Epictetus, Discourses 1.26.4

Once when he put to confusion the student who was reading hypothetical arguments, and the master who had set him to read laughed at his pupil, he said: You are laughing at yourself; you did not give the young man any preliminary training, nor discover whether he can follow the arguments, but just treat him as a reader. 

 

Why is it, he said, that when a mind is unable to follow and judge a complex argument we trust to it the task of praise and blame and of deciding on good and bad actions? 

 

If he speaks ill of anyone, does the man attend to him, and is anyone elated by a praise which comes from one who cannot find the logical connection in such small matters? 

—from Epictetus, Discourses 1.26 

 

We often expect young people to develop a capacity for moral judgment on their own, offering very little in the way of assistance. Yes, each of us must do his own work, and yet we are also social animals, made to cooperate with one another. 

 

If the student falls short in his reasoning, should I not ask how I have failed him before I dismiss him? If I have served him poorly in the basics of critical thinking, I can hardly hope that he will later be able to distinguish the nuances of right from wrong. 

 

When he is weak in the habits of hypothetical arguments, he will be overwhelmed when he faces the reality of practical arguments, where conflicting impressions are always vying for attention—unrestrained desire and anger will make short shrift of him. 

 

And it’s all because we are pushed into the living without first attending to the thinking. Look before you leap. 

 

Training in recitation, memorization, and routine skills provides the building blocks, but is itself insufficient to engage an active mind. Simply adding further years to a passive curriculum may result in more efficient producers, while it sadly neglects to inspire more prudent thinkers. 

 

Nor can moral formation be achieved by an indoctrination into some prevailing ideology, for it offers only the form without the content, and stresses a blind obedience over any conscious reflection. As Epictetus says, if I just treat the student as a reader, I deny him the chance to understand the “why?” behind what is written.

 

He has taken a course in operating a bulldozer, or she has earned a degree in running a business, though we have asked neither of them to consider the purpose of building or the meaning of profit. The most significant tool, a well-honed mind, is missing from the toolbox. 

 

In all walks of life, people make countless decisions every day about benefit and harm, and we assume they are qualified to do so because they possess certain slips of paper. Is it not more important, however, to argue for a conclusion instead of taking it for granted? The man who can actually explain himself is the man worth following, for he proves and does not impose. 

 

All is lost without an account of the reasons why it is true, good, and beautiful. 

—Reflection written in 4/2001