The goal of learning is to grasp how the cosmos operates and to exercise sound judgement within it. Because every system finds its home in the universe at large, all learning is ultimately cosmological. In this teleological regard, erudition concerning logic, science, metaphysics, and mathematics is no different from facility in rhetoric or poetry. One fruit of students’ erudition is epistemic independence from teachers’ conclusions and methods together with the modesty to accept correction when the facts demand such prudence. More than perhaps any contemporary authors, Plato, Aristotle, and Augustine can elucidate the manner in which these assertions may be defended.
Permit us to distinguish the occasion for learning from the ends which may come to be discerned through its attainment. An institution assumes an implicit obligation when it accepts a pupil’s coin and labor. The promised instruction should be competent, and the requirements should be rationally measured in the balance of pedagogical quality versus necessary expense. Covenant and law demand thus, and the decency and honor of faculty should conspire to the same effect. Faculty and students alike must eschew the idolatry of intellectual prejudices; they must, at length, toil to let themselves not be pedants of platitudes. The least sure foundation for practical reason is the vain temple of false certainty; for it is so bridled in the trappings of ego that the folly of self-adulation is sure to destroy it.
Plato directs our attention towards this enquiry in the seventh book of the Republic, where παιδεία (pie-DAY-uh, education) entails a reorientation, or περιαγωγή (peh-ree-ah-goh-GAY, turning around), of the learner’s existing capacity for knowing about affairs or sciences and their attendant customs of mental conduct. Intelligence alone can serve a reprehensible end with a frightful vigor, and alone affords scant proof of the moral fitness of the purpose to which it renders service. Teaching well is to fasten reason to the service of virtue.
To postulate a science of some state of affairs without reference to virtues is insufficient for the adumbration of the science’s proper excellence. Plato’s account of sciences aptly aims towards students’ apprehension of τὸ ἀγαθόν (toh ah-gah-THON, the Good), upon which sound judgement in private and public affairs ultimately depends. The central Platonic concern encompasses what an educated person has learned to regard as meriting allegiance, rigorous defense, and fidelity to facts in the place of dogmas, mere inculcated customs, or idols of the tribe.
Education must begin with ends in mind, then built backwards to fit the ends it should serve. The first book of the Nicomachean Ethics, εὐδαιμονία (yoo-dye-moh-NEE-uh, happiness or flourishing) supplies the ultimate end, understood through ἐνέργεια κατ’ ἀρετήν (eh-NER-gay-uh kaht ah-reh-TAYN, activity in accordance with virtue) across a complete life. Education must eventually answer to the twin questions of what a good life is and how it should be practically lived.
In Book II of Ethics, Aristotle explains moral virtue through ἔθος (EH-thoss, habit), observing that recurrent actions contribute to ἕξεις (HEK-sayce, settled dispositions), from which subsequent actions proceed. Applied to college teaching, this suggests an enquiry into what our assignments habitually require students to practise. For instance, a course that professes respect for evidence should provide occasions for locating it, appraising its adequacy, and revising a conclusion when it proves deficient. The extent to which every course ought to be concerned about respect for evidence is a topic for future discussions in this series.
A teacher can demonstrate how evidence-weighing enters relations of social responsibility without presuming that a soliloquy on responsibility will engender the requisite disposition. The student needs practice in circumstances where the reasons for taking such care become intelligible in lived experiences. For a pupil to contend under the banner of virtue is as indispensable for their learning as the proper exercise of syllogism.
Consider a student who is apt to formulate persuasive arguments from among opposing positions, and that they can defend any assumed position with facility. If they contend solely according to some advantage anticipated from acceptance or tacit advantage, we should want to discern whether our instruction has only fashioned sharp swords for brigands fixed upon conquest and subjugation.
The teacher must praise virtue and rigor whilst denigrating vice, chicanery, or torpidity in the conduct of discourse. In Book I of the Confessions, Augustine recalls in the culture of the Manichees an acute sensitivity to infelicities of expression, in which hostility towards another person could incur less censure than a mere lapse in pronunciation. The accomplished rhetorician learns what elicits admiration, pursuing eloquentiae famam (a reputation for eloquence), whilst the moral quality of the intention expressed can evade comparable scrutiny. What does a student learn to desire through the rewards and censures teachers confer? An institution may proclaim intellectual honesty among its bedrock commitments whilst tacitly making material success more advantageous than the candid acknowledgement of prior or present error. To adroitly bear facts and arguments is no proof of erudition in the absence of virtue.
To be erudite is to argue with eloquence and exactness for what is manifestly true and excellent. In Book III of Confessions, Augustine’s reading of Cicero’s Hortensius awakens an aspiration towards sapientia (wisdom) that alters his relation to the arts of eloquence to which he had so sedulously applied his talents. The book affects what he seeks from learning, a gradual realization expressed in mutavit affectum meum (it changed my disposition [toward learning of the true]). He interprets this awakening within his movement towards Omnipotence, although the encounter itself occurs during studies pursued under a programme founded in methods of sophistic persuasion. To teach methods of persuasion that lead to false or vicious ends is to denigrate the pedagogical art with the most supreme coarseness.
Teachers should be able to articulate the intellectual reasons for their assignments and make those reasons available for scrutiny. Do the methods demanded serve to lead students to argue for truth and virtue with alacrity, clarity, and in the spirit of disinterested contemplation? If not, a student’s considered dissent to the methods of teaching belongs among the possible results of education. Do policies reward excellence, or do they serve for purposes of convenience? All teachers must reflect soberly on such matters, and avoid affront if their pedagogy is earnestly questioned. The most efficacious courses are rarely the most stressful.
Learning need not be distressing or grossly stressful, as a bit of etymology relates. In Book VIII of the Politics, Aristotle also considers education for the use of σχολή (skoh-LAY, leisure), allowing intellectual activity a value inherent in its exercise among reflective peers. Debate and reflection in themselves are forms of diversion in the absence of exams, quizzes, discussion boards, and Grammarly plagiarism checks.
What forms of attention become possible when a person has acquired sufficient understanding to discern interest in something previously obscure? To speak frankly with peers regarding academic topics is of as great a value as performance on exams. Leisure is indeed most therapeutic to those least eligible for it. The student whose circumstances render employment urgent should have an opportunity to discover such satisfactions within the studies already being undertaken, since additional time for their cultivation may be difficult to secure.
References
[1] Plato. Republic, Book VII, 518b to 519a. Greek text. English translation by Benjamin Jowett.
[2] Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics, Book I, chapter 7, 1097a to 1098a. Greek text. English translation by W. D. Ross.
[3] Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics, Book II, chapter 1, 1103a to 1103b. Greek text. English translation by W. D. Ross.
[4] Aristotle. Politics, Book VIII, chapters 2 and 3, 1337a to 1338b. Greek text. English translation by Benjamin Jowett.
[5] Augustine. Confessions, Book I, chapter 18, sections 28 and 29. Latin text, edited by James J. O’Donnell. English translation.
[6] Augustine. Confessions, Book III, chapter 4, sections 7 and 8. Latin text, edited by James J. O’Donnell. English translation.
Pronunciation key. The Greek guides are approximate English classroom pronunciations. Capitals indicate the accented syllable. “Th” is pronounced as in “thin”, and “sayce” rhymes with “face”.
