Reality as a Basis of Education to the Good in Josef Pieper’s Works

Abstract

The contemporary educational system is oriented on performance and productivity. German philosopher and sociologist Josef Pieper (1904–1997) was one of the big critics of this orientation and a defender of holistic education. The aim of this study is to analyse two of Pieper’s essays dedicated to education to the good – Total Education and Reality and the Good (both 1935) – and to present his concept of the “holistic education” that is based on them. In these two essays, Pieper analyses education as a formation of the spiritual soul in its ability to know and to act: knowledge is born as a result of our openness to reality in its divine root, and action is a response to this known good. Pieper identifies the educated man as being constantly open to the totality of reality, questioning unilateral, normative, performance-oriented and “specialized” education.