Without being too flippant, I understand that the very title of this blog may at worst bring a “groan” from some and at best will no doubt attract interest from a lesser number of readers but, hopefully, some with experience in and/or curiosity about the world of teaching and learning—the subject that dominated the first half-dozen or so posts on the blog—will follow along.

This is a work-in-progress blog, which will appear in several installments whose frequency I cannot predict.  It clearly involves “voices from the past” in at least a couple ways—the most obvious being these two key figures from the hallowed history of ancient Greece.  The other is that my fascination with the topic of this blog was nurtured by a “termite in my brain” very early in my teaching career, so this is in a real sense a return to my “roots.”.

One of the courses I developed and particularly enjoyed teaching addressed ancient philosophy—i.e. the early Greek and Roman periods.  I was, and have remained, particularly intrigued with Plato and Aristotle and it occurred to me then that, since these two giants of the classical period were so central to medieval European thought and, in a fresh discovery, also influenced the Renaissance, a more careful examination of their views on teaching and learning might be a fruitful investigation.

I originally addressed this topic over forty years ago under an NEH grant as part of an interdisciplinary general education program at Mars Hill College (now University).  It’s present iteration has grown out of that original work, altered by thoughtful edits, and peppered with more recent readings—although I confess that I have found little that is more insightful than the primary sources that informed the earlier presentation—and reflections from my own experiences during the intervening decades.

The voices of educational purpose in our day often present diametrically opposite points of view, are frequently peppered with initiatives that reflect currently popular “fixes” for the educational system, and sometimes resemble a “discordant babble” infected by the divisive forces in our society, above which no easy resolution is able to rise.  That said, it is also true that a great deal of attention is appropriately being given to pedagogy in the publishing world with much advice being offered, not necessarily in consensus, on the best ways to engage students in the classroom and in the learning process.  There are, happily, many who follow this “conversation” and make serious efforts to apply it and, unfortunately in my opinion, others who dismiss it as so much “navel gazing.” Perhaps we can find some comfort in knowing that our debates would not be unfamiliar to Plato and Socrates, whose own points of view were forged in response to the threat of violent change, political upset, war, social unrest, and innovation.  Aristotle also indicates that there was no settled opinion in his own day about the aims of teaching and learning. A passage from his Politics is instructive:

“At present there are differences of opinion as to the proper tasks to be set; for all peoples do not agree as to the things that the young ought to learn.  .  .  nor is it clear whether their studies should be regulated more with regard to intellect or with regard to character .  .  . and it is not at all clear whether the pupils should practice pursuits that are practically useful, or morally edifying, or higher accomplishments—for all these views have won the support of some judges” (Politics, 1337a).

But comfort in a shared confusion is not enough! I think some help is available, because if there was no settled opinion, Plato and Aristotle, not surprisingly, certainly held strong ones.

Understandably, I don’t guarantee the infallibility of my interpretations. Indeed, it is clear when one surveys the available literature that differing traditions appeal to differing interpretations of the same classical texts. So while I am indebted to a number of sources, I have sometimes disagreed with those sources, just as they have sometimes disagreed with one another, which called upon me to choose among them or venture with some trepidation to my own interpretations. Thus, my conclusions are my own and I take responsibility for them.

From a philosophical perspective, the central questions of teaching and learning are epistemological questions: how do we know? how do we learn? under what conditions and with what validity?  And, as we shall see, epistemology tends to imply an ethic: how we know has implications for the way we live.

In what follows, I want to offer some initial analysis and evaluation of Plato’s and Aristotle’s individual views on teaching and learning—i.e. their epistemologies—and then attempt to draw a synthesis of their positions without glossing over their obvious differences.  Finally, I will attempt some applications—a concession to the “so what?” question—i.e. what might all of this say to us here and now on the tasks of teaching and learning.

Let me set aside from the outset one of the knottiest problems in the study of Socrates and Plato: in the literature, where does the one leave off and the other begin? Socrates, as far as we know, wrote nothing at all and almost all of Plato’s writings are dialogues in which Socrates is the primary spokesman. When is Plato recording Socrates’ point of view and when is Socrates merely the mouthpiece for Plato’s positions? That has not been entirely settled after centuries of debate and it is a literary and philosophical issue too technical to address here. Indeed, it is important to the point I wish to make to concentrate on their relationship rather than their differences, and I shall take the liberty of using their names interchangeably.  Karl Jaspers makes the point very well:

“It is not possible to draw an objective line between the ideas of Socrates and those of Plato.  Where there is a .  .  . bond between two [persons], that is never possible. In such cases there are no rights of ownership .  .  .  Socrates-Plato is the only case in the history of philosophy of a thinker who is great only in bond with another, of two thinkers who exist only through each other.”

The next installment will begin an analysis and evaluation of Plato’s view of teaching and learning.

(A list of references/sources will follow the final post.)