Recovering Philosophical Propaedeutics, 2002

Useful, perhaps, in reference to the most recent entry on Seneca's Letter 88. Written and presented in 2002.

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Recovering Philosophical Propaedeutics

"Merely fact-minded sciences make merely fact-minded people"
--Edmund Husserl, The Crisis of the European Sciences

Allow me to begin, not with a statement of principle, but rather with a point of personal inspiration. As a child, I was fascinated by family history, and always particularly moved by the lives of my Austrian relatives. My great-uncles, both Jesuits of the old school, had, after the German Anschluss, spoken openly and directly from the pulpit against National Socialism. One fled arrest to eventually become a chaplain to Yugoslav partisans, the other endured a lengthy stay at Dachau. Both stories moved me deeply from a very early age, such that I wanted to hear again and again of great men who valued truth over convenience, love over pride, the way of God over the ways of men.

A tale far less dramatic in scale, but equal in its model of courage, was of my grandfather, an established and successful gymnasium teacher in Vienna. Unwilling to bow to what was then the fashionable political correctness of National Socialism, he effectively sacrificed his entire professional career in his unwavering opposition.

Hearing his story was the first great inspiration I had for becoming a teacher. Yet I was confused by one of the subjects he taught. Literature and history I was familiar with, but when I was told of his courses in "Philosophische Propaedeutik" I was baffled.

How, I wondered, could the equivalent of middle and high school students study philosophy? Surely such heady stuff was reserved for the Ivy Halls of the university?

It was perhaps providential, then, that I later had a similar, and unusual, opportunity to study philosophy at the small, private high school I attended. It's effect was immediate. What had previously been interesting yet disparate and isolated disciplines such as literature and history, mathematics and the natural sciences, art and music, now coalesced and took on a greater depth of meaning. All the scattered seeds of years of learning finally began to take root.

The lesson learned was the need to not merely describe, but to explain, to seek the common measure of truth in all things, to find the universal and necessary meaning and value of our human existence.

This principle is so clearly echoed in John Paul II's culture of life, such that it does not seek to compartmentalize the study of philosophy, but rightly grasps its crucial role in uniting theory and practice. In the simplest of terms, the manner in which we think is in direct correlation to the manner in which we live. As is stated in Fides et Ratio, the universal desire to understand yields "questions which have their common source in the quest for meaning which has always compelled the human heart. In fact, the answers given to these questions decides the direction which people seek to give to
their lives."

If man is indeed a rational animal, the fullness of his living should encompass his understanding of who he is, why he is here, and where he is going. We should expect nothing less. Yet contemporary education, from the most elementary to the highest levels, not only largely fails to adequately address this point, but also regularly discourages its proper consideration. It is, therefore, my suggestion that a recovery of a philosophical propaedeutics, of the sort taught by my grandfather but now largely forgotten, can be an integral part of an educational renewal that engages the perennial questions.

While the didactic experiment of gradually introducing philosophical reasoning to middle and high school students was short-lived in inter-war Austria, the principle is eminently worthy of
another try. At its root is a simple, common sense proposition that the good life is rooted in understanding. Socrates knew as much when he told us that "the unexamined life is not worth living." This necessitates that learning be treated not as the mere recital of facts and figures, but also of being able to judge soundly upon the meaning and value of these facts. A genuinely philosophical attitude to education is thereby not one which treats philosophy as yet another discipline among many, but rather sees a universal philosophical attitude and approach at the heart of all disciplines.

Whether students formally enroll in 'Philosophy 101' or 'The Meaning of Life' is hardly the point. Whether they learn to effectively and objectively approach the principles of the true and the good in all their endeavors is far more essential.

We ignore this lesson at our own peril. One need not parade the many and embarrassing failures of contemporary education to prove this point. Suffice it to say, students who cannot read, write or reason concerning even the simplest of matters are symptoms of a deeper decay. We see here the culture of death at work upon young minds, closing them to the possibility of genuine understanding by denying any universal context of truth. Seeds fall upon barren ground.

The opening lines of the first book of Aristotle's Physics serve as an excellent guide: "we know each thing when we know the first causes and the first principles and have reached the elements." In other words, to understand something is not merely to affirm that it is the case, but more thoroughly to apprehend why it is the case, to isolate the reasons for its being.

Only then is knowledge (episteme) attained, as distinct from opinion (doxa), for while the latter asserts or denies without reason and comes and goes with every flight of fancy, the former firmly
grounds a proposition in evidence and argument, and is therefore constant and enduring.

As Plato says in the Meno, "knowledge differs from correct opinion in being tied down."
Aristotle further tells us that proper understanding proceeds from "what is more known and clearer to us to what is by nature clearer and more known." The difficulty that so many of even the brightest college students have with this statement is a telling indication of the poor intellectual diet upon which they have been raised. They understand what it means for something to be self-evident to them, but are baffled by the idea of something that is self-evident in itself. The symptoms of an advanced case of subjectivism should be readily apparent.

Just as the prisoner in Plato's Cave escapes from ignorance to wisdom, from vice to virtue, from misery to happiness by overcoming the shadows of mere appearances to see the light of the principles and causes behind those appearances, so too Aristotle's scientific method points to the manner in which true learning unfolds.

We begin first with what is most proximate to us, with what is hazy and unclear, and it is only by proceeding backwards, so to speak, from effects to causes, from the proximate to the ultimate, that we begin to understand. It is only later that we learn how what was clear to us, and seemed the fullness of our world, was in fact only contingent upon and relative to what was clear in itself all along. In the order of nature, causes actually precedes effects, but in the order of our understanding, effects seem to precede causes. True understanding, therefore, becomes a process of moving beyond ourselves, of seeing that what at first appears to us depends on what is absolute and ultimate in itself. In this manner, one comes to grasp how and why things are as they are.

The succinct yet thorough arguments of St. Thomas Aquinas, for one, on the existence of God are a perfect exemplar of this method.

The moral aspect of this realization is nothing less than the virtue of humility. It is only when Socrates realizes that he is wise because he admits his own ignorance that the scales fall from his eyes. Humility, whether moral, intellectual, or spiritual, begins with an emptying of oneself. Only with the removal of bias and unfounded opinion can understanding then take place.

The closest most contemporary high school or college students come to this insight is a hazy and incomplete sense of the importance of "thinking for themselves." Though they cannot usually elaborate upon what they mean by this, their sense contains both great value as well as great danger. While they quite rightly see themselves as the agents and causes of their own understanding, they falsely presume this to mean that the free thinking is an end in itself, totally separate from any content or proper object. Truth folds in upon itself as the mere act of thinking about ideas, without any objective reference.

Since they have rarely encountered philosophy of any sound reasoning or content, thinking becomes an empty exercise devoid of concrete meaning and value. They become full of what is clear to them, ignorant of what is clear in itself. It is consequently no wonder that they are baffled by philosophy or its universal relevance.

This runs parallel to one of the central moral lessons of Plato's Apology. Socrates berates any man who "attaches little importance to the most important things, and greater importance to inferior things." In confusing the proximate and the ultimate, the measured and the measure, the contingent and the absolute, we live our lives 'up-side down.' It should be readily apparent how any educational model can only counter such tendencies if it encourages and nurtures genuine understanding, which properly harmonizes the inferior and the superior by isolating first principles and causes.

It becomes clear that an education which does not ground itself upon these sound principles of understanding is doomed to failure. The minimal philosophical training some college students are required to endure is, quite simply, too little, too late. Too little, because it usually seeks to compact into a semester or two what needs to be experienced, considered and lived with throughout one's education. Too late, because, by such a stage in their development, most young people have already established assumptions and habits which, for good or for bad, are so entrenched that it is difficult for them to start reflecting upon them critically.

This is not to deny the profound effect that even the slightest exposure to sound reasoning can have upon a mind of any age. Yet in many cases the difficulties encountered in the current model far outweigh the benefits.

Just as any activity is perfected through habitual practice, so too strength of mind is best encouraged through exercise from the earliest possible stage. A mind that has atrophied from years of sloth will be much harder to lead to excellence than one which has maintained a steady regimen of activity.

One need not appeal to the latest surveys, studies or theories of modern science to appreciate the common sense facts on the nature of childhood development. While young children learn best through example and practice alone, the advent of the age of reason indicates an increasing intellectual self-sufficiency. The rules and dictates of authority gradually become insufficient motivation, the answer of "because I told you so" is increasingly met with cries of "why?"

And it is precisely at this time that a philosophical propaedeutics, which gently and practically begins to point to answers to the questions of "why?" is most crucial in a formative education.

In the Politics, Aristotle distinguishes children from adults by describing the child as possessing the power of deliberation, which is, however, not yet developed or actualized. With increased experience, awareness and reflection, the mind naturally and intuitively reaches out for something solid to chew on, for real answers to questions of meaning and value.

Some of us look at the desolate wasteland which is the modern popular culture of adolescence, and see only doom. We are right to denounce its emptiness, but wrong if we fail to see it as a sign of a healthy and natural drive. The young person, increasingly self-aware, seeks real content. He may look for answers at home, but perhaps sees parents and siblings concerned only with jumping the hoops of a secular, consumer society. He may look for answers at school, but perhaps finds only standardized tests and pop psychology. He may look to his friends, and then sees the media they worship, and he readily consumes the pabulum it serves. No matter that is all style, no substance. It offers a temporary security. Once the addiction to popular culture, the culture of death under a different name, has taken hold, it is difficult to shake off. The key lies not in hacking at the limbs, but in going for the roots.

The crisis of contemporary adolescence is nothing more and nothing less than the natural desire for true meaning let loose, but with no apparent source or object of true satisfaction.

When Aristotle opens the Metaphysics, he tells us that "all men by nature desire understanding." But so that we are under no illusions that he means only knowledge of academic abstraction, he promptly adds that "a sign of this is their liking of sensations." In other words, the essential need of the person to understand is most immediately manifest in desire for sensitive awareness. It is clearly evident how the manner in which many, both young and old, fill their lives first and foremost with images and appearances is an incomplete expression of the deeper need for true meaning.

As Pascal says, the mind at once both in desperate need and in abject terror of the truth fills itself with diversions, distractions intended to fill an infinite void with finite things. That such fleeting goods are ultimately unsatisfying only speeds up the downward spiral of dependence.

While no model of education can in whole avoid such tendencies, it can certainly play a crucial part. In the context of what has been said, I would suggest the following five points for consideration:

1) A philosophical propaedeutics, by which I specifically mean a plan or model of education which rigorously and systematically introduces the student to matters of ultimate meaning, is essential to providing a common purpose and goal to the entire curriculum.

While this should surely include the direct and explicit consideration of basic questions of logic, epistemology, metaphysics and ethics, it is of even greater importance that such principles are used as the framework for the study of all disciplines.

2) While a recovery of philosophical education at the college level is essential, we must begin encouraging these skills at the earliest stages, and in particular by gradually introducing philosophical concerns from the start of the age of reason onward, that is, from middle school through high school.

It is important to combat the skepticism, defeatism and even hostility of the educational establishment to such ideals. While some might claim that minds at such a young age are incapable of abstract reasoning, nature and experience indicate otherwise. The very fact that the young reveal a need for understanding indicates the necessity of prudently offering reasoned answers.

It is certainly difficult to make a middle or high schooler think clearly. But a difficulty is not an impossibility, and we should remember that the most valuable ends are often the most difficult to
obtain. Part of the difficulty is, no doubt, the habitual unpreparedness of students, which is itself what a philosophical propaedeutics would seek to avoid in the first place.

3) The fragmentation and excessive specialization of academic disciplines must once again be united through a common sense of truth which lies at the heart of all learning. The inability to bridge these divides is itself symptomatic of a loss of complementary purpose. The system and order of any curriculum must at least be re-examined, perhaps even restructured, upon these principles.

4) A proper view of the nature of causality in learning must restore the principle that while the teacher is the occasion or material cause of learning, it is the student himself who is the agent or efficient cause. The improper reversal of this model has been the unfortunate result of educational ideals which seek to teach facts devoid of meaning.

While contemporary educational models often pride themselves on encouraging the active self sufficiency, self-expression, and freedom of thought of their students, such an exercise ultimately fails to produce understanding if separated from the common goal of truth.

As mentioned above, if thinking or expressing is merely an end in itself, without being ordered toward the end of understanding the content of the objectively real, the bitter irony of such attempts is that they result in an even more passive approach to learning. When facts are separated from meaning, students will naturally treat such facts merely as material to be regurgitated, not actively understood.

5) Finally, a key to restoring a true sense of wonder for students, in contrast to what often seems indifference, boredom or even hostility, lies in bridging the divide of theory and practice. In concrete terms, this requires a constant awareness that the world of ideas in inherently joined to the world of the real, and in philosophy in particular this requires encouraging the insight that far from being a matter of conjecture, the manner in which we think and judge is essential to our everyday happiness. This is what Socrates means by "practicing philosophy." He doesn't just teach it, study it, or admire its beauty. He lives it.

Edmund Husserl, working in the midst of a century wracked by the greatest horrors seen to man, saw very well how our philosophical world-view is directly mirrored in the very real realm of the personal, social and political. Writing in The Crisis of the European Sciences, he says:

"The exclusiveness with which the total world-view of modern man, in the second half of the nineteenth century, let itself be determined by the positive sciences and be blinded by the 'prosperity' they produced, meant an indifferent turning away from the questions which are decisive for a genuine humanity. Merely fact-minded sciences make merely fact-minded people. The change in public evaluation was unavoidable, especially after the war, and we know that it has gradually become a feeling of hostility among the younger generation. In our vital need--so we are told--this science has nothing to say to us. It excludes in principle precisely the questions which man, given over in our unhappy times to the most portentous upheavals, finds the most burning; questions of the meaning or meaninglessness of the whole of this human existence. "

Though Husserl wrote this in 1936, his words ring just as true today. The accidents may be different, but the problem remains the same. In denying the central necessity of philosophical meaning, not only do the sciences, academics, and education suffer. Man himself suffers. Again, Husserl tells us:

"The genuine spiritual struggles of European humanity as such take the form of struggles between the philosophies, that is, between the skeptical philosophies,--or non-philosophies, which retain the word but not the task--and the actual and still vital philosophies. But the vitality of the latter consists in the fact that they are struggling for their own true and genuine meaning and thus for the meaning of a genuine humanity. . ."

This critical struggle for meaning is the one upon which all others depend, and the recovery of a sound philosophical propaedeutics in our model of learning is surely a critical component in the recovery of our own human dignity.