Eastern philosophy and holistic education

grantor: University of TorontoThis study explores a philosophical foundation for holistic education from diverse perspectives of Eastern philosophy. While the holistic education movement has existed in North America since the late 1980s, my studies in fields of both holistic education and Eastern philosophy indicate that Eastern philosophy can significantly enlarge the scope of holistic education. To grasp the fundamental structure of Eastern philosophy, I examine the remarkable ideas of some Eastern thinkers including Suzuki, Nishida, Hisamatsu, and Izutsu (Chapter 2). The essential structure of Eastern philosophy lies in the multidimensional understandings of reality. Based on these understandings, I introduce a framework of holistic education called 'the five dimensions of reality' (Chapter 3), which intends to integrate both Eastern and Western perspectives. In short, 'Dimension I' is the objective reality of individual beings. 'Dimension II' is the social reality underlying the objective distinctions of individual beings. ' Dimension III' is the cosmic reality (nature, life, and the universe). ' Dimension IV' is the infinite reality as the metaphysical ground of all beings. 'Dimension V' is the universal reality in which the infinite reality manifests itself in all dimensions. According to this model, holistic education is defined as an attempt to explore multidimensional reality, namely, to attain the profound depth of one's existence and thereby to recover the wholeness of reality. From the viewpoint of this framework, I examine six orientations of contemporary holistic education (Chapter 4) and clarify that ecological and cosmological theories of holistic education remain in the third dimension of the cosmic reality and lack insights into the deeper dimensions of reality with which Eastern philosophy is mostly concerned. Also, I compare the idea of interconnection in contemporary holistic education with the idea of interpenetration in Buddhist philosophies to highlight the Eastern views of relationships (Chapter 5). Furthermore, I explore Eastern views of pedagogical concepts such as educational aim, nature, language, learning, and development (Chapter 6). Finally, I explore the practical aspects of the multidimensional holistic education in the light of the Eastern ways of contemplation and art (Chapter 7), and the Eastern ways of action and compassion (Chapter 8).Ph.D