Read in the relative quiet of this sunny spring saturday morning, PPM66 represents the last pages of Being and Learning (pp. 103-104). The chapter culminates with something like a summary of the central themes of Plato's allegory, which has been the focus for the past month or so, and in doing so returns to the figure of the Sage, who is the focus of chapter three and also Socrates, who is the focus of chapter two. In returning to these two I am underlining why the one who arrives to emancipate the cave-dweller, i.e., to get learning underway, is one who is practiced in the art of provoking thinking. And must be, for how else would they be able to provoke the move from the security of the 'domestic' or 'habitual' modality? Provocation however always happens via evocation, through a calling, which, yes, does involve some 'force' because the call is a provocative evocation. So it is a call that must be 'heard' in order for it to be received. The force of the evocation arrives from the Sage who, following Heidegger, I call 'the first thinker,' the one who "takes a questioning stand with regard to the unconcealment of being by asking: what are beings? In this question unconcealment is experienced for the first time." (Heidegger) The first thinker as Sage (as the one who evokes learning) directs others to first thinking, which is to say, points others to the disclosure of Being. For my project, the disclosure is the offering of human freedom as pure potentiality, and the disclosure of the power to do something, to make something, and, as I have been emphasizing in the preceding PPMs, the aim of education is to guide the student in such a way that when they take up their freedom they are inspired to repair and renew the world, that is, they understand the responsibility they have toward to the past, to history, that has prepared the way for them, and are, at the same time, aware of the future they are making, the future history they are building for those who will come after them. I've called this preparation 'con-servative education' in the sense of a 'conservatory' (think art or music conservatory that prepares students to become original artists or musicians), and the ethic that is organizing this 'con-servation' or 'sustainability'. Hence, schooling can be understood using the set of terms offered by Heidegger: Dwelling>Peace>Freedom. From schooling arises learning, or the enacting of freedom.
February 13, 2014 was the 10th anniversary of the original experiment that produced 363 phenomenological mediations, published as 'Being and Learning' (Brill: 2012). Each day between Feb 2014-15, I returned to the original meditations, and my commentary is documented here. And then, again, on February 15, 2024, on the 20th anniversary of the first days of the original experiment, I revisit and comment on a daily basis, once again.
3.0. - (an abbreviated commentary on this day 20/10 years later - a day that started at 5:30am in NJ, the drive back to Portland with Sofie, a brief hello to Kelly, an hour long call with my Hofstra colleague, then off to ref a lax game. When all was said and done, I had only so much time and energy, but the desire to continue with the daily writing in the spirit of the original project. That was always the challenge: to write each and every day!) Yesterday in class we focused intensely on the Allegory. My students were engaged with specific moments, the transition from part 2 to part 3, the breaking of the chains and the difficult ascent from the cave. I ranted during my second section about the chains they are bound with in this contemporary moment, the digital devices they are distracted by, the digital shadows. Break the chains, put down your devices, for an hour, for a day, for a week!
ReplyDeleteBut the culminating moment of the Allegory was the culminating moment of the discussion, the encounter with the Sun, is this Agathon ("the Good") or Kalon ("the Beautiful")? Arendt suggests that Kalon should have been identified as the Principle of Principles, because it is the light that enables all beings to shine. But Plato, in a piece that is searching for a pedagogy that will yield a just state, must place Agathon at the center, and this will be translated in moral and political terms. If we want a just state we must have citizens who have encountered the principle of justice. Yet I replaced Agathon with Kalon, not with the beautiful as we might understand it in the everyday sense, but as the encounter with the harmonic, with the sense of the cosmos, the beautiful way all things are organized individually and together. This is a deeper sense of justice, as the ultimate balance of things. For me, the encounter with Kalon inspires the poetic, the desire to make something good. Agathon is actualized and realized by the poetic act. The good follows from the vision of the beautiful, the making of something significant and lasting, For me, this is the process that begins with the encounter with the beautiful in the significant object of learning - reading, listening, perceiving. The response - writing, speaking, dialogue. The beautiful object of learning, the good subjective response. This is dialectic of learning.