Aristotle’s Reform of Paideia

1998 ◽  
pp. 32-37
Author(s):  
Evelyn M. Barker
Keyword(s):  
Practical Wisdom ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Art And Science ◽  
Middle Term ◽  
Contemporary View ◽  
Moral Cynicism ◽  
Forms Of Knowledge

Ancient Greek education featured the pedagogical exercise of dialectic, in which a student defended a thesis against rigorous questioning by an instructor. Aristophanes’ Clouds, as well as Plato and Aristotle, criticize the practice for promoting intellectual skepticism, moral cynicism, and an eristic spirit - the desire to win in argument rather than seek the truth. I suggest Aristotle’s logic is meant to reform the practice of dialectic. In the first part of my paper, I defend the thesis that Aristotle’s syllogistic is an art of substantive reasoning against the contemporary view that it is a science of abstract argument forms. First, I show that Aristotle’s exclusive distinction between art and science makes syllogistic a techne for the higher forms of knowledge, science and practical wisdom. Then I argue that Aristotle’s treatment of demonstrative and dialectical syllogisms provides rigorous standards for reasoning in science and public debate. In particular I discuss a) the requirement that a demonstration use verifiable premises whose middle term points out a cause for the predicate applying to the conclusion; b) how his analysis of valid syllogisms with a "wholly or partly false" universal premise applies to dialectical syllogisms.

Moderation in Greek and Islamic Traditions, and a Virtue Ethics of the Qur’an

2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
M. Ashraf Adeel
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Contemporary View ◽  
Aristotelian Ethics ◽  
The Individual

This article looks at some of the salient analyses of the concept of wasaṭīyah (moderation) in the ancient Greek and the Islamic traditions and uses them to develop a contemporary view of the matter. Greek ethics played a huge role in shaping the ethical views of Muslim philosophers and theologians, and thus the article starts with an overview of the revival of contemporary western virtue ethics, in many ways an extension of Platonic-Aristotelian ethics, and then looks briefly at the place of moderation or temperance in Platonic-Aristotelian ethics. This sets the stage for an exposition of the position taken by Ibn Miskawayh and al-Ghazali, which is then used as a backdrop for suggesting a revival of the Qur’an’s virtue ethics. After outlining a basis for its virtue ethics, the Qur’anic view of the virtue of wasaṭīyah is discussed briefly and its position on this virtue’s nature in terms of the individual and the community is presented.

Climate Embodiment

2020 ◽  
pp. 33-55
Author(s):  
Michael Méndez
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Human Body ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
Multiple Impacts ◽  
The People ◽  
A Site ◽  
Forms Of Knowledge

Examines how activists view the human body as a site of intersection between social, political, and environmental dynamics. Activists understand climate change as an embodied phenomenon that has multiple impacts on the people who live with it every day. This chapter shows how they have introduced embodied, local forms of knowledge into public debate and transformed climate change solutions. The chapter uses the heavily polluted community of Richmond, California to develop the concept of climate embodiment.

Moderation in Greek and Islamic Traditions, and a Virtue Ethics of the Qur’an

2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Ashraf Adeel
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Contemporary View ◽  
Aristotelian Ethics ◽  
The Individual

This article looks at some of the salient analyses of the concept of wasaṭīyah (moderation) in the ancient Greek and the Islamic traditions and uses them to develop a contemporary view of the matter. Greek ethics played a huge role in shaping the ethical views of Muslim philosophers and theologians, and thus the article starts with an overview of the revival of contemporary western virtue ethics, in many ways an extension of Platonic-Aristotelian ethics, and then looks briefly at the place of moderation or temperance in Platonic-Aristotelian ethics. This sets the stage for an exposition of the position taken by Ibn Miskawayh and al-Ghazali, which is then used as a backdrop for suggesting a revival of the Qur’an’s virtue ethics. After outlining a basis for its virtue ethics, the Qur’anic view of the virtue of wasaṭīyah is discussed briefly and its position on this virtue’s nature in terms of the individual and the community is presented.

Aristotle's Empiricism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Gasser-Wingate
Keyword(s):  
Practical Wisdom ◽  
Cognitive Resources ◽  
Animal Life ◽  
Perceptual Knowledge ◽  
Forms Of Knowledge

Aristotle is famous for thinking that all our knowledge comes from perception. But it’s not immediately clear what this view is meant to entail. For it’s not clear what perception is supposed to contribute to the more advanced forms of knowledge that derive from it, or indeed how we should understand the nature of its contribution—what it might mean to say that these more advanced forms of knowledge are “derived from” or “based on” what we perceive. Aristotle is often thought to have disappointingly little to say on these matters. I argue here that this thought is mistaken: a coherent and philosophically attractive view of perceptual knowledge can be found in the various texts in which Aristotle discusses perception’s role in animal life, the cognitive resources on which it does and does not depend, and the relation it bears to practical and theoretical modes of understanding. What emerges from these discussions is a moderate form of empiricism—an empiricism on which we can develop sophisticated forms of knowledge by broadly perceptual means, but nonetheless rely on our intellectual powers for more advanced forms of understanding. I consider the role this empiricism plays in Aristotle’s account of our learning, and its implications for his views about practical wisdom and the cognitive lives of nonrational animals.

“...This plan was conceived by me...”: On the background of D. Merezhkovskiy’s forgotten letter to the editors of the “Mir Iskusstva”

2021 ◽  
pp. 87-99
Author(s):  
Elena A. Andrushchenko ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Debate ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
Art Journal ◽  
History Of

The paper clarifies the circumstances of the publication of a little-known letter by D. Merezhkovskiy in the “Mir Iskusstva” (“World of Art”) journal. The letter was published under the same rubric as a letter by Yu. Ozarovskiy, director of the Alexandrinsky Theatre, a person far from the journal’s editorial board, giving the impression of a public debate between like-minded people. Recreating the details of the struggle for setting ancient Greek tragedies in D. Merezhkovskiy’s translations on the stages of Russian theatres, based on forgotten publications of those years, indicates that the staging of “Hippolytus”, a tragedy by Euripides, was regarded by the “Mir Iskusstva” association as evidence of the effectiveness of their program in the struggle for new theatrical art. It was not D. Merezhkovskiy who played the leading role in this process, as he wrote in his letter, but D. Filosofov, who sought to stage the tragedy as a mystery play. Disagreements between D. Merezhkovskiy and the creative association of the “Mir Iskusstva” appeared later, when their aesthetic, religious, and philosophical views began to differ. However, during the production of “Hippolytus”, these differences did not prevent them from participating in joint projects as a new artistic force. It should be recognized that ancient Greek tragedies in D. Merezhkovskiy’s translations played a part in the history of the Russian theatre: the debate about the concept of performances, the specifics of L. Bakst’s sets, and musical accompaniments was an important step in the development of the theatre in expanding its expressive capabilities.

scholarly journals Professional Knowledges for Early Childhood Education and Care

2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 134-146
Author(s):  
Verity Campbell-Barr
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Knowledge Base ◽  
Practical Wisdom ◽  
Professional Knowledge ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Education And Care ◽  
Forms Of Knowledge ◽  
Pure Knowledge

This article proposes reconceptualizing professional knowledge in early childhood education and care (ECEC) as knowledges, incorporating phronesis (practical wisdom), techne (skill), and episteme (pure knowledge). Conceptualizing professional knowledge in the plural broadens perspectives on the professional knowledge base and opens up a discussion of how different forms of knowledge are acquired. Drawing on Bernstein, the author identifies ECEC as requiring horizontal and vertical constructs of knowledge that have different structures and legitimization processes. While phronesis is presented as being a part of ECEC professional knowledges, the discussion explores the difficulties in defining phronesis, because of the variable ways it is articulated.

Aristotle’s Empiricist Theory of Doxastic Knowledge

Phronesis ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 431-464 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hendrik Lorenz ◽  
Benjamin Morison
Keyword(s):  
Practical Wisdom ◽  
Theoretical Knowledge ◽  
Memory Experience ◽  
Empiricist Theory ◽  
Key Features ◽  
Forms Of Knowledge

AbstractAristotle takes practical wisdom and arts or crafts to be forms of knowledge which, we argue, can usefully be thought of as ‘empiricist’. This empiricism has two key features: knowledge does not rest on grasping unobservable natures or essences; and knowledge does not rest on grasping logical relations that hold among propositions. Instead, knowledge rests on observation, memory, experience and everyday uses of reason. While Aristotle’s conception of theoretical knowledge does require grasping unobservable essences and logical relations that hold among suitable propositions, his conception of practical and productive knowledge avoids such requirements and is consistent with empiricism.

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