A Defense of EducationInnate knowingProper cultivationBasis for differentiation

A Critique of TeachingKnowledge = dataTraining as learningPredication and control

Socrates - 469 BC–399 BC Plato - 428BC – 348 BC

Plato’s Retreat: The Allegory of the Cave, Digitized

Writing is a Techne that Weakens knowledge

“[Writing] will introduce forgetfulness into the soul of those who learn it: they will not practice using their memory because they will put their trust in writing, which is external and depends on signs that belong to others, instead of trying to remember from the inside, completely on their own. You have not discovered a potion for remembering, but for reminding; you provide your students with the appearance of wisdom, not with its reality.

(Phaedrus 275a-b; see also 275d-e)

“Your invention will enable them to hear many things without being properly taught, and they will imagine that they have came to know much while for the most part they will know nothing. And they will be difficult to get along with, since they will merely appear to be wise instead of really being so.”

(Phaedrus 275a-b; see also 275d-e)

Writing

Appearance

Knowing

Remembering

Reality of Wisdom is not captured in Words

Appearance is

But what is the Reality of Wisdom?

Philosophy: philein + sophia

The verb ‘philein’ means ‘to love’, whereas the substantive ‘sophia’ means ‘wisdom’

Plato’s SymposiumA Discourse on the Nature of Éros

Diotima’s Discourse on the Birth of Éros(Symposium, 203-204).

Διοτίμα: On the day of Aphrodite's birth the gods were making merry, and among them was Resource, the son of Craft. And when they had supped, Need came begging at the door because there was good cheer inside. Now it happened that Resource, having drunk deeply of the heavenly nectar wandered out into the garden of Zeus and sank into a deep sleep, and Need, thinking to get a child by Resource would mitigate her poverty, lay down beside him, and in time conceived Éros. So Éros became the follower and servant of Aphrodite because he was begotten on the same day that Aphrodite was born, and further, Éros was born to love the beautiful since Aphrodite is beautiful herself.

Diotima’s Discourse on the Birth of Éros(Symposium, 203-204).

Διοτίμα: Then again, as the son of Resource and Need, it has been his fate to be always needy; […] But, secondly, Éros brings his father's resourcefulness to his designs upon the beautiful and the good…

So Éros is never altogether in or out of need, and stands, moreover, midway between ignorance and wisdom.

Diotima’s Discourse on the Birth of Éros(Symposium, 203-204).

Σωκράτης : Then tell me, Diotima, who are these seekers after truth, if they are neither the wise nor the ignorant?

Διοτίμα: : Why a child could have told you that, after what I've just been saying. They are those that come between the two, and one of them is Éros. For wisdom is concerned with the loveliest of things, and Éros is the love of what is lovely. And so it follows that Éros is a lover of wisdom, and, being such, he is placed between wisdom and ignorance …

Diotima’s Discourse on the Birth of Éros(Symposium, 203-204).

Metaxy (μεταξύ) the “in-between” or “middle ground”

Desire = a lack

Eroticism of Knowing

Transformative

But what can be loved most?

What is most worthy of being known?

What will be most transformative?

Essence of Justice: MLK

• “.....In a real sense Mahatma Ghandi embodied in his life certain universal principles that are inherent in the moral structure of the universe. These principles are as inescapable as the law of gravitation.”– "The Spirit of Mahatma" read on the centennial of

Mahatma Ghandi's birth

Universal Principles = Order of the Universe

• Reason => L. ratio, ratio, proportion, calculation

• Reason accesses this unchanging order

Education versus Indoctrination

• Education draws out this Natural Order– Justifies its truths by appeal to reason – Goal: liberation and autonomy

• Indoctrination Denies this Natural Order – Justifies its opinions through sheer force of

persuasion and coercion

Teaching as Training the Beast (The Republic, Bk. VI.,492ff.)

And do they not teach to perfection young and old, men and women alike, and fashion them after their own hearts?

When they meet together, and the world sits down at an assembly … or in any other popular resort, and there is a great uproar, and they praise some things which are being said or done, and blame other things, equally exaggerating both, … at such a time will not a young man's heart, as they say, leap within him?

Teaching as Training the Beast (The Republic, Bk. VI.,492ff.)

Why, that all those mercenary individuals … do, in fact, teach nothing but the opinion of the many, that is to say, the opinions of their assemblies; and this is their wisdom. I might compare them to a man who should study the tempers and desires of a mighty strong beast who is fed by him … ‑

Teaching as Training the Beast (The Republic, Bk. VI.,492ff.)

Why, that all those mercenary individuals … do, in fact, teach nothing but the opinion of the many, that is to say, the opinions of their assemblies; and this is their wisdom. I might compare them to a man who should study the tempers and desires of a mighty strong beast who is fed by him … ‑

Teaching as Training the Beast (The Republic, Bk. VI.,492ff.)

….he calls his knowledge wisdom, and makes of it a system or art, which he proceeds to teach, although he has no real notion of what he means by the principles or passions of which he is speaking, but calls this honorable and that dishonorable, or good or evil, or just or unjust, all in accordance with the tastes and tempers of the great beast.

Plato’s Allegory of the Cave: The UrDebate on Education versus

Indoctrination“if I am right, certain professors of education

must be wrong when they say that they can put true knowledge into a soul that does not posses it, as if they were inserting vision into blind eyes”

“Whereas, our argument shows that the power and capacity of learning exists in the soul already”(518c)

Plato’s Allegory of the Cave (The Republic Bk. VII., 514a-517a)

Socrates: But then, if I am right, certain professors of education must be wrong when they say that they can put a knowledge into the soul which was not there before, like sight into blind eyes.

Chained From Birth

8-18 year-olds devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes (7:38) to using entertainment media (more than 53 hours a week).

‘media multitasking’ = 10 hours and 45 minutes (10:45) worth of media content into those 7½ hours.

Free Market Schooling

Cultivating Consumers

Values

Habits

Hollister Abercrombie & Fitch Branding as mood

"It's setting the mood, and it's about expressing the brand's personality," he says. "[It's] individualistic, having a good time, not just buying and selling, but creating the kind of ambiance that kids find appealing."

A Defense of EducationInnate knowingProper cultivationBasis for differentiation

A Critique of TeachingKnowledge = dataTraining as learningPredication and control

Plato’s Retreat:Intellectual Hedonism

The pleasure of the Life of the Mind

Philosophy as Lover of Wisdom

Lover of Learning

Insatiable Desire for Learning

Wisdom?

FINI