|
|
||
 |
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
|
|
||
|
The Mortimer J. Adler Archive |
 |
|
||
|
|
||||
|
|
||
|
The only standard we have for judging all of our social, economic, and political institutions and arrangements as just or unjust, as good or bad, as better or worse, derives from our conception of the good life for man on earth, and from our conviction that, given certain external conditions, it is possible for men to make good lives for themselves by their own efforts. Mortimer J. Adler |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Many of Dr. Adler's books are available through The Radical Academy Bookstore. Books
by Mortimer J.
Adler
The Center for the Study of The Great Ideas Click Here for New & Used College Textbooks at Discount Prices Click
Here for College Education Information & Study
Resources
Bookstore
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||
|
The Foundations of the Philosophy of Education, by Mortimer J. Adler, Ph.D. (Continued)
If my principles are wrong, of course, it is quite different. But, if I am right in saying that education should assist in the betterment of men by a process which involves the formation of good habits, the perfection of their basic capacities by virtues, then, it seems to me, whatever education is can be known quite adequately at any given time, and will remain the same for all time, so long as there are men who are men. When there are no longer men, something changes; but, so long as there are men with natures and powers that can be perfected in a certain way, these are the principles of education. The proof is completely indicated, but the demonstration is far from being completed. I can show its incompleteness easily by now enumerating some of the propositions which are involved in the proof of the original major premise -- propositions which are either demonstrable and must be proved or which are self-evident but require their evident truth to be explicated. I say "some" because the enumeration is far from exhaustive; but it will do to indicate how much remains to be proved before this demonstration can be completed. (1) Corporeal substances exist; (2) Corporeal substances are constituted as compositions of matter and form; (3) Corporeal substances differ essentially or accidentally, according as they are individuals of different species (having diverse specific natures) or as they are numerically distinct individuals having the same specific nature; (4) the essential distinction of substance is an absolute distinction in kind, without intermediates; (5) the distinction between living and non-living substances is an essential distinction; (6) living substances have vital powers which are essentially distinct from all other living things; (8) the essential distinction between man and brute as species in the genus animal is that man is rational and brute is irrational; (9) only man can know intellectually and only man has free will; (10) man has all the vital powers possessed by other living things (plants and brutes), and in addition has powers not possessed by them, i.e., intellect or reason, and will; (11) the vital powers of animals can be developed by the modification of instinctive determinations, but only human power resulting from its rational and free exercise; (13) all men are of the same species, i.e., they have essentially the same nature, and differ inter se only in accidental respects, i.e., in such traits as complexion, weight, height, etc., or in the degree to which they possess characteristically human abilities, abilities common, in some degree, to all; (14) all men have the same vital powers, for the vital powers any living thing possesses are determined by its specific nature; (15) a vital power is a determinate potency and as such is a nature having a tendency toward a certain definite actualization; (16) the good is convertible with being; (17) the good of any imperfect thing (anything composite of potency and actuality, or matter and form) consists in the actualization of its potencies; (18) in the case of human powers, the actualization of potency is good only if it conforms to the natural tendency of that power to its own perfection. In conclusion, I wish to admit, in all fairness to Dr. Schilpp, that although he has not disproved my major premise, in whole or part, neither have I proved it. Here are the propositions I have not proved, all of which can be proved, but not without much more analysis:
I have not proved any of these five propositions, all of which are indispensable to my major premise; nor has Dr. Schilpp disproved any of them; nor do any scientific facts whatsoever constitute such disproof. I would like to stress that though I do not like to use syllogisms normally -- syllogisms are at the tail end of an argument, by the way; the question is whether the premises are true -- I would like you to look at these syllogisms carefully. What I did by writing these syllogisms was to show how hard it would be to prove -- really prove -- the premises, all the way back to the simplest conclusions that I have stated. You would have to do the whole of philosophy and nothing short of it. I think you would have to do more philosophy than has yet been done. I do not know how to do it. Let me, in conclusion, repeat the definition of education which I gave in the beginning, asserting then that it could be demonstrated. It was: Education is the process by which those powers (abilities, capacities) of men that are susceptible to habituation, are perfected by good habits, through means artistically contrived, and employed by any man to help another or himself achieve the end in view (i.e., good habits). In so far as this definition implies that education should be the same for all men (i.e., should aim at the same ends), its truth is proved by establishment of the proposition that the ends of education are absolute and universal. To do that, as we have seen, requires the whole of theoretic philosophy, and this is presupposed by the philosophy of education. The definition also requires us to understand what the several ends are and how they are related to one another, for it is not sufficient to know simply that they are absolute and universal. Such understanding would involve the complete analysis of the virtues, in themselves, in relation to happiness, to other goods, and to each other. At this point, the whole of ethics is presupposed. And if we examine the definition one step further we see that it calls upon us to understand the means in general, and the social organization and employment of these means, in the process of education-by-another whereby the community cares for its members. At this point, a great deal of political philosophy is presupposed. Hence by examining the definition of education, which has been central to the whole analysis, we learn two sorts of things: first, the reasons why the philosophy of education presupposes almost all of theoretical philosophy, and most of practical philosophy; and second, that a complete understanding of the definition, through demonstration of its truth and demonstrative analysis of its parts, would be equivalent to solving the first five of the seven problems which I enumerated earlier as constituting the whole of the philosophy of education. All that would remain, then, would be two problems concerning educational policy, neither of which is philosophical in the strict sense, but merely an application of philosophy to the discussion of problems which concern educational practitioners. Now let me turn, penultimately, to the contribution of empirical science to the three basic questions with which I have dealt. I would like to say, first of all, that science cannot answer any of the normative questions involved, and second, that science is principally relevant in regard to the nature of man. Then I will explain how this has become a mixed question of science and philosophy and how one must face that mixed question. In talking about the bearing of science on the three problems, the scientist, as well as the philosopher, must accept the definition of education given, or give some reason why he does not, and offer an alternative that will stand up. Since I think this cannot be done, I shall proceed within the framework of the definition, and deal with the three problems that follow from the definition, in the reverse order. I will deal first with the problem of the nature of learning; second, with the problem about the virtues; and third, with the problem about the nature of man. Insofar as learning is a rational process, involving the exercise of free will and the acts of the intellect, no empirical investigation of it is possible. A full explication of this proposition is difficult, but I am convinced that the one thing that exists in the order of nature that cannot be investigated is reason. No psychological or experimental investigation of reasoning, of the act of the intellect, can be made. Acts of the senses, observation, memory, yes; but not the mind. The rational is not capable of empirical observation. However, this rational process of learning is affected by infrarational factors such as emotion, desire, the senses, memory, and imagination. To the extent that such things as emotional or sensitive factors enter into the process, empirical inquiry can give us some additional control over the process. Here is just one example. I think psychiatry, at its best, can do a great deal in the practical order of education. I think psychoanalysis or any of the forms of psychotherapy -- to use the most neutral term -- is of great use in removing emotional impediments, and if there are impediments to learning, I would like to have them removed before I start to teach. But it is of no use positively. To illustrate, I spent a good part of my youth with this business of the art of reading. I was continually finding people who thought that the improvement of reading had something to do with eye movements. They studied illumination, length of the line, optimum space; but these are only auxiliary. Even with the most perfect optical apparatus, the rational process of reading has to be taught, for reading is a process of the mind, not of the eye. This simple example makes a point all the way down the line. Empirical psychology can remove impediments, but it only deals with external conditions. The whole of educational psychology has nothing more to contribute from the laboratory. It is useful, but the whole of its utility is limited to that. And when its utility is achieved, the real process must begin, which attacks the problem at the level of reason. Let me state the kind of proposition in the philosophy of education that derives from the basic philosophical insights of learning that have nothing to do with scientific discovery. Very briefly, a distinction is commonly made between the two kinds of learning, aided and unaided, or learning by discovery and learning by instruction. Men can learn things without teaching, thank God! If they couldn't, they would learn nothing. It is obvious, I think, that all original learning is done without a teacher. Anything learned initially must be learned by discovery; only after discovery can there be teaching. This distinction between learning by instruction and by discovery is too sharply made. It should really be between learning by aided discovery and by unaided discovery. Whether the teacher is present or not, the actual process of learning is always by discovery. The primary activity of learning is in the mind of the learner, not in that of the teacher. The teacher is auxiliary and not indispensable. The most "indispensable" teacher's usefulness is strictly a matter of helping the process along, making it a little easier, or perhaps a little less painful: That is all. The teacher is a dispensable secondary cause. In this, the teacher is like the farmer or the healer. The physician aids the body to produce health; and the soil, the sun, and the seeds produce plants, not the farmer. The farmer merely works with nature; the physician cooperates with nature; and this applies to the teacher as well. The important thing is for the teacher to work in co-operation with the natural process of learning. Such is the whole art and skill of teaching. This may explain why it is so difficult for a physician or teacher to work well except with an individual patient or pupil. Actually, no good teaching really can be done except with one teacher and one student in a room at a time, any more than good healing can be achieved by a doctor's taking fifteen pulses at once. These words are hard, but the truth should be observed. The equating of schooling and education is one of the most grievous misunderstandings in our society. I cannot use sharp enough words to rebut the notion that education takes place in school. It is a fallacy with enormous consequences. I try always to use the word schooling when I mean what happens in school, and education when I mean what happens after school. Very little that happens in school can be regarded as achieving the ends of education. What are the ends of education? The achievement of the intellectual and the moral virtues. Are these achieved in a school? Hardly ever! They could not be. Why not? Because the greatest obstacle to becoming educated is youth. The young cannot be educated. They are, we say, immature, and what we mean by "immature" indicates why we should not expect too much from a mind that is immature. Anyone should know that a young person is not wise and cannot be wise. He cannot have any great depth of understanding, or much insight or grasp of ideas in the theoretical order, or take a firm hold of the virtues in the practical, moral order. What is meant by saying that a college graduate is an educated man? The use of the term "educated man" for a B.A. is preposterous. All of us should understand what schooling is; and when we understand what schooling is, we understand that it is the first, least substantial, most preparatory phase of the total educational process, a process that has meaning only if it goes on for a lifetime. If we look at the educational process, which means slowly becoming wise, achieving real depth of understanding, we see that this is so. The moment of graduation signifies nothing, except perhaps that the graduate has the ability to make money or hold a job. I think the best colleges, or the world's best students, cannot do more (up to the level of the bachelor's degree) than just two things; and I think these achievements are constant for all schools and societies, because of the nature of man and growth and immaturity. First, a school can train the young in the liberal arts, and by liberal arts I mean the arts of learning. I do not mean that schools make people learned. No one can make people learned. They can be taught how to learn. They can be given the appliances for learning, they can be taught how to read and write and speak and listen and observe and calculate and measure. A person with these skills may be able to learn something in the course of a lifetime. Second, a school can open the doors to learning. It can open the doors to learning by giving the student a good boot out of the school and saying "Now please don't act as if you were learned. Here is the threshold, here is the panorama. Go on and do something with yourself." Any college that graduates a student with the assumption that he now knows something is criminally negligent. It must turn out a student with a deep feeling of dissatisfaction, a knowledge of how little he knows. If he doesn't get it then, we can hope that five years after he graduates he will have it. His college should at least have opened the door, given him the skills, shown him the fields of learning, given him some rudimentary, superficial acquaintance with them, and hoped that with the moral responsibility of his adult years he would do something about educating himself. The second problem with which I am concerned is that of the moral and intellectual virtues as the proximate ends of education. This being strictly a moral problem, a word will suffice. What the virtues are and how they are formed are questions to which science can contribute nothing whatsoever. Science can contribute nothing to any normative, or moral question. Finally, I come to the first problem, the nature of man. The question is whether man is rational and free and essentially distinct from brutes. The difference is of a maximum importance. I cannot think of any question, other than the existence of God, which has as far-reaching, practical, moral, political, economic, and religious consequences as the question about man to which I am now going to address myself. I say man differs, that man is the only rational animal, the only animal with free will. Some will say man differs from the other animals only in degrees of the same powers: more intelligence, more cupidity, more knowledge, more something or other. One or the other may have a little less or a little more, but the difference is only in degree. But I say that men are men, and brutes are brutes. As a consequence religion, ethics, politics, and law are only proper to man, for man alone is rational, man alone is free. I say that distinguishes him from the brute, for whom the opposite set of consequences is true. In this situation there is only one thing left for me to do. I shall resort to the reductio ad absurdum form of argument. Without proving my premises, I will show you that Dr. Schilpp cannot deny them without also giving up many things he holds dear and truly believes. He holds, I am sure, that cannibalism is wrong, that slavery is unjust. But, unless he is a vegetarian, he does not think that it is wrong to eat animals, or unjust to use animals entirely as means for our human ends. Now the only rational ground which he can give for these fundamental moral beliefs is that man is specifically distinct, essentially different in kind, from every type of brute animal, for if that were not so there would be no reason why power politics is wrong, no reason why some men should not enslave others and use them entirely as instruments, exploit them, etc. Democracy, we are told, affirms one thing above all else -- the dignity of each individual man, and this dignity means his worth as an end to be served, that he should never be reduced to a mere means to be exploited. Therefore, I say to you, and to Dr. Schilpp, that he faces this dilemma: either he must say that he does not think such things as slavery and totalitarianism are wrong on objective grounds, that he has only an emotional preference for democracy, but no proof that it is right; or he must admit my major premise and all that it involves -- namely that every man has the some specific nature, through which he differs essentially from all other animals, which sameness and difference permit us to argue validly that all men are entitled to the same treatment, a treatment different from that we give animals. It can be seen at once that, if men are like animals, the question of why we do not train men as we train animals, and why we do not educate animals as we educate men must arise. I would like to know why, if there is no difference between them, we should not treat the two groups the same educationally? On this question, science -- or more specifically, Darwin and his followers, the biologists in general -- appears to have something to say. I want to make it perfectly clear that if the Darwinian hypothesis of man's origin from a common ancestor of the anthropoid apes, by modification through the generations and the extinction of intermediate varieties, is correct, then man cannot be essentially different from the brute, but differs from the brute and the higher mammals only in degree. I am absolutely sure of this, and every bit of Darwin supports me. In the Descent of Man this is the whole mode of Darwin's argument. If his hypothesis is correct then man is not essentially distinct, and either one of two things is the case: either the animals, too, are rational and free, and we differ in the degree of our rationality and the degree of our freedom, or neither of us are. And whichever horn of that dilemma we take, the educational consequences are that we must treat men and animals the same way -- differing only in degree. My own position is that the Darwinian hypothesis about man's origin is completely wrong, as wrong as it can be. The error has two sources. The error in Darwin is a good error; the error in contemporary science is a very bad error indeed. I say this without any apologies to anybody. I can think of no more disgraceful episode in the history of science than the thinking of contemporary biologists on this problem, thinking which reflects no understanding of scientific method, thinking which reflects the worst begging of the question that can possibly be imagined. First, I will show why Darwin's error was a good error, an honest one, and one that makes no fundamental mistake in method. Darwin was fortunate in that when he faced this question in the late sixties (in the Descent of Man; the Origin of Species came some eight or nine years earlier and man was not mentioned), he did not have any paleontological evidence to speak of. The geological record had not yet been explored for the so-called missing links. The fossil remains which later filled the museums, the Heidelberg and the Java men, the Piltdown and Neanderthal men, were not present when Darwin argued his case. Unless you understand a phrase I used a moment ago, you do not understand the theory of the origin of species. The essential point is the extinction of intermediate varieties. There is no origin of species if no varieties become extinct. If, for example, coming down from an ancestral group, in a spreading population with genetic variations generation after generation, all the varieties survived, there would be a greater range of varieties and no new species. New species originate, Darwin makes perfectly clear -- and no one has ever changed this point -- by the extinction of intermediate varieties. The varieties that are left, separated in many cases by geographical and physiological obstacles to interbreeding, become more and more dissimilar. At some point the biologist finds it convenient to call these varieties species and to group all the species descended from the original ancestral form into a genus or generic group.
|
|||||||
|
The Adler Archive Index |
|||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
|
||
|
|
||
[Homepage] [Newsletter] [Search] [Support the Academy] [Link to Us] [Contact the Academy] [Citing Articles from Our Website] [Privacy Policy & Disclaimer]
Copyright 1998-99, 2000-01, 2002-03, 2004-05, & 2006-07 by The Radical Academy. All Rights Reserved.