Talking in Class

2 INTELLECTUAL ADVENTURES Talking in Class

Mapping a single conversation emblematic of so many more

Students learn to think with agility and to speak and write with exceptional fluency, power and precision as they grow here. Each day they gain practice developing the self-assurance to speak up, propose ideas and participate actively. Eavesdropping on this Upper School Political and Social Philosophy elective gives a glimpse of how opinions are formed and ideas are explored on a path to a deeper understanding of material in partnership with teachers.

STUDENT 1 Was Plato the first feminist?

STUDENT 3 He also seems to think that women might have a higher pain threshold.

STUDENT 2 Well, he suggests that everyone has natural talent—women aren’t excluded from that. No one is inherently better than anyone else.

STUDENT 4 I’ve noticed at my volleyball practices that male coaches tend to be more squeamish around injuries.

STUDENT 4 Plato says that women have no single or fixed nature. The women in Sparta are different than the women in Athens.

STUDENT 2 Though he did want to abolish the family at one point. It reminded me of the Owenites in American history.

STUDENT 4 Right, and Plato believes that only truth is good.

STUDENT 3 If only truth is good, then what do you do about politics?

STUDENT 1 Well, most people are blinded by appetites—they can’t want good. Socrates thought that we all wanted to be good.

STUDENT 5 It also messes up his opinion of a “good person,” as someone who dedicates himself to finding that little bit of reason.

STUDENT 3 Maybe for the philosopher, then, reason should be on the bottom.

STUDENT 6 Too idealistic.

STUDENT 1 Probably shouldn’t get involved.

STUDENT 6 How?

STUDENT 1 Wait, this “three-part soul” is a huge step away from Socrates’ idea that every man wants to be good.

STUDENT 4 What if we inverted the pyramid so reason was on the bottom?

STUDENT 2 There’s reason, appetite and emotion. What if they’re not in balance?

STUDENT 5 Was Freud inspired by this in his tripartite soul? Ego, superego and id?

STUDENT 1 Well, he’s suggesting that the state is a heuristic. That is, when we are governed by reason, then that’s enough regulation.

STUDENT 1 They’re balanced in a pyramid, with reason on top and appetite on the bottom. Temperance keeps everything in place.

STUDENT 6 My question is, how can you regulate this kind of thinking?

STUDENT 5 Who are the Owenites again?

STUDENT 3 They were a utopian populist socialist group in the 1830s.