Saturday, May 21, 2011

Poetic knowledge and classical education

What sort of mind is proportioned to an education in philosophy? Dialectic and contact with the real world are necessary for the student of philosophy, but what else is required for the student to be able to accept the definitions given to him by his teachers and books? I have thought that the best way to stimulate inquiry is through socratic questioning, but what other means are there for the teacher of philosophy? Is it proper to proceed in a "logical" fashion, with definitions/axioms and reasoning from them? This question about how to teach philosophy got me thinking about pedagogy and other modes of knowing... I again recall the complaints lodged by critics of the manuals. Was the seminary and Catholic university education of the early 20th century intellectually deadening because the requisite preparation that is necessary for scientific learning is missing?

John Senior and Poetic Knowledge:

A tribute to John Senior
Our Schoolmaster Remembered
An interview with James S. Taylor (His Poetic Knowledge: The Recovery of Education.)
"The End of Education": John Senior and the Idea of the University

Teaching Classical Literature Classically by Andrew Kern (CiRCE)
THE “GOOD BOOKS” LITERATURE PROGRAM by Elisabeth Carmack, Ph.D., N.D., DiH.
CIRCE Institute

Related:
Inside Classical Education
Institute for Classical Schools
Memoria Press
The Classical Scholar
Classical Academic Press

Institute for Catholic Liberal Education

A critique of certain programs (including Well-Trained Mind) by a Randian.