Hall of Fame

Aristotle (384-322 BC)

Aristotle, is in some ways a more important educational theorist and philosopher than Socrates. His work has resonated down the ages and although we have only fragments from his book On Education, we have enough secondary evidence to piece together his theories on the subject.

Greek ideal

He was a proponent of the Greek ideal of an all-round education. A balance of activities that train both mind and body including debate, music, science, philosophy had to be combined with physical development and training. This ideal has had a profound influence on the West’s idea of education and schooling. Modern schools and universities have this classical ideal as their core values.

Practice as well as theory

Despite his position as one of the World’s greatest intellectuals and philosophers, he showed great concern for practical and technical education, in addition to contemplation. He would be genuinely puzzled by our system’s emphasis on theory rather than practice. Learning by doing was a fundamental issue in his theory of learning. 'Anything that we have to learn to do we learn by the actual doing of it...’ he says, echoing with many a modern theorist. This is not to forget theory and theorising, only to recognise that education needs to be habitually reinforced through practice.

Education, was for Aristotle a fundamental activity in life. ‘Better a philosopher unsatisfied, than a pig satisfied’ to quote his peer and contemporary, Plato. And this philosophical view of education is one of his main concerns. Education is not the mere transmission of knowledge, it is a preparation for participation in a fulfilled life that reflects and acts on ethical and political grounds. Its as much about rights than getting things right.

Conclusion

The schism between Plato and Aristotle, theory and practice, teaching and research, lives on in our Universities. Aristotle, in the western tradition was the first to break with philosophical reasoning as the primary approach to education. However, his theories also gave rise to scholasticism that was to send the search for knowledge and education into more than a millennium of decline. It wasn’t until the Renaissance and subsequent Enlightenment that recovery was possible. Nevertheless, Aristotle remains a towering figure and we have somehow recovered components of the Greek ideal through the Renaissance recovery to build educational systems that recognise that legacy.

Bibliography

Aristotle The Nicomachean Ethics, London: Penguin. (The most recent edition is 1976 - with an introduction by Barnes).

Aristotle The Politics (A treatise on government), London: Penguin.

Barnes, J. (1982) Aristotle, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Good introduction.

Jaeger, W. W. (1948) Aristotle, Oxford: Oxford University Press. The authoritative text.