Monday, May 08, 2017
True Education Is Always Oral
Pierre Hadot (1920-2010), Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault, tr. Michael Chase (1995; rpt. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), p. 62:
Our new overlords have forbidden us to use the term "master" in an educational context, so perhaps I should not even have quoted the passage above.
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True education is always oral because only the spoken word makes dialogue possible, that is, it makes it possible for the disciple to discover the truth himself amid the interplay of questions and answers and also for the master to adapt his teaching to the needs of the disciple. A number of philosophers, and not the least among them, did not wish to write, thinking, as did Plato and without doubt correctly, that what is inscribed in the soul by the spoken word is more real and lasting than letters drawn on papyrus or parchment.Related post: Attendance in Class.
Our new overlords have forbidden us to use the term "master" in an educational context, so perhaps I should not even have quoted the passage above.
- "Stephen Davis asks Pierson students not to call him 'master'," Yale Daily News (August 13, 2015)
- "Masters change their titles to 'head' of residential colleges," News at Princeton (November 18, 2015)
- Yanan Wang, "Harvard College 'House Masters' to get new titles because of slavery connotation," Washington Post (December 2, 2015)
- Peter Salovey, "Decisions on Residential College Names and 'Master' Title," (April 27, 2016)
- Anita Alem, 'Master' title changed to 'Magister'," The Rice Thresher (April 6, 2017)
