Fourth Post

Plato and Aristotle: A Synthesis

The question, now, is whether it is possible to develop any kind of synthesis of the views of these two significant thinkers—that is, to discover some commonalities in Plato and Aristotle beyond, or perhaps through, their differences that might have some permanent value to our common interest in the world of teaching and learning.

First of all, the sort of knowledge they have both recommended as primarily valuable is general or theoretical knowledge—what Aristotle called “principles” and Plato called “forms.” On the one hand, this knowledge is presented as its own reason for being—that is, not “practical” in the sense of being “useful to earn a living,” to succeed in business, or to make one a more interesting party-goer. To quote Aristotle, it is not the sort of knowledge “which yields revenue,” but rather knowledge where “nothing accrues of consequence beyond the using” (Rhetoric).

And yet, on the other hand, this knowledge is clearly applicable knowledge: we should be able to use it. As noted in the previous post, he is clearly speaking of knowledge with a certain breadth. But equally clearly, he is speaking of a generic critical skill which is useful because it is capable of making the kinds of judgments without which any branch of knowledge, even human society itself, would become a shambles. Plato’s dialogues are, beyond dispute, models of such critical skills.

My point is that both Plato and Aristotle saw the kind of “theoretical knowledge” they pursued as not only appropriate to the quality of human life, but as useful in its contribution to the quality of life, both to the learner and to society.  I’ll return to this point momentarily.

To take the point a step further, their views seem to say that knowledge is certain and unchanging, an idea that appears to be inconsistent with the knowledge explosion of modern times. And yet there is in both of these thinkers clear concessions to a point of view more congenial to the advances of knowledge. In Plato, it is the centrality of dialogue as an open-ended search for truth. Granted, the object of the quest is the unchanging realities, but the resolution of the search is never guaranteed and we are led to believe that it is the search itself and the application of what is learned that animates life and gives it its worth. In Aristotle, as well, there is a strong sense of continuous development in learning, what Randall calls the “continuity of inquiry.” In the Metaphysics, Aristotle put it this way:

“While no one person can grasp truth adequately, we cannot all fail in the attempt. Each . . . individual contributes little or nothing to the inquiry. But the combination of all the conjectures results in something big . . . .it is only fair to be grateful not only to those whose views we share, but also to those who have gone pretty far wrong in their guesses. They too have contributed something: by their preliminary work they have helped to form our scientific way of thinking.”

For all their differences, then, Plato and Aristotle agree on the crucial role of insight—intellectual intuition—in the process of learning.  Or to put it more accurately, Aristotle turns Platonist in the end, because he falls back on Plato’s metaphor: knowing is like an illumination by an “intelligible light.”

It would have been much neater if he had said that this happens in the give and take of dialogue, of communication, of language. But as noted earlier, no such treatment of discourse in connection with knowing appears in his writing

In any case, when Plato says that knowing is like “remembering,” like being reminded of the truth through experience, and Aristotle says that knowing is like an intellectual “seeing” of the universal in particular things, they are expressing in different ways the same thing: the element of “recognition” in learning.  We “see” the point; it “makes sense.” We either “get it” or we don’t. For neither of them is the principle “proved” by experience. Experience “illustrates” but cannot “prove” the truth. The proof is in what my college clinical psychology professor called “galloping insight.”

Both of these classical giants seemed to appreciate the fact that our minds do seem able to “lift themselves by their own bootstraps,” to become, as Randall put it, “more universal, more unlimited, more penetrating than anything connected with a particular animal organism has any right to be.” The human mind does seem able to “see” patterns beyond the particulars, to “seize” the truth.

Randall suggests that this Platonic metaphor seems common to all the great “knowers.” The implication is that we would not think at all if the world were not “thinkable”—that thinking is not something alien to the universe. This seems to be what Plato means when he suggests that “knowledge cannot take root in an alien nature.”

And, finally, let me return to these observations about how Plato and Aristotle viewed the kind of education they pursued as useful in its contribution to the quality of life, both to the learner and to society.

Both were proponents of a liberal education.

• Plato essentially rejected the ancient intellectual way of Athens, believing that having a general education was more valuable to a person than a specialized education.
• Aristotle founded the Lyceum, a school of learning, where his students studied natural sciences, politics, metaphysics, and ethics, demonstrating his belief, much like Plato’s, that education should be general versus specialized.

Both believed that education is a key element in creating productive members of society.

• Plato argued that education is necessary for educating citizens who will go on to participate and effect change in their country’s political system, and that it is part of the process of identifying and selecting persons of intellectual promise to lead society—a point worth reiterating in our current social and political chaos?
• Aristotle felt that by developing students’ potential for reasoning and helping them form an ethical character, education provided students with skills and a knowledge base that would create an informed and productive citizen.

Both valued the role of the teacher.

• Plato believed that teachers should create an environment of critical thinking by engaging students in dialogue that will prompt them to think and learn–a process that would usher them from the sensory world to the realm of ideas. 
• Aristotle wrote no specific treatise on teaching, but he defined teachers as “those who tell the causes of each thing,” and said that “those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.” He also argued that it is possible to teach students to wonder and that wonder precedes the answer to a problem. For all his emphasis on organizing knowledge into fields and subjects, he also said that educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.  One could hear Plato agreeing.

The next—and final—installment will attempt to draw from all that has preceded some practical applications to our present world of teaching and learning.