Education versus Training

[Philosophy Now]

City, Liverpool John Moore, Swansea, Northampton ... once again university philosophy departments across Britain are closing or under threat. Peter Rickman makes the case for universities that educate as well as train.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/47/Education_versus_Training

[Nick_A]

The content of philosophy is directed towards the meaning and value we give to things and ultimately to life itself. It points us to a unity towards which our various ideas, aspirations and bits of knowledge converge. It is a natural aspiration of the human mind not to leave the various spheres of life, our various ideas, in watertight compartments, but to achieve consistency in our thinking and doing. We betray our humanity if we are content to be honest in business but cheat on our wives. Philosophy provides the intellectual journey towards such a goal.

The idea of philosophy as an essential feature of education, not least of university education, is supported by history and tradition. Not only was the first European university founded by the philosopher Plato but its programme culminated in the study of philosophy. Philosophy continued to be a central feature in mediaeval universities and remained prominent into modern times. To justify the central role of philosophy in education we have to recall and defend the idea of education as a shaping of personality and the development of its potentials. Educational establishments are rightly and necessarily engaged in training, but it is not enough to pour information into receptive minds to meet the ideals of education. Of course we need skills and information but we also need – and this is of paramount importance – human beings who have learned to think, make judgments, appreciate the beautiful and the good. We need not only experts in choosing means, but people educated to decide on their goals. So to replace education by training is to threaten the human future.

The dominance of secular intolerance in education assures that moral values will be dictated by the state rather than having a conscious source as an objective origin. Plato's ideas for a meaningful education assumes the necessity for the GOOD from which Man becomes able to inwardly experience the value of justice as a virtue.

https://epublications.marquette.edu/dis ... AI9517932/

Plato regards education as a means to achieve justice, both individual justice and social justice. According to Plato, individual justice can be obtained when each individual develops his or her ability to the fullest. In this sense, justice means excellence. For the Greeks and Plato, excellence is virtue. According to Socrates, virtue is knowledge. Thus, knowledge is required to be just. From this Plato concludes that virtue can be obtained through three stages of development of knowledge: knowledge of one's own job, self-knowledge, and knowledge of the Idea of the Good. According to Plato, social justice can be achieved when all social classes in a society, workers, warriors, and rulers are in a harmonious relationship............................

Plato believed virtue can be obtained through three stages of development of knowledge: knowledge of one's own job, self-knowledge, and knowledge of the Idea of the Good. Modern secular society is only concerned with the first or job training along with political indoctrination. Secular society has no concept of what self knowledge is and of course Man's relation to the GOOD is rejected in favor of the Great Beast or society itself replacing the Good. Can such modern philosophy lead to anything other than tyranny and eventual self destruction? I don't see how any other result is possible.

[A_Seagull]

The content of philosophy is directed towards the meaning and value we give to things and ultimately to life itself.

Without a rigorous method for determining such values all one has is opinion and propaganda, and rather dull opinions and propaganda at that.

And that is the failure of much of philosophy at universities, it really has no idea what it is trying to achieve.

[Impenitent]

how to argue...

the obvious primer for the legal profession...

Shakespeare had more in common with Socrates than may be initially noticed

-Imp

[Nick_A]

how to argue...

the obvious primer for the legal profession...

Shakespeare had more in common with Socrates than may be initially noticed

-Imp

Socrates: "By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher."


A philosopher cannot learn to argue in universities. Learning to argue properly and do justice to philosophy requires the proper wife gifted in the ways of provoking arguments.

[Impenitent]

Socrates: "Bottoms Up!"

-Imp