Philosophy of Education 3:1

CD/mp3 195, first half of third Cincinnati lecture on philosophy of education. Corresponds to CWL 10: 53-65. Sponsored by St. Peter's Abbey Saskatoon. Another element of intellectual development, namely, reflective development, development in the question, An sit? results in a fresh apprehension of the invariant elements of the human good. Changes arise in particular goods, the good of order, and aesthetic, ethical, and religious values. The structural invariants do not change. But there is a progress in the apprehension of them, from the compactness of the symbol to the differentiation of philosophic, scientific, theological, and historical consciousness. There is also a differentiation of consciousness that accompanies this progress and that is necessary for it. The rediscovery of the symbol is one of the main themes in contemporary thought. Eliade's work is discussed, with its affirmation of the possibility of archaic mysticism. He uses symbols to investigate cultures whose language and history are known imperfectly. Voegelin works on a different level. The symbols of Babylonian and Egyptian thought were countered in the revelation given to Israel, and the symbols of the Homeric age were transcended by the philosophers. The meaning of the symbol can be just as profound as the work of the later philosophers. Studies of the process of differentiation are complex, and require a detailed knowledge of what is going on. In theology the simplest illustration is from the NT language about Our Lord to the language of Nicea and Chalcedon. The second differential is sin. Sin is considered as crime, as a component in social process, and as aberration. The consideration of sin as a component in social process echoes much of chapter 7 of Insight. Sin as aberration is opposite to cultural development, on the reflective level, in the apprehension of the invariants of the human good.

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Audio restoration by Greg Lauzon