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A Classical Perspective on Technology for Learning and Teaching about Politics
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IMAGES AND THOUGHT
Human knowing, then, becomes a process of progressing upwards along the line. But as we learn more from the image of the divided line as first presented, we come to realize that the movement to more thorough understanding is not simply linear, not simply a single one-way trip up the line. We do not dispense with images as vehicles for learning once we have moved beyond the initial image of a visible thing to some sense perception of that thing itself. Instead, learning becomes a process that involves refining understanding through the development of concepts through thought, and then making use of those concepts to develop increasingly sophisticated images, permitting and encouraging us to perceive the visible things more thoroughly and from more perspectives, thereby leading to the active creation of yet more thorough and sophisticated hypotheses to account for what we perceive in those visible things. Through this we come to understand increasingly the intelligible foundations or reality of the things that we perceive through sense experience. As hypotheses become better, so greater clarity about the visible can be deduced (Klein 120). From a teacher's perspective, then, learning is at least as much about building images well as it is about perceiving images and the things that they represent. This realization can lead us to appreciate the utility of newer technologies in buildings such images with care and precision to enable and to encourage students to appreciate the difficulties and complexities in the things visible in the world, along with the need, if one is to know about them, to understand those things at a conceptual level rather than merely at a visible one.
We begin by seeing images or pictures of things, whether in actual pictures or in descriptions using words or other media (we note, of course, that the vivid images of the sun, the divided line, and the cave in Books Six and Seven of the Republic are presented with words, as are the images from poetry discussed elsewhere in the Republic.) The images call our attention to the actual things of sense experience or, in some cases, are substituted for such "experiences" that might not readily appear directly to the unaided senses. Those images may point us to difficulties or apparent contradictions in the things that we see in day-to-day life, or may lead us to supplement the things that we see in day-to-day life with the realization that there are other things to be seen. This new diversity of sense experience can lead to confusion, or to the realization that the things as presented to our senses do not seem to make sense. Well-crafted and well-presented images can enable us to see that "things cannot be what they seem."
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| | Authors: Webking, Robert. |
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IMAGES AND THOUGHT
Human knowing, then, becomes a process of progressing upwards
along the line. But as we learn more from the image of the divided line
as first presented, we come to realize that the movement to more
thorough understanding is not simply linear, not simply a single one-
way trip up the line. We do not dispense with images as vehicles for
learning once we have moved beyond the initial image of a visible
thing to some sense perception of that thing itself. Instead, learning
becomes a process that involves refining understanding through the
development of concepts through thought, and then making use of
those concepts to develop increasingly sophisticated images,
permitting and encouraging us to perceive the visible things more
thoroughly and from more perspectives, thereby leading to the active
creation of yet more thorough and sophisticated hypotheses to account
for what we perceive in those visible things. Through this we come to
understand increasingly the intelligible foundations or reality of the
things that we perceive through sense experience. As hypotheses
become better, so greater clarity about the visible can be deduced
(Klein 120). From a teacher's perspective, then, learning is at least as
much about building images well as it is about perceiving images and
the things that they represent. This realization can lead us to
appreciate the utility of newer technologies in buildings such images
with care and precision to enable and to encourage students to
appreciate the difficulties and complexities in the things visible in the
world, along with the need, if one is to know about them, to
understand those things at a conceptual level rather than merely at a
visible one.
We begin by seeing images or pictures of things, whether in actual
pictures or in descriptions using words or other media (we note, of
course, that the vivid images of the sun, the divided line, and the cave
in Books Six and Seven of the Republic are presented with words, as
are the images from poetry discussed elsewhere in the Republic.) The
images call our attention to the actual things of sense experience or, in
some cases, are substituted for such "experiences" that might not
readily appear directly to the unaided senses. Those images may
point us to difficulties or apparent contradictions in the things that we
see in day-to-day life, or may lead us to supplement the things that
we see in day-to-day life with the realization that there are other
things to be seen. This new diversity of sense experience can lead to
confusion, or to the realization that the things as presented to our
senses do not seem to make sense. Well-crafted and well-presented
images can enable us to see that "things cannot be what they seem."
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