Jake

[Jake @Le_Master]

Yes dialectic can be used as a method within a liberal arts education. Yes certain works can (and do) provide the matter. But I don’t understand why we’re talking about liberal arts education as if that establishes anything about Great Books programs. One has a clear historical tradition going back to antiquity, with defined material, formal, efficient, and final causes; the other is a modern invention with no inherent end, no principle of order directing its studies toward such an end, and hardly even clearly defined matter judging by how varied the programs have been since their inception.

[Jake @Le_Master]

@JMNRofCanon “It is a useful part of a liberal arts education.”

Are you referring to dialectical discussion or to a Great Books program?

[Jake @Le_Master]

@JMNRofCanon While I dispute the historical basis for claiming dialectical discussion of selected works is superior to actually studying the liberal arts themselves, I think there’s a much bigger problem you’ve snuck in here, that a Great Books program is a liberal arts education.

[Jake @Le_Master]

@JMNRofCanon What tool exactly do you believe has been best for a sound liberal arts education?

[Jake @Le_Master]

@JMNRofCanon That’s what I’m saying though. In your case you began with particularly ends you wanted to achieve, then selected books accordingly as a means toward them. But those ends aren’t ones that arise from studying Great Books *as such* but rather ones you've imposed upon the program.

[Jake @Le_Master]

@JMNRofCanon @jeffbullas I know you can establish educational outcomes for a Great Books program. But I’m denying Great Books programs have a natural end in themselves. The ends of those establishing or attending a particular program are extrinsic to the program qua Great Books.

[Jake @Le_Master]

@JMNRofCanon @jeffbullas If you’re attributing those vocational outcomes to your Great Books program, then they are accidental to it. In fact, Great Books programs in and of themselves do not have a definite end at all.

[Jake @Le_Master]

@dominbydigdug I’m interested

[Jake @Le_Master]

@jeffbullas @JMNRofCanon Great books programs aren’t even an education. They’re also a new invention.

[Jake @Le_Master]

@sauryalogs What do you think classical education is? It’s not whatever this is.

[Jake @Le_Master]

@ThomasEWoods Meanwhile you have videos like this where black girls shove a couple of girls out of the way because “they white” and there’s zero outrage.

[Jake @Le_Master]

The photo was just the only one I found on the fly that shows Posterior on the cover. I appreciate him too, but consider him nowhere near the level of someone like Thomas Taylor.

But as to why--because it establishes the way to attain scientific knowledge/episteme (knowing necessary truths through their causes beginning from first principles). Basically if a man were to attain an actual divine kind of intellectual activity it would be through demonstrative science which Posterior Analytics explains how to exercise. And the highest perfection of man is the intellectual activity like that of the divine. I genuinely believe in a distant future men will return to seeking this knowledge as they discover what we know as modern science is almost entirely pertains to techne, prediction, and contingent things.

And what's most amazing is Aristotle developed this basically to perfection on the first go, with no one even attempting it before him.

[Jake @Le_Master]

@no1doomsoldier @ImmanuelllKant I felt it cheating to name a collection of books, so I singled out Posterior Analytics. But as a whole, nothing is above the Organon.

[Jake @Le_Master]

@jdd_canada @MoritzSchauer Show proof in tweets written before 2023

[Jake @Le_Master]

@TheColinCausey @Tweetophon @metathomist There literally isn’t

[Jake @Le_Master]

@Tweetophon @metathomist It’s incredible you’re unaware that he explicitly addresses this

[Jake @Le_Master]

@Fernan29103 @metathomist So you believe the diagonal of a square is commensurate with its side?

[Jake @Le_Master]

@n00rdung Logistics*

[Jake @Le_Master]

@sfh300 @azforeman