About Two Philosophers

The following sample essay on “About Two Philosophers”: about compare and contrast two philosophers.

Philosophers are essential in the provision of both knowledge and critical analyses. Some of the theories and disciplines that are postulated by philosophers are essential to set the path that the community should follow to live as a unit. In this aspect, Paulo Freire and Emmanuel Kant are the philosophers that I will focus on. In his ideas, Freire’s have been significant tools in influencing other disciplines and have remained an inspiration to many others across the globe.

Freire comes from Brazil and has influenced both African and American enormously (McQuillan 112). Emmanuel, on the other hand, has focused much on going beyond the traditional philosophy and metaphysics. This essay aims to provide a discussion comparing the key ideas of Kant and Freire.

In Kant’s early work, he was much focused on going beyond the traditional philosophy and wanted to eliminate the era of speculative theories concerning human life.

For him to overcome the situation, he kept resisting the skepticism from various independent thinkers such as Hume David. Besides, Kant was also an exponent for the idea that perpetual peace could be established through international corporation and democracy as well. Though it is not rationally planned, he believed that perpetual peace would be the outcome of universal history. Some of the ongoing philosophical disputes are a result of religious ideas that were postulated by Kant (McQuillan 112). These ideas ranged from the impressed he gave concerning being atheism advocate who developed an argument for God to other critical treatments that were optimized by Nietzsche who revealed that Kant was a refined apologist for the Christian faith in the traditional setting.

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Kant has also published various works of ethics, law, astronomy, aesthetic and history as well.

Towards the last parts of his most influential work, he established a unique practice on Critique of Pure Reason’ that revealed that all work of philosophy aims to answer three essential questions. “What should I know? What should I do? And what should I hope?” The answers to these questions are established in his last bit of the work where he was operating both revolutionary and systematic. Likewise, the cornerstone of the Kant’s main idea is the doctrine of transcendental idealism where he tries to establish the distinction between what an individual can experience and that which cannot. When explaining, he argues we can only understand and have the knowledge of things that we have experience about (Bowie 37). On the question what we should know,’ Kant replied saying that we can know the world we observe, but we cannot have answers to some of the most profound metaphysics questions.

Moreover, most of the Kant’s ethics are well organized surrounding the notion of the categorical imperative. The categorical imperative is considered a universal principle that states ever one should always show humanity for others. Furthermore, the principle postulates that one should treat the other in a way one could hold for other individuals. He argues that the community moral law reasoning to obtain the truth and therefore all individuals and other natural creature are bound around the same laws. In the question what should I do,’ Kant provides an essential answer that every individual should act rationally in accordance with the moral laws of the community.

Above and beyond, Kant hypothesizes an ethical theory that states individual to have a belief in free will. The belief should be to God and the immortality soul. Since it may be difficult to understand all these, rational faith is derived from existing moral laws (Bowie 37). He finalizes most of the systematic works by answering the last question on what one may hope. He gives a response that individual should hope for their soul to remain immortal and God designed the world with other principles of justice. Furthermore, Kant is believed to contribute to almost every area of philosophy. He has greatly influenced the work of art through his aesthetic theory.

Kant develops the theory in a critical judgment implying that beauty is not a property or a natural phenomenon, but rather a realization of the pleasure that lies between understanding and imagination. Kant argued that, although most people judge by reasons whether an object is beautiful or not, it cannot be considered logical but aesthetical instead. Pure judgment is considered subjective since it is influenced by emotions and the esteem of the object itself. Kant further said that universal validity could never be derived from beauty concepts but the use of common sense. Hoverer, other proponents have criticized some of Kant ideas (Bowie 37). For instance, Hegel postulates that the Kant ideas do not give the actual information on what we should do since moral laws can be described as the principle of non-contradiction. Therefore, the information available does not have the content and therefore cannot qualify to be major in morality.

Various individuals highly criticize the concept of free will that is demonstrated by Kant. Since Kant reveals that moral laws of its own making should determine the free will, it has been opposed by others who propose that other external factors stimulate the free will. According to Kant, free will is considered the same to practical reasons and that people are believed to act according to practical principles that are set rather than the empirical ones. In a nutshell, free will and the will established under the moral law are identical in nature (McQuillan 112). Since the free will must obey the moral law, individuals must show moral code exist by portraying that free will is free.

On the other hand, Paulo Freire is considered both an educator and a philosopher that has been advocating for critical pedagogy. He is well known due to his work on Pedagogy of the Oppressed which is an influential work that sets a foundation for critical pedagogy movement to operate. Paulo postulate that education should not be considered a neutral process but an essential instrument that makes different generations to integrate using logic to bring conformity and ensure an individual is free (Freire 14). This freedom implies that men and women can freely deal with their issues critically and establish different ways to participate in world transformation. He has contributed immensely in education through grafting other ideas from Plato, other Marxist and anti-colonialist thinkers as well.

Freire established his argument of the pedagogy of the oppressed in 1968, where he suggested there was a need to provide the entire population with the education that was new and modern in contrast to the traditional and anticolonial education that was oppressive. In the argument, Freire establishes the oppressor-oppressed framework where he says education will allow those oppressed to regain their sense of humanity (Freire 14). However, he demonstrates to the oppressed that this will not come easily, but they must contribute immensely to their liberation. Freire added that education has a close relationship with politics and therefore can never be separated. Consequently, it is the role of students and their teachers to be aware that politics will always surround education. He believed education was the road to liberation because both men and women can make their own decision by knowing they know and striving to understand what they don’t know.

Besides, Paulo is well known for his attacks on the banking concept of education (Freire 15). Under this concept, the students are revealed to be empty accounts that should be filled with knowledge by teachers. This implies students are the receiving objects that will make their thinking to be taken under control and thus restricting themselves from their creative power. He suggests that the banking of education should be made through the transmission model of education. This model sees education as an essential tool that is transmitted from teachers to students. Freire emphasized the argument that students are artificial absorbers of information being taught and the significance of learning is to induce memorization of different facts. In most scenarios, this model is used in colleges and universities by lecturers, where they stand in front of students and dictate the notes for the students to absorb the knowledge.

Besides, Freire contributes enormously to the culture of silence. According to him, the culture of silence is established by unequal social relation that exists within a society (Freire 15). This type of culture is associated with negative and passive image especially to those who are oppressed. He, therefore, urged the learners always to develop a critical consciousness to have a deep understanding that the culture is meant to induce oppression. He, thus, pushes the learners and teachers to avoid any form of domination to ensure other dynamics such as race and class are not incorporated into an educational system.

Nevertheless, his idea concerning banking education was highly criticized by other proponents. For instance, most individuals characterize the banking model with suspension and insecurity of each other since the teacher must maintain control in the hierarchy that may lead to oppressive behaviors (Freire 15). Other proponents suggest that schools should adopt a democratic method of learning where teachers and the other student should strive to work and learn from each other freely. A democratic approach should be embraced according to these proponents since both teachers and students have different expertise in teaching and will help each other grow as humans. This made Freire to adopt critical pedagogy instead of banking model since pedagogy incorporates a dialogue between teachers and students and therefore less possibility of oppression behavior.

Conclusion

Both Kant and Freire are considered as essential educators and philosophers who have contributed to both education and moral dimensions. To begin with Kant, he has immensely helped in areas such as the critique of pure reason where he tries to answer the three questions of life. Kant establishes the argument concerning categorical imperative that derives a principle that people should learn to express humanity for others. He argues that when free will is made free, it is easy to integrate it with moral laws. Freire on the other hand, concentrate more on education. He establishes pedagogy for oppressed claiming that knowledge is the only weapon for liberation. Freire introduces and later denies the banking of education since it is not democratic and don’t involve dialogues.