I recently had a very interesting discussion with ChatGPT about the value of teaching philosophy classics, e.g. Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, etc. The discussion helped me organize my ideas, gave me some new ones, and indeed changed my mind. I used to think that teaching philosophy classics to first-year and non-major university students isn’t valuable. Now I think it is valuable, but we need not use primary sources. If we do use primary sources, we should (i) use accessible version/translations, (ii) give students sufficient guidance on how to approach the text, and (iii) avoid extensive interpretative work.
There are at least three separate questions dealing with the value of studying philosophy classics:
Question 1: What is the value of studying philosophy classics instead of contemporary works?
Question 2: What is the value of reading the primary sources of philosophy classics instead of secondary sources about such classics?
Question 3: What is the value of reading the original versions or the old, “authoritative” translations of philosophy classics instead of their contemporary, revised, and more accessible versions and translations[Footnote 1]?
[Examples:
– Original version: the 1739 version of A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume
– Old, “authoritative” translations: Mary Gregor’s translation of Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (to the best of my knowledge)
– Contemporary, modified, and more accessible versions and translations: Jonathan Bennett’s Early Modern Texts (https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/)]
ChatGPT gave several arguments for/goals of teaching philosophy classics. They were quite messy and repetitive, so I’ve revised and reorganized them into three goals.
Goal 1: Studying philosophy classics enables students to evaluate contemporary ideas and consider alternative ones.
First, philosophy classics contain ideas that were shaped by the social, political, and intellectual conditions of their time. Studying classics enables students to understand how ideas, including both old and contemporary ideas, are influenced by such conditions.
Second, these old idea evolved and shaped future ideas, including contemporary ones. Studying classics enables students to see contemporary ideas from a different perspective and draw upon aspects of old ideas to evaluate contemporary ones
I will use one example to illustrate. In Ancient Greece, the ruling class—including the authors of the philosophy classics that students read—did not need to do physical, day-to-day work. Their slaves did it for them. The idea that abstract thinking, not physical work, is the most valuable activity may well have come from this social context. In modern society, by contrast, we value equality and economic productivity. Work is then perceived as more valuable, sometimes even more so than abstract, “useless” thinking.
Exploring the influence of such social conditions lets students think about how some value may not be “universal” but require some socioeconomic conditions. Also, valuing one activity and looking down on another, we may be valuing certain socioeconomic conditions and looking down on others. (E.g. the well-off travelling to different places and posting pictures on social media with the hashtag #authenticlife, while sneering at those working two jobs to take care of their family and pay down their student loans.) Going further, perhaps in a post-scarcity society (because of AI?) or in a different social system, work would be less valuable than abstract thinking.
Goal 2: Cultural Diversity
“Classical philosophical texts come from various cultural traditions, including ancient Greek, Roman, Chinese, Indian, and others. Exploring these texts provides students with a broader understanding of different cultural perspectives on fundamental questions about existence, knowledge, ethics, and society.” (A direct quote from ChatGPT)
Goals 1 and 2 give us reason to teach philosophy classics (i.e. Question 1), but they do not given us reason to teach primary sources of classics instead of secondary sources (i.e. Question 2), nor using their original versions or old, “authoritative” translations instead of their contemporary, revised, and more accessible versions/translations (i.e. Question 3).
In fact, reading primary sources, not least in their original versions/old translations, may create obstacles to achieving these two goals. This is because students may end up spending most of their time deciphering the texts instead of reflecting on and drawing implications from them. Worse yet, they may misunderstand the texts because of the way they are written. The teaching would also need to devote a significant amount of time to explaining and interpreting the texts, possibly drawing upon other primary and secondary sources, instead of focussing on the context, evolution, and diversity of the ideas explored in the texts.
So, maybe Goal 3 can give us a reason for using original versions/old translations of classics?
Goal 3: Interpretative Challenges
“Reading texts from different historical periods can be challenging due to differences in language, terminology, and rhetorical styles. Students who engage with classical texts learn how to navigate these interpretative challenges, honing their critical thinking and analytical skills.” (A direct quote from ChatGPT)
I believe that Goal 3 has its pedagogical value, but it isn’t clear to me its relative importance compared with Goals 1 and 2, along with other goals of philosophy education. Even if it is a goal that we want to pursue, it isn’t clear to me whether reading the original versions and “authoritative” translations of philosophy classics can help students effectively achieve this goal. After all, most students are not going to interpret classical texts in their university and post-university life. And the interpretative skills developed by reading classical texts may not be directly transferrable to interpreting contemporary texts. (Compare: the reasoning skills developed through learning formal logic is not directly transferrable to reasoning in natural language.) But I am not an expert on this topic, so I won’t go any further than these points.
Three Thoughts on Teaching Philosophy Classics
So, my thoughts on teaching philosophy classics are the following. Goals 1 and 2 are both valuable goals that are worth pursuing, giving us good reason to teach philosophy classics. These two goals do not require us to use primary sources. We may be able to achieve these goals—even more effectively—by using secondary sources.
But if we do decide to assign the primary sources of philosophy classics:
(1) We should use their more accessible versions/translations.
(2) We need to give students sufficient guidance on how to approach the texts. (This requires a lot of careful and thoughtful work.)
(3) We should keep in mind interpretative work should be done in the service of these two goals rather than for its own sake. Extensive interpretative work is likely not necessary.
Doing the above would enable us to achieve these two goals more effectively in a first-year/non-major course.
Footnote:
[1] I am leaving out the question whether students should be discouraged from reading secondary sources. The argument behind this question is that secondary sources would “fix” the mind of students, leading them into the interpretation presented by the secondary source, and prevent them from understanding what the original author really means. This is a very bad argument for so many reasons. One is that it fails to appreciate the challenges that students often face when dealing with classics. Another one is that secondary sources can correct students’ misreading of the text by drawing on the context, other parts of the work, and scholarly research. A third one is such an argument isn’t backed by any empirical evidence confirming this “mind-fixing effect” on students.
