Friday, April 11, 2014

How did the teaching methods of Plato and Aristotle differ?

Aristotle was a student in the Platonic Academy in Athens
for over 20 years before moving on to found his own school after Plato's death.
Artistotle's teaching career, in fact, started when he began teaching rhetoric in the
Platonic academy.


Plato wrote exclusively in dialogue form,
never appearing in propria persona in his own writing. In his teaching career, he only
lectured once, delivering a single public lecture "On the Good," which has not been
preserved, but apparent dealt primarily with the idea-mathematicals. Otherwise, teaching
at the Platonic Academy was conducted primarily in dialogue form. It is possible that
the Platonic dialogues were used as starting points for discussion at the Academy, but
no actual accounts of Plato's teaching have survived, other than Epistle VII,
Unfortunately, it is not certain that Epistle VII is authentically Platonic, and thus,
while its contribution to assessment of Plato's pedagogy theories is quite important, we
cannot state with any certainty whether the theories contained in it are Platonic or
neo-platonic.


Aristotle's early works, including the
Protrepticus, which has been prefserved in fargments quotes in later authors, and
several philosophical dialogues, which have not been preserved (but which are mentioned
by Diogenes Laertius, Cicero, and other ancient soucres), appear to have been moderately
Platonic in style and pedagogical approach. In his subsequent career, Aristotle seemed
to favour lecturing, and a monologucal rather than a dialogical style of
presentation.

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