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This book develops for the readers Plato's Socrates' non-formalized "philosophical practice" of learning-through-questioning in the company of others. In doing so, the writer confronts Plato's Socrates, in the words of John Dewey, as the "dramatic, restless, cooperatively inquiring philosopher" of the dialogues, whose view of education and learning is unique: (1) It is focused on actively pursuing a form of philosophical understanding irreducible to truth of a propositional nature, which defies "transfer" from practitioner to pupil; (2) It embraces the perennial "on-the-wayness" of education and learning in that to interrogate the virtues, or the "good life," through the practice of the dialectic, is to continually renew the quest for a deeper understanding of things by returning to, reevaluating and modifying the questions originally posed regarding the "good life." Indeed Socratic philosophy is a life of questioning those aspects of existence that are most question-worthy; and (3) Itaccepts that learning is a process guided and structured by dialectic inquiry, and is already immanent within and possible only because of the unfolding of the process itself, i.e., learning is not a goal that somehow stands outside the dialectic as its end product, which indicates erroneously that the method or practice is disposable. For learning occurs only through continued, sustained communal dialogue.
List of contents
Introduction: Doctrinal and Non-Doctrinal Interpretations of Plato and Plato's Socrates.- Chapter One: Plato's Socrates: The Issues of Pedagogy and Knowledge of the Virtues.- Chapter Two: The Ontological Context of the Human Condition Original Socratic Questions and the Paradox of Learning.- The Unfolding of the Elenchus-Dialectic as "Educative" Event Instantiating an Ethical Disposition Through Socratic Dialogue.- Epilogue: Learning From Plato's Socrates.
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“I think there is much to commend. Magrini demonstrates a deep knowledge of Platonic dialogues and his ultimate critique of schools and colleges is important. … Anyone in philosophy of education interested in re-thinking Plato, Socrates, and teaching Plato’s dialogues should know this book.” (Teacher’s College Record, September 17, 2019)
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"I think there is much to commend. Magrini demonstrates a deep knowledge of Platonic dialogues and his ultimate critique of schools and colleges is important. ... Anyone in philosophy of education interested in re-thinking Plato, Socrates, and teaching Plato's dialogues should know this book." (Teacher's College Record, September 17, 2019)
