This is lecture 3 of [[Stephen Hicks]]'s [[PA Philosophy of Education]] course on [[Peterson Academy]]. Year 1085 in Spain, Toledo is retaken by the Christians from the Muslims. The Christian world gained access to many ancient works preserved and translated by the Toledo School of Translators, among which lies Aristotle's works. From here stems the Christian question about what to do with knowledge of the pagans, specifically the Greeks and Romans. Abbot Suger was in charge of a cathedral building project in this era of Gothic architecture, and the question of how to fill up empty spaces arose. He suggested to fill up the space with something beautiful and appealing to the eyes especially for the illiterate, which became iconography on stain glass. The controversy arises by interpreting the commandment against graven images (Exodus 20:4) to be a warning against all the visual arts, and that was not an unpopular view at that time. To capture the divine in physical form is sacrilege. Saint Denis debate ended in favor of building the stain glasses. This was a synthesis of traditions, taking the best from the pagan Romans and Greeks, and incorporated into Christianity. Aquinas, then, took on the project of reconciling Aristotelian philosophy with Christianity. His method also reflected the clarity and the non-fictionality of Aristotle. He was insistent upon a rational approach to Christianity—and the fact that it was even possible—in an era where people think faith is something emotionally ascended to. Aquinas speaks ill of the problem of over-governance and putting too much emphasis on obedience in schools, arguing that one should be self-governing, and that something that is always a subject of another thing is nothing but a dead thing. On top of that, Aquinas thinks that God intends for some happiness in this life, and that happiness is tied to human agency. Augustine vs Aquinas is the Christian version of Plato vs Aristotle. Aquinas, representative of the integrationist tradition, is the champion of integrating the Christians with the Greeks. What that largely looks like is an affirmation of physical and natural goods as seen in happiness, beauty, and human intellect. The tradition that Augustine inspired vouched for a complete denial of all things sensually and bodily good, and what came out of that tradition was censorship, and even intentional destruction like holding "bonfires of the vanities." Savonarola is the most famous proponent of this practice. Luther was part of this strong opposition to Aristotelian integration, opening likening Aristotle to the devil himself. Coming out of the pagan, and Scholastic aka Thomistic tradition was the idea of self-governance and by extension self-education. Tyndale was a proponent of this, thus committed himself to translate the Bible into English. He was later executed after prolonged persecution by the English and the Catholics. Apart from the strong Augustine vs Aquinas intellectual battle, which is a battle of YHWH (maybe Plato as well) and nothing else vs YHWH (again, and Plato) and Aristotle, there is a third route. That third route is humanism, an interest in all things human—Christianity included, as well as Aristotle, as well as everything else that comes up. Michelangelo's David—a status depicting a male in nude—sends the philosophical message that human beings are beautiful, and the human body is something to be celebrated. David's moment of resolve before facing Goliath represents the idea of taking your future into your own hands and fighting for it. This is an example of an integration between the Christian and the Greco-Roman. Dr Hick suspects Michelangelo is a humanist, and his focus for the David is the beauty of humanity. Formalized view of education came about during the renaissance with ideas like the trivium and the quadrivium. Seven classic liberal arts: Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric, Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and Astronomy. The first three make up the trivium, which focuses on language and reasoning. The latter three make up the quadrivium, which focuses on math and science. Education is ideally a self-directed quest with those seven at its foundation. Leon Battisti Alberti's Self Portrait of a Universal Man was the first autobiography. Two interesting points can be made here. The self portrait was like the first work of autobiography in history, signifying the importance of the self, and that it is good to be proud of oneself. Another point to be made is about the universal man—aka the Renaissance man. To be well educated is to know a lot about a lot, contrary to the past. He was self-taught in a lot of things, multi-passionate and transfers his energy and attention from one to another, but his relentlessness also led to illness. He is a good model for self-education. The ideal is to be a master of as many things as possible. The world is interesting, and mastery over as much as possible makes as the best individuals we could be. "Men can do anything with themselves if they will." Education vs human nature. There is this question of whether the things we ought to learn in line with human nature, or opposed to it, and vice versa. This question would decide how we think about the use of force in the education process. The same question affects our views of how much control we should have over what kids are exposed to, and by extension censorship. It is only natural we gravitate towards banning and restricting if we believe the child to be by nature bad and would gravitate towards bad things. --- Back to: [[PA Philosophy of Education]] Previous Lecture: [[From Plato to Augustine]]