[lit-ideas] The Training of a Pervert
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 14:51:41 EDT
Thanks to B. Stange for her nice musings from North Bay.
She writes:
"It seems to me that philosophical training (if it can be said to >exist
when JL doesn't believe in it) can consist only of learning >the words. But in
the right hands and hearts, that extension of >vocabulary and the thinking
that is required to make it ones own >can be immensely empowering. Ursula,
playing with the words in the rain in North Bay."
I agree. There's something 'ironic' about 'training'. It _can_ be used
jocularly, as in "The training of Mary Lou, or the misadventures of a Gay Lady
in
Convent Garden".
R. S. Peters was the only philosopher of the Grice generation who took
seriously the task of analysing concepts like 'learn', 'teach', and 'train'. I
should look for his specific quotes AGAINST 'training', but I'm appending below
some further quotes by this great.
Now it would be good to make sense of the proposition,
"Geary,
the untrained philosopher"
-- I'm receiving these posts with some delay, so I don't know if anybody
else replied to this. All I got was Stange's comment and Geary's curse, "Jesus
H. Grice".
But back to
"Geary,
the untrained philosopher"
as he pretentiously puts it, he wants to make us know that he did not "need"
a training in philosophy. First, he wore a beard ('a fart in the Heidegger
seminar' as his Autobiographical Memoir reads), and we know that he detests
Academia. He said he'd shoot anyone living near the Yale Campus (and that does
_not_ include me. But it includes a Mexican restaurant, called "Mi amigo
Felix").
Academus was a god, as M. Chase knew. And it was an olive grove. When Plato
first _taught_ philosophy there, he cared about 'training' those who were
young enough to _need_ to be trained. (Incidentally, his career as an official
trainer for the Sicilian prince was a failure).
"Learning the words" may be a good step, as Stange suggests. But that's the
main reason why Aristotle got _so bored_ of getting 'trained' by Plato, that
he decided to found his own "Philosopher Training College" within the walls of
Athens. It's ironic that 'academic' now refers to the out-of-the-walls grove
where Plato criticised the establishment, when 'lycaean' should be the word
we use to mean 'academia'.
I don't know about other disciplines. I think L. Horn _was_ trained in
Linguistics (one requirement in the Linguistics programme at Yale is that you
master a non Indo-European language -- hence the high percentage of Asians
there,
and Hebrews). I never mastered a non-Indo-European language, nor does Geary
(although he can recite the 10 commendments in Aramaic).
If Geary feels 'untrained', but yet a philosopher, it's like Stephen Beckham
-- a notably currently pretty untrained football player who's making the
bucks in Hollywood. Note for the record that Mrs. Beckham (Spicy Posh) is not
trained either (as a singer).
Lloyd Webber tried to 'train' Madonna as a bright soprano for her role in
Evita (yet they recorded 'Don't cry for me, Argentina' in Bb because Madonna
was
never trained enough to get to the original Db on which the score is
written.
Baseball players and American-football players in the USA are _possibly_
trained, but that's what makes professional sport so boring. When Grice died,
his obituary in the London Times read, "Professional [trained?] philosopher and
amateur [gentleman, untrained?] cricketer."
If training is what you get from your mentor -- in a Greek kind of context
-- I'm all for it. My favourite example here is my epitome of masculinity:
Achilles with his weak tendon. And who trained him? Not his father (an absent
father figure, Peleus, if ever there was one) but a half-horse, half-man
critter, Khiron.
Cheers,
J. L.
author of:
Untraining: The Basics.
Julia Booksellers Talk, free admittance,
Boston Post Road.
----
In the context of analytic philosophy, Peters is the first to have provided
an analysis of the concept of education within a methodology that searches
for ‘necessary and sufficient’ conditions. “Education is concerned with the
development of desirable states of mind in the transmission of what is
worthwhile to those who themselves come to care about these valuable things”
(p.
18). The value component present in all the versions of the analysis: to
educate
is to transform another person’s mind into what is valuable within the
community
Peters sees the project as concerned with basic notions of philosophical
psychology (his previous work on “Motivation”), but founded on social facts. A
challenge for his analysis has been to reconcile the psychological and
sociological aspects of value (his work on “Authority”).
Can the concept of ‘value’ be culture dependent’? What are its necessary
and sufficient conditions? Peters is aware of distinctions philosophers make
regarding value: objective/non-objective (subjective), absolute/relative,
unconditional/conditional, underived/derived, intrinsic/extrinsic (after
Grice,
Conception of Value). In any case, Peters’s analysis allows for an ‘externalist
’ standpoint: “We can talk of the educational system of a country without
commending what others seem concerned to pass on. This objection can be met by
citing the parallel of talking about the moral code of another community (or
of a sub-culture within our own). Once we understand from our own case how
terms such as ‘educate’ and ‘moral’ function, we can use them in an external
descriptive sort of way as do anthropologists, economists, and the like. As
observers we appreciate that, in the case of an educational system, we
appreciate that those, whose system it is, consider that they are passing on
what
they think valuable. But we, as observers, do not necessarily commend it
when we use the word ‘moral’ or ‘educational’ to refer to it.” (The logic of
education, p. 20).
This relates to Spring’s open question: “Should multicultural education
attempt to change the dominant culture by incorporating values from other
cultures?” (Spring, p. 151). Interestingly, amongst America’s ‘cultural
values’
of America, J. Banks lists in Multicultural education) an ‘individualistic
[subjectivistic?] attitudes towards values”. On the other hand, Spring
provides
a way out to such subjectivist challenge. Referring to the African-American
context, Spring quotes Kunjufu: “African Americans have a long history of
learning and creativity. Within African American cultural traditions, it is
all
right to be black and to be an intellectual. Studying hard and learning is not
being white, but follows the best traditions of African American culture”
(Spring, p. 140). This connects with P. Tiedt, Multicultural teaching and the
goal “to identify needs, concerns [and values] universal to people of all
cultures”. Where do we stand?
While, to echo Hegel, reason may display its cunnings, there is hope to look
for – and eventually find – a universalist framework that incorporates
substantive value considerations.
Peters’ influence in the ‘foundation’ curricula in the UK has been central.
He has emphasized the connection of the philosophy of education with the
sociology of education. A central notions such as that of value cannot be
understood in a vacuum, but as related to a form of life. However, this should
not
amount to an uncritical acceptance of the social values prevalent in the day.
A main component of education is and has always been a critical examination
of the presuppositions underlying the world-view. To close with a quote by R.
Curren et al: “Peters holds that uncovering presuppositions of thought is
important because such presuppositions can be criticized and revised, thus
potentially liberating humans from the presuppositions of their age.”
Refs:
Education, Values, & Mind. R. S. Peters. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
J. L. Speranza, Esq.
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