Aristotle would have flunked Harvard?

Question

Here in the USA, our institutions of "higher" learning teach a brand of knowledge that does not embrace criticism. I call this kind of instruction facist. Our students are made to digest and regurgitate what they are taught without regard to the truth of the matter or face the penalty of being branded a failure. Aristotle rejected the curriculum (the word literally means racecourse) concept as being self-limiting and restrictive. He thought the world at large to be the best teacher and viewed with disdain the small minds that required confinement within walls.

With that as a premise, the question becomes of what real value and significance is a college degree, except as a readily identifiable indicia of actual learning and substitute for informed and proper judgment as regards a person's true abilities?

Answer 1

As Aristotle, himself, says regarding questions and assertions:- Questions can be made into assertions, and assertions (otherwise known as propositions or declarative sentences) into questions (otherwise known as interrogative sentences) with a TURN OF THE PHRASE.

So the above is not really a question, but, rather, it is actually an assertion to the effect that, quote:

ARISTOTLE WOULD HAVE FLUNKED HARVARD!!!

But if Aristotle was alive, today, he wouldn't "flunk Harvard", although someone might accuse of him of something criminal, according to whatever is considered a serious crime among modern Americans of today. They might do that, if and only if, Aristotle enrolled at Harvard and began criticizing the thinking of Harvard professors.

However, it is far more likely, that had Aristotle joined Harvard at about the same time as Bill Gates did, both of them would have dropped out of Harvard, at the same time, and Aristotle might have joined Bill Gates at Microsoft.

In sum, Aristotle only "hung around" with THE BEST of thinkers. He dropped out of the Academy after Plato's death, and founded an extended branch of the Academy at "the Troad" on the coast of (then) Persia (present day Turkey). There, he actually accomplished Plato's "dream" of either converting a RULER to philosophy, or by some miracle having a philosopher become a "ruler/king".

He made that "Platonic ideal" come true in the case of his Father-in-Law, who was the Persian appointed TYRANT of a small Greek City State named Aeternius, which paid tribute to Persian overlords. But when his father-in-law began to RULE, like a philosopher, on Aristotle's persuasion and counsel, the Persians kidnapped Aristotle's father-in-law, took him to their "police-State-Capital" at Sardis and tortured him to death, in attempts to have him confess that "the Greeks" were trying to overthrow the Persian State (at the time, Phillip of Macedon may have actually been "plotting" to do exactly what the Persian "security police" suspected).

Aristotle and his wife fled Ataernius, after his father-in-law's murder at Sardis, and went to the island of Lesbos. From there they went to Macedon to "tutor" Phillip's young son, Alexander the Great. When Alexander assumed the throne of Macedon, after his tutelage by Aristotle, then Aristotle and his family returned to Athens where Aristotle founded his own "school" at the Lyceum, arguably under the protection and patronage of young Alexander.

Some authors relate that Aristotle had two wives. But I don't know whether the Persian Tyrant's daughter (or possibly niece under the governance of her uncle, the Tyrant) was his first or 2nd wife. The tyrant's daughter (or niece) was named Pytheus if memory serves. As to his other wife's name (if he had a second wife), I have no idea. I do know that he had a son named Nichomachus, named after Aristotle's own father who was also named Nichomachus.

So, how big his family was and who the members were, at the time he returned to Athens, is unclear to me. But he was certainly wealthy, owned slaves and had property and financial resources from both his father's medical practice and holdings at Macedon and his mother's holdings and Estate in Euboea. The Greeks of Euboea (just off the East Coast of Attica; Athens is located on Attica's west Coast) apparently colonized the northern Chalcidice, at Stagira where Aristotle was born (just east of The Kingdom of Macedon in northern Greece).

In short, Aristotle had wealthy and moderately powerful parents and relatives on both his mother's side of the family and his father's side of the family. He wouldn't have difficulty raising tuition for Harvard or anywhere, but he would certainly be too smart for most modern professors to "match wits" with. Some people say that Aristotle "discovered LOGIC". However, in my opinion, he, along with Plato and others, actually developed Socratic DIALECTIC into the art of LOGIC.

So, once again in my opinion--- more than "discovering" logic, he, rather, elucidated and enumerated the RULES of logical thought (among many other things).

It wasn't until Alexander The Great had died at Babylon that "the Athenians" charged Aristotle with the same "trumped up charge" as they had brought against Socrates (atheism and corrupting youth) about 80 years earlier (Socrates in 399 B.C.; Aristotle about 323 B.C.).

So if Aristotle was alive today and enrolled at Harvard or even living anywhere in America, today's "Harvard Professor Types" MIGHT charge him with something criminal, for the same reason that ancient Athenians accused him of "atheism and corrupting youth" (which were the worst criminal offences in Athenian society).

In a word, ENVY might be the cause of "modern charges" against Aristotle, were he alive today. Aristotle was the BEST "critical thinker" in ancient Athens, in his day and time, just as Socrates was equally the best "critical thinker" in ancient Athens in his own day and time. Were he alive today, he'd still be the best "critical thinker" anywhere on the most GENERAL of Academic subjects.

Far from merely FLUNKING him, there would be people who he could easily embarrass that MIGHT want him dead, rather than merely "flunked".

As to rejecting "curriculum" (the word is from the Latin verb "currere"/run and literally means "what one currently runs with"; so "race course" would be one literal interpretation; and the term "course" is a literally abbreviated derivative term), Aristotle never rejected certain "curricula". Other "curricula" he would, of course, reject. He certainly rejected the post-Plato Academy's emphasis on "NUMBERS" (Arithmetic and, especially, Geometry), arguing that you cannot turn Physics, Logic, Ethics or Political Science into branches of mathematics, as the later Academicians tried to do.

Certainly, the world is a good teacher, according to Aristotle. But to sort out the complexity and ambiguity of such a huge COSMOS requires training in certain arts, with LOGIC being the primary investigative art, after DIALECTIC, which, according to Aristotle, is, quote "a process of criticism wherein lies the path to the PRINCIPLES of all inquiries." (TOPICS; Book I, Ch. 2; 101b lines 3-4).

Aristotle would know WHAT "to run with" today, although he probably would not be teaching undergraduates at Harvard or, less likely, be "learning" with him.

An Academy, or Lyceum, in his time, were places for the ALREADY SUCCESSFUL and accomplished people. They didn't give out degrees as signs of "success", but, instead, because they were already "successful wealthy people", they had the time and leisure "to inquire" into the CAUSES and NATURE of things.

Things really "took off" with Socrates (Socratic Dialectic) and, then, Plato's Academy which accomplished the first full scale INTEGRATION of mathematicians and geometers with the early physicists of the time. Prior to Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, mathematicians and physicists had almost NOTHING in common --- other than Greek grammar and a lot of CONTRADICTIONS of each other's theses.

The early Academy, under Plato's direction, found "common ground" between and among mathematicians and physicists. Socrates was Plato's elder by about 40 years and Plato was Aristotle's elder by about 40 years. So about 80 years separates Aristotle from Socrates. And in that 80 years, which involved the alleged "discovery" of LOGIC, fairly early on, the increase in speculative knowledge and "common ground" between mathematicians and physicists simply exploded.

The phenomenon was very much like what happened after the Wright Brothers "discovered" the principles of powered flight (which birds already "knew" by "nature") and what happened with the "silicon valley" phenomenon --- an exponential growth of knowledge and industry until a natural limit is reached --- although that hasn't happened, yet, with the semi-conductor industry. Semiconductors are still being improved EXPONENTIALLY.

Aristotle didn't believe in "smallminds", but, rather, in minds which directed themselves towards things which are "small" in scope (eating; drinking; sensual, rather than intellectual pleasures). He thought that human minds actually become whatever they "think about", according to their own mode of understanding. The classic line is that when thinking about stones our souls become the "form of a stone" without the material of a stone. In other words, if you think about small or petty things, you end up with a "petty mind".

However, if you think about great things, your soul (or we'd say mind) may become "great" (or very confused without training in logic). One cannot "confine a mind behind walls" on that view of Aristotle's --- just some bodies. Furthermore, Aristotle was of the opinion that "philosophy" had to be taught and learned "face to face", which would require "ACADEMICS" to at least meet in one place, whether behind walls or not. Apparently, Aristotle and friends liked outdoor walks on long "patios" (walk-ways). Thus the name "peripatetic" (patio walking) philosophers. So they physically "confined themselves" to patios (rather than behind walls) when discussing various SUBJECTS.

As to the question, "What real value and significance is a college degree?", the answer is for "the graduate" to elucidate and/or explain. Of course, if you "flunk out" or are "flunked out", you won't be able to explain the value of a degree which you do NOT have!

So this post may simply be "sour grapes" by someone who "flunked out" or was "flunked out". Then again, maybe not. A Harvard degree did NOT help Bill Gates accomplish anything, because he dropped out of Harvard in order TO INQUIRE into and build something that interested him, to wit, an OPERATING SYSTEM for his own home computer (the Altair 3000 or some such name).

Aristotle would describe most modern professors as SOPHISTS (paid teachers of arguments), while he would describe Bill Gates as a "philosopher of mathematical and mechanical nature", or a "metic-physicist".

Enuff said.

Kevin

Answer 2

There are many people, intelligent, gifted individuals who can not hold a job, who have no people skills, least very few. Certainly dealing with people is a sign of a different type of intelligence. The degree is simply a piece of paper. It is what we do with the knowledge we have gained is what counts. Further not all of our knowledge was gained through some book, or from some professor's lectures, but more it is how we handle stress, communicate at varying levels, interacting with others, accomplishing tasks in a timely manner, and other similar skills. It is often pointed out, experience is the true teacher.
And in time we all get better, stronger, smarter, quicker, etc. with the actual doing of our endeavor.