Dr.
Peter Redpath
Chairman |
PHILOSOPHY
& EDUCATION
by
Dr. Peter Redpath & Patrick S.J. Carmack |
Patrick
S.J. Carmack, Esq.
President
|
We
have been asked, many times, what our philosophy of
education is in the Great Books Program, and even
extended back to the earliest years of education.
So on a plane flight back from Poland, where they
were asked to give talks on this very subject recently,
Peter and Pat drafted the following brief article,
in response. It contains 13 notes or points, beginning
from wonder and ending in wonder. Some of the terms
may be unfamiliar to the reader, but hang in there
through all 13 points and the sense of it will become
clear. Keep in mind – philosophy is not a closed
system of thought – rather it is an activity,
initiated by wonder – gazing at the distant
stars or a beautiful sunset.
1.) Philosophy is a natural human activity that first
arises in people through the habit of sense wonder.
2.) As the act of a natural human habit born of sense
wonder, philosophy is further engendered in us through
acculturation; not through birth, doubt, faith, dreams,
or supernatural acts.
3.) The first principles of philosophy are those proximate
sources from which philosophical acts originate, for
all people, everywhere, for all time, including:
a.) created beings endowed with natural, finite,
intellectual and sense faculties;
b.) the habits of these natural human faculties;
c.) material beings, existing independently of our
minds, that initially and essentially activate these
faculties;
d.) conflicting communications from our senses and
intellect that cause us to wonder and generate in
us a desire to put wonder to rest through scientific
investigation that aims to achieve demonstrative
knowledge through a knowledge of first causes.
4.) Strictly speaking, as a habit of investigation
seeking knowledge of first causes in
every area of investigation (such as physics, mathematics,
ethics, politics), philosophy aims at:
a.) producing wisdom—a knowledge of the answers
to the most difficult and profound questions, the
most precise and complete understanding of first
principles and causes, within a discipline of learning;
b.) achieving its highest form of knowledge by terminating
its actions in the establishment of a science of
first principles, a science that studies and seeks
precisely to identify the nature and origin of all
the first principles used by any science, art, or
form of knowledge in the study of their respective
subjects;
c.) knowing the whole truth about everything as
far as this is possible according to the limited
abilities of natural reason.
5.) Philosophy seeks to achieve its natural perfection
by terminating in establishing a science of first
principles—metaphysics, because as the perfection
of the highest of natural, intellectual, human acts,
like all human acts, philosophy exists to help us
become as wise as possible, in order to help us achieve
happiness to the most perfect degree. We cannot become
as wise as possible, however, unless we know, to the
maximum extent humanly possible, the whole truth about
everything, including about ourselves and the causes
at work in the universe we inhabit.
6.) Because philosophy chiefly exists to help us understand,
to the maximum extent humanly possible, all first
principles, especially the most universal, the highest
truth about everything, philosophy must:
a.) consider whether a highest First Principle and
Cause of everything (God) exists; and
b.) be receptive to taking direction from a higher
wisdom, if philosophical reason, beyond reasonable
doubt, concludes that God exists.
7.) The chief aim of human education is education
for happiness—not education for a
job. The means to such education is primarily conversation
with great and wise persons, who have already advanced
far along the paths of knowledge to wisdom.
8.) Because persons of great wisdom are rare and generally
unavailable to us, we enter into conversation with
them through their great books, which record their
thought. In so doing, we soon discover how all the
authors of great books used this same method of study
themselves—conversing with or reading the great
books of the wise before them as their starting points.
9.) Through the internal dialectical process—dialogue—found
in these great books, often referred to as the “Great
Conversation,” we may closely follow the development
of the investigations conducted by these sages into
the great ideas they have pondered and about which
they have written. This manner of study is the normative
approach to wisdom in the West.
10.) This manner of study is greatly facilitated by
the reader engaging in a dialectic with other readers
of the same books, probing and discussing these great
ideas, and hopefully, carrying them even farther.
This method of study is often referred to as the Socratic
method of mutual inquiry and discussion, after the
philosopher Socrates, who initiated its use as a deliberate
method to obtain knowledge, in ancient Athens.
11.) Because the reading of the great books is sometimes
difficult, young readers need to be prepared for them
in a graduated process of habituation in reading books
similarly rich in cultural material and thought, but
written for their lesser intellects—the classics
for children and young adults.
12.) Other education in the early years is geared
primarily to prepare students for such studies, which
requires mastery of grammar, phonics, reading, spelling,
vocabulary, listening, speaking, writing, and, for
the mathematical works: arithmetic, geometry, and
so on.
13.) To prepare for such grammar school studies students
need the raw material of sense experiences: walking,
swimming, running, riding, hugging puppies and babies,
looking at butterflies, frogs, the sun and stars.
These pre-intellectual studies happen naturally, if
children are left to it, until about age seven, augmented
by some simple, elementary studies (such as learning
the alphabet and to read simple books), that leave
them plenty of time free to play, to look, and to
wonder. Thus, again, wisdom begins in wonder.
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