Your brain or mine?
"What is education? The teacher on one side, pupil on the other side, knowledge between, discourse joining them." --Taittiriya Upanishad
I'm reminded of Robert Heinlein quoting Aristotle: "a university is a log with a teacher at one end and a student at the other."
And here we are, with three different people in three different parts of the world at three different times saying much the same thing. Four now.
The beauty of education is not the teacher and student relationship - any cat teaching her kittens to hunt mice is an educator - but that we have the wisdom of the past to draw upon. The chain of teachers and students may be broken, the wisdom remains, written down for a student to discover fresh.
I often think of Aristotle and Plato's brother Glaucon in conversation. Aristotle makes a long-winded point and Glaucon responds, "Very true," before Aristotle makes his next long statement and Glaucon relies, "indeed, that is so."
Sometimes in our philosophy class, we will read a dialogue out loud, taking parts. Once, my wife was reading Aristotle, coming to the end of a very long and involved paragraph. She took a breath, and I, as Glaucon, responded, "Yes, dear."
The class cracked up.
But here is the thing that opens my mind. I can pick up a book, read it for the first time, and the thoughts that first ran through the brain of a sage in Ancient Greece - or Vedic India, or Lao-Tzu's China - are now running through mine. I make the same imaginary pictures in my mind, I follow the same logic, I am thinking the same thoughts as a teacher three thousand years dust.
Wow.
Philosophy is literally "the love of wisdom", and it's no longer fast cars or pretty women that excite me quite so much as an elegant argument or a new insight.
And sometimes I am exalted without a word being said or read. Some art galleries - and I'm thinking of the Kimbell in Fort Worth here - have such an exquisite collection that I can look at a painting and almost read the artist's mind. He might be telling a story of treachery and deceit, or saying something about the impermanence of beauty, or the joy of love, or devotion to duty or a hundred other things.
Michaelangelo or Mondrian, I stand before a painting, my mind in the exact same space as the painter's, and I understand, if I have eyes to see and a mind to think.
I walk out into the Texas sun, or the Mall, or Trafalgar Square, or King Edward Terrace, and I am lifted up. I have thought thoughts that are new - and old. I am one with the wise and the creative and the beautiful.
I love philosophy.
I hope to write something every week, looking at a quote or a concept or some aspect of our weekly philosophy class. What inspired me was this competition. You may vote for my entry, if you wish!
I'm reminded of Robert Heinlein quoting Aristotle: "a university is a log with a teacher at one end and a student at the other."
And here we are, with three different people in three different parts of the world at three different times saying much the same thing. Four now.
The beauty of education is not the teacher and student relationship - any cat teaching her kittens to hunt mice is an educator - but that we have the wisdom of the past to draw upon. The chain of teachers and students may be broken, the wisdom remains, written down for a student to discover fresh.
I often think of Aristotle and Plato's brother Glaucon in conversation. Aristotle makes a long-winded point and Glaucon responds, "Very true," before Aristotle makes his next long statement and Glaucon relies, "indeed, that is so."
Sometimes in our philosophy class, we will read a dialogue out loud, taking parts. Once, my wife was reading Aristotle, coming to the end of a very long and involved paragraph. She took a breath, and I, as Glaucon, responded, "Yes, dear."
The class cracked up.
But here is the thing that opens my mind. I can pick up a book, read it for the first time, and the thoughts that first ran through the brain of a sage in Ancient Greece - or Vedic India, or Lao-Tzu's China - are now running through mine. I make the same imaginary pictures in my mind, I follow the same logic, I am thinking the same thoughts as a teacher three thousand years dust.
Wow.
Philosophy is literally "the love of wisdom", and it's no longer fast cars or pretty women that excite me quite so much as an elegant argument or a new insight.
And sometimes I am exalted without a word being said or read. Some art galleries - and I'm thinking of the Kimbell in Fort Worth here - have such an exquisite collection that I can look at a painting and almost read the artist's mind. He might be telling a story of treachery and deceit, or saying something about the impermanence of beauty, or the joy of love, or devotion to duty or a hundred other things.
Michaelangelo or Mondrian, I stand before a painting, my mind in the exact same space as the painter's, and I understand, if I have eyes to see and a mind to think.
I walk out into the Texas sun, or the Mall, or Trafalgar Square, or King Edward Terrace, and I am lifted up. I have thought thoughts that are new - and old. I am one with the wise and the creative and the beautiful.
I love philosophy.
I hope to write something every week, looking at a quote or a concept or some aspect of our weekly philosophy class. What inspired me was this competition. You may vote for my entry, if you wish!