Montaigne's Blueprint for Education
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- čas přidán 16. 07. 2023
- Who better to inquire about education than a famed 16th century nobleman who inscribed excerpts of wisdom on the wooden beams of his library? Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (often called simply “Montaigne”) authored the heavily influential Essays, an outpouring of his natural philosophies, and had much to say on education. This video is based on an article that can be found here:
thinkingwest.com/2021/03/20/m...
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ThinkingWest aims to revive the “Great Conversation” in our digital age through promoting the study of the great books of the western world, classical approaches to education, and through thoughtful commentary on current events, history, philosophy, culture, education, and religion.
RECOMMENDED BOOKS
How to Read a Book, Mortimer Adler and Charles van Doren: amzn.to/3NOLCrm
How to Read and Why, Harold Bloom: amzn.to/3J69V0y
The Well-Educated Mind, Susan Wise Bauer: amzn.to/3LB5Djq
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It's not the children that need to learn more by starting younger, so much as it is the adults who need to learn more by continuing to learn for as long as they live; instead of living their entire adult lives, as if they already know everything there is in the world worth knowing !
I am glad I discovered your channel and website. Wonderful articles. I am reading and enjoying them. Classical education in the appreciation of arts and the critique of ideas, is mostly achieved by traveling, writing and reading a lot, which is not for everyone, although everyone should have those opportunities. It’s more a family task than the school system to provide those opportunities, because the education of free men is the fruit of western civilization and the only effective way to counter old and modern suicidal ideologies. Greeting from Peru.
We need an education renaissance. I have noticed many people are beginning to homeschool their children using the tools of classical education, but many families do not have the means to do this for their children and better educational practices need to be initiated in public schools. This must be done if we are to put out good human beings with the intelligence to push this civilization toward a better future. It is a shame the type of education I received in school and it led nowhere. Luckily I discovered people like Mortimer Adler in my late twenties and began self-educating. There is a higher awareness and demand for classical education so all hope is not lost. Appreciate the video and article.
I agree. When I look back at my own education, I feel the same. But it's never too late to start reading the great books!
Really well done and very helpful. Your practical advice as discerned from Montaigne, are good suggestions to digest and apply. Especially in the growing trend of home education, or where I work part time, a hybrid of in school, classical education and home education for the students.
Yes, read the Great Books, but also remember to leave your study occasionally, and go into the sunshine with Hume, and to discourse with men as Socrates did in the marketplace, and to travel the world and see far-away places with Descartes, and to meditate and think for yourself. However, if you begin to question your own existence, then remember that there is much value to be found, not only in higher education and philosophy, but in ordinary commonsense as well. (Read G.E. Moore's 'A Defense of Commonsense' )
Totally agree. Reading the great books is secondary to ordinary life, be it traveling, working, spending time with family, or putting your hands in the dirt.
Socrates apparently disagreed with Montaigne in one important respect - at least, if the traditional view of Socrates is correct. For, according to this traditional view, Socrates identified knowledge itself with virtue. Of course, Socrates had a very high standard for what actually counted as being knowledge, and he almost certainly believed that it was knowledge of the Good (or of virtue) that was the highest knowledge (or wisdom), so the difference between Montaigne and Socrates might only be one of appearance rather than substance, as Socrates did not believe that merely practical knowledge/skill -- such as that possessed by craftsmen, for example -- counted as real knowledge. In order to be truly wise (or knowledgeable), one must know the Good. I think both Montaigne and Socrates would agree on that -- as would most ancient and medieval philosophers up until the Renaissance. It is interesting to realize, with a few possible exceptions, how far modern philosophy has departed from this view that the principle aim of philosophy and education in general is to know the Good. Modern philosophy seems less interested in the Good (or virtue) than in various technical discussions of the nature of knowledge, metaphysics and its credibility, language and meaning, mind and consciousness, the individual and his alienation, etc. We can no longer see the tree for the branches and their leaves -- to use a metaphor borrowed from Descartes.
Thank you, I appreciate the insight
great video!
Thanks!
Contrast Montaigne with Descartes. For Descartes, science of the Good (the science of Morals) comes last. Read Descartes' 'philosophy as a tree' metaphor in his letter to one of his translators for his 'Principles of Philosophy'. Descartes said there that philosophy as a whole was like a tree -- the roots are metaphysics, the trunk is physics, the other branches are the other special sciences -- medicine, mechanics, etc. -- with the science of Morals being the highest (or last) branch. Descartes goes on to make it clear that one must ascend (or climb) to the top of the tree to get to the science of Morals -- "which, presupposing an entire knowledge of the other sciences, is the last degree of wisdom." Now, for Montaigne (as for Socrates also, I believe) such an ascent (without first having a knowledge of the Good) would be poisonous to the soul ! Contrast, also how very different the view of Montaigne (and Socrates) -- as well as to the view of Descartes -- is that of the Biblical story of Eden, wherein a single bight of the apple from the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil is actually mankind's downfall ! Here we have three distinct views of the science of Morals. The Biblical view appears to discourage such a science, putting in its place instead a return to simple obedience to God's commandments. The view of Descartes, perhaps taking his view from Aristotle's claim that Metaphysics is First Philosophy, is that the science of Morals comes last as the crown of wisdom. And, finally, Montaigne (and perhaps Socrates) view that the science of Morals is of first importance to all other learning, and, that without such a knowledge of Good and Evil, one cannot live a truly Good Life -- and, indeed, that one might become all the more evil and more self-destructive the more educated they are -- think of the Sophists and politicians of ancient Greece !
But the idea that modern education attempts to create a populace of Renaissance Men is Itself ridiculous ! For it would first have to begin with courses in Critical Thinking, as a Renaissance Man Is not so much one who learns everything, as one who can think for himself. Moreover, modern education puts more emphasis on memory and the ability to pass tests, than it does on actual understanding and the skills of critical thinking. To simply equate a Renaissance Man with a broad intellect, and not with a mind most creative and profound, is to blatantly misunderstand what it means to be a Renaissance Man !
Perhaps renaissance man was not the best choice of words on my part. mea culpa