Aristotle's Reform of Paideia

Aristotle's Reform of Paideia

ABSTRACT: Ancient Greek education featured the pedagogical exercise of dialectic, in which a student defended a thesis against rigorous questioning by an instructor. Aristophanes’ Clouds, as well as Plato and Aristotle, criticize the practice for promoting intellectual skepticism, moral cynicism, and an eristic spirit - the desire to win in argument rather than seek the truth. I suggest Aristotle’s logic is meant to reform the practice of dialectic. In the first part of my paper, I defend the thesis that Aristotle’s syllogistic is an art of substantive reasoning against the contemporary view that it is a science of abstract argument forms. First, I show that Aristotle’s exclusive distinction between art and science makes syllogistic a techne for the higher forms of knowledge, science and practical wisdom. Then I argue that Aristotle’s treatment of demonstrative and dialectical syllogisms provides rigorous standards for reasoning in science and public debate. In particular I discuss a) the requirement that a demonstration use verifiable premises whose middle term points out a cause for the predicate applying to the conclusion; b) how his analysis of valid syllogisms with a "wholly or partly false" universal premise applies to dialectical syllogisms.

Aristotle’s logic is a major achievement of Greek paideia, valued and preserved continuously even in dark ages following its commitment to writing. Here I look at its role in reforming Greek education. The mission of Greek paideia, Aristotle argues in the Politics, is to enable members of a community to discuss with each other serious matters of common interest requiring joint decisionmaking and action. A political organization requires "a method of deciding what is demanded by the public interest and what is just in men’s private dealings" (Politics 1328b2ff).(1) He also stresses the essential function of education to promote the intellectual excellence of the student. A distinctive feature of Greek education in Plato’s Academy and Aristotle’s Lyceum was dialectic – an intellectual exercise in which a student took a position on an issue and defended it against rigorous questioning from an instructor or another student. The origin of dialectic is Socrates elenctic mode of inquiry. Socrates asked a willing or unwilling citizen to put forward a definition of an ethical notion, such as justice, then engaged in a cunning and often baffling conversation with him. By a circuitous route the colloquy ended with the student making an admission inconsistent with his original postulate.