Choi's Ideas on Education Are Pre-Industrial

Daniel Choi, in his "In Defense of Liberal Education" (Sept. 16), addresses a question that has received too little attention and serious reflection in the often charged debates over "diversity" at the University. What exactly are the social or intellectual benefits of diversity--and of what kind of diversity? (Of opinions? ethnic background? experience?) Additionally, Choi raises an issue that continues to occupy all modern democracies: the proper balance between the necessary cultivation of elites and the egalitarian ground tenor of democracy. (Choi comes down squarely on the side of the elites, or the "few best souls," as he calls them.)

But rather than discuss directly Choi's views on diversity and elites, I would take issue with his ideas about knowledge and education, ideas that undergird his entire argument.

Choi's notions of knowledge and education are, as Ernest Gellner might have said, wholly pre-industrial. They typify the thinking that predominated in all the great book-religions until the transformations of the past 300 years. In these religions, knowledge was presumed to have come from a divine source and to be contained in sacred scriptures. Only a select few, it was thought, could interpret these works correctly, faithful to the divine will. In the great book-religions, these great books specifically, and language more generally, partook of the sacred; the path to truth and to divinity passed through particular men, the initiates.

Similarly, Choi's liberal education would "perfect the few best souls through intense study of the few great books." Such a soul "will not need others to correct or complement him.... He will not hold opinions but know truth." Furthermore, since "most of us see truth and goodness too dimly to rely wisely on our own judgment...we must learn to see from those who saw clearly." And where is this font of knowledge? In "the exceedingly difficult works of Plato and Aristotle."

But the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries and the transformation of agrarian into industrial societies have not only demolished the credibility of the Christian book-religion. They have transformed our conception of knowledge more fundamentally. An absolutely certain knowledge is no longer the presence of a select few high priests; rather, all of our claims about the world (and I include even ethical ones) are fundamentally open to criticism and, if need be, to revision. Plato and Aristotle may have written great books (I would not dispute it), but, like everyone, they too are not above or immune to criticism.

In the modern world, "demystified" and bereft of great books, knowledge and education (even in a moral sense) can only depend on the method of constant criticism and revision (a method, incidentally, to which Aristotle contributed the beginnings of analytic logic). --David Meskill '88,   Second-year graduate student in the Department of History