The Liberal Arts: House of Intellect or of Questionable-Repute?

True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.-- Socrates

It’s been some 2500 years since Socrates persuaded the denizens of the Academy to accept one of the world’s grandest absurdities: the belief that successful practitioners, in general, do not “really know” what they are doing. This cooks down today to the common academic prejudices that

a. practice, hands on experience, or apprenticeship, is an inferior approach to learning; and
b. seat time in a lecture hall provides a superior education; and
c. the glibbest person on a topic is likely the most knowledgeable, and consequently, the most authoritative.

To “know something” – according to Socrates -- is to be able to articulate it or demonstrate it in the manner of a geometrical proof. Contrary to popular belief, Socrates was not engaged so much – if at all -- in reflective critical thinking as in cultural warfare. Most important for us today, Socrates and followers provided a criterion of membership in what in modern times would be called the Intelligentsia.

A second tragedy was Socrates’ influence on religion, via Plato and then Aristotle. Early Christian Aristotelians, pressured by Constantine for uniformity in order to morally legitimate state interventions, invented “Rational” theology. Statements of belief were formulated and could now become became a matter of life and death. “Creeds” had to be memorized and recited for admission to one or another competing congregation of true believers. Acquaintance with theology defined a religious Intelligentsia as opposed to the merely pious plebians.

How many millions of people have been sacrificed on the altars of the Intelligentsia, both religious and secular? Lenin, for example, considered himself, as well as Marx and Engels, members of the bourgeois intelligentsia, destined to lead a generally "falsely conscious" working class into revolution. Like Stalin, Hitler suffered through a fairly standard religious education as a child, but each man pursued his own phantasm of doctrinal purity: economic vs racial.

ACTA, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, has resolved in 2011 to ensure that college graduates

“… have the skills and knowledge they need in math, science, American history, and economics.”

Why these subject areas? Behold the Non Sequitur!

“Students can’t think critically, and succeed professionally, if they don’t have anything to think about.”

Is there a logical connection here? Is this really a concern for critical thought; or, a sales pitch for a particular type of education?

Ought we to believe that if people can’t get a college cafeteria meal, they’ll likely starve to death? If they don’t work out in a college gym, their muscles will likely atrophy? If they don’t learn to sing Gaudeamus Igitur they, growling, will likely devolve into feral animals?

Even though it is still considered a sign of advanced educational achievement, wisdom, even, to tip one's hat to Socrates' despair about the possibility of knowledge, in reality many, if not most, people hold (more wisely) to the following:

Inarticulate knowledge must not be despised: we grasp theoretical ideas only if we have sufficient experience to give them meaning.-- Stephen Toulmin Return to Reason (2001,174)

To pursue these and related issues, see Moral Education: Indoctrination vs. Cognitive Development?

Cordially
--- EGR

Can Science Improve Moral Education, Too?

edited 2/2/19

When religion was strong and science weak, men mistook magic for medicine; now, when science is strong and religion weak, men mistake medicine for magic."
 -- Thomas Szasz

Vice-President Pence receives Covid vaccine (Oct 2020) and hails it as a 'Medical Miracle'.

Science has helped us improve many aspects of life: agriculture, medicine, travel, construction, manufacture, longevity and health. Generally, where scientific method has been brought to bear successfully in these arenas, there is little controversy as to the desirability of the results.

So why doesn’t Science step in and find out how best to morally educate people? Traditional moralists and promoters of religion don’t seem to agree very much on what should be done. And even when they agree they don’t seem to succeed very much with the people they work on.

Some scientists propose that what enhances natural human capacities also enhances their morality; and, apparently, their happiness, too. People who run, dance, play, reason, love, sing, read, consider, paint, cook, swim and compare better are happier than those who can’t. They also tend to be more ethical, or so it is believed. Science can investigate what produces these enhancements and help produce them more reliably.

But what else makes people happy? Sex 'n' Drugs 'n' Rock ‘n’ Roll. If you judge what makes people happy, not so much by what they say, but by what motivates them to pursue it, then happiness is, for many, sex 'n' drugs 'n' rock ‘n’ roll.

But some of the products of research on artificial intelligence -- hopefully, perhaps precipitously, -- called "intelligences"(should we read here "minds"?} would not likely be tempted by sex 'n' drugs 'n' rock ‘n’ roll. And people do worry about creating dangerous robots. Elon Musk has cautioned about wakening "the demon." Can Science perhaps help even here?

Some stodgy old moralists -- I suppose I am one – would point out that what makes people happy may not be good, for them or for others, or just not good, period. Certainly we can enhance an individual’s indifference to the suffering of others, his ability to inflict pain without remorse, his hatred for folks different from himself both by methods that have been known for eons and have also been enhanced by the scientific study of torture and propaganda. This individual might be happier for being crueler, more sadistic and prejudiced. (He,she, it might even be artificial.) Has his(her, its) individual morality improved?

Perhaps would-be moral educators, fixating on either Religion or Science for answers to moral education's conundrums have been looking too hard, but not very well, in all the wrong places.

To examine these issues further, see Moral Education: Indoctrination vs. Cognitive Development?


Cordially
--- EGR

Does Schooling Help Develop Conscience?

Everything that a teacher does … to enhance formal operational thought is also … enhancing the development of principled morality. -- Michael Schleifer "Moral Education and Indoctrination" Ethics, 86,2, 154-163

Complaints from Kids about School:

In public school you can’t pray when you want to. (My Mom worries about this.)

Big deal! In most schools you can’t even pee when you need to! (Besides, it’s not that anyone much wants so much to pray; other things are funner.)

What’s going on here?

Any kid can tell you: school is about learning rules, even if lots of them don’t make much sense. (Some nasty kids even say the rules they tell us are for our own good are really to make life easy for teachers!)

You can get into trouble for doing things that are not wrong, like coming in a little bit late, or forgetting a book. (Oooh! You’re gonna get in trouble!)

You can even get into trouble for doin' what is right, like fightin' back against a bully.

What’s going on here?

And we’re supposed to read and memorize what is in the books they give us. But my dad says it’s a load of crap! (Oooh! You said “crap!”)

But my parents say I should do what they tell me to and I’ll be OK. I’ll even get good grades!

That’s what they learn in school.


For references and to examine these issues further, see Moral Education: Indoctrination vs. Cognitive Development?


Cordially
--- EGR