Response to Hugh Sockett

Citation

Hogan, P. (2014), "Response to Hugh Sockett", International Journal for Lesson and Learning Studies, Vol. 3 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLLS-10-2013-0055

Response to Hugh Sockett

Article Type: Response to Hugh Sockett From: International Journal for Lesson and Learning Studies, Volume 3, Issue 1.

Keywords Pedagogy, Educational practice, History of learning, Platonism, Significance of Learning
Review DOI 10.1108/IJLLS-10-2013-0055

Let me begin with a warm word of thanks to Hugh Sockett for his painstaking labours in writing an essay-length review of The New Significance of Learning. There is much in the book which Sockett finds rich and stimulating, and it would be a pleasure to discuss many of his observations in detail. But in this short response I need to focus on Sockett's criticisms, of which there are two main ones. The first of these is the questionable accuracy of my historical account of the colonisation of educational practice in western civilisation during the long era of Christendom. The second criticism is best captured in Sockett's own words: “the viability of the theme, derived from Socrates, that education is, could or should be a practice described as method”.

In relation to the first point, the following claim is central to my argument: the major educational efforts of western civilisation fell largely under the influence of a Platonised Christianity from the fourth century onwards. Sockett is sceptical about this argument because Plato's works did not become familiar to European scholarship until the twelfth century, and more particularly the fifteenth century. But we also have to take account of key figures like St Augustine. Through thinkers like Plotinus and Porphry, sufficient was known of Plato's work and influence for Platonism to be a strong force in fourth century Milan where Augustine came to embrace Christianity. Moreover, as Peter Brown's major study of Augustine puts it: “the brand of Platonism Augustine adopted in 386 was already a Platonism poised for battle” (Brown, 2000, p. 486). This Platonism is evident in particular in Augustine's Confessions (Augustine, 1998) and City of God (Augustine, 2003). Here the basic Platonist architecture of an upper world of unity and radiance and a lower world of turbulent ignorance receives a seminal twist. The upper “city” becomes one of divine harmony and omniscience, and the lower a region of restless sinfulness. Where such a grim theology became institutionalised, as it did for many centuries in the educational history of Europe, ideas of Socratic ancestry were unlikely to enjoy a place in the sun.

In relation to the second criticism, I don’t see Socratic philosophy mainly as a method, especially if this method is to be regarded as something separate from content. My argument for education as a practice in its own right finds its ultimate source in a Socratic conviction. “Socratic method” is misunderstood unless one also understands the underlying conviction that makes that method intelligible. This conviction is itself a self-critical, or fallible one, continually putting itself at the risk of refutation. Informed by Socrates’ declarations during his trial (Plato, Apology 23 a-b) it holds that even the best gains of human enquiry are partial, and in both senses of that word: incomplete; and inescapably burdened by bias. This means, first, that a “view from nowhere”, purged of all bias and resting on unshakeable foundations, is very probably unattainable for human beings. Second, where the ethical orientations of education as a practice are concerned, the Socratic work of unearthing hidden assumptions, including one's own, means that conversation and constructive critique are more important, and more appropriate, than combat. A third consequence is that education can never be a practice that is fully independent of influences – economic, political, religious, etc. – in the society where the practice is pursued. Where educational practitioners strive to become accomplished as their own best critics, however, they may also hope reasonably, if sometimes in vain, to win the trust of the wider society; but starting with students and parents. Such efforts remain crucial to safeguard the practice in meaningful degree from forces that believe it quite natural to harness it to their own ends.

Pádraig Hogan
National University of Ireland Maynooth, Maynooth, Ireland. E-mail: padraig.hogan@nuim.ie mailto:padraig.hogan@nuim.ie

References

Augustine (1998), Confessions (Trans by H. Chadwick), Oxford University Press, Oxford
Augustine (2003), City of God (Trans by G. Bettenson and edited by G.R. Evans), Penguin, London
Brown, P. (2000), Augustine of Hippo – A Biography, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA
Plato, Apology, available at: www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0170%3Atext%3DApol.%3Asection%3D23a