Tag Archives: pedagogy

The Problem of Truth in Philosophical Dialogue

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Socrates: How wonderful, Glaucon, is the power of the “art” of disputation!

Glaucon: How, in fact?

Socrates: Because, many seem to fall into its clutches involuntarily and think they are not being eristic but are in fact dialoging, since they are unable to look at the subject under discussion by dividing form by form, but they pursue the literal words of what is said, and make use of contention, instead of dialectic, in dealing with each other (Translation mine, Republic 454a1-9). [1]

Socrates had his own sophists, in addition to the feisty youths of his circle, and the countless, helpless interlocutors he good-naturedly harassed, as partners in his dialogues, rarely as entirely competent as much as instrumental “yes” cogs in his argumentative apparatus.  Now, perhaps Socrates was not as consistent in his practice in championing the charitable principle I quoted above, yet I think there is considerable value in reflecting on the intellectual poise when engaging in argument, or really any topic of dispute, and communication of that dispute. 

The kind of disposition I have in mind serves most well in classroom or seminar settings, but it also recommends itself to any interaction between people who are merely sharing ideas.  The guide in all this, as Socrates was fond of believing, is that the people in a discussion are pursuing Truth.  Why is this important?  The post-modern or relativist would simply scoff at the idea of Truth, and even the more jaded might say that Socrates, or even philosophers in general, think they are pursuing truth when all they are doing is advocating for their very personal and socially-saturated viewpoints under the dubious guise of objectivity.  I think there are compelling and determinative refutations of this viewpoint, the most devastating being that it is self-refuting, but I want to focus on a different consequence, the idea that without the guide of objective truth we are actually prone to abuse our partners in dialogue.

If two disputants begin from the idea that there is something “out there,” which both are pursuing, each will have a conception of this, concomitant with a motivation to achieve an understanding of this thing “out there.”  The thing “out there,” as it so happens, is Truth.  Now, if one truly believes this, it is easy to see how the commitment to an objective goal, the attainment of Truth, can regulate and pacify the personal feelings and ulterior motives that would otherwise have free reign over the conduct of the disputants.  I say regulate here, not eliminate, for the latter is impossible, while the former is admirable.  This is to say that we are after something beyond, because it is greater, than ourselves, so that anything bearing on ourselves has little or nothing to do with that which we are really after.

On the other hand, if two people earnestly are convinced that they each have their own “truth,” unmoored to any independent truth or objective fact, from where will the impetus arise to treat each other with respect or kindness or to give each other’s arguments a charitable hearing?  This, I suggest is a great problem inside certain classrooms and academic settings, in that people who do not concede there is objective Truth and yet who are given to disputation are very unlikely to have patience for any view that does not result in personal advancement, of some sort, for themselves.  In the final analysis, it is difficult to understand how, lacking an adequate plumb-line for truth, one person can, when he is alone by himself, distinguish between the putative intellectual “reasons” because of which he holds a position, and his fickle preferences, which are equally explanatory.  When the arguer and the argument are one, is it any wonder that challenges to a view are taken personally?

 

REFERENCES:

[1] Ἦ γενναία, ἦν δ’ ἐγώ, ὦ Γλαύκων, ἡ δύναμις τῆς ἀντιλο-
γικῆς τέχνης.

Τί δή;

Ὅτι, εἶπον, δοκοῦσί μοι εἰς αὐτὴν καὶ ἄκοντες πολλοὶ
ἐμπίπτειν καὶ οἴεσθαι οὐκ ἐρίζειν ἀλλὰ διαλέγεσθαι, διὰ (5)
τὸ μὴ δύνασθαι κατ’ εἴδη διαιρούμενοι τὸ λεγόμενον ἐπι-
σκοπεῖν, ἀλλὰ κατ’ αὐτὸ τὸ ὄνομα διώκειν τοῦ λεχθέντος
τὴν ἐναντίωσιν, ἔριδι, οὐ διαλέκτῳ πρὸς ἀλλήλους χρώ-
μενοι.

Philosophical Humility, or, Admitting I Don’t Know What I Don’t Know

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I have seen many a conscientious reader of Plato smirk when considering Socrates’ plea that he knows one thing, he knows nothing.  We are in on the joke, I think many people believe; Socrates is much more clever than I and certainly more enlightened than the characters, in comparison real rubes, he systematically dismantles in the dialogues.  Socrates, under the hallowed authority of this confession, is a figure to whom we give lip service as the fount of all western education: be humble, accept your limitations, pursue the truth, and recognize that learning is never complete.

Nevertheless, Socrates is critical not only of a lack of knowledge, but also that erroneous “knowledge,” the misinformation, to which he also unwittingly adheres.  In the Gorgias, he goes so far as to say this.

I therefore, would cross-question you with pleasure, if you are the kind of person I am. But if not, I would let it be. Of what kind am I? Of those who are pleased to be refuted if I say something untrue, and with pleasure I would refute if someone said something untrue, and in fact I am not less pleased being refuted than refuting. For I think it is a greater good to be refuted, by as much greater it is a good to rid oneself of a great evil than to rid someone else of it. For I do not think that a thing could be such an evil for a man, as much as having a false opinion concerning the things about which our discussion is about (Gorgias 458a1-b1). [1]

Far from being shameful, Socrates thinks it is a actually a good to be refuted rather than a harm, and he prefers this to refuting someone else!

In light of this Socratic admission, I have thought how it applies to students who are hesitant to admit, in a classroom setting, and in one way or another, that they do not know.  However insofar as this is a legitimate fear, I assume that students have done their due diligence in homework, readings and independent thought on the subject. If they have not completed all of these preparatives, then these students are not candidates for Socratic humility, admitting they know what they do not know, but are simply poor students.

Thus I take it as a given, that if one is a prepared student, it is a philosophical good to admit what and when one does not know, for this is THE propaedeuctic.  Of course, these are also applicable to discussions of ancient philosophy in non-academic settings, and may even be useful generally when there are group intellectual discussions.

Fear of Appearing Stupid

I am sure we can all relate to this.  We are hesitant to speak up in class because we think our comment too obvious, or our question too stupid.  I have found that personally, as a participant and as a teacher, that an attitude of patient charity towards every single comment and question leads to more confidence in the questioner and more frankness in the answer.  Yet I am not a proponent of the idea that there are no stupid questions.  Rather, I think whether a question is stupid or not, the questioner should be a position in which he is encouraged to ask the stupid question, and not feel intellectual pain over it, while still being lead toward more intelligent questions.

Fear of Academic Worth

Another obstacle to Socratic humility is fear of having one’s academic worth undermined if one does not know the answer to a question or asks for clarification on background information owing to lack of knowledge.  As jockeying for the glory of the admiration of one’s peers is always in play in a classroom, I think, then acknowledging one’s ignorance in even minor issues often is an obstacle to learning and academic growth.

Fear of Preparedness

This I think is the most difficult of the fears.  For I think that if a student actually is prepared, but is hesitant to speak up in such a way because it might imply she is not prepared, this too is an obstacle to Socratic humility and to learning.  One way for a student to overcome this fear, is to couch his confession of ignorance (on whatever item of knowledge it is) in the context of expressing knowledge which is illustrative of the fact that the student does not some things, just not all, on this subject.

In conclusion, I think it is apparent that these are not only fears of the individual, but also expectations that the group can, in the snide inner voice we like to imagine we do not have, impose on an individual.  “Oh, you don’t know X about Y on Z, then you must not be very bright.”  “You need clarification on this, are you serious!”

 

 

 

REFERENCES:

[1] (a.) ἐγὼ οὖν, εἰ μὲν καὶ σὺ εἶ τῶν ἀνθρώπων ὧνπερ καὶ ἐγώ,
ἡδέως ἄν σε διερωτῴην· εἰ δὲ μή, ἐῴην ἄν. ἐγὼ δὲ τίνων
εἰμί; τῶν ἡδέως μὲν ἂν ἐλεγχθέντων εἴ τι μὴ ἀληθὲς
λέγω, ἡδέως δ’ ἂν ἐλεγξάντων εἴ τίς τι μὴ ἀληθὲς λέγοι,
οὐκ ἀηδέστερον μεντἂν ἐλεγχθέντων ἢ ἐλεγξάντων· μεῖζον (5)
γὰρ αὐτὸ ἀγαθὸν ἡγοῦμαι, ὅσῳπερ μεῖζον ἀγαθόν ἐστιν
αὐτὸν ἀπαλλαγῆναι κακοῦ τοῦ μεγίστου ἢ ἄλλον ἀπαλλάξαι.
οὐδὲν γὰρ οἶμαι τοσοῦτον κακὸν εἶναι ἀνθρώπῳ, ὅσον δόξα
(b.) ψευδὴς περὶ ὧν τυγχάνει νῦν ἡμῖν ὁ λόγος ὤν.

Some Impediments to Ancient Philosophy in the Classroom

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The talk continues on why philosophy does not appeal to more, the need for public outreach on behalf of philosophy, and there is everywhere in the profession a hue and cry about the state of academic philosophy.  That academic philosophers should have a concern is entirely understandable, for laying aside complaints of self-interest on their part, most people, if they ever get the opportunity, will only seriously engage philosophy in the college classroom.

Yet, in order to fully understand the scope of this problem, we will need to first ascertain the desired solution to our predicament.  Do we want more enrollment in philosophy courses?  Do we want people to incorporate philosophical thinking into their daily lives?  Do we want philosophy departments to have more influence and sway within universities? Do we want more philosophers with prominent public roles?  In the end, I am not sure what the goal of attempting to broaden the reach of philosophy consists in.

However, as part of my answer, I will take it as uncontroversial that if I am to constrain this concern to ancient philosophy, most encounters with ancient philosophy for the average person are limited to university classrooms.  Thus, I am prompted to answer the practical question: what hinders more students from studying and pursuing ancient philosophy in the classroom?

Without a doubt, some of these impediments will undoubtedly apply to philosophy classrooms in general, or even the university setting at large.

Obscurity is always a problem in philosophy.  And in ancient philosophy we have a difficulty probably seen in other philosophical divisions as well: The articles and books written on the subject are not, usually, the central or main ideas of a particular ancient book or author.  Now I mention this not as a complaint; after all, we have millennia of scholarship on the “big ideas” of ancient philosophy, and tenure and philosophical fortunes must be made on new ideas, not the well-trodden.  Nevertheless, what attracts students to say, The Republic, are probably concerns and interests reflective of the scope of the whole work rather than Platonic esoterica relating the Republic to the Parmenides or Sophist, or parsing the minutiae of a Platonic argument spanning scarcely three Stephanus lines.  What this minimally requires of the professor, I think, is an acknowledgement that the intellectual concerns of the student of ancient philosophy might not align with his or her research interests, as reflected in assignments and readings.  Yet, if this is not acknowledged, and I think it often is not, then a student’s further pursuit of ancient philosophy is liable to wane.

A second area of obscurity (since obscurity, as a condition of its existence, likes to dabble) is not obscurity in the subject, but in the methods of discourse.  Some of these are within the control of the professor, some not.  I have often reflected how the self-worth of many academics is anchored to knowledge of their speciality.  It then seems that in order to retain this specialized knowledge, and its requisite self-worth, the professor hesitates to disseminate this knowledge, as this might take away that share of philosophical arcana that has, to this point, been specially entrusted to reside in himself.  Of course, there are also socially accepted forms of discourse that, acceptable and even illuminating as they are among specialists, do little to advance the clarity or joy of ancient philosophy in the classroom.  I think it is often forgotten that Socrates was accosting people in the street and speaking with the everyman in the marketplace, and that Aristotle, even though perhaps exclusively interacting with upper-class youths, was engaging men who would be influential and industrial citizens, not necessarily philosophers.

As a final observation on this last point, I would also like to mention how difficult it is to initiate dialectic and dialogue in today’s classroom.  As anyone who has spent time in groups knows, the dynamics of going from around 12-15 people to more, has a limiting impact on the participation and atmosphere of the students and the teacher.  This has been worsened, in my experience, by classes spiraling as large as 75 (at UCSD, under the popular Monte Johnson), when a few years before a similar class was capped in the 30s.  If ancient philosophy is supposed to reflect either generally or occasionally the practice of Socrates with the average Athenian, then I think we can do more to reflect this in our classrooms.