The leading Jewish adult education specialist in Germany in the 1930s, he developed a philosophy of education based on addressing the whole person through education of character, and directed the creation of Jewish education centers in Germany and teacher-training centers in Israel. Philosophy. Buber is famous for his thesis of dialogical existence, as he described in the book I and Thou. However, his work dealt with a range of issues including religious consciousness, modernity, the concept of evil, ethics, education, and Biblical hermeneutics. According to Buber, human beings may adopt two attitudes toward the world: I-Thou or I-It. ... Buber explains that human beings may try to convert the subject-to-subject relation to a subject-to-object relation, or vice versa. However, the being of a subject is a unity which cannot be analyzed as an object.

1. Epistemological & socl.
Perspective of education
Epistemological overview of education
with reference to dialogue of Martin
Buber and Plato
Deeksha Gupta
B.Ed. 1st sems.

2. Martin Mordechai Buber
(1878,Vienna,Austria –
1967,Jerusalem,Israel )
Plato
(428-427 B.C Athens-
348-347B.C Athens)

3. Martin Buber : The Teacher As A
Community Builder
• Martin Buber (1878-1965), the well known Jewish philosopher and
theologian , is considered one of the greatest thinkers on
education of the 20th century .
• He had an outstanding university career and became a prominent
academic in Germany.
• In 1923,he wrote his famous essay on ‘Existence’ named “Ich and
Du “ and translation in English named “I andThou”.
• In 1930, he became an honorary professor at the university of
Frankfurt.

4. I and
Thou(1923)
I - It I - Thou
• Where we find objective
relationship.
• Where the closeness and
intimacy is not there.
• Not giving much importance to
feelings.
• Successful dialogue
• Where there is closeness,
feelings in depth where both
are trying to understand each
other.
• Cooperation, collaboration
and mutual understanding.

5. • In I and Thou, Buber introduced his thesis on human existence. Inspired by Feuerbach's
The Essence of Christianity and Kierkegaard's Single One, Buber worked upon the premise
of existence as encounter.
• He explained this philosophy using the word pairs of Ich-Du and Ich-Es to categorize the
modes of consciousness, interaction, and being through which an individual engages with
other individuals, inanimate objects, and all reality in general.
• As Buber argues in I and Thou, a person is at all times engaged with the world in one of
these modes.
• The generic motif Buber employs to describe the dual modes of being is one of dialogue
(Ich-Du) and monologue (Ich-Es). The concept of communication, particularly language-
oriented communication, is used both in describing dialogue/monologue through metaphors
and expressing the interpersonal nature of human existence.
Contd…

6. Buber’s ideas related to education
and knowledge
• Buber has emphasized I – Thou type of relationship between the
teacher and the taught.
• Teacher can educate only if he / she is able to build a relationship
based on I – Thou.
• Teacher should build a relationship based on authentic dialogue.
• Students should be able to trust the teacher and should feel accepted.
• Encourages active role of learners in selecting and building his / her
knowledge.
• Distinguished between “to learn and to know”.

7. Contd…
• He has criticized Teacher centered approach and also
Student centered approach.
• He is in favor of Educational approach based on dialogue
giving importance to teacher and taught.
• His theory of knowledge is based on the primary reality of
relations.
• He gave importance to the truths discovered through
relational criteria rather than objective criteria.

8. Buber’s Philosophy
• Buber is famous for his thesis of dialogical existence, as he described in the book I and
Thou. However, his work dealt with a range of issues including religious consciousness,
modernity, the concept of evil, ethics, education, and Biblical hermeneutics.
• Buber rejected the label of "philosopher" or "theologian" claiming he was not interested in
ideas, only personal experience, and could not discuss God but only relationships to God.
• Theologically, he associated the first with the Jewish Jesus and the second with the gentile
Christian Paul.
• Philosophically, these word pairs express complex ideas about modes of being particularly
how a person exists and actualizes that existence.

9. PLATO : Athenian Philosopher
• Plato was the innovator of the written dialogue and dialectic forms in
philosophy.
• Plato is also considered the founder ofWestern political philosophy.
• His most famous contribution is the theory of Forms known by pure reason, in
which Plato presents a solution to the problem of universals known as
Platonism (also ambiguously called either Platonic realism or Platonic
idealism).
• He is also the namesake of Platonic love and the Platonic solids.
• Plato makes it clear in his Apology of Socrates, that he was devoted young
follower.
• Plato never speaks in his own voice in his dialogues. In the Second Letter, it
says “no writing of Plato exists or ever will exist, but those now said to be his
are those of a Socrates become beautiful and new” (341c).

10. PLATO’S PHILOSPHY
• In Plato's dialogues, Socrates and his company of
disputants had something to say on many subjects,
including several aspects of metaphysics. These include
religion and science, human nature, love, and sexuality.
More than one dialogue contrasts perception and reality,
nature and custom, and body and soul.
• Plato regards education as a means to achieve justice,
both individual justice and social justice. According to
Plato, individual justice can be obtained when each
individual develops his or her ability to the fullest. In this
sense, justice means excellence. For the Greeks and
Plato, excellence is virtue.
• The physical objects are not permanent representations
of unchanging ideas alone give true knowledge as they
are known by mind.

11. Plato’s thoughts related to education
• Republic is dialogue which discusses the education necessary to produce such
a society.
• It is an education of a strange sort – he called it PAIDEIA.
• Nearly impossible to translate into modern idiom, paideia refers to the process
whereby the physical, mental and spiritual development of the individual is of
paramount importance.
• It is the education of the total individual.
• He discusses early education mainly in the republic, written about 385 B.C.E,
and in the Laws, his last work, on which he was still at work at the end of his
life.

12. • Plato founded The Academy in 387 BC, the first institution of higher learning in Greece. It
became the intellectual center in Greece and the equivalent of the first university in the
history of Europe.
• The ultimate object of all activities at The Academy was to achieve final philosophic truth.
The method of teaching was by question and answer, argument, and discussion.
• Plato did give some lectures but his main method was oral discussion and dialogue
(comparable to the modern day seminar class).
• The subjects taught at the academy included philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, and
geometry.
• The Academy was a great success. Aristotle came to Plato's Academy in 367 B.C. at the
age of 17 and remained there until Plato died in 347 B.C.

13. Platonic epistemology
Platonic epistemology holds that knowledge of Platonic Ideas is
innate, so that learning is the development of ideas buried deep in
the soul, often under the midwife-like guidance of an interrogator.
In several dialogues by Plato, the character Socrates presents the
view that each soul existed before birth with the Form of the Good
and a perfect knowledge of Ideas. Thus, when an Idea is "learned"
it is actually just "recalled".
Plato drew a sharp distinction between knowledge, which is
certain, and mere true opinion, which is not certain. Opinions
derive from the shifting world of sensation; knowledge derives
from the world of timeless Forms, or essences.

14. Objective Questions
1. Who is a philosopher, in the original sense of the word?
( a ) A person primarily interested in the truth about moral matters.
( b ) Someone who studies the stars and planets.
( c ) A clever and tricky argues.
( d ) A lover and pursuer of wisdom, regardless of the subject matter.
Ans:- (a)
2. The theory that holds reason as the source of knowledge is
( a ) Idealism
( b )Rationalism
( c ) Empiricism
( d ) None of the above.
Ans:-(b)

15. 3.Which school of Philosophy advocates that knowledge which works is true?
( a ) Realism
( b ) Pragmatism
( c ) Existentialism
( d ) Experimentalism
Ans:- (a)
4.According to which philosopher “individual justice can be obtained when
each individual develops his or her ability to the fullest” ?
( a ) Martin Buber
( b ) Plato
( c ) both
( d ) None of these
Ans:- (b)

16. 5. A question-and-answer dialogue in which propositions are methodically
scrutinized to uncover the truth is known as _____.
( a ) an argument
( b ) the Socratic method
( c ) the Socratic jest
( d ) a debate
Ans:- (c)

17. MA’AM