The Philosophical Review/Volume 1/Review: Davidson - Aristotle and Ancient Educational Ideals

by William Alexander Hammond

Aristotle and Ancient Educational Ideals. By Thomas Davidson. [Series of the Great Educators. Edited by Nicholas Murray Butler.] New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1892. — pp. xiii, 256.

Students of the history of philosophy and pedagogy will find in this volume of Davidson an excellent presentation of an interesting subject. The book is published under the general editorship of Nicholas Murray Butler in the series "The Great Educators." The author prefaces his account of Aristotle by a somewhat detailed history of Greek education up to his time and traces the post- Aristotelian period briefly to the Neo-Platonists. As an Appendix, is added a chapter on "The Seven Liberal Arts." The author's plan, as stated in his preface, to show in this way "the past which conditioned his [Aristotle's] theories and the future which was conditioned by them" will, I think, find approval with every reader. There will be no one, however, who will not regret that more was not said about Aristotle, to the presentation and discussion of whose theories only fifty pages are devoted. The chapter on Plotinus, whose position in the history of pedagogy is unimportant, might easily be spared and the space given to the further elucidation and criticism of Aristotle's ideas. Brief, however, as this account of Aristotle is, one does not know where to look for so direct and lucid a treatment of this side of the Stagirite's philosophy. The German books, to which in the main we have to look for the history of ancient educational institutions and theories, are so fortified with quotations and references to all kinds of authorities that it is like scaling a bristling rampart to get at them, and the references frequently constitute their greatest worth. By this I do not mean to depreciate the great value of this minute and painstaking sifting of authorities and piling up of evidence; all trustworthy history must go back to such data. But these books cannot fairly be called readable, except to Fachgenossen, and consequently they are not directly serviceable to a great number. What we needed in English was just such a book as Davidson has given us,—scholarly, interesting, and sufficiently detailed. It is not such a book as will be the special delight of a student engaged in research at a German university, and it was not meant to be. But for the student of the history of philosophy who wants a careful, orderly, and lucid treatment of this subject, without a mass of critical paraphernalia of which he will probably make no use, I can commend him to no better book. Almost the only quotations which the author employs are in the way of mottoes at the heads of chapters; these are always apropos and are made with such skill and fulness as to be light-giving.

In discussing the rise of philosophy among the Greeks, Davidson says (p. 22) that at first the new spirit turns to nature with the question, What? "but, gradually discovering that the answer to this brings no complete explanation of the world, it propounds its other questions. It thus arrives at a consciousness of four distinguishable elements in the constitution of things,—four causes (αἴτια, αἰτίαι), as they were termed,—(1) matter, (2) form, (3) efficiency, (4) end or aim. At the same time and by the same process it is forced to a recognition of the presence of reason (λόγος) and intelligence (νοῦς) in the world, since form, efficiency, and aim all presuppose both." This classification of causes which Aristotle gives us comes into the philosophical consciousness long after the rise of philosophy; though as individual causes an understanding of some of them was implied in philosophy previous to Aristotle's, reducing them to classified form and showing their mutual relationship and dependency. The Anaxagorean νοῦς, however, is in time prior to them. It is true that the introduction of the notion of end or aim into philosophy is simultaneous with that of νοῦς. But I think it an anachronism to state the matter as the author does. A few pages further on, in characterizing the "Old" (776–450 B.C.) and "New" (450–338 B.C.) Education, Davidson calls the "New Education" rationalistic and "liberal," "whose aim was the training of formidable individuals, self-centred, law-despising, time-serving, and cunning." This seems to me a strong over-characterization of the pedagogical spirit in the age of the Sophists, Sokrates, Aristophanes, and the first activity of the academy. Even the Sophists, and they are doubtless with most writers a somewhat abused set, do not deserve the adjectives here employed, if we are to be guided by contemporaneous literature. Further than this I venture no disagreement with the author, nor any emendation, save perhaps the insertion of Schmidt's Geschichte der Pädagogik, Vol. I, in the bibliography. Three years ago a fourth edition of this work was prepared by Hannak. If the same standard of excellence is maintained in the remaining volumes of this series of "The Great Educators" as Davidson has set in this delightful presentation of Aristotle, we shall have an admirable set of manuals on the history of pedagogy. The chapters on Aristotle's "Theory of the State" and "Pedagogical State" are model pieces of work, full of suggestion and good interpretation.

William Hammond.