Philosophy and the Seven Medieval Liberal Arts

Nerdy, I know. But it's too cool not to share with you all. You can find descriptions of each art along with translations of the text here.

Verum, Bonum, Pulchrum: Why we study Latin at Teleos

[Text for the introductory lecture to Latin I for 7th and 8th graders at Teleos Prep]

Verum, Bonum, Pulchrum
Why we study Latin at Teleos

Who knows what the word practice means?

Good. We're all familiar with it as a verb, right? Practice basketball, practice piano, practice soccer, etc. Now does anybody know what practice means when we use it as a noun: a practice; thus-and-such is a practice.

Bene. I have here a definition of practice from a philosopher, whom I very much respect. Now he says that a practice is a coherent and complex form of cooperative human activity. Internal to that activity are some goods. That activity also has some standards of excellence. And when we try to achieve those standards of excellence we realize, or make real, those internal goods. The result of this whole endeavor is that we grow in an ordered way--we grow as human beings both in our ability to achieve excellence and in our conception of the goods and the ends involved in the practice.

Right--so we've got goods and ends. Goods... and Ends...(And when I say ends, I mean purposes and goals--ultimate destinations)

A practice has internal goods and those goods can be directed to internal or external ends.
An internal end would be a liberal end. Since the practice has an end in its self, an internal end, it is thus free (and so liberal) from any exterior purpose. An external end, on the contrary, would be a pragmatic end, for practical purposes.

Now, learning is a practice. Learning math, learning history, learning grammar, logic, rhetoric, etc. Learning is a practice. And no less, learning Latin is a practice.

And so, the practice of learning Latin has internal ends and external ends. So, the way I see it there are two answers to the question: Why do we study Latin at Teleos? The pragmatic answer and the liberal answer.

First, the pragmatic answer: the internal goods of the practice of learning Latin as applied to external ends. We study Latin at Teleos because it broadens our vocabulary, our English vocabulary. Between 60-80% of English vocabulary is derived either directly or indirectly from Latin roots. Thus learning Latin will better acquaint with English vocabulary and in particular the advanced sort of vocabulary you will find on standardized tests and so on.

We also study Latin at Teleos because it sharpens our grammatical analysis; You will learn parts of speech, the behavior of subordinate clauses, the proper use and function of any grammatical element. You will gain facility with the form--the nuts and bolts of language.

And these will culminate in the heightening of reading comprehension. You will learn to read syntactically--to think syntactically. You won't simply rely on familiarity, on instinct, on intuition--though all those things are incredibly important. Rather, you will understand the rules that guide our language and how to apply those rules and think critically about them. And so you will learn how to read better--again very useful on standardized tests.

That then is the pragmatic answer. Now on to the liberal answer.

Verum, bonum, pulcrum, Latin for the True, the Good, the Beautiful. And my liberal answer shows how learning Latin serves each of these since these are inherent in all our intellectual activities here.

Verum: Grammar is the structure of reality. Another philosopher, this one is one of my absolute favorites, Ludwig Wittgentstein said famously and I think aptly: "The limits of my language are the limits of my world." Everything you do, think, feel, say, every experience you have of the world requires some grammar to hold it up, to support it, to give it any meaning or comprehensibility whatsoever. Grammar is the structure of reality, or at the very least, which is in fact quite a lot, grammar is the structure of your experience of reality. And so in elucidating grammar, in making clear for yourself how grammar works, you make for yourself a clearer World, a clearer experience of the World. You thus enable yourself to see the World more truly. And that is how learning Latin serves the True.

Bonum: As human beings, you are properly learners--inasmuch as you are rational, social. and imitative animals (that comes from Aristotle). In learning Latin you learn how to become better learners and so better humans. The best "good life" that you can live right now is a life of learning. You are of the age that your proper place on the receiving of education and you are not yet called upon to be doers, you are appropriately learners. And learning Latin makes you better learners. It teaches you how to memorize and retain, how to analyze, how to synthesize, how to apply and evaluate. And so learning Latin makes you a better learner and so lets you lead better the best life you can lead as proper to you. And that is how learning Latin serves the Good.

Pulchrum: This is probably the most obvious of participations. Latin was once a living language--a language in which great works of epic and lyric poetry, politics, philosophy, and science were composed, spoken, and written. These works were written about the passing of nature, the love between husband and wife, mother and child, the duty to the city, the honor of the gods, the condition of Man. They were written all those centuries ago, in what is now a dead language, and they are beautiful. They are beating-heart, soul-brightening beautiful. And the only way to experience that beauty in all its purity and magnitude is to learn the language. Until you can hold these works in your bare hands, without the often brutish gloves of a translation, some part of its beauty will always be crudely hidden. Latin is the vehicle for all that beauty; it is the communicant for those works from classical Antiquity. And that is how learning Latin serves the Beautiful.

So those are the two answers to the question: "Why do we study Latin at Teleos?"

What do you do with a Meno?

Though for the past two weeks I have been with the young ladies and gentlemen whom I shall be teaching, I as yet have had no classroom experience. And so I cannot write about that. Yet.

I did, however, enjoy another lovely seminar on Plato. This time it was his Meno.

After we read the Meno, I don’t think we come away with the message: virtue cannot be taught. I think we come away with the message: virtue cannot be taught to Meno. And the reason virtue cannot be taught to Meno is because Meno isn’t interested in virtue.

The first question Meno asks is whether virtue can be acquired by teaching or acquired from experience or else something attributed naturally. Socrates does not answer this question but rather states that another question must be answered first. This question is “What is virtue?” Meno gives several answers to this question, none of which satisfy Socrates.

After the slave-boy demonstration, in which Socrates repeatedly pricks Meno’s ego, Meno nearly begs in exasperation that Socrates return to the first question and leave all this “what is” business. Socrates yields to Meno and takes up the original question about the teachability of virtue. The answer to which Socrates leads Meno is that one has a possibly decent guide in true opinion, but ultimately only the gods give virtue.

To me, the answer is unsatisfactory. But I think that’s because I’m not Meno, or a Meno, as it were. Socrates gives this canned and unsatisfying response to Meno because Meno is incapable (or at least unwilling) to pursue the more difficult route which goes by way of figuring out the nature of virtue before determining its qualities. Meno digs in his heels and refuses to trouble himself with that question, and so Socrates gives him the best answer—the best answer for Meno, that is. The answer is one that is least likely to tempt Meno to viciousness.

(N.B. I am not saying that Socrates made something up for Meno. I very much believe that Socrates’ final answer hold a great deal of truth, but the argument by which he got to that answer is hardly satisfying.)

I shall not spend the entirety of my post simply giving my argument for this reading of the Meno. In fact, I shall not give any more argument for it, but instead I want to think about what ramifications for educating this reading has.

Does Meno give up because he lacks the ability to understand or because he merely lacks the will? (This is simply a rhetorical question. There is evidence in the text to support both and determining a textual answer would be time-consuming). More importantly, how do you treat either case? That is, what do you do with a Meno?

What do you do if the student lacks the intellectual capacity to comprehend a subject? What do you do if the student refuses to exercise his intellectual capacity?

Do I, as a teacher, ever have the right to give in as Socrates does? Do I ever have the right to withhold the whole story? the big picture?

If the question is not about rights, then am I ever prudentially sanctioned to do as Socrates did?