Aristotle: Cultivation of Rationality

realism A philosophy which asserts that reality consists of an objective order of objects that, though they are external, can be known by humans through their senses and power of abstraction. idealism A philosophy which asserts that reality is spiritual, intellectual, and nonmaterial. system of educational tracking contributed to social justice in that the Republic’s citizens were doing what was appropriate for them. Modern critics of tracking, or the homogenous grouping of students in schools, argue that sorting strategies, such as Plato’s, reproduce the existing class situation and discourage social mobility.

Unlike most Athenian males, Plato did not believe than men were intellectually superior to women. Both men and women should receive the education that was appropriate to their intellectual abilities.37 Women who possessed high-level cognitive powers could become philosopher-queens. Like men, women would receive the education or training appropriate to their abilities and their destined occupations.

plato’s Curriculum Fearing that parents would pass on their ignorance and prejudices to their children, Plato wanted early childhood specialists to rear young children. Children, separated from their parents, would live in state nurseries to learn positive social and moral predispositions that inclined them to a harmonious life in the Republic.

From ages 6 to 18, children and adolescents attended state-supervised schools to study reading and writing, literature, arithmetic, choral singing, dancing, and gymnastics. Plato, who believed in censorship, thought that young people should read only officially selected and approved poems and stories that epitomized truthfulness, obedience to authorities, courage, and self-control. After mastering basic mathematics, students studied geometry and astronomy to develop higher-level abstract thinking. Gymnastics, useful for military training, included fencing, archery, javelin throwing, and horseback riding, which developed physical coordination and dexterity.

From ages 18 to 20, students pursued intensive physical and military training. At age 20, the future philosopher-kings would be selected for ten years of additional higher education in more abstract and advanced mathematics, geometry, astronomy, music, and science. At age 30, the less intellectually able in this group would become civil servants; the most intellectually gifted would continue their study of metaphysics, the philosophical search for truth. When their studies were completed, the philosopher-kings would rule the Republic. At age 50, they would become the Republic’s elder statesmen.

3-5g aristotle: cultivation of rationality

Plato’s student Aristotle (384–322 BCE), the tutor of Alexander the Great, founded the Lyceum, a philosophical school in Athens. He wrote treatises on physics, astronomy, zoology, botany, logic, ethics, and metaphysics. His Nicomachean Ethics and Politics examined education in relation to society and government.38 Encouraging people to avoid extremes, Aristotle’s Ethics advised moderation.

Aristotle was a realist who held that reality exists objectively outside of our minds. This contrasts with the belief of his mentor, Plato, an idealist who thought the truth is already in our minds. While Aristotle’s realism dealt with natural processes of life on earth, Plato’s idealism aimed for a better and higher world above the senses. (Both idealism and realism are discussed in Chapter 6, Philosophical Roots of Education.)

For Aristotle, our knowing begins with our sensation of objects in the environment. By abstracting an object’s essentials from this sensory information, we can form a general concept about the object and locate it in a class of similar objects. As rational persons, we can use this knowledge to guide our decisions and actions.

Aristotle on education In his Politics, Aristotle argues that the socially just community depends on its citizens’ rationality. Education’s purpose is to cultivate liberally

37Robert S. Brumbaugh, “Plato’s Ideal Curriculum and Contemporary Philosophy of Education,” Educational Theory (Spring 1987), pp. 169–177. Also, see Dominic Scott, Recollection and Experience: Plato’s Theory of Learning and Its Successors (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007). 38Alexander Moseley, Aristotle (Continuum Library of Educational Thought) (London: Continuum, 2010); and Christopher Rowe and Sarah Brodie, Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2002).