Socrates

Should you think about your duty, or about the consequences of your actions? Or should you concentrate on becoming a good person?

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Eodnhoj7
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Re: Socrates

Post by Eodnhoj7 »

EchoesOfTheHorizon wrote: Fri Nov 10, 2017 8:28 am Late elementary school is a good time for rhetoric. When the kids learn how to argue and make fun of each other, start fighting. That's when you know they are ready, as debate is largely a extension of these behaviors.
The truest statement here. At that age a child should learn to be able to fight with his body and mind.
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Re: Socrates

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tbieter wrote: Sun Dec 18, 2016 8:31 pmInstead of an ad hominem attack on me, why not address the arguments in my letter.
Okay.

"But beyond knowledge, education was a process whereby virtue or the ability to lead a good life was acquired. And to cap it all, Socrates was in no doubt that education, by making one virtuous, was the surest road to happiness. He was the first seer we know of who pondered deeply on what makes humans happy and how such a blessing can be acquired. pp. 7-8 "

This "virtuous"-ness and "good life" is a question of debate to this day. To talk about Socrates, the important issue is to see the importance of how important it is to SEEK to live well and in a virtuous way. But you can't spoon-feed a recipe for that. That is exactly what Socrates did, (or Plato), and that is not ANY different from forcing Christianity or Marxism-Leninism or Muslism, or Trotskyism, or Buddhism down the throat of fifteen-year-olds.

And many Metiss and other North American First Nations and Aboriginal peoples will fight your adamant vehemence on the importance of Westernized education. In fact, the Government of Canada is squeezed by all kinds of interest groups, by moral and ethical vises, to compensate Indian boys (now adults) for being tortured, raped, and otherwise mishandled when they were torn out of their ancestral ways of living in Canada and forced into schools many miles away from their families to meet the provincial standards of "equal schooling for all".

Socrates / Plato can be used as a jumping board, but not a be-all and end-all in and by itself.

That is my criticism on the spirit or content of your letter.
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Re: Socrates

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""But beyond knowledge, education was a process whereby virtue or the ability to lead a good life was acquired. And to cap it all, Socrates was in no doubt that education, by making one virtuous, was the surest road to happiness. He was the first seer we know of who pondered deeply on what makes humans happy and how such a blessing can be acquired. pp. 7-8 ""

In the times of Socrates / Plato, the education included how to secure, keep, and control slaves. This skill/ know-how was ESSENTIAL to one's own ability to live a good life and a life of virtue.

Are you sure you want to teach this to kids?
Charm
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Re: Socrates

Post by Charm »

tbieter wrote: Sat Dec 17, 2016 7:10 pm This letter will accompany the book that I'm mailing to my grandson's school.
December 17, 2016

Margaret McCarney
Nova Classical Academy
1455 Victoria Way
St. Paul, MN 55102

RE: Socrates - A Man for Our Times, by Paul Johnson

Dear Dr. McCarney:

I’m interested in Nova because my grandson, Geno Bieter, is in the fourth grade there.

I enclose and donate a copy of Socrates, a wonderful book that nicely supplements the Socratic writings that the students read in the ninth grade. I believe that reading historical, biographical, and autobiographical writings about great men and women is an essential part of a humane education. Consistent with the Nova educational philosophy, Johnson writes:

But beyond knowledge, education was a process whereby virtue or the ability to lead a good life was acquired. And to cap it all, Socrates was in no doubt that education, by making one virtuous, was the surest road to happiness. He was the first seer we know of who pondered deeply on what makes humans happy and how such a blessing can be acquired. pp. 7-8

Finally, I recommend that at the beginning of the academic year each member of the ninth grade class should be given a copy of Socrates to read and to keep in his or her personal library, which should be a life-time accumulation of books of enduring value.

I will be interested in any comments that you may have.

Sincerely,

Thomas J. Bieter
https://www.amazon.com/Socrates-Man-Tim ... nson+books
Children really do need to learn philosophy at an early age in order to teach them how to think rather than what to think as so often happens. In this case, What Socrates said, that: Knowledge is Virtue is certainly true.. As important as thought and reasoning is to the proper expression of morality, people should understand that morality is unreasonable, and is based upon the bonds formed before reason takes hold of ones life.. People who are truly moral might rush into a burning building to save a child, but this results from an irrational emotional attachment.. Reason would see such risk of life as without benefit.. All reason is predicated on more life, and upon the desire for more life..Reason is inevitably tied to the life of that one who reasons.. People die as an expression of their morality all of the time, but no one can reason themselves to death.. Morality considers more the life of the nation, and of society.. I think the ninth grade is far to late to begin teaching philosophy..

Children are capable of reasoning when they understand identity, or conservation as it is often called.. Socrates did offer a theory of forms, but it was mostly metaphysical hogwash.. Children should be taught that there are moral forms, what some call transcendent concepts, and there are physical forms which can be defined because they are definitive.. A line, for example can be defined, or a square, or a triangle; but these do not directly affect our happiness... People fight, die, war, and make peace based upon moral forms, and the fact that these infinite qualities cannot be defined makes conflict around them even more natural.. It is easy to agree with Kant that knowledge is judgement.. This is true of knowledge of the physical world, and knowledge of the spiritual/moral world.. Every question in life can be considered as a moral question, and knowledge makes possible the best judgement under every circumstance..
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