From the Greek origin, or as Heidegger might say (I don’t really know) the that-from-out-of-which. For Aristotle the origin of the universe was ἐνέργεια (usually translated as “actuality” as opposed to δύναμις or “potentiality”) because there couldn’t have been mere δύναμις for indefinite time because why would it have changed? I think that’s the gist of his argument… I’d love to say more about δύναμις & ἐνέργεια but then I’d have to talk about the Megarians and if my wife saw me doing that I think I’d be in trouble…

Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ Λόγος  John 1:1

In the beginning was the word. Hmmm… what could that mean? The logos was the arche as in the word archetype, archon etc. …the principle. For Aristotle the soul was the ἀρχῇ of motion. Heraclitus made Λόγος the centre of his philosophical endeavour; there quite a controversy about what it means to him and those who came after; it certainly did not mean logic back then, as it does now; before Heraclitus it meant a kind of tall tale, a story, usually a falsehood.

The genesis of my inquiry:

The general category of my question is how does one reach all their students when teaching literature? In order to narrow down this question my concern is restricted to how a teacher can foster collaborative thinking. Students collaborate with each other in both formal and informal ways throughout their time in class. The beginning of collaborative thinking, I believe, can plausibly be stated as listening. If someone does not listen to the one they are collaborating with it seems that the word collaboration is not appropriate for the mode in which they work together. Crudely put, there are two kinds of questioning or listening, open ended questions and closed questions. By the latter I simply mean when a specific answer is being sought, e.g., in what year did the second world war begin? Other questions can have specific answers, yet they are never complete, for instance, what did it mean for Prometheus to bring fire down to human kind? This broad division occurs constanstly in day to day life, we ask, “what steet is that restaurant on?” or “what’s new in life?” The closed question can be answered quickly but the other can, usually, always be expanded on. Moreover, the open question requires interpretation. It is addressed to a person as a person, in other words, one can never search out the answer through google, rather, it requires a human response. While students often engage with one another through open questioning this is not always done with regard to classwork. Teachers try to elicit responses that engage students in reflection–is Hamlet a coward and indecisive or is he thoughtful and just? Teachers try their best to push their students to engage in lively and contemplative conversation. If this succeeds then students may carry over their interest into discussions with their peers. Students then become reciprocal teachers amongst themselves when this happens insofar as they both explain and learn from others in their classroom. One point in the genesis of this inquiry is my having noticed in both highschool and university that the best classes were often ones where a dynamic developed among the students. Unfortunately, it often seemed the case that students would perhaps reply to a teacher’s questions but as soon as an answer was given

the thread was lost. At other times, on the contrary, students would listen to their peers and continue a discussion, either by adding something to what one of their peers had said or asking for clarification. This synergy, as it were, allows, in a sense, for a teacher to better reach all of their students because what begins with, for example, a lecture, continues on in group discussion where students clarify and expand their thinking through their interactions that do not directly include the teacher. To add one more element of the genesis of this question, in my second or third year of undergraduate studies I took a class on the presocratics and I particularly admired Heraclitus for this saying among others: “not knowing how to listen, neither can they speak.” I have often found myself limited in my understanding of the world because I have not taken the time to properly listen and interpret those around me, rather being satisfied with hearing my own voice or being nervous or conerned with some other matter. Interpretation has a central role in today’s society, I believe, because there is so much to interpret that is obscured by time or culture, language or the rapidity of technological change. As such, the interpretation or hermeneutics of the other, I believe, plays an important role in pedagogical theory. In short, my question is: how does one foster hermeneutical listening in interactions among students?