • Not satisfactorily
always changing • Reason is the truth is always dramatically • Advocate the maintain representing the
• Reality cannot be chief relative and opposed to one importance of mental health essence and
proven, even if it instrument of conditional another by a democracy • Keep us close existence of
were, it wouldn’t knowledge • Value precariously • Education must to experience individual
help us solve (Rationalism) judgment are decisive world help its students and to shelter • The application of
problems • Truth is useful as become excellent for us artificial experimental
• Reality is something that means to an citizens in a of the method is arbitrary
dependent upon happens to an intelligent life democratic society cloistered and being done to
experience which idea • Teachers must formally every individual
determine • Knowing to provide experience academic • Radically negative
knowledge make personal that will excite • Helps to in its ontological
• Man is both in choices motivation discern the meaning
the world of his • School Curriculum ways of • Redefining religion
perception must be part of experience and as wisdom
social context offers some pointing to certain
• Instruction source in the attitudes in
organized around control of religious devotion,
problem solving experience which are needed
according to the • Has a great for effective lying
scientific method contribution in • Experimental
education in method is applied
giving a bit more
sensitivity to universal and
the cycle of arbitrary in
learning educational
method
Synthesis of Major Philosophy Compiled by Johny S. Natad October 2009 Page 9 of 10

10. PHILOSOPHY METAPHYSICS EPISTEMOLOGY AXIOLOGY ISM IN RELIGION ISM IN EDUCATION STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES
• Reality is • Knowing to • Values should be • Believing in God is a • Teaching strategies • Freedom with • Standard of
EXISTENTIALISM subjective with make personal freely chosen matter of choice must stimulate an convergence or goodness varies
existence choices (Theistic or awareness that responsibility from another
preceding Atheistic) each person creates • There are a lot of • One’s choice
essence a self-concept opportunities to may not be of
• “Facticity” and through significant explore nature others
“existence” choices and enhance • Respect for
precedes • Teacher should help oneself out of others is seldom
essence the student to the given considered
become for himself freedom
what it is he wants • Respect for
to become individual’s
• School assists background
student in knowing • Value formation
themselves and and integration
leaning their place are enliven
in society through decision
– making and
experience
Synthesis of Major Philosophy Compiled by Johny S. Natad October 2009 Page 10 of 10