What is Education?- A thread on learning and teaching, the creative process, practice

[wm]

those who divide things into two categories and those who lie about it.

Consider a couple of things from the ancient Greeks;
techne (art/craft) is contrasted with episteme (knowledge/science) by Plato
sophia (wisdom) is contrasted with phronesis (practical wisdom/prudence) by Aristotle
Each of these early heavy hitters suggests that the path to the collections that fall under each term is not the same.

We could also compare/contrast theoria with praxis as ways of “knowing” God or sitting zazen with solving koans as ways of achieving enlightenment.

In English, I think it is worth noting that one learns “about” something but one trains “on” something. We also can note that English grammar and diction tell us that learning involves a relationship between a person and an object—“Larry learns logic.” while training involves a relationship between two persons—“Tom trains Toby.”

We may, with Rene Descartes among others, happen to accept the idea that we are born with innate ideas. We may, instead, agree with John Locke’s refutation of that position and believe our minds are blank slates. We can even take the Kantian line that our "understandings"are “hard-wired” in certain ways that allow (or force) us to make sense of the data presented to us. The beauty of this last position is that it is something of a synthesis: we are still blank slates in terms of content but have something like a syntax ( perhaps a Chomsky “deep structure”) or a file format (FAT32 or NTFS e.g.) to organize the content/lexicon/vocabulary that we acquire along the way.

BLAB (Bottom line at bottom)
Each of these metaphysical positions or presuppositions predisposes one to a certain solution set for the problem of how one figures out how to get along in the world. But, whatever way one comes down on the question of primacy of place, I trust we can all recognize that at least two different activities are involved and a complete solution requires the successful application of both.

[marct]

BLAB (Bottom line at bottom)
Each of these metaphysical positions or presuppositions predisposes one to a certain solution set for the problem of how one figures out how to get along in the world. But, whatever way one comes down on the question of primacy of place, I trust we can all recognize that at least two different activities are involved and a complete solution requires the successful application of both.

Yup. I was wondering when you would weigh in WM .

Without a (fairly) clear metaphysical model that, BTW, I would argue has to include those of our current and potential opponents, we are dead in the water.

Then again, just mention "metaphysics" and it scares the snot out of most materialists (the dominant metaphysical paradigm in the Industrial Age)....

[wm]

[QUOTE=marct;93528]Yup. I was wondering when you would weigh in WM .QUOTE]


I subscribe to the idea that we will serve no bottom line before its time and finally decided, "it's time."

Metaphysics is not always about things, btw