Greek literature prior to Plato featured two conceptions of education. Learning takes place when people encounter “teacher-guides”—educators, mentors, and advisors. But education also occurs outside of a pedagogical relationship between learner and teacher-guide: people learn through painful experience. In composing his dramatic dialogues, Plato appropriated these two conceptions of education, refashioning and fusing them to present a new philosophical conception of learning: Plato’s Socrates is a teacher-guide who causes his interlocutors to learn through suffering. Socrates, however, is not presented straightforwardly (...) as a pedagogical success story. Socrates’ failures are, paradoxically, part of what makes him an ideal literary model for a philosophical teacher-guide. Plato requires his readers to question why Socrates’ interlocutors are not converted to philosophers. (shrink)

This paper explores the relation between love, learning and knowledge as found in three dialogues of Plato, Symposium, Phaedrus and Republic. It argues that the account of the ascent from carnal desire to the love of beauty, as set out in the Symposium, is best seen in terms of a genealogy of love in which the object of love is transformed into an object of knowledge. The Phaedrus shows us how affection and love between two individuals can help motivate a (...) love of learning. The Republic demonstrates the value of knowledge through the distinction between knowledge and opinion. A love of learning is, therefore, driven by that which is genuinely valuable and worthy of love. Plato helps us today in two respects: first, he reminds us that learning can have an affective quality. Second, he reminds that the value of learning is related to the knowledge and insight it yields. (shrink)

Philosophy’s essence depicted by Socrates lies in its role as pedagogy for living, yet its traditional treatment of ‘body’ as a hindrance to ‘knowledge’ in fact severs it from life, transforming it into ‘an escape from life’.The philosophy/life dichotomy is thus an inherent flaw preventing philosophy as traditionally taught and engaged in, from fulfilling its original goal. Recent rejections of the Cartesian nature of Western curriculum, such as O’Loughlin’s ‘Embodiment and Education: Exploring creatural existence’, constitute an important theoretical paradigm shift, (...) yet still fail to translate to substantial pedagogies which explore the ‘body’ and its relation to ‘mind’ directly. This article suggests a reorientation of philosophy teaching from its present disembodied pedagogy, towards an embodied-lived-philosophicalpractice. By the description and exemplification of modern postural yoga I will depict the twofold role of the ‘body’ in philosophy teaching: 1) The ‘body’ as pedagogical vehicle serving the emergence of philosophical discourse, and 2) The body as yielding livingness to mean embodied-lived-philosophy as opposed to disembodied-lofty-philosophical escape from life. It will thus be suggested that yoga be incorporated as an integral part of philosophy teaching reclaiming its educational ethos. (shrink)

I argue against a formidable interpretation of Plato’s Divided Line image according to which dianoetic correctly applies the same method as dialectic. The difference between the dianoetic and dialectic sections of the Line is not methodological, but ontological. I maintain that while this interpretation correctly identifies the mathematical method with dialectic, ( i.e. , the method of philosophy), it incorrectly identifies the mathematical method with dianoetic. Rather, Plato takes dianoetic to be a misapplication of the mathematical method by a subset (...) of practicing mathematicians. Thus, Plato’s critique of dianoetic is a not a critique of mathematics, as such, but of mathematicians. (shrink)

This article examines the concept of dialogue in the philosophy of Emmanuel Lévinas, with a focus on the context of education. Its aim is to create a conversation between the Lévinasian theory and the theories of other philosophers, especially Martin Buber, in an effort to highlight the ethical significance that Lévinas assigns to the act of dialogue itself. As a philosopher whose essential interest was trained on the infinite ethical responsibility of the human subject, Lévinas places major emphasis on the (...) ethical meaning of dialogue. On a more fundamental level, he considers the ethics that precede dialogue and enable it to exist, as well as the individual's acceptance of responsibility during dialogue stemming from his recognition of the alterity of the Other. (shrink)

This paper analyzes how the figure of the childhas been used to authorize a series ofboundaries that have constituted thelimit-points of educational theories orphilosophies. Limit-points are the conceptualboundaries that educational theories produce,move within, respond to, and make use ofbecause the perception is that they cannot beargued away or around at the time. A method ofcomparative historico-philosophy is used tocontrast limit-points in Platonic figurationsof the child and education with childcenteredand eugenic theories of the late nineteenth andtwentieth century West. The figuration of (...) thechild in both periods is imbricated in formingboundaries around a power-motion-reason nexusand in delineating what necessity and justicemean. The meaning-space that the child canoccupy in relation to such concepts has shiftedwith them and has been important to depictingUtopian and cosmological imaginings atdifferent historical moments and forauthorizing in turn what counts as anappropriate and/or realistic educationalphilosophy. (shrink)

What is the role of philosophy in education? This timeless question may best be answered by examining Plato's earliest dialogues in which he makes a case for philosophy as the centerpiece of education. I call this effort Plato's project for education and interpret the Apology, Crito, Charmides, Laches, Ion, Hippias Minor, Euthyphro, and Lysis as an integrated attempt to promote philosophy as education in ancient Athens. Plato accepted arete as the proper goal of education, but his interpretation of arete as (...) a distinctly moral quality required a new approach to education. Plato recognized that the quality in a doctor that makes her aim at what is good for her patient is distinct from the skill that enables her to choose the most effective treatment. Against traditional education, which emphasized social standing, professional skill, and the accumulation of information, Plato focused on the moral dimension of human beings and prescribed philosophy as a means for developing it. Memorization of information and tuition in practical skills may help us in our particular crafts, but it does little to improve us morally. This task must be undertaken separately through examination and reflection. Success will be judged not by one's peers, or even by one's government, but by the gods themselves who adhere to a universal idea of goodness. Plato's conception of arete as the health of the soul precipitates a new approach to education that focuses on philosophy and presents Socrates as its hero and martyr. Health of the soul, like health of the body, is something that requires constant labor and attention, and yet may never be perfected. In Plato's project, the ignorant Socrates and the dialogues themselves become indirect teachers by exhorting students to care for their souls and to appreciate the task. The promise that arete can be achieved through the pursuit of moral wisdom is given in the words and actions of Socrates. Like his ancient friends, the reader struggles to understand Socrates and from this struggle emerges philosophy: the love and pursuit of wisdom; the proper education for arete. (shrink)