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Where It Comes
From (Scholarly
Validation):
Why
Plato?
Excerpt
from:
The Practice of Freedom:
Plato's Dialectic
As A Practical Experiential Method Of Radical Transformational Moral
Education
A Dissertation
Presented
by
David D. Cicia
Submitted to the Graduate School of the
University of Massachusetts in partial fulfillment of
the requirements
for the degree of
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION
September 1987
School of Education
(Note:
words in italics are ancient Greek philosophical terms. What follows
cannot be fully understood without understanding these words. Look in
the page on Re-enlivened
Socratic Words for dynamic
functional definitions of them. The whole "functional interpretation"
of Socratic dialogue hinges on these new definitions of these words.
And it is through that unique interpretation that validation for DEPTH
Dialogue as being true to the original intentions of Socrates and Plato
is measured.)
This paper presents a practical experiential method of moral
education based on Plato's Dialectic. First pertinent historical,
philosophical, social and educational contexts for Dialectic are
reviewed. Next a functional view of Plato's work is presented which
makes possible the development of a primarily experiential dialectical
practice. Various aspects and modes of experiential functional
body-mind learning disciplines which are both preparatory to the
practice and formative of it, are then examined and illustrated. Then,
the central action of Dialectic as a very specific kind of experiential
functional method is elucidated. Finally, an introduction to the actual
practice of Dialectic as a direct experiential moral discipline and
art, is presented.
For the purposes of developing this practice,
Plato's Dialectic, as illustrated and enacted in his Dialogues,
is viewed as a subtle art and functional learning method for radical
self-inquiry and self-examination within the context and atmosphere of
whole deeply-felt love (eros), through engagement in unconditional
relationship. Its aim as such a method is to bring about effective,
total body-mind conditions for a deep felt-experiential
transformational shift from personal strategies of self-involvement,
pretense to knowledge, virtue and wisdom, and the fabrication of
defensive illusions; to the awakening and enlivening of a process of
natural whole-body intuitive knowing, loving and relatedness with
authentic expression and true speech (logos) arising from that.
This takes place as an activity of remembering the already available
and always arising conditions of all experiencing, rather than as an
achievement or attainment, and it is a direct experiential intuition of
prior existential wholeness, native happiness, moral wisdom,
transcendental beauty and spontaneous creative intelligence. This paper
seeks to operationally define an educational practice that is a fair
approximation to this functional experiential view of Plato's Dialectic.
PREFACE
The sole purpose of this paper is to define and
present a method that approximates as nearly as is practically possible
Plato's Dialectic, interpreted functionally and experientially toward
this end. The work of definition, as in Plato's Dialogues,
plays a fundamental and crucial role the dialectical process, and does
so here also. The first section (chapters I and II) is an attempt to
prepare the way for even the possibility of a definition of Dialectic
which would be operational, practical, experiential and in tune with
Plato's most basic moral and spiritual aims. The rest of the paper
attempts to present a fair approximation - what Plato called a ''likely
story'' - to the actual process of dialectical inquiry as a practical
discipline for here-and-now application. The whole movement within the
paper is a sort of dialectical process of defining an idea. And in the
true dialectical sense, the idea does not readily form into a
conclusive conceptual statement but only emerges in the
felt-experiential living through of the actual movement of the entire
process, as a sort of gestalt of the whole.
Therefore, this paper can really be understood only
by living through and actually participating in the movement of its
arguments, experiencing and questions. By right, the form of
presentation should be in the form of dialogues, as in Plato. In that
way the reader is more easily brought into the whole flow of the
experiencing process. However, since this paper must take the format
for
a dissertation, there will be a necessary removal and distancing from
the actual living experience that a true enactment of Dialectic would
be. Please remember as you are reading this that what is being talked
about is a living, feeling, experiencing process in real human beings
in actual circumstances and predicaments. If you can in some way also
enter into this feeling, experiencing process in your reading and
pondering of this, the idea of Dialectic will more readily emerge for
you.
For, as seen time and time again in Plato's Dialogues,
ideas are elusive, not easily captured by the nets of pure reasoning.
The only way to fully understand an idea is to incorporate it, to
radically enter into a deep-feeling relationship with and in it until
its form and light emerge in you as a living experience. This is the
process that I attempt to define and present in this paper, and it is
the process that can open up a fuller understanding of the paper. Since
this is a paper on method - and a very elusive and subtle method -
there is no merely conceptual or easy path to its understanding. It is
meant to be lived, not just applied; entered into fully and lived
through in a deep-feeling way.
Dialectic, as I see it and try to present it here, is not
a detached intellectual method for investigating abstract statements or
concepts (even moral concepts about human action and experience), but a
highly refined and experientially sophisticated way of radically and
thoroughly engaging in the actual process of living a life. It is a
means for bringing one's life, actions, feelings, desires, aims and
experiencing in general, into clear focus, for moral right action, and
the embodiment through authentic expression of a sense of natural
intelligence which makes for true human satisfaction and happiness.
Only when the process of understanding is entered in such a thorough
way can Dialectic be most fully understood, not in abstraction but by
living it and living through as the very process of life itself, made
conscious in your own discerning experiential awareness and modes of
aware action.
This is what the whole process of pursuing the idea
of Dialectic has been for me. When I first read Plato's Dialogues
extensively nearly twenty years ago I was touched by their existential,
moral, intellectual and spiritual force. I was drawn into their
dramatic action, not as an intellectual analyst, but as a participant
in matters that had a real feeling base in me, and which at the same
time challenged me to a play with universal meanings. I sensed in these
moral/spiritual dramas a reality that went far beyond what is called
Philosophy, an importance and intimacy greater than ordinary drama, and
a depth that was much deeper than conventional educational practices.
It had elements of all these but was so much more sophisticated, in a
very subtle and deep way, than any of them. I decided that I wanted to
learn how to do this activity of Dialectic. I had no idea whatever at
that time how I would learn this. I just sensed that something was
there that was thoroughly and comprehensively inspiring to me.
I pursued this inspiration through the years, off
and on, in various ways, always with the idea in mind that this
Dialectic was and is an actual practice, and that it carries the
excitement and upliftment of the highest kind of whole- feeling and
intelligent life. There was something in it, tangible and elusive at
the
same time, that had the power to lead a human being to the highest
range and fullest scope of life's possibilities, in areas and levels
that most of us are not usually even dimly aware of. It would not be an
easy path to follow, but one that to me had the definite ring of a
deep, hidden and much needed truth to it.
The Dialogues, as I read them, entered into them
and was moved by them, embodied that sense of an essential, moral,
existential truth that I felt was needed in order to live life as
fully, rightfully and happily as is possible for a human. This truth
seemed to be there, was indicated very directly in the words of the Dialogues,
but where was it really? How could it be known? How to get to it and
really live it? The truth most needed for human happiness seemed to be
there within easy reach, but at the same time almost completely
elusive. In other words, I was inspired to action but didn't know what
to do.
As I have come to understand, this perplexing
situation is actually the form that Dialectic naturally and necessarily
takes: the frustration of mental desire and curiosity, leading to a
deeper, living experiential process in which what was desired emerges
in and through you as you engage life, rather than as an object which
you can hold onto and fix attention on as a steady possession. The
pursuit of the intuitively obvious but practically elusive truth in
Plato's Dialectic, led me into actual experiential processes which
forced me to engage life rather than contemplate abstractions.
The functional learning disciplines presented in chapter
III, are the results of my search through the processes of conscious
experiencing and my subsequent distillation of methods and perspectives
from very many sources on this. These disciplines are not definitive or
conclusive for dialectical practice. Dialectic is a universal process
in the flow of life itself that is not exclusive, and also not to be
defined by any single method or even by a summation or a synthesis of
methods. The methods presented here merely serve as experiential ways
into the dialectical process that I have found to be useful in moving
toward and into a practical working approximation to the living process
that is Dialectic. They are useful, in this way, both as preparatory
disciplines and as means for getting at a practical operating
definition, for the dialectical process (remembering that, in Dialectic
as a living process of engagement, no definition is definitive.)
Dialectic is not these methods, but these methods help to bring us to a
place where we can begin to conceive of an experiential dialectical
practice.
Dialectic goes well beyond any of these, and in truth,
well beyond anything that can be written, even in such a sophisticated
medium as the Platonic dialogue. The whole movement of this paper is
meant to be at best, then, only a fair approximation to a practice that
can, even by the finest poet-philosopher (P1ato) only be suggested. It
can truly be lived and found out only in the living of it, not as any
final result or realization but as an ever ongoing inquiry which
carries within it its own rewards.
The whole basis of this inquiry over the years, in
development and now in the writing, has been to enter into and embody
in various ways, the inspiration to live truth as I first saw this in
Plato's Dialogues. To enter into the process of inquiry into
felt-experiential moral truth, through Dialectic, is to enter into a
heart-felt, deep-feeling engagement in the finest qualities and the
furthest ranges of the human spirit. The path of Dialectic, as shown by
Plato, is or can be, an opening to life in its fullest possibilities.
What Plato presents is a kind of invitation, and a series of models for
the process (his Dialogues.) It is then up to us to hear that
invitation, understand the models in a deep feeling way, awaken to the
possibilities, and begin to live the life of radical inquiry that is
the means for natural, spiritual and moral happiness. Plato is not the
teacher and we the students of this process. He merely points the way
for us. The process itself is the teacher, and we become that as we
consciously engage in the life of experiential moral inquiry that is
Dialectic.
It is my hope that this paper will serve as an
introduction to the practical experiential investigation into the
possibilities for a full life of natural moral happiness that Plato's Dialogues
inspire, and that this will be only the first step in the development
of
a practice that may eventually more fully approximate the aims
indicated by that great philosopher and spiritual teacher.
To
continue, go back to the Scholarly Validation page.
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