In my Philosophy of Art course, we are discussing Plato’s philosophy of art, by means of selections from Statesman and Books 3 
and 10 of The Republic, along with snippets from Ion, Phaedrus, and Symposium.
In The Republic, Plato makes a systematic case for censoring all arts. The task of the Platonic philosopher is to take up the “ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry” [607b] and to assert the State-enforced dominance of philosophy. To that end, The Republic as a whole is a powerful integration of philosophy, religion, education, and politics, and its argument for the political suppression of most art follows from that integrated system.
Rhetorically, Plato uses Socrates’ discussion with Glaucon and Adeimantus to list a series of grievances against poetry, music, and painting:
* A good portrait of the gods and heroes will show them as worthy and exalted beings — but poets such as Homer and Hesiod often tell tales of the gods and heroes fighting and bickering and acting immorally [e.g., 390b-391e].
* A moral citizen’s soul will be composed and dignified — but many musical modes stir us up inside and make us jangled and unsettled [398e-400d.].
* Good people and gods do not deceive — but painters constantly deceive us by trying to make their fake imitations look real [598c, 602d]. (Meanwhile, Plato allows that politicians (and only politicians) ought to be allowed to lie to their citizens [389b-c].)
* A strong and moral man will not grieve the death of a friend by moaning and wailing like a woman — but poets regularly have their characters issue long, pathetic lamentations [387d-388d].
* Courageous men are willing to die in battle — but the poets tell scary stories about the afterlife and make us fear death [386b-d].
* A proper moral of the story will teach that good people meet good ends and bad men meet bad ends [613d-614a] — but tragic poets have will often have bad men profit and protagonists fail and suffer despite their virtues [392b].
* Decent people respect and strive for worthiness — but comic poets appeal to our basest desires and mock and deride everything [e.g., 395d-e, 606c].
And so on.
The Republic’s overall argument for censorship thus combines a particular conception of morality with religion and authoritarian politics. Formalizing the argument:
1. To have a good society, we must have good citizens.
2. To have good citizens, children must be well educated.
3. To be well educated, children must be exposed to good material and shielded from bad material [386a].
4. So, to have a good society, children must be exposed to good material and shielded from bad material.
5. It is the obligation of the State to educate its citizens.
6. So the State should allow only good material and suppress bad material.
7. The State’s censorship applies also to art.
8. So the State should allow only good art and suppress bad art [401b, 595a].
[Next: Evaluating Plato's argument for censoring the arts. Return to the Intellectual History page.]
Posted 2 weeks ago at 8:46 am. 1 comment
More data showing that culture, not race, is crucial to educational performance: “Africans outperform African-Americans in Seattle schools: 
Even the children of destitute Somali refugees do better.” From the Seattle Times report: “African-American students whose primary language is English perform significantly worse in math and reading than black students who speak another language at home — typically immigrants or refugees.”
A relevant anecdote: Immigrants and the spirit of entrepreneurship.
Also relevant is the great education work by NFTE, successfully teaching entrepreneurship to low-income students, giving them the knowledge and skill set to overcome their cultural deprivations, and Marva Collins’ classic achievements.
And fundamentally relevant are those individuals of any race or culture who decide to make something of themselves no matter what.
Related data:
Homework, race, and success in life.
Gannibal, “dark star of the Enlightenment.”
[Return to the StephenHicks.org main page.]
Posted 1 month, 2 weeks ago at 6:18 pm. 1 comment
The latest rankings of the Top 400 Universities in the World, 2011-2012. A breakdown of their locations by country followed by some explanatory questions:
Top 10:
United States 7
United Kingdom 3
Top 20:
USA 14
UK 4
Canada 1
Switzerland 1
Top 100:
USA 51
UK 12
Canada 5
Australia 4
Netherlands 4
Germany 4
France 3
Sweden 3
Switzerland 3
Republic of Korea 2
Japan 2
China 2
Hong Kong 2
Singapore 1
Finland 1
Belgium 1
What explains this distribution? One is that education and research are very expensive, so it makes sense that the wealthiest countries would have the best universities.
A follow up question: What makes countries wealthy? The great majority are in countries that have significant amounts of economic freedom.
Wealth and economic freedom are necessary conditions, but great universities also need intellectual freedom and other cultural traits. Another correlation: 75% percent of the top 100 universities are in countries with strong historical connections to the British empire. Most of the rest are also in cultures of political, religious, and 
other social freedoms.
[And something for the egalitarians among us to worry about: Note that Canada has only half of one percent of the world's population (34,108,752 of 6,840,507,000) but ten percent of the top thirty universities in the world. How disturbing. Clearly the crafty Canadians are hogging a disproportionate amount of the world's knowledge resources.]
Posted 2 months, 2 weeks ago at 9:52 am. Add a comment
I like this paragraph from Michael Strong’s The Habit of Thought:
“The effort of Socratic Practice is to develop students’ own standard of intellectual judgment by means of placing the onus of responsibility for understanding entirely on them and providing them with the tools and experiences necessary to develop their intellectual judgment. ‘Does it make sense to you?’ is the central question to students whenever we are working to understand a text. As long as the student knows that, whether by didactic instruction or by subtle conversational manipulation, she will ultimately be led to the ‘right’ answer, she will never rely on her own judgment in the deepest sense. In order to come to rely on her judgment, and to feel a need to refine it, she must continually be put in situations where she is completely on her own.” (p. 15)
This semester Marsha Enright and I are experimenting with Socratic Seminars in my Philosophical Foundations of Education course. So far we have done sessions with selections from Plato’s Allegory of the Cave [pdf] from The Republic, John Locke’s Some Thoughts Concerning Education [pdf], and John Dewey’s Democracy in Education [pdf] .
Posted 3 months, 1 week ago at 11:51 am. 2 comments
For my Philosophy of Education course lectures on video, readings are now posted from key philosophers to accompany several of the lectures. [All links are to PDFs.]
Idealism: Plato (the Allegory of the Cave from Republic) and Immanuel Kant (from On Education).
Realism: Aristotle (from Politics) and John Locke (from Some Thoughts concerning Education).
Pragmatism: John Dewey (from Democracy and Education).
Behaviorism: B. F. Skinner (from Beyond Freedom and Dignity).
Existentialism: Jean-Paul Sartre (from Existentialism Is a Humanism).
Marxism: Karl Marx (from Theses on Feuerbach and The Holy Family).
Postmodernism: Henry Giroux (from Border Pedagogy as Postmodern Resistance).
In each case, I discuss the readings in my video lectures, but nothing beats also reading the primary sources for oneself.
Posted 5 months ago at 7:35 am. Add a comment
Here is the syllabus and schedule [pdf] for my graduate course this semester.
I’ll be doing a few experiments with the course this time. One is using my online lectures in Philosophy of Education as assignments for class preparation, along with reading from Howard Ozmon’s textbook. I’ll also be asking the students to read and write a critical review of Jerry Kirkpatrick’s Montessori, Dewey, and Capitalism, a fine historically-informed survey of educational theory.
And in the second half of the semester I will be working with Marsha Familaro Enright, who will lead several Socratic discussions on key philosophers of education — including Plato, John Locke, Immanuel Kant, John Dewey, B. F. Skinner, Jean-Paul Sartre, Karl Marx, and Henry Giroux.
Posted 5 months, 1 week ago at 8:09 pm. Add a comment
Here is the syllabus for my summer course.
Along with other course-relevant links, the syllabus is also posted in the Courses section of my site.
Posted 8 months ago at 1:06 pm. 2 comments
and 10 of The Republic, along with snippets from Ion, Phaedrus, and Symposium. 
* A good portrait of the gods and heroes will show them as worthy and exalted beings — but poets such as Homer and Hesiod often tell tales of the gods and heroes fighting and bickering and acting immorally [e.g., 390b-391e]. 
* Courageous men are willing to die in battle — but the poets tell scary stories about the afterlife and make us fear death [386b-d]. 
3. To be well educated, children must be exposed to good material and shielded from bad material [386a].
