pde2012 l3 overview greece and rome with augustine

L3 Overview of History of Ideas:

Some examples from the Greek and Roman world

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Knowledge: Built up or Handed Down

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Intuition versus Analysis

• See the whole picture

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Intuition

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Analysis

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Main Greek Philosophers

• Socrates...Athens , died 399 BCE

• Plato...Athens, died 347 BCE

• Aristotle ...Stageira, died 322 BCE

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Sparta• Lycurgus, leader of

the military Greek city-state of Sparta, 730BC

• The Spartan state– Spartiates– Perioikoi– Helots

• Spartan Assembly• Spartan education• Link with Delphi

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Socrates 469-399BCE

• Sculptor, soldier, educator

• Did not write. We rely on his student Plato

• Believed that knowledge needed to be constantly criticised to be kept alive

• Socratic questioning

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Plato 427-347 BCE• The Republic (an ideal

world)– Workers and artisans– Warriors– Rulers

• Workers would drop out of school before warriors etc.

• Rulers would be philosophers

• Key Ideas from this:– A stratified curriculum

depending on ability– Separate vocational

schools from academic schools

– Elite schools for aristocracy or people with money

– Link between academic performance (especially arithmetic and philosophy) and leadership in society

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Aristotle 384-322 BCE• Student of Plato• All-round scholar,

especially medicine and biology

• Focused on humans as organisms. What makes this organism flourish?

• Virtue, developed talent, strength that is politically aware and directed towards the good

• Influences on • Developing the learner’s

talents and predispositions towards the good irrespective of jobs or society

• Book learning? Liberal education

• Humans are unhappy if they are not intellectually engaged

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Seneca 4BCE-65CE (Stoic) Principle of harmony:

Between self and nature; between self and society

‘The soul carries within itself the seed of everything that is honourable and this seed is stirred to growth by advice, as a spark that is fanned by a gentle breeze develops its natural fire.’ Seneca Ep. 94,29

All knowledge is rooted in impulse (horme)

Some friends of Seneca› Serenus- emotional sense

of inferiority› Novatus (Gallio) –

emotional sense of being left behind

› Lucilius -emotional sense of fatique and frustration

› Nero -emotional sense of superiority

Dealing with emotions

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(Stoic) Epictetus, Manual

• In Manuel III,12-13, five economies:• Emotion to bear with being reviled• Range: education is this, to learn what is one’s own

and what is not IV,5• Impulse to monitor the action of the will• Judgement what to assent to, what to avoid• Being towards reality and away from display• Solitude to be able to suffice for oneself

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Augustine 354-430 CE• Lawyer, non-Christian, stoic, then convert to Christianity in

386, reacted against stoics on basis of ‘compassion’• Realises that he lives “outside” himself, that God lives

“inside” himself• Characterises human life as restless (Confessions 1.1)• This issue is related to the story of the Garden of Eden, to

Exodus and the search for the promised land• We are illuminated by the truth and we find ourselves in a

way that matches our understanding of the world

Further Reading

• EDIGER, M. 1997. Influence of ten leading educators on American education. Education, 118, 267.

• HESTER, HENDRICKSON and Gable (2009). Forty Years Later the Value of Praise. Education and Treatment of Children 32(4).

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Francis Bacon 1561-1626• Renaissance thinker and politician in

reign of Elizabeth I and James I• Advocated a new experimental

method against elitism and stale thinking

• Critic of 4 idols impairing the truth:– Idols of Cave (idiosyncacy of

individuals, pet likes and dislikes)– Idols of Tribe (tendency to distort

and exaggerate)– Idols of the Theatre (hasty

learning, hasty conclusions beguiled by impressions)

– Idols of the Market Place (fashionable thoughts might be wrong)

• Influences:• The rise of the new science and

its separation from the humanities

• The issue of the ‘two’ cultures• Separation of science from

religion

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