The following argument appeared in a thoughtful post last May by Sahar Joakim on the Blog of the APA:
To me, Socrates and Plato are the greatest philosophers in the history of western philosophy. If I am right, there could be no better introduction to philosophy than studying their theories.
Let’s assume the truth of the premise. Does the conclusion follow?
Compare this analogous argument:
To me, J. S. Bach is the greatest composer in the history of music. If I am right, there could be no better introduction to music than studying his compositions.
The problem in both cases is that the eminence of a particular figure does not imply the pedagogical appropriateness of offering beginners that person as the main avenue to understanding the subject. Admittedly, the introductory course Sahar Joakim describes includes bits from the works of Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Hilary Putnam, and Thomas Nagel, but it is centered on eleven dialogues of Plato: Symposium, Phaedrus, Lysis, Euthyphro, Apology, Theaetetus, Republic, Charmides, Protagoras, Phaedo, and Crito.
The case for such a concentrated approach reminds me of a session many years ago at the Eastern Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association, where Fred Feldman explained his practice of requiring students in an introductory course to read and critique only one book: Descartes’ Meditations. No doubt Feldman thought very highly of the work, but the problem with making it the sole reading was unintentionally revealed by Alasdair MacIntyre, the commentator for that APA session. He first praised Feldman’s strategy of focussing on a single masterpiece but expressed dismay that Feldman had picked the wrong one. He had selected the Meditations rather than MacIntyre’s choice: Plato’s Republic.
The problem is that, had MacIntyre been a student in Feldman’s course, MacIntyre would have been unhappy spending the entire semester discussing a single book that he didn’t find especially illuminating, while Feldman would have had the same reaction had he been a student in MacIntyre’s course. In any case, even a good thing overdone can become boring, and offering beginners an entire course on one book or author might prove excruciating to some.
Not all students find the same material appealing; thus the likelihood of their responding positively to philosophy is increased by providing them with an array of perspectives on the subject. An advanced seminar might appropriately focus on a single text or author, but an introductory course is intended to arouse the interest of as many participants as possible, and a narrow set of readings is unlikely to achieve that goal.
One student may be most excited by Plato, another by David Hume, another by Friedrich Nietzsche or Simone de Beauvoir. Granted, courses can cover only limited ground, but varied content is a pedagogical virtue. A philosopher may be more interested in free will rather than personal identity or the existence of God, but assuming the goal is to engage students in philosophical inquiry, why not cover all three topics and perhaps spark interest in at least one? Few are inspired by every philosophical author or subject, and unfortunate indeed is a student who might potentially have been excited by philosophy but is not offered the opportunity to study more than the part of the field with which the instructor happens to be most comfortable.
Beginning students need to be motivated, and no one topic or author will work best for all. By offering more possibilities, chances are greater that at least some aspect of the reading will prove stimulating. Therefore in planning an introductory course, if you are uncertain whether to provide coverage of more topics or to study fewer subjects in greater depth, remember that for most beginners, variety enhances vitality.
Steven M. Cahn
Steven M Cahn is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the City University of New York Graduate Center. Among the recent books he has authored are Teaching Philosophy: A Guide (Routledge, 2018); Inside Academia: Professors, Politics, and Policies (Rutgers, 2019); Navigating Academic Life: How the System Works (Routledge, 2021); Professors as Teachers (Wipf and Stock, 2022), and, most recently, From Student to Scholar: A Candid Guide to Becoming a Professor, Second Edition (Wipf and Stock, 2024).
