My research on Aristotle took us on several trips, historical and geographic, though one remains to be undertaken: I have promised myself a visit to the site of his Macedonian school once normal travel is resumed.
I mentioned in my first related post on 16.09.2020, how I had studied Logic and Metaphysics at Aberdeen University. I was interested in the analysis of truth tables – related to Plato’s search for what was true. I was even more intrigued in the study of syllogisms – premises built up to form an argument to derive a conclusion.
An observation
to be made is that the typical image of a philosopher is that of a rather
stern, pipe-smoking individual – Bertrand
Russell, for example. Incidentally
I liked one of his quotes : ‘Roughly
speaking, Aristotle’s metaphysics may be described as Plato diluted by common
sense.’
The teaching staff in Aberdeen’s Department of Philosophy seemed to share the academic uniform of corduroy trews and elbow-patched, tweed jackets. There was often a scarf slung nonchalantly around the neck. So that was what the dons donned. But another feature they shared was an other-worldly look, their focus not fixed on anything in particular, but a hazy, sort of glazed gaze, as though involved in a higher level of thinking, but not really aware of their immediate, physical surroundings. Academia was their natural habitat.
One friend really took advantage of the terminology he learned in our Logic and Metaphysics classes. In the pub he would deliberately adopt a provocative stand on a controversial subject and allow his ‘victim’ to roll out his opinion. Then came the attack: You cannot possibly support that argument because your conclusion cannot be derived from these premises! It takes a strong – and sober – interlocutor not to concede the point where the use of logical lexes seemed to confer cognitive credibility!
Apart from winning the academic equivalent of a bar brawl, I wondered what role philosophy and philosophers played in our world.
Researching this made me revisit Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder, focusing more on the philosophers rather than the Sophie/Hilde storyline. What I came away with was that through the ages we have a philosopers’ pendulum, gently swinging between 2 axes. We have that of the Rationalists (Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz) who follow the belief of Plato that reason is of prime importance. Then we have those who follow more closely the Aristotelian school of thought that most significant was the experience derived from our senses. They were the Empiricists and numbered Locke, Berkeley and Hume among their ranks.
Imagine removing time barriers and setting up these two sides to argue together – what a wonderful debate that would make! And this brings me to my final phase- keeping logic alive : the art of using argumentation in formal debate. In the private high school I taught in here, I founded and ran the Debate Club. There we prepared teams for the annual Forensics Tournament, an inter-school public speaking competition. The method used in competitive debating was the British Parliamentary Style.
This consists of two 3-member teams, The Government or Proposition, who support the Motion, or subject under debate; the other team is the Opposition and their task is to argue against the Motion. The teams always sit opposite each other and take turns to present their case, expand it and attack their opposing team’s argumentation, and finally summarize the debate and outline one’s team’s strengths. Below we see a team in action, the speaker at the podium, a member of the opposing team requesting to make Point of Information – i.e. to pose a question. Debating may be a nerdy-type activity, but It is decidedly not for wimps!
I was fortunate to be working with committed colleagues and some of the finest student minds I have ever come across – they even reached the level of World School Debating.
So to answer my question: what role does philosophy play in today’s world? I got in touch with some of our Debate Club stars, asking what relevance their experience had for them. I want to focus on two respondents who live in different geographic and professional worlds. Vasso Is a Harvard graduate and practises law in London. Here is what she has to say:
‘I definitely think debate helped me professionally. Debating allowed me to train my mind to think of the various aspects of an issue or argument, to anticipate opposing arguments and adapt my strategy accordingly. I think as a litigator today, a big part of my job is evaluating a client’s position, understanding its strengths and weaknesses and assessing the optimal strategy to achieve the best possible result. Debating definitely helped me in that regard!’
Our next star is Evgenia who studied Law at the Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki and currently works at the EU Delegation to Mongolia. Here is her opinion:
To be honest, the more I advance in my professional career, the more I realise the value of the skills I learned during the debating years at school. What helps me a lot now is that back then I learned how to logically structure an argument, how to be diplomatic, represent opinions that may not always reflect my personal one, not be nervous when I talk in public, pose the right questions at the right time. All these elements I use now extensively in my everyday work (which involves diplomacy, negotiating, drafting policy content, etc.) . And in the past years when I realized more fully the value of debate, I tried to encourage younger people to join debate clubs if they have them at school. I have already sent to many online materials on how to debate.
I am indebted to these young Hellenic ladies for responding so fully, honestly and graciously.
I am also so immensely proud of their playing such significant professional roles far from home. They follow in the footsteps of their predecessors, the ancient philosophers, who sought the truth, tried to make sense of the world around them, while greatly contributing to it. Logic lives on!
In my final act of homage to Aristotle, I made a sketch of him which I would like to share with you. The good thing about drawing a non-contemporary is that it’s harder for others to judge whether it is a true likeness or not!
