ARISTOTLE

And Public Education

THE BEGINNINGS
 Aristotle was born in 384 BC
 His father was physician to the king of
Macedonia.
 When he was 7, he went to study at Plato’s
Academy.
 Began as a student, became a researcher and
finally a teacher.
 Was considered one of Plato’s best students.

 Plato died and willed the Academy to his

nephew.
 Aristotle left and founded the Lyceum.
ARISTOTLE AND REALISM
 Aristotle was a realist. Plato was an idealist.
 Central thread of idealism is the principle or
thesis of independence.
 Reality, knowledge and value exist independently of
the mind. Realism rejects the Idealist notion that
only ideas are real.
 Believed form is within matter and change takes
place in matter.
 Believed a relationship exists between science
and philosophy, and that the study of one leads
to the study of the other.
SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY
 For instance, studying the material aspects of an
acorn should lead to a deeper, more complex
reflective thought of what an acorn is – of what it
is in essence or form (Ozmon and Craver, 2008).
ARISTOTLE’S VIEWS
 Balance is the central concept to Aristotle’s
views.
 Saw universe as being in a balanced and orderly
fashion.
 Education was the means used to create a state
of good citizens.
MAN IS A RATIONAL ANIMAL
 Aristotle believed “man is a rational animal.”
 While animals express pleasure or pain with
their cries, man and only man is able to speak.
 Ability to speak allows man to be able to
determine the difference between what is right
and what is wrong, what is beneficial and what is
harmful.
 So, how are these skills and knowledge acquired?

 Through education.
EDUCATION WAS CENTRAL
 A fulfilled person was an educated person.
 Education was essential for the self-realization of
man.
 The supreme good to which all men aspire is
happiness.
EDUCATION AND LEARNING
 Aristotle believed education and learning are
always about an object and should have content.
 He believed a teacher instructs a learner about
an object, about some knowledge, or some
discipline.
 Teaching and learning are always about
disciplined inquiry into some aspect of reality.
 A school should cultivate and develop each
person’s rationality.
KNOWLEDGE AND BELIEF
 Knowledge is different from belief in that
knowledge is the beginning of dialectic reasoning.
 Aristotle believed people make mistakes when
their judgment is not found on reason.
 A person cannot make a mistake if they have
knowledge of something.
 Aristotle argued that man should know his own
weaknesses so that he would be more cognizant
of what he does to make mistakes. If he knows
how he creates mistakes, he can take steps to
make sure he does what it takes to prevent
mistakes from happening.
LEARNING
 Students learned about something by practicing
it over and over again until they learned it.
 This was done through the practice of
habituation.
 Idea of learning was “Practice first, theory
afterwards,” or “Do the deed and ye shall know
the doctrine.”
LEARNING, CONT.
 Work begun by nature and continued by habit or
exercise was completed and crowned by
instruction.
 This had two functions:
 To make action free by making it rational, and
 To make possible an advance to original action.
 Nature and habit make men slaves, gov’d by
instincts and prescriptions.
 Instruction, or revelation of the grounds of
action, set men free.
 Greeks thought of this as the realization of
manhood – or the divine in man.
WHO WAS TO BE EDUCATED?
 Men of noble nature.
 Only citizens of the state were to be educated.

 The role of women was to keep house and have

children. Believed women were “intellectually
inferior” to men.
 Marriage was simple an arrangement to
procreate and rear offspring.
 Women were regarded as a means and not as an
end.
 Slaves were not educated.
MEN WERE DIVIDED INTO TWO
CLASSES
 A Governing Class, and
 A Governed Class

 Governing Class required education so that it

could govern the Governed Class.
 Governed Class required just enough education
as would enable it to obey.
 Only by completing these duties would each class
find its usefulness and satisfaction, or balance.
THE ORDER OF THINGS

Man

Wife 

Children

Slaves
THE END
 Some reported thoughts on Aristotle:
 “Perplexed with obscure terms and useless
questions,” John Locke.
 Had “a naïve and childlike animistic view of the
world,” Jean Piaget.
 Aristotle died in 322 B.C.