Holistic Education Based on the Principles of the Transcendent Philosophy

Holistic education is one of the educational strategies of the 20th century in the West which challenges the existing defects in the modern educational system. Clearly, there are so many similarities between religious and Islamic education and holistic education that we can safely claim that the latter has always been the common method of education in our traditional educational system. The present study focuses on certain educational principles in the Transcendent Philosophy which can be categorized under the concept of holism. Some of these principles include the necessity of the gathering of matter and meaning, educating the body along with the soul, and moral and epistemological holism. Moreover, regarding epistemological holism, the authors elaborate on the particular place of reason in epistemology and derive a number of educational principles in conformity with rationality, among which reference can be made to the necessity of prudence and necessity of teaching intellection to the learner. Finally, they refer to some of the practical methods in conformity to the mentioned principles. Following the qualitative method of content analysis and philosophical inference, the authors have tried to derive a number of educational principles in line with holism through delving in Mullā Ṣadrā’s books on the Transcendent Philosophy and some of his commentators’ works.