A student learns that contradictory positions can be argued convincingly without undercutting a teacher‘s credibilig.

Respecting and Criticizing Conflicting fie wpoints

Jerry A. Irish

It was a course that examined major figures in Western philosophy and theology. The first several weeks were spent on Plato, And I was absolutely convinced that there could be no more comprehensive world view. Nor could. I imagine any significant criticism of Plato’s work It was also apparent to me, as it was to the other students in the course, that the professor shared Plato’s views. Indeed, the word was around that in graduate school he had received high praise from a renowned Plato scholar.

I was taken by surprise when we turned to the study of Aristotle and this same professor began to point out weaknesses in Plato’s philosophy. The better our grasp of Aristotle, the more questions we had for Plato. At the completion of the section on Aristotle, we had all come to the realization that this was the fully adequate system, free of the shortcomings we now recognized in Plato. The oral tradition surrounding our professor had also been modified. We marveled at this grasp of Plato, given his own clear preference for Aristotle.

It was not long, of course, before Aristotle’s position began to falter in comparison with subsequent world views. Indeed, the pattern

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of thoroughly favorable presentation followed by criticism in light of the next philosopher or theologian continued throughout the course. As our own critical capacities sharpened, we began to anticipate problems in a particular position before they were pointed out to us. But the pro- fessor never wavered from the pattern he had established; he never chal- lenged a scheme before he had presented it in the most favorable light.

As the course progressed, the strengths and weaknesses of earlier figures took on different meaning. We began to see that there were trade-offs in any system of thought, and these trade-offs were impossible to assess apart from our own experience. And now we were not at all sure what the professor‘s own position was. Perhaps he favored Plat0 after all. One thing was clear-he had a tremendous respect for reason rigorously employed in the exploration of the human condition In no course since then have I learned so much philosophy and theology or so much about the process of humanistic thought and the value of entertaining alternative visions of the world.

The course in question was demanding and fascinating I would not have missed a lecture or skipped a reading for anything. While I sensed the value of what was going on at the time, it has only been in recent years that I have come to appreciate the teaching of such a course. After some reflection, I am not at all sure how the professor presented the material as he did without ever giving us the impression that we were playing a game )We never caught the debilitating diseases associated with relativism. We had the sense that despite particular forms of nearsightedness, each figure in the course contributed not only to the history of ideas, but to our own understanding of the present The fact that two coptradictory positions could be argued convincingly did not undercut the whole enterprise. Indeed, as manifested by this professor, the enterprise became all the more interesting. There was a kind of passion involved in our study. This is especially puzzling to me now as I recall no instances in which the professor made references to his own beliefs, values, or concerns. The painstaking examination of philosophical and theological material was broken only by an occasional movie review or reference to the Civil War. Even these often humorous anecdotes turned out to be tangents rather than diversions.

Now that I am a teacher myself in a time when the pursuit of ideas has few participants, I think back on that course and ask myself “How did he do it?’

Jeny A. Irish is provost and profissor of rerigi0G Kenyon Gdlege, Gambier, Ohia