Plato (428-348 BC) – lifelong learning, 3Rs, mind & body but ban fiction!

It is through Plato that we know Socrates, but Plato is no mere mouthpiece. All western philosophy has been described as ‘footnotes to Plato’. Like Socrates, he believed in the power of questioning as a method of teaching and most of his writing is in the form of ‘dialogue’. Indeed, his dialogues do not feature Plato himself. They illustrate by example his view that the learners must learn to think for themselves through dialogue. But he was a direct and detailed, and shockingly controversial,  commentator in his utopian vision of education in The Republic, The Laws and other dialogues.

Plato’s Academy

Plato’s Academy is thought by many to have been the first University, open to both men and women. He founded The Academy in 387 B.C. a philosophical school that remained in use until A.D. 526, when it was finally closed down by emperor Justinian. Having run for 900 years it rivals any current western university for longevity. Above its door were the words Do not enter here unless you know geometry, and he did see mathematics as important training for the mind, along with the idea of proof and clear hypotheses.

3 Rs

School, he proposes, should start at six with the basic skills of reading, writing and arithmetic. A strict curriculum is recommended in early years. The educational system should also be designed to determine the abilities of individuals and training provided to apply to the strengths of their abilities. In other words, a severe form of streaming. These ideas were to be revived by the humanists during the Renaissance and shaped the Western schooling system with its focus on the 3 Rs: reading, writing and arithmetic. Mathematics, in particular, provides an education in sound reasoning towards the immaterial Forms, simply amassing knowledge was seen as wasteful. However, and this is where we should take note, he did not recommend that young minds should be introduced the mathematics and abstract reasoning too early. This simply induces rejection and rebelliousness. At this early stage one must develop character.

Censor fiction

Now here comes a recommendation that sounds shocking to modern ears: censor fiction at this age, literature and especially poetry and drama. For those who believe that education is about ‘story telling’ Plato has some salutary warnings. Fiction can cloud a child’s mind and reduce their ability to make judgments and deal with the real world. More than this, he thought that fiction could lead to self-deception, in particular acting, where learners develop a false-sense of themselves. He also thought that they may be tempted to emulate some of the immoral behaviour in such texts. Morality was, for Plato, the bedrock of the educational process and education was a structured and intense process.

Mind and body

Music and sports should then be brought into the curriculum with more serious attention paid to military training at the age of 18. The Greek ideal of body and mind is seen in an educational context with a structured approach to education across one’s entire lifetime. This idea lived on in the European tradition of education with its focus on competitive sports, the revival of the Greek ideal of the Olympics, even military cadets.. The Greek lettered fraternities in the US, the ‘classical’ education that so influenced 19^th century schooling, still so influential in Western Universities, show that this Greek tradition lives on.

Lifelong learning

We must remember that Plato doesn’t see this as education for all, merely a minority destined to rule, although The Republic analysis can be seen a an analogy for the individual mind. On the other hand, his appreciation that people learn differently over time has been taken up by those who see ‘andragogy’ as a theoretical construct. He does see the mind developing over time with age as an important factor in education. The child is not capable of sound reasoning and must be protected from harmful cultural influences but in time, at 18 and 21, higher educational goals are introduced, with philosophy at 30. It is only at the age of 50 that the educated person should be allowed to rule – the philosopher king. There is a sense of lifelong learning.

Conclusion

Plato’s lasting contribution to educational theory has pros and cons. It led to severe, selective streaming, cast doubt on the use of literature, poetry and drama and put an undue emphasis on abstract, academic knowledge at the expense of the vocational. This last point is perhaps the most pertinent, as it was based on a very abstract and metaphysical theory of knowledge (Forms). On the other hand, it led to rigour in mathematics and reason, laying the foundations for The Academy, the forerunner of the modern University. Theoretically, he mapped out a developmental educational theory that rested on the Greek ideal of mind and body but saw education as developing at different ages, an early conception of lifelong learning.

Bibliography

Plato (1955) The Republic, London: Penguin (translated by H. P. D. Lee).

Murdoch, Iris (1977) The Fire and the Sun: Why Plato banished the Artists, Oxford University Press.

Hare, R. M. (1989) Plato, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Succinct introduction. 

Plato (428-348 BC) – Man of reason... but wary of fiction!

It is through Plato that we know Socrates, but Plato is no mere mouthpiece. All western philosophy has been described as ‘footnotes to Plato’. Like Socrates, he believed in the power of questioning as a method of teaching and most of his writing is in the form of ‘dialogue’. Indeed his dialogues do not feature Plato himself, they illustrate by example his view that the learners must learn to think for themselves through dialogue. But he was a direct, detailed, and controversial commentator in his utopian vision of education in The Republic, The Laws and other dialogues.

Plato’s Academy

Plato’s Academy is thought by many to have been the first University, open to both men and women. He founded The Academy in 387 BC, a philosophical school that remained in use until AD 526, when it was finally closed down by the Emperor Justinian. Astonishingly, having run for 900 years, it rivals any current western university for longevity. Above its door were the words Do not enter here unless you know geometry, as he saw mathematics as important training for the mind, along with the idea of clear hypotheses and proofs.

3 Rs

School, he proposes, should start at six with the basic skills of reading, writing and arithmetic. A strict curriculum is recommended in the early years and the educational system should be designed to determine the abilities of individuals and training provided to apply to the strengths of their abilities. In other words, a severe form of streaming. These ideas were to be revived by the humanists during the Renaissance and shaped the Western schooling system with its focus on the 3 Rs: reading, writing and arithmetic. 

Mathematics, he thought, provides an education in sound reasoning towards the immaterial Forms, simply amassing knowledge was seen as wasteful. However, and this is where we should take note, he did not recommend that young minds should be introduced the mathematics and abstract reasoning too early. This simply induces rejection and rebelliousness. At this early stage one must develop character.

Censor fiction

Now here comes a recommendation that sounds shocking to modern ears, that we should reject the teaching and consumption of fiction at an early age; literature and especially poetry and drama. For those who believe that education is about ‘storytelling’ Plato has some salutary warnings. Fiction can cloud a child’s mind and reduce their ability to make judgments and deal with the real world. More than this, he thought that fiction could lead to self-deception, in particular acting, where learners develop a false-sense of themselves. He also thought that they may be tempted to emulate some of the immoral behaviour in such texts. Morality was, for Plato, the bedrock of the educational process and education was a structured and intense process.

In the Phaedrus, he also cautions us about being too reliant on a technology such as writing. It may have the opposite educational effect from that intended, as it creates a sense that something is learnt but actually results in forgetfulness. He wars us that writing may be the enemy of memory, as one is not recalling from one’s own mind but the written text. Interestingly this is a strong finding in recent cognitive science, where effortful learning through retrieval is recommended. 

Mind and body

Music and sports should be brought into the curriculum with more serious attention paid to military training at the age of 18. The Greek ideal of body and mind is seen in an educational context with a structured approach to education across one’s entire lifetime. Gymnasion was literally a “school for naked exercise” and they were common in Greek cities, with complex buildings, run by public officials, often linked to games and festivals. Educational activities such as lectures, philosophical discussion and the reading of literature were also held there. 

Lifelong learning

We must remember that Plato doesn’t see education for all, and certainly not slaves, merely a minority destined to rule, although The Republic can also be seen as an analogy for the individual mind. He sees the mind developing over time with age as an important factor in education. The child is not capable of sound reasoning and must be protected from harmful cultural influences but in time, at 18 and 21, higher educational goals are introduced, with philosophy at 30. It is only at the age of 50 that the educated person should be allowed to rule – as philosopher kings. 

Influence

In education, the ‘classical’ education that so influenced 19^th century schooling, still so influential in Western Universities, show that this Greek tradition lives on. Greek is still taught in many schools and the Glory that was Greece is still recognized in the philosophy, history and drama that is still studied to this day.

The word gymnasium lives on in Germany as a form of school and elsewhere as a place for physical exercise and sports. An education involving both mind and body lived on in the European tradition of education with its focus on competitive sports and the revival of the Greek ideal of the Olympics. We even have the Greek lettered fraternities in the US.

Plato’s lasting contribution to educational theory has pros and cons. It led to severe, selective streaming, cast doubt on the use of literature, poetry and drama and put an undue emphasis on abstract, academic knowledge at the expense of the vocational. This last point is perhaps the most pertinent, as it was based on a very abstract and metaphysical theory of knowledge (Forms). On the other hand, it led to rigour in mathematics and reason, laying the foundations for The Academy, the forerunner of the modern University. Theoretically, he mapped out a developmental educational theory that rested on the Greek ideal of mind and body and saw education as developing at different ages, an early conception of lifelong learning. 

Bibliography

Plato (1955) The Republic, London: Penguin (translated by H. P. D. Lee).

Plato (1955) The Laws, London: Penguin (translated by H. P. D. Lee).

Murdoch, Iris (1977) The Fire and the Sun: Why Plato banished the Artists, Oxford University Press.

Hare, R. M. (1989) Plato, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Brown, P.C., Roediger III, H.L. and McDaniel, M.A., (2014). Make it stick. Harvard University Press.

School of Athens: explains a lot about modern schooling?

If one artwork captures the roots of our Western intellectual tradition it is The School of Athens (Scuola di Atene) by Raphael. Note the title. The figures are set within a ‘school’ both the place, and metaphorically, the golden thread of a tradition that still has he influence on education today. The school is actually Roman architecture, not Greek, but is meant to echo the schools of the two central, principle figures; Plato (Academy) and Aristotle (Lyceum).

Plato and Aristotle

Plato steps forward and points to the sky (heavens), while Aristotle stands still with his hand level, palm down to the ground (real world). This represents two different philosophical traditions that were to shape, not only western philosophy but also religion and learning, both theory and practice. In their hands, Plato holds his Timaeus, Aristotle, his Ethics. This shows a divergence between the theoretical, cosmological and metaphysical concerns of Plato and the grounded, earthly and practical approach of Aristotle. They represent two schools of thought but also two approaches to schooling. This is a simplification but Plato, the rationalist is contrasted with Aristotle, the empiricist. This persists today in the arts/academic versus science/vocational debate around curricula and educational policy.

(see Plato and Aristotle as learning theorists)

Socrates

Another figure, stands off to the left, dressed simply in green, a secular colour in the Renaissance, in deep dialogue with a young man, with his back to Plato and Aristotle. Although the figure behind looks across to Plato, as it is through the Platonic dialogues that we know most about this man - Socrates. He had a profound influence on the western approach to learning that is still alive today. The sceptic, whose educational approach was to deconstruct through dialogue, strip away pre-conceptions and expose ignorance. He doesn’t conform to any of the traditions around him and survives today, in the Socratic method, as someone who believes in an approach that eschews lectures for dialogue, feedback and reflection. (see Socrates as learning theorist)

Mathematics

There is in this image, another theme, related to both Plato and Aristotle, but also other figures, such as Euclid and Pythagoras. Pythagoras is the figure writing in a book in the foreground on the left, surrounded by acolytes. He represents abstract mathematics and the idea that learning is about the master transmitting immutable knowledge to their students. His parallel figure in the foreground on the right is Euclid (some say Archimedes), leaning down to demonstrate his proofs, on what looks like a slate, with callipers, where the students are in discussion, working through the proofs in their heads. Again, this contrast exists between the didactic teaching of a canon and the more learner-centric view of the learner as someone who has to learn by doing and reflection.

Other figures

Diogenes sits as a sceptic, alone, looking at no one, in front of Plato and Aristotle. He’s a check on these systematic thinkers, representing another learning thread that was by this time coming alive in the University system and certainly came from the Greeks – scepticism, and its close relative, cynicism. There’s a host of other characters, such a Zoroaster and Averroes, showing non Greek threads but the main pantheon of teachers are mostly Greek.

Artists

That an intellectual tradition is represented as a great work of art is one thing, but Raphael also injected another theme into the fresco. He represents some of the figures from known representations of busts, others, it is speculated, have the faces of famous artists, Plato (Leonardo da Vinci), Aristotle (Giuliano da Sangallo), Heraclitus (Michelangelo), Plotinus (Donatello). Raphael is thought to have included himself, as the figure at the elbow of Epicurus (on left lifting the bowl from the plinth). The sculptures behind the figures are Apollo (left), God of music and light, and Athena (right) Goddess of wisdom, again reflecting rhetorically the arts and knowledge as underlying themes in learning. Again, we have a lasting theme in education, the role of the arts.

From philosophy to theology

It may seem odd that this painting was commissioned by a Pope and is to be found in the Vatican. However, remember that this fresco is one of many frescos in this room, and adjoining rooms, that represent largely Christian and theological issues. Theology had, well before this point and for many centuries, held an iron grip on the educational process, that was to continue, and never really disappear, even in our supposedly secular age.

Technology

There’s no large-scale lecturing in this image, although nascent technology in the several books (3), scroll (1), pens and notebooks in which notes are being taken (3), compasses (1), globes (2) and what appear to be slates (2), are already being used to assist learning and teaching.

Conclusion

The main triumvirate of Greek philosophers define the strands for learning and educational theory that are alive today. The great schism between the academic and practical was set in motion and the Socratic tradition defined, but, so often ignored.

Aristotle (384-322 BC) – science, music and Golden Mean

Teacher to Alexander the Great and Plato’s pupil, Aristotle, is in some ways a more important educational theorist and philosopher than Socrates or Plato. His work has resonated down the ages, and although we have only fragments from his book On Education, we have enough secondary evidence to piece together his theories on the subject.

Empirical, scientific approach

Like Plato, founded a school, the Lyceum  but his teaching ran counter to Plato’s love of abstract reason, as he did not believe in a transcendental system of Forms, Aristotle introduced a more empirical approach to theory and learning with more emphasis on the physical sciences. Of course, much of his science is wrong, and his idea of purposefulness wrong headed, but he set us on a path towards investigation, observation and knowledge, based on experience, that would prove to be a positive legacy over the last 2000 years.

Greek ideal

As a proponent of the Greek ideal of an all-round education he recommended a balance of activities that train both mind and body, including debate, music, science and philosophy, combined with physical development and training. This ideal has had a profound influence on the West’s idea of education and schooling. Character and ethical behaviour was also important, extolled through his theory of the Golden Mean (everything in moderation). Modern schools and universities have, to a degree, this classical ideal in their core values.

Practice as well as theory

Despite his position as one of the World’s greatest philosophers, he showed great concern for practical and technical education, in addition to contemplation. He would be genuinely puzzled by our system’s emphasis on theory rather than practice. Learning by doing was a fundamental issue in his theory of learning. 'Anything we have to learn to do we learn by the actual doing of it...’ he says, echoing many a modern theorist. This is not to forget theory and theorising, only to recognise that education needs to be habitually reinforced through practice. Not that we should read too much into this, as he, like Plato, still had an essentially elitist view of education, with vocational training an activity for the lower classes.

Moral education

To be moral one must behave morally but also be informed by reason. This is interesting, as Aristotle recognised that one can teach young people to be moral without them having to understand why. He seemed to understand that altruism was built-in and that teaching by example was fine, only later do we engage in reflection on why this is so.

Music

Music education was of particular interest for Aristotle, and Plato. He saw it as an important educational technique, a builder of character and good for the soul, as well as a useful pastime. You learn how to recognise and control the different hues of emotion. To be clear, he meant learning how to play a musical instrument and sing, not just listening music.

Lifelong learning

Education was for Aristotle a fundamental activity in life, an intrinsic good and should not be seen as instrumental. ‘Better a philosopher unsatisfied, than a pig satisfied’ to quote his peer and contemporary, Plato. And this philosophical view of education is one of his main concerns. Education is not the mere transmission of knowledge, it is a preparation for participation in a fulfilled life that reflects and acts on ethical and political grounds. It is as much about rights than getting things right and should be state controlled until 21, then continue for the rest of one’s life. Yet another Greek, lifelong learner.

Conclusion

The schism between Plato and Aristotle, theory and practice, teaching and research, humanities and science, lives on in our curricula, schools and Universities. Aristotle, in the western tradition was the first to break with philosophical reasoning as the primary approach to education. However, his theories, along with those of Plato, also gave rise to scholasticism that was to send the search for knowledge and education into more than a millennium of decline. It wasn’t until the Renaissance and subsequent Enlightenment that recovery was possible. Nevertheless, Aristotle remains a towering figure and we have somehow recovered components of the Greek ideal through this Renaissance recovery to build educational systems that recognise this legacy.

Bibliography

Aristotle The Nicomachean Ethics, London: Penguin. (The most recent edition is 1976 - with an introduction by Barnes).

Aristotle The Politics (A treatise on government), London: Penguin.

Bauman, R.W. (1998) Aristotle’s Logic of Education New York Peter Lang

Barnes, J. (1982) Aristotle, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Good introduction.

Howie, G (ed) (1968 Aristotle’s on Education, London, Collier-Macmillan.

Jaeger, W. W. (1948) Aristotle, Oxford: Oxford University Press. The authoritative text.

Aristotle (384-322 BC) – Man of science & logic

Teacher to Alexander the Great and Plato’s pupil, Aristotle is in some ways a more important educational theorist and philosopher than Socrates or Plato. His work has resonated down the ages, and although we have only fragments from his book On Education, we have enough secondary evidence to piece together his theories on the subject.

Empirical, scientific approach

Like Plato, he founded a school, the Lyceum, but his teaching ran counter to Plato’s love of abstract reason, as he did not believe in a transcendental system of Forms, Aristotle introduced a more empirical approach to theory and learning with more emphasis on the physical sciences. Of course, much of his science is wrong, and his idea of purposefulness wrong-headed, but he set us on a path towards investigation, observation and knowledge, based on experience, that would prove to be his positive legacy over the last 2000 years.

Greek ideal

As a proponent of the Greek ideal of an all-round education he recommended a balance of activities that train both mind and body, including debate, music, science and philosophy, combined with physical development and training. This ideal has had a profound influence on the West’s idea of education and schooling. Character and ethical behaviour was also important, extolled through his theory of the Golden Mean (everything in moderation). Modern schools and universities have, to a degree, this classical ideal in their core values.

Practice as well as theory

Despite his position as one of the World’s greatest philosophers, he showed great concern for practical and technical education, in addition to contemplation. He would be genuinely puzzled by our system’s emphasis on theory rather than practice. Learning by doing was a fundamental issue in his theory of learning. 'Anything we have to learn to do we learn by the actual doing of it...’ he says, echoing many a modern theorist. This is not to forget theory and theorising, only to recognise that education needs to be habitually reinforced through practice. Not that we should read too much into this, as he, like Plato, still had an essentially elitist view of education, with vocational training an activity for the lower classes.

Moral education

To be moral one must behave morally but also be informed by reason. This is interesting, as Aristotle recognised that one can teach young people to be moral without them having to understand why. He understood that altruism was built-in and that teaching by example was fine, only later do we engage in reflection on why this is so. Music education was of particular interest for Aristotle. He saw it as an important educational technique, a builder of character and good for the soul, as well as a useful pastime. You learn how to recognise and control the different hues of emotion. To be clear, he meant learning how to play a musical instrument and sing, not just listening to music.

Lifelong learning

Education was for Aristotle a fundamental activity in life, an intrinsic good and should not be seen as instrumental. ‘Better a philosopher unsatisfied, than a pig satisfied’ to quote his peer and contemporary, Plato. And this philosophical view of education is one of his main concerns. Education is not the mere transmission of knowledge, it is a preparation for participation in a fulfilled life that reflects and acts on ethical and political grounds. It is as much about rights than getting things right and should be state controlled until 21, then continue for the rest of one’s life.

Logic

He was the first to study formal logic in his Prior Analytics on deductive reasoning, and another texts which together form the Organon, the ‘tool’ for argument. where he laid out types of syllogisms, or forms of logical argument. Although not complete as a system of logic, this formed the basis of formal logic for two thousand years and was to greatly influence later philosophical logic and mathematics. 

Influence

The schism between Plato and Aristotle, theory and practice, teaching and research, humanities and science, lives on in our curricula, schools and Universities. Aristotle, in the western tradition was the first to break with philosophical reasoning as the primary approach to education. He was a thorough empiricist, a scientist and logician.

As a logician he laid down the foundations for our current computational age. He was to have a huge influence on George Boole and Boolean Logic, which lies beneath much contemporary electronics, computer science, programming and artificial intelligence.

However, his theories, along with those of Plato, also gave rise to scholasticism that was to send the search for knowledge and education into more than a millennium of introspection. Nevertheless, Aristotle remains a towering figure and we have recovered components of the Greek ideal through the Renaissance (rebirth) to build educational systems that recognise this legacy.

Bibliography

Aristotle The Nicomachean Ethics, London: Penguin. 

Aristotle The Politics (A treatise on government), London: Penguin.

Bauman, R.W. (1998) Aristotle’s Logic of Education New York Peter Lang.

Barnes, J. (1982) Aristotle, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Howie, G (ed) (1968 Aristotle’s on Education, London, Collier-Macmillan

Jaeger, W. W. (1948) Aristotle, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Bloom (1930 - 1992) - Closing of the American Mind

Allan Bloom was a US philosopher and intellectual best known for his book Closing of the American Mind (1987) that defended the idea of studying the theoretical landscapes of the Great Books against the modernist tendency towards sociological studies. It was a bestseller at the time. A critic of American Higher Education, who saw the system as moving away from intellectual towards vulgar relativism and social pursuits, he saw education as a personal journey in understanding and engaging with the highest minds and thoughts, in an atmosphere of intellectual openness. Not to be confused with Harold Bloom, who also solidly defended the ‘Canon’ of great thought and literature.

Plato and Rousseau

He taught in Paris, translated Rousseau’s Emile (1978) and drew inspiration from what he called its natural companion, ‘the’ book on education, Plato’s Republic (1968), which he also translated. Education plays a central role in both books. Education of the child to adulthood is the theme of Emile and the education of citizens, warriors and rulers, the philosopher Kings, is central to the Republic. It also states that women and men should receive the same education. In Emile he saw what he had seen in Plato’s Republic, a higher calling through education.

The Closing of the American Mind

In Closing of the American Mind (1987) Bloom places blame at the feet of Nietzsche and Heidegger for producing cultural despair. Although admiring both, he thinks that the modern student body has come to resemble Nietzsche’s soulless ‘last man’. Nietzsche destroyed ideas of good and evil and replaced them with ‘values’, where reason is superficial. The descent into relativism, the lack of the higher ideals of philosophical and intellectual rigour, the decadence of modern music and the adoption of social pursuits, he sees as a form of closure of the mind. What culture needs is an open mind that can face up to these philosophers and take on the challenges they pose.

The book, as explained in the Preface, is written from the point of view of a ‘teacher’. He is a man of the Enlightenment, of reason and is loyal to the liberal education goals of teaching students to become autonomous thinkers, to discover themselves, others and the nature of the world. He sees a culture now obsessed with charisma, the language of relative values, the passions and emotions.

Universities, for Bloom, were no longer fit for purpose, that purpose being the education of open minds with the high ideal of searching for truth. What he finds is ubiquitous relativism among the young, not as a philosophical position but an indignant, moral principle that had arisen as a result of the individualism of the Enlightenment, Locke and Mill had created a path towards relativism. Into this vacuum came the emptiness of the 1960s and the degeneracy of the campus, then the emptiness of continental philosophy. Lofty intellectual goals were replaced over time by social and hedonistic activity, as well as moral and epistemological relativism. He wants society to resist interference from the left and right, to maintain a degree of separateness.

Critique

Although not calling himself a Conservative, Bloom was widely seen and attacked as being reactionary in his critique of Universities. His attachment to the Canon and Great Books, to many, seemed culturally bound and limited. The idea of a Liberal Arts education with this single minded goal is also narrowly drawn within Eurocentric cultural constraints. His elitism is also explicit.

Influence

Paglia described The Closing of the American Mind, cleverly, as the "the first shot in the culture wars" as it took sides against what Bloom saw as rather trivial interpretation of literature as ‘identity’ texts concerned with race and gender. He has received a second wave of followers, as the most recent rounds of the culture wars have erupted. In many parts it reads like a text for now rather than then, with its attack on the invasion of university life and aims by cultural relativism and political activism. The book, once again, seems relevant at a time when the University system is seen as being under threat from relativist theorists.

Bibliography

Bloom, A., 2008. Closing of the American mind. Simon and Schuster.

Bloom, A., 1978. The education of democratic man: Émile. Daedalus, pp.135-153.

Bloom, A. and Kirsch, A., 1968. The republic of Plato (Vol. 2). New York: basic books.

Socrates (469-399 BC) - method man

Socrates was one of the few teachers who actually died for his craft, executed by the Athenian authorities for supposedly corrupting the young. Most learning professionals will have heard of the ‘Socratic method’ but few will know that he never wrote a single word describing this method, fewer still will know that the method is not what it is commonly represented to be.

How many have read the Socratic dialogues? How many know what he meant by his method and how he practised his approach? Socrates, in fact, wrote absolutely nothing. It was Plato and Xenophon who record his thoughts and methods through the lens of their own beliefs. We must remember, therefore, that Socrates is in fact a mouthpiece for the views of others. In fact the two pictures painted of Socrates by these two commentators differ somewhat. In the Platonic Dialogues he is witty, playful and a great philosophical theorist, in Xenophon he is a dull moraliser.

Socratic method

That the teacher should be an intellectual midwife to people’s own thoughts is his great educational principle. His mother was indeed a midwife and he was among the first to recognise that, in terms of learning, ideas are best generated from the learner in terms of understanding and retention. Education is not a cramming in, but a drawing out.

What is less well known is the negative side of the Socratic method. He loved to pick intellectual fights and the method was not so much a gentle teasing out of ideas, more the brutal exposure of falsehoods. He was described by one of his victims as a ‘predator which numbs its victims with an electric charge before darting in for the kill’, even describing himself as a ‘gadfly, stinging the sluggish horse of Athens to life’.

He was roundly ridiculed in public drama, notably by his contemporary, Aristophanes in Clouds, where he uses the Socratic method to explore idiotic ideas using petty, hair-splitting logic. This negative side of Socrates is well described by Woodbridge in The Son of Apollo, ‘Flattery, cajolery, insinuation, innuendo, sarcasm, feigned humility, personal idiosyncrasies, browbeating, insolence, anger, changing the subject when in difficulties, faulty analogies, telling stories which make one forget what the subject of the discussion was’. His great joy was simply pulling people and ideas to pieces.

Socratic philosophy of education

Beyond the famous Socratic method, he did have a philosophy of education which included several principles:

1. Knowledge and learning as a worthwhile pursuit
2. Learning as a social activity pursued through dialogue
3. Questions lie at the heart of learning to draw out what they already know, rather than imposing pre-determined views
4. We must realise the extent of our ignorance.
5. Learning must be pursued with a ruthless intellectual honesty

In practice, these noble aims were marred by a spitefulness. He would claim that he taught nothing as he had nothing to teach, but this conceals his true desire to overcome and intellectually destroy his opponents.

His lasting influence is the useful idea, that for certain types of learning, questioning and dialogue allows the learner to generate their own ideas and conclusions, rather than be spoon-fed. This has transformed itself into the idea of discovery learning, but there have been severe doubts expressed about taking this method too far. We wouldn’t want our children to discover how to cross the road by pushing them out between parked cars!

The Socratic method, although quoted widely, is often no more than a teacher using the occasional open or inductive question. In fact, when used crudely it can frustrate learners, especially when not combined with genuine dialogue and feedback. To ask open questions about facts can be pointless and result in those awful classroom sessions where the teacher asks a question, hands shoot up and a few can answer the question. When used well, however, especially in subjects such as philosophy and for uncovering conceptual clarity in other subjects, it has lots to offer.

E-learning

In e-learning, Roger Schank has taken the method forward into designs based on questions which access indexed content, especially videos. One could also argue that search based inquiry through Google and other online resources allows the learner to apply this questioning approach to their own learning, Socratic learning without a Socratic teacher. Intelligent tutors and adaptive learning systems, like Cogbooks, truly account for where the learner has come from, where they’re going and what they need to get there. Sophisticated e-learning is allowing us to realise the potential of a scalable Socratic approach without the need for one-to-one teaching. Interestingly, it is only in the last few decades, through the use of technology-based tools that allow search, questioning and now, adaptive learning, that Socratic learning can be truly realised on scale.

Conclusion

As someone who abhorred didactic, talk and chalk teaching and learning, Socrates would be appalled at current education and training. He was not an institutional figure, practiced his teaching in the public space of the Agora and thought that experts were normally fooling themsleves by believing they had the knowledge to impart to their students. It is the unexamined life that is not worth living but not the life of certainty. .

Of course, if we were to behave like Socrates in the modern school, college, university or training room, we’d be in front of several tribunals for bullying, not sticking to the curriculum and failing to prepare students for their exams. Not to mention his pederasty. (We can perhaps put this to one side as a feature of the age!) So think again when you use the phrase ‘Socratic method’, it’s not what it seems!

Bibliography

Plato, The Collected Dialogues of Plato, E Hamilton, Princeton. (Highly recommend the Thaetetus as it is the key dialogue on the search for knowledge.)

Plato, The Last Days of Socrates, Penguin Classics (trial and condemnation)

Aristophanes The Clouds, Penguin Classics (satire of Socrates)

Ferguson J (1970) Socrates, Macmillan (excellent source book)

Woodbridge F (1929) The Son of Apollo, Boston (good commentary)

Socrates (469-399 BC) – Socratic method, man of dialogue...

Socrates was one of the few teachers who died for his craft, executed by the Athenian authorities for supposedly corrupting the youth. That in itself has earned him eternal fame. Most learning professionals will have heard of him through their acquaintance with the ‘Socratic method’ but few will know that he never wrote a single word describing this method, fewer still will know that the method is not what it is commonly represented to be.

How many have read the Socratic dialogues? How many know what he meant by his method and how he practised his approach? 

Socrates, in fact, wrote absolutely nothing. It was Plato and Xenophon who recorded his thoughts and methods through the lens of their own beliefs. We must remember, therefore, that Socrates is in fact a mouthpiece for the views of others. In fact the two pictures painted of Socrates by these two commentators differ somewhat. In the Platonic Dialogues he is witty, playful and a great philosophical theorist, in Xenophon he is a dull moraliser.

Socratic method

That the teacher should be an intellectual midwife to the student’s own thoughts is his great educational principle. His mother was indeed a midwife and he was among the first to recognise that, in terms of learning, ideas are best generated from the cognitive effort of the learner in terms of understanding, realisation and retention. Education is not a cramming in, but a drawing out.

He would claim that he taught nothing as he had nothing to teach and his lasting influence is the useful idea, that for certain types of learning, questioning and dialogue allows the learner to generate their own ideas and conclusions, rather than be spoon-fed. 

What is less well known is the negative side of the Socratic method. He loved to pick intellectual fights and the method was not so much a gentle teasing out of ideas, more the brutal exposure of falsehoods. He was also roundly ridiculed in public drama, notably by his contemporary Aristophanes in Clouds, where he uses the Socratic method to explore idiotic ideas using petty, hair-splitting logic.

Socratic philosophy of education

Beyond the famous Socratic method, he did have a philosophy of education that included several principles.

Knowledge and learning were seen by him as a valuable pursuit, with a ruthless pursuit of questioning even basic assumptions. This was achieved socially through dialogue, not by lecturing or the transfer of knowledge from teacher to learner. The aim of learning was to pursue, with a ruthless intellectual honesty, answers to difficult questions. Ultimately, and this was almost always Socrates main aim, was to get the learner to realise that they didn’t know as much as they thought they knew, the realisation of our own ignorance.

Socrates concerns himself largely with high-end, critical thought. His legacy in not so much in his method as being used by a model, by Plato, of the free and open thinker, unafraid to question the most basic suppositions. It is this spirit of inquiry, seen in Greek thought, most intensely by Socrates, that fueled education for the next two Millenia.

Influence

The Socratic method has transformed itself into the idea of discovery learning, but there have been severe doubts expressed about taking this method too far. We wouldn’t want our children to discover how to cross the road by pushing them out between parked cars! In practice, it is most often no more than a teacher using open or inductive questions. In fact, when used crudely it can frustrate learners, especially when not combined with genuine dialogue and feedback. To ask open questions about facts can be pointless and result in those awful classroom sessions where the teacher asks a question, hands shoot up and the few who already know the answers, answer the question, while the rest feel foolish. When used well, however, especially in subjects such deal with abstract thought and for uncovering conceptual clarity, it has lots to offer.

There is still a great deal of discussion and controversy around whether learning should be a process of exploration and discovery, as opposed to direct instruction. There are extremes on both sides. Discovery learning was taken up with enthusiasm in the modern age, while Universities in particular have stuck rigidly to direct instruction through lectures as their primary pedagogy. In practice, depending upon the age of the learners, type of learning and context both have their place.

Online learning

Interestingly, the Socratic approach is also often to be found in online learning. Roger Schank has taken the method forward into online designs based on questions which access indexed content, especially videos. One could also argue that search based inquiry through Google and other online resources allows the learner to apply this questioning approach to their own learning, Socratic learning without a Socratic teacher. Chatbots, which now support and deliver learning are now being used to emulate the Socratic model and deliver personalized support, tutoring and even mentoring to learners. Adaptive learning systems, truly account for where the learner has come from, where they are going and what they need to get there. Sophisticated online learning allows us to realise the potential of a scalable Socratic approach without the need for face-to-face teaching. Interestingly, it is only in the last few decades, through the use of technology-based tools that allow search, questioning and now chatbots and adaptive learning, that Socratic learning can be truly realised on scale.

As someone who abhorred didactic, talk and chalk teaching and learning, Socrates would be appalled at current education and training. He was not an institutional figure, practiced his teaching in the public space of the Agora and thought that experts were normally fooling themselves by believing they had immutable knowledge to impart to their students. The unexamined life may not be worth living but neither is a life of absolute certainty. 

Of course, if we were to behave like Socrates in the modern school, college, university or training room, we’d be in front of several tribunals for bullying, not sticking to the curriculum and failing to prepare students for their exams. Not to mention his pederasty. We can perhaps put this to one side as a feature of the age! 

Bibliography

Hamilton, E., Cairns, H. and Cooper, L., 1961. The collected dialogues of Plato. Princeton University Press.

Tarrant, H. ed., 2003. The last days of Socrates. Penguin.

Mackendrick, P., 1974. Aristophanes. Lysistrata. The Acharnians. The Clouds. Trans. AH Sommerstein.(Penguin Classics.) Harmondsworth: Penguin. 1973. Pp. 255. 40P. The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 94, pp.185-186.

Ferguson, J., 1970. Socrates: a source book.

Woodbridge, F.J.E., 1934. The Son of Apollo (Boston and New York, 1929)

Philosophy of technology - Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, Heidegger - technology is not a black box

Greek dystopia

The Greeks understood, profoundly, the philosophy of technology. In Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound, when Zeus hands Prometheus the power of metallurgy, writing and mathematics, Prometheus gifts it to man, so Zeus punishes him, with eternal torture. This warning is the first dystopian view of technology in Western culture. Mary Shelley called Frankenstein ‘A Modern Prometheus’ and Hollywood has delivered for a nearly a century on that dystopian vision. Art has largely been wary and critical of technology.

God as maker

But there is another more considered view of technology in ancient Greece. Plato articulated the philosophy of technology, seeing the world, in his Timaeus, as the work of an ‘Artisan’, in other words the universe is a created entity, a technology. Aristotle makes the brilliant observation in his Physics, that technology not only mimics nature but continues “what nature cannot bring to a finish”. They set in train an idea that the universe was made and that there was a maker, the universe as a technological creation.

The following two thousand year history of Western culture bought into the myth of the universe as a piece of created technology. Paley, who formulated the modern argument for the existence of God from design, used technological imagery, the watch, to specify and prove the existence of a designed universe and therefore a designer - we call (him) God. In Natural Theology; or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, he uses an argument from analogy to compare the workings of a watch with the observed movements of the planets in the solar system to conclude that it shows signs of design and that there must be a designer. Dawkins titled his book The Blind Watchmaker as its counterpoint. God as watchmaker, technologist, has been the dominant, popular, philosophical belief for two millennia. 

Technology, in this sense, helped generate this metaphysical deity. It is this binary separation of the subject from the object that allows us to create new realms, heaven and earth, which gets a moral patina and becomes good and evil, heaven and hell. The machinations of the pastoral heaven and fiery foundry that is hell  revealed the dystopian vision of the Greeks.

Technology is the manifestation of human conceptualization and action, as it creates objects that enhance human powers, first physical then psychological. With the first hand-held axes, we turned natural materials to our own ends. With such tools we could hunt, expand and thrive, then control the energy from felled trees to create metals and forge even more powerful tools. Tools beget tools.

Monotheism rose on the back of cultures in the fertile crescent of the Middle East, who literally lived on the fruits of their tool-aided labour. The spade, the plough and the scythe gave them time to reflect. Interestingly our first records, on that beautifully permanent piece of technology, the clay tablet, are largely the accounts of agricultural produce. The rise of writing and efficient alphabets make writing the technology of control. We are at heart accountants, holding everything to account, even our sins. The great religious books of accounts were the first global best sellers.

Technology slew God

Technology may have suggested, then created God, but in the end it slew him. With Copernicus, who drew upon technology-generated data, we found ourselves at some distance from the centre of the Universe, not even at the centre of our own little whirl of planets. Darwin then destroyed the last conceit, that we were unique and created in the eyes of a God. We were the product of the blind watchmaker, a mechanical, double-helix process, not a maker, reduced to mere accidents of genetic generation, the sons not of Gods but genetic mistakes.

Anchors lost, we were adrift, but we humans are a cunning species. We not only make things up, we make things and make things happen.

We are makers

Once God was dead, in the Nietzschean sense of a conceptual death, we were left with just technology. Radovan Richta’s theory of Technological Evolution posited three stages – tools, machines and automation. We got our solace not from being created forms but by creating forms ourselves. We became little Gods and began to create our own universe. We abandoned the fields for factories and designed machines that could do the work of many men. What we learned was scale. We scaled agricultural production through technology in the agricultural revolution, scaled factory production in the industrial revolution, scaled mass production in the consumer revolution. Then more machines to take us to far-off places – the seaside, another country, the moon. We now scale the very thing that created this technology, ourselves. We alchemists have learned to scale our own brains.

Maker destroy the Little Gods

Eventually we realized that even we, as creators, could make machines that could know and think on our behalf. God had died but now the Little Gods are dying. Gods have a habit of destroying their creators and we will return to that agricultural age, an age of an abundance of time and the death of distance. We, once more, will have to reflect on the folly of work and learn to accept that was never our fate, only an aberration. Technology now literally shapes our conception of place and space. With film, radio, TV and the web. As spiders we got entangled in our own web and it now begins to spin us.

Technology not a black box

Technology is not a ‘black box’, something separate from us. It has shaped our evolution, shaped our progress, shaped out thinking - it will shape our future. It may even be an existential threat. There is a complex dialectic between our species and technology that is far more multifaceted than the simplistic ‘it’s about people not technology’ trope one constantly hears on the subject. That dialectic has suddenly got a lot more complex with AI. As Martin Heidegger said in his famous Spiegel interview, “Only a God can save us”. What I think he meant by this was that technology has become something greater than us, something we now find difficult to even see, as its hand has become ever more invisible. It is vital that we reflect on technology, not as a ‘thing-in-itself’, separate from us, but as part of us. Now that we know there may be no maker God, no omnipotent technologist, we have to face up to our own future as makers. For that we need to turn to philosophy – Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche and Heidegger are a good start….
The postscrip is that AI may, in the end, be the way forward even in philosophy. In the same way that the brain has limits on its ability to play chess or GO, it may also have limits on the application of reason and logic. Philosophical problems themseleves may need the power of AI to find solutions to these intractable problems. AI may be the God that saves us....