classical school essay introduction

The Elements of Classical Education

Classical education cultivates wisdom and virtue by nourishing the soul on truth, goodness, and beauty. For the ancient Greeks and Romans, free citizens required an education that enlarged the mind and cultivated the soul. They believed that the cultivation of virtue, knowledge of the world and of human nature, active citizenship, and practical action required this purpose-driven education. When Christianity was planted in the soil of the classical world, it found what was good and true in classical thought, purged out the dross, and handed on the rest to her heirs.

As the classical renewal has matured, we have sought to understand its nature and secrets and to discover its essential ingredients. This essay proposes four elements that define classical education, and on which we must establish ourselves for the coming trials:

1. A high view of man 2. Logocentrism 3. Responsibility for the Western tradition 4. A pedagogy that sustains these commitments

In the heart of classical education beats the conviction that the human being is a creature of timeless significance. The Christian goes so far as to see him as the Image of God, the lord-steward of the creation (on whose virtue the well-being of the earth and its inhabitants depends), and as a priest, offering the creation to God for the sake of its flourishing and his own blessedness.

The purpose of classical education, therefore, is to cultivate human excellence, or virtue.

Yet this high view of man is no self-indulgent fantasy, for it carries with it the duty of nobility that the classical educator perceives in every person. Human flourishing depends, not on one’s material well-being or adjustment to society, but on one’s relation to the true, the good, and the beautiful.

In Norms & Nobility, David Hicks argues that a fully rendered image of man includes three domains: the social, the individual, and the religious. Students will be involved in their communities, both as voters and as leaders. Furthermore, they have their own spiritual lives on which their citizenship and their economic life depend.

A wise and virtuous citizenry not only supports the economy through entrepreneurship and innovation, it also challenges the powerful with well-reasoned arguments rooted in a love for liberty and virtue. A classical education cultivates the creativity and spiritual lives of students so that the much-celebrated (and much neglected) “whole child” is truly prepared for real life without losing touch with his deepest and most intimate self. Thus all three dimensions are honored, and society benefits from the membership and quiet influence of well-rounded, healthy persons.

According to the classical tradition the true, the good, and the beautiful are the soul’s nourishment. Furthermore, as Image of God, the human soul is able to know them. To fulfill his role, a person’s human faculties to perceive truth, to love and reproduce the beautiful, and to revere and act on the good must be cultivated. When a faculty is refined to a pitch of excellence, it becomes a virtue, such as wisdom or kindness. Christian classical education cultivates the human capacity to know and act on this holy triumvirate, thus nurturing wise and virtuous souls.

Furthermore, the classical educator lives in a knowable and harmonious cosmos that makes ultimate sense. A system can make sense only if it possesses a unifying principle, or Logos. Without such a logos, true knowledge is impossible.

Christians recognize that Christ is that Logos. He makes reason possible, harmonizes everything, and creates the conditions for ordered, knowable truth. He is the unifying principle of thought, the key in which the music of the spheres is played, the archetype of every virtue.

The commitment to a logos that makes ultimate sense of the cosmos and makes knowledge possible is expressed in the much-maligned word, “Logocentrism.” According to a logocentric view of the universe, organized knowledge can be discovered, arranged, and even taught. This is the first principle of the Christian classical curriculum.

As everything is ordered by a logos, so each particular thing has its own logos, or nature – in Latin, “species.” The power to see truth is the ability to see the nature of particular things and to see each of them in their relations to each other. The tools of learning enable a learner to identify the nature of a thing and to relate to that thing in a manner suited to its nature. Without this knowledge, the human cannot bless what he is interacting with, whether it be a horse, a farm, or a child’s soul.

Perceiving that humans live in a cosmos that makes ultimate sense and that they share it with other members of that cosmos each of which can be known according to their natures, the Christian classical educator is reminded of his responsibility as a steward and priest. The knowledge available to us is not for tyranny, but to cultivate and guard the earth. The whole creation groans and travails when creation’s lord shirks his duties.

Classical educators take responsibility for Western civilization. The West is unique in its view of mankind as the Image of a transcendent God and in its acceptance of the view that both truth and the world can be known. These commitments are the hinges for much that defines Western civilization.

Western civilization is the property of all who live in America. Our national roots have grown deep in the customs, traditions, discoveries, and conversations that make up American, British, European, Greek, Roman, and Hebrew history. It is our privilege to receive and to share this heritage, and it is just as immoral to keep it from others as it is to despise their heritage.

It was Christ who formulated the essential political doctrine of the West: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” But this idea permeated Western thought from the time Moses freed the Israelites from their Pharaoh-worshipping masters and when Aristotle developed his politics and ethics.

Truth alone, the tradition tells us, can sustain the political ideals of liberty and human rights. If the truth cannot be known and does not govern human societies, then there is nothing to restrain the rulers. If rights are not derived from truth, then they are granted by the ever-changing state. Liberty and knowable truth are interdependent.

Because truth is needed to be healthy and free, classical educators believe that to empower the powerless, prepare students for a job, and enable future citizens to play their role in society, every child needs a classical education: deliberate training in perceiving the true, the good, and the beautiful through the tools of learning.

The classical educator understands that Western civilization is as full of vice as it is of virtue. He does not “privilege” or even idealize Western civilization; he assumes responsibility for it. While the conventional educator seems to see Western civilization as something to escape, the classical educator sees it as the locus of his vocation.

He demands a conversation that challenges his culture and himself with the standards of the true, the good, and the beautiful. He insists that survival and power are not their own justifications. Agreeing with the oracle that, “The unexamined life is not worth living,” he continues the Western habit of perpetual self-examination.

He appreciates that the Western tradition contains elements of restless idealism, non-conformity, and self- examination. These have always threatened the status quo while also discovering new springs of cultural nourishment. One of the goals of classical education is to establish the appropriate manner by which the mistreated and oppressed can challenge their oppressors without destroying their civilization.

While the classical educator recognizes the West’s recent achievements, especially in technology, he fears that, having lost its moorings in knowable truth, the West has become deaf to challenges from within its own tradition. The modern West, to the classical educator, is the prodigal son, energetically spending his inheritance, perhaps far from “coming to himself.”

Nevertheless, while he may agree with those who contend that the West is in decline, his sense of responsibility prohibits despair. Instead, he diagnoses the decline as the loss of confidence in the true, the good, and the beautiful, and offers a cure in the renewed quest for that truth, goodness, and beauty. To this end, he offers a classical education.

Western civilization, the classical educator believes, offers its children a rich heritage on which they can feed their own souls and those of their neighbors. The classical curriculum provides the means to do so.

The classical curriculum can be divided into two stages. First, the student masters the arts of learning. Then he uses the skills and tools mastered to enter the Great Conversation, which is another way to say, to study the sciences.

The classical curriculum begins with an apprenticeship in what have come to be known as the “tools of learning,” a term coined by Aristotle when he developed his elementary handbooks. He called them The Organon, which is Greek for “tool.” The Organon became the Trivium of the Medieval school and was combined with the Quadrivium to form the seven liberal arts. These arts of learning comprise the form of the classical curriculum prior to a higher education. Those who master them gain access to a realm of unified knowledge that includes the natural and moral sciences, philosophy, and theology.

The seven liberal arts are not subjects per se, nor do they comprise a “general education.” Instead, they are the arts of learning that enable one to move from subject to subject, text to text, or idea to idea knowing how to handle the particular subject, text, or idea. More than that, they introduce the student to the arts and convictions needed for a community and its members to remain free. They are the trunk of the tree of learning, of which the various sciences are branches.

Probably the term with which classical education is most closely associated in the popular mind is the word “trivium,” a paradigm for the mastery of language. But it applies to far more than language. Every subject has its grammar, logic, and rhetoric. To be educated in any discipline, you must: 1) know its basic facts (grammar); 2) be able to reason clearly about it (logic); and 3) communicate its ideas and apply it effectively (rhetoric). Nevertheless, the trivium of grammar, logic, and rhetoric is fundamentally a collection of language arts.

The priority he places on language turns the classical educator’s attention to the classical languages: Latin and Greek. Tracy Lee Simmons proposes in Climbing Parnassus that classical education is “a curriculum grounded upon… Greek, Latin and the study of the civilization from which they arose.” In The Liberal Arts: A Philosophy of Christian Classical Education Ravi Jain and Kevin Clarke add, “The indispensability of the study of classical languages… is something that our schools will have to realize if they desire faithfully to remain in the classical tradition.”

Classical educators defend Latin and Greek in a number of ways. They are convinced that language studies discipline the mind. Nothing cultivates attentiveness, memory, precision of thought, the ability to think in principles, communication, and overall accuracy like the study of Latin and Greek.

Furthermore, Greek and Latin authors recorded an astounding range and depth of political thought from a wider perspective over a longer period of time covering a wider geography than is embodied in any other language. In literature, Shakespeare, Chaucer, and Milton become isolated from their sources when the student encounters a language barrier between himself and Virgil, Ovid, or Homer. Most theology has been recorded in, and the church has sung its hymns in, Latin and Greek from the time of the apostles and the first martyrs.

The Great Conversation that is the beating heart of Western civilization took place in Latin and Greek and their offspring. A Western community lacking a roster of citizens versed in Latin and Greek must lose its heritage. It will communicate, vote, work, and think in a manner increasingly isolated from the sources of its own identity. For those who love their heritage and who want to offer the riches of that heritage to others, the classical languages are the sine qua non.

Reality is linguistic. It is also mathematical. That is why the classical tradition emphasizes the quadrivium, the four liberal arts of arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy.

Jain and Clarke have made an eloquent case for the quadrivium, describing the powers of the four mathematical arts. The ancients believed, “That arithmetic led the soul from wonder to wisdom.” Euclidian geometry “provides the paradigm of certain and airtight reasoning.” Astronomy, the centerpiece of ancient science and the key to profound mysteries, gave birth to modern science. Music, surprisingly to the modern, was a driver of the scientific revolution. “It may,” say Clarke and Jain, “be the chief art of the quadrivium.” Until very recently, a man could not claim to be well-educated until he was grounded in the quadrivium.

Classical educators see the arts of the quadrivium as essential tools that enable us to perceive the reality of the world around us and our relation to it. They also discipline and open the mind. Therefore, say Jain and Clarke, “Classical schools must uphold a high standard for mathematical education precisely for its special role in human formation and developing the virtue of the mind.”

It is important to remember, however, that the trivium and quadrivium are not discrete subjects. They are modes of learning. Nor are they ends in themselves. They are tools for learning. The thing learned is knowledge, for which the Latin word is scientia, or science. A science, then, is a domain of knowing.

To the classical educator, the word science is much more inclusive than its conventional use. While the modern usually thinks of science as natural science, the classical educator recognizes that there are other kinds of knowledge, much more practical, though less precise, than natural science. These include the moral sciences (history, ethics, politics, etc.), philosophy, and theology.

Natural Science deals with knowledge of the material world. Moral Science considers human flourishing and is driven by the question: “How is virtue cultivated in the soul and in community?” Philosophical Science explores first causes and theories of knowledge. Theological Science is the knowledge of God and His revelation that disclosed the first principles which undergird all truth. Each science gains its own kind of knowledge, responding to its own set of inquiries, and developing its own tools to gain the kind of knowledge it seeks.

The experimentation and calculation used in the natural sciences can contribute to discussions over ethical matters, but these tools are not adequate to answer either the daily questions that make up human life or the large socio-political issues that determine the destinies of human society. For this, what Socrates called dialectic, and what has come to be called the Great Conversation, is necessary.

Russell Kirk argued that, “The end of liberal education is the disciplining of free minds.” The means to that end is the Great Conversation, an exploration of the human soul and the quest for the best way to live the truth in present circumstances. It draws the students’ attention to soul- fortifying ideas that reflect permanently relevant truths. Contemplating the great books and great works of art and music draws the student out of himself and his own age into those permanent and powerful tools for living and to the truths that transcend the practical. The classical curriculum is a formidable and comprehensive theory of education. Surely it is one of the great creations of Western thought. By mastering the tools of the seven liberal arts and participating in the great conversation, the student is nourished in all his faculties and equipped for the never-ending battle (internal and external) for liberty rooted in truth, where virtue can be cultivated and beauty can be incarnated in art, action, custom, and thought.

In closing it must be added that this course cannot be properly run if the pedagogy does not match it in goal and means. Only dialectical engagement with the truth can lead to the soul’s apprehension of that truth. Only a true apprenticeship in the tools of truth-seeking can set a person free. There can be no guarantees.

Can classical education be adapted to the needs and culture of the twenty-first century? Yes, it can. It is neither of one time nor one culture, but is grounded in human nature and in the nature of learning. Classical education offers an intellectual framework that is disciplined and liberating, open to the past and to new knowledge.

Education and the Recovery of the Non-Modern Mind

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• The Core Chapter 5: The Core of a Classical Education: Writing

I hope that this article finds you collecting fall leaves with your children, wandering through corn mazes, and savoring great books with a mug of apple cider.  My family has leaped fully into the joys of autumn!

This article is part 3 in a series of articles looking at the core or foundations of classical education as presented in Leigh’s book   The Core: Teaching Your Child the Foundations of Classical Education .  In previous articles, we looked at the reasons for pursuing a classical education, chiefly that the classical model works with a child’s natural stages of mental development and teaches them how to think rather than what to think.  In the first core subject article, we looked at applying the classical model to teaching children how to read.

Now, let’s turn to the core of writing which Leigh outlines in Chapter 5 of  The Core .   Teaching a child to write classically involves following the trivium skills of grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric.  To lay the foundations for writing in the grammar stage, the fundamental skills are handwriting, spelling, and copywork.  Then, dialectic students can progress to the technical vocabulary of grammar and analysis of sentence structure.  Finally, rhetoric students can hone their skills of expression by employing stylistic techniques which allow them to express complex ideas.

The Grammar Stage of Writing: Copywork and Dictation

When children are very small (ages 4-7), you must help them lay the foundations for writing by establishing good habits.  Small children must learn correct posture and the proper way to hold their pencil.  It is hard work to copy letters, so children (and parents) need patience, diligence, and lots of practice.  Preschoolers can start writing on a dry erase board or a magnetic doodling board using stencils (these are generally available at office supply stores and educational supply stores).  Using these tools is less tiring to their hands than paper and pencil when they are very small.  Children also need to spend time coloring which develops the muscles and fine motor skills necessary for writing.  My children color while we are reading aloud or listening to  Story of the World .

When children are ready to write with pencil and paper, they can begin to use a very basic handwriting curriculum like  Handwriting Without Tears  or  A Reason for Handwriting .  They must first master the lowercase and uppercase letters before beginning to copy words and then sentences (around ages 6-7).  Once they can copy sentences, children should practice copywork and dictation.   Copywork involves copying a sentence or a short passage from the board or from a book.  Practice with both is ideal.  If you don’t have a chalkboard or white board at home, it’s a good idea to invest in one.  We purchased a large sheet of shower board from a home improvement store and mounted it our schoolroom with mirror brackets (for a total cost of $15).

During copywork, students should pay attention to capitalization and punctuation.  I assign my children passages of dialogue so that they can learn how to punctuate quotes.  They copy poems so that they can learn the rules for punctuating and indenting lines of verse.  Classic collections of children’s poems are easy to find.  In addition to copywork, children should practice dictation.  During dictation, children must figure out the spelling, capitalization, and punctuation for themselves which makes it a different skill from copywork.  Many spelling curricula offer dictation resources such as  Spelling Plus  and its companion resource  Dictation  which we carry in the CC bookstore.

Although these activities may seem tedious to us as adults, they are critical skills which prepare children to write articulately and elegantly later.  Our Founding Fathers and authors like Shakespeare all began their writing careers with copywork which exposed them to quality writing styles.

The Dialectic Stage:  Learning to Write by Imitation

One of the great follies of a modern education is that modern educators often encourage creative writing and self expression before children have any life experiences which supply the material for the writing or any word tools which supply the method of writing.  A classical education instead pursues the time-tested method of learning to write paragraphs and essays by summarizing source material and re-writing it.

In other words, we give the students the content.  Then, students build their word banks by adding quality adjectives, strong verbs, prepositional phrases, subordinate clauses, and adverbs.  Because older grammar stage children (ages 9-12) have not necessarily built a large vocabulary, we give them word lists to start with and then teach them how to use a Thesaurus.   In our Essentials and Challenge courses, we follow the methodology of the  Institute for Excellence in Writing  which encourages this imitative method.

Students can practice their writing skills with any source material.  I have had my own children summarize the Veritas Press history cards that we use in the Foundations program, the Classical Conversations science cards, Aesop’s fables, and short fairy tales.  They can then use their outline to write their own version of the original material.  Finally, they can use their word lists to enhance their composition.

Just as smaller children needed daily practice with handwriting, older children need weekly practice with writing.  Children ages 9-10 can reasonably be expected to summarize and re-write a quality paragraph each week.  Children ages 11-12 can write two or three paragraphs a week.

The Rhetoric of Writing:  Organized, Analytical, and Elegant Compositions

As our children progress to the Rhetoric stage of writing (ages 13-18), they have will have enough skills and practice to begin writing without a model or source.  Instead, high school students should be encouraged to write about all of their subject studies:  history, science, philosophy, literature, etc.

In the dialectic stage, students begin to write without a model by presenting opinions in literature and current events or by summarizing and reporting on science facts.  These compositions begin to look like the five paragraph essay which includes an introductory paragraph, a thesis statement including three topics that will be discussed, three topic paragraphs, and a concluding paragraph.

As they transition to the rhetoric stage, students move away from summarizing facts and move toward analytical writing.  For example, in literature, students move from book reports which report the background, characters, plot and theme to comparing two works of literature or analyzing the worldview of a classic novel.  In history, students move from summarizing important WW II battles to arguing that the Allied victory depended primarily on D-Day and Hiroshima.

A Rhetoric student’s writing should be well-organized.  Their points of argument should be thoroughly supported from the source material.  Their sentence structure must be more complex and their diction more elevated.  In their conclusions, rhetoric students should move beyond mere summary to an evaluation.  For example, what lessons can we learn today from analyzing Brutus’ decision to assassinate Julius Caesar.  (To assist your students with this difficult skill, have them pay close attention to quality sermons.  Pastors almost always conclude their sermons by asking the congregation to change their thinking or behavior).

Learning to argue persuasively and write eloquently require the same character qualities that we asked of small children when they were learning to form letters:  diligence, patience, and practice.  Older students must be encouraged to wrestle down difficult ideas and to revise, revise, revise.

Summary:  Modern Confusion vs. a Classical Vision for Writing

As classical home educators, we must shed the modern cultural notions that writing, like fine arts, cannot be judged.  There are standards for good writing.  When these standards are not followed, we produce bad writing.  Although writing is a creative experience, it is not a mystical, formless process.  We can learn the tools of writing and teach them to our children.

_______________________________________

The Writing Educators Tool-Kit (resources available in the Classical Conversations bookstore)

The Core: Teaching Your Child the Foundations of Classical Education   by Leigh A. Bortins

IEW’s  Teaching Writing: Structure and Style Kit

CiRCE Institute’s  Lost Tools of Writing

To read Jennifer’s other articles about  The Core , click on the links below:

• The Core Chapters 1-3: Back to School (Exploring the Classical Model)
• The Core Chapter 4: The Core of a Classical Education Reading
• The Core Chapter 6: The Core of a Classical Education: Math
• The Core Chapter 7: The Core of a Classical Education: Geography
• The Core Chapter 8: The Core of a Classical Education: History
• The Core Chapter 9: The Core of a Classical Education: Science
• The Core Chapter 10: The Core of a Classical Education: Fine Arts

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Jennifer courtney, i want to start homeschooling.

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Classical Argument

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A (Very) Brief History of Rhetoric

The study of rhetoric has existed for thousands of years, predating even Socrates, Plato and the other ancient Greek philosophers that we often credit as the founders of Western philosophy. Although ancient rhetoric is most commonly associated with the ancient Greeks and Romans, early examples of rhetoric date all the way back to ancient Akkadian writings in Mesopotamia.

In ancient Greece and Rome, rhetoric was most often considered to be the art of persuasion and was primarily described as a spoken skill. In these societies, discourse occurred almost exclusively in the public sphere, so learning the art of effective, convincing speaking was essential for public orators, legal experts, politicians, philosophers, generals, and educators. To prepare for the speeches they would need to make in these roles, students engaged in written exercises called  progymnasmata . Today, rhetorical scholars still use strategies from the classical era to conceptualize argument. However, whereas oral discourse was the main focus of the classical rhetoricians, modern scholars also study the peculiarities of written argument.

Aristotle provides a crucial point of reference for ancient and modern scholars alike. Over 2000 years ago, Aristotle literally wrote the book on rhetoric. His text  Rhētorikḗ ( On Rhetoric ) explores the techniques and purposes of persuasion in ancient Greece, laying the foundation for the study and implementation of rhetoric in future generations. Though the ways we communicate and conceptualize rhetoric have changed, many of the principles in this book are still used today. And this is for good reason: Aristotle’s strategies can provide a great guide for organizing your thoughts as well as writing effective arguments, essays, and speeches.

Below, you will find a brief guide to some of the most fundamental concepts in classical rhetoric, most of which originate in  On Rhetoric.

The Rhetorical Appeals

To understand how argument works in  On Rhetoric , you must first understand the major appeals associated with rhetoric. Aristotle identifies four major rhetorical appeals: ethos (credibility), logos (logic), pathos (emotion), and Kairos(time). 

• Ethos –  persuasion through the author's character or credibility. This is the way a speaker (or writer) presents herself to the audience. You can build credibility by citing professional sources, using content-specific language, and by showing evidence of your ethical, knowledgeable background.
• Logos –  persuasion through logic. This is the way a speaker appeals to the audience through practicality and hard evidence. You can develop logos by presenting data,  statistics, or facts by  crafting a clear claim with a logically-sequenced argument.  ( See enthymeme and syllogism )
• Pathos –  persuasion through emotion or disposition . This is the way a speaker appeals to the audience through emotion, pity, passions, or dispositions. The idea is usually to evoke and strengthen feelings already present within the audience. This can be achieved through story-telling, vivid imagery, and an impassioned voice.  Academic arguments in particular ​benefit from understanding pathos as appealing to an audience's academic disposition on a given topic, subject, or argument.
• Kairos – an appeal made through the adept use of time. This is the way a speaker appeals to the audience through notions of time. It is also considered to be the appropriate or opportune time for a speaker to insert herself into a conversation or discourse, using the three appeals listed above. A Kairotic appeal can be made through calls to immediate action, presenting an opportunity as temporary, and by describing a specific moment as propitious or ideal.

​*Note:  When using these terms in a Rhetorical Analysis, make sure your syntax is correct. One does not appeal to ethos, logos, or pathos directly. Rather, one appeals to an audience's emotion/disposition, reason/logic, or sense of the author's character/credibility within the text. Ethos, pathos, and logos are themselves the appeals an author uses to persuade an audience. 

An easy way to conceptualize the rhetorical appeals is through advertisements, particularly infomercials or commercials. We are constantly being exposed to the types of rhetoric above, whether it be while watching television or movies, browsing the internet, or watching videos on YouTube.

Imagine a commercial for a new car. The commercial opens with images of a family driving a brand-new car through rugged, forested terrain, over large rocks, past waterfalls, and finally to a serene camping spot near a tranquil lake surrounded by giant redwood trees. The scene cuts to shots of the interior of the car, showing off its technological capacities and its impressive spaciousness. A voiceover announces that not only has this car won numerous awards over its competitors but that it is also priced considerably lower than comparable models, while getting better gas mileage. “But don’t wait,” the voiceover says excitedly, “current lessees pay 0% APR financing for 12 months.”

In just a few moments, this commercial has shown masterful use of all four appeals. The commercial utilizes pathos by appealing to our romantic notions of family, escape, and the great outdoors. The commercial develops ethos by listing its awards, and it appeals to our logical tendencies by pointing out we will save money immediately because the car is priced lower than its competitors, as well as in the long run because of its higher MPG rate. Finally, the commercial provides an opportune and propitious moment for its targeted audience to purchase a car immediately. 

Depending on the nature of the text, argument, or conversation, one appeal will likely become most dominant, but rhetoric is generally most effective when the speaker or writer draws on multiple appeals to work in conjunction with one another. To learn more about Aristotle's rhetorical appeals, click here.

Components and Structure

The classical argument is made up of five components, which are most commonly composed in the following order:

• Exordium –  The introduction, opening, or hook.
• Narratio –  The context or background of the topic.
• Proposito and Partitio –  The claim/stance and the argument.
• Confirmatio and/or Refutatio –  positive proofs and negative proofs of support.
• Peroratio –  The conclusion and call to action.

Think of the exordium as your introduction or “hook.” In your exordium, you have an opportunity to gain the interest of your reader, but you also have the responsibility of situating the argument and setting the tone of your writing. That is, you should find a way to appeal to the audience’s interest while also introducing the topic and its importance in a professional and considerate manner. Something to include in this section is the significance of discussing the topic in this given moment (Kairos). This provides the issue a sense of urgency that can validate your argument.

This is also a good opportunity to consider who your intended audience is and to address their concerns within the context of the argument. For example, if you were writing an argument on the importance of technology in the English classroom and your intended audience was the board of a local high school, you might consider the following:

• New learning possibilities for students (General Audience Concerns)
• The necessity of modern technology in finding new, up-to-date information (Hook/Kairos)
• Detailed narrative of how technology in one school vastly improved student literacy (Hook/Pathos) 
• Statistics showing a link between exposure to technology and rising trends in literacy (Hook/Logos)
• Quotes from education and technology professors expressing an urgency for technology in English classrooms (Hook/Ethos)

Of course, you probably should not include all of these types of appeals in the opening section of your argument—if you do, you may end up with a boring, overlong introduction that doesn’t function well as a hook. Instead, consider using some of these points as evidence later on. Ask yourself:  What will be most important to my audience? What information will most likely result in the action I want to bring about?  Think about which appeal will work best to gain the attention of your intended audience and start there.

The narratio provides relevant foundational information and describes the social context in which your topic exists. This might include information on the historical background, including recent changes or updates to the topic, social perception, important events, and other academic research. This helps to establish the rhetorical situation for the argument: that is, the situation the argument is currently in, as impacted by events, people, opinion, and urgency of some kind. For your argument on technology in the English classroom, you might include:

• Advances in education-related technology over the centuries
• Recent trends in education technology
• A description of the importance of digital literacy
• Statistics documenting the lack of home technology for many students
• A selection of expert opinions on the usefulness of technology in all classrooms

Providing this type of information creates the setting for your argument. In other words, it provides the place and purpose for the argument to take place. By situating your argument within in a viable context, you create an opportunity to assert yourself into the discussion, as well as to give your reader a genuine understanding of your topic’s importance.

Propositio and Partitio

These two concepts function together to help set up your argument. You can think of them functioning together to form a single thesis. The propositio informs your audience of your stance, and the partitio lays out your argument. In other words, the propositio tells your audience what you think about a topic, and the partitio briefly explains why you think that way and how you will prove your point. 

Because this section helps to set up the rest of your argument, you should place it near the beginning of your paper. Keep in mind, however, that you should not give away all of your information or evidence in your partitio. This section should be fairly short: perhaps 3-4 sentences at most for most academic essays. You can think of this section of your argument like the trailer for a new film: it should be concise, should entice the audience, and should give them a good example of what they are going to experience, but it shouldn’t include every detail. Just as a filmgoer must see an entire film to gain an understanding of its significance or quality, so too must your audience read the rest of your argument to truly understand its depth and scope. 

In the case of your argument on implementing technology in the English classroom, it’s important to think not only of your own motivations for pursuing this technology in the classroom, but also of what will motivate or persuade your respective audience(s). Some writing contexts call for an audience of one. Some require consideration of multiple audiences, in which case you must find ways to craft an argument which appeals to each member of your audience. For example, if your audience included a school board as well as parents andteachers, your propositio might look something like this:

“The introduction of newer digital technology in the English classroom would be beneficial for all parties involved. Students are already engaged in all kinds of technological spaces, and it is important to implement teaching practices that invest students’ interests and prior knowledge. Not only would the marriage of English studies and technology extend pedagogical opportunities, it would also create an ease of instruction for teachers, engage students in creative learning environments, and familiarize students with the creation and sharing technologies that they will be expected to use at their future colleges and careers. Plus, recent studies suggest a correlation between exposure to technology and higher literacy rates, a trend many education professionals say isn’t going to change.”

Note how the above paragraph considers the concerns and motivations of all three audience members, takes a stance, and provides support for the stance in a way that allows for the rest of the argument to grow from its ideas. Keep in mind that whatever you promise in your propositio and partitio (in this case the new teaching practices, literacy statistics, and professional opinion) must appear in the body of your argument. Don’t make any claims here that you cannot prove later in your argument.

Confirmatio and Refutatio  

These two represent different types of proofs that you will need to consider when crafting your argument. The confirmatio and refutatio work in opposite ways, but are both very effective in strengthening your claims. Luckily, both words are cognates—words that sound/look in similar in multiple languages—and are therefore are easy to keep straight. Confirmatio is a way to confirm your claims and is considered a positive proof; refutatio is a way to acknowledge and refute a counterclaim and is considered a negative proof.

The confirmatio is your argument’s support: the evidence that helps to support your claims. For your argument on technology in the English classroom, you might include the following:

• Students grades drastically increase when technology is inserted into academics
• Teachers widely agree that students are more engaged in classroom activities that involve technology
• Students who accepted to elite colleges generally possess strong technological skills

The refutatio provides negative proofs. This is an opportunity for you to acknowledge that other opinions exist and have merit, while also showing why those claims do not warrant rejecting your argument. 

If you feel strange including information that seems to undermine or weaken your own claims, ask yourself this: have you ever been in a debate with someone who entirely disregarded every point you tried to make without considering the credibility of what you said? Did this make their argument less convincing? That’s what your paper can look like if you don’t acknowledge that other opinions indeed exist and warrant attention. 

After acknowledging an opposing viewpoint, you have two options. You can either concede the point (that is, admit that the point is valid and you can find no fault with their reasoning), or you can refute their claim by pointing out the flaws in your opponent’s argument. For example, if your opponent were to argue that technology is likely to distract students more than help them (an argument you’d be sure to include in your argument so as not to seem ignorant of opposing views) you’d have two options:

• Concession: You might concede this point by saying “Despite all of the potential for positive learning provided by technology, proponents of more traditional classroom materials point out the distractive possibilities that such technology would introduce into the classroom. They argue that distractions such as computer games, social media, and music-streaming services would only get in the way of learning.” 

In your concession of the argument, you acknowledge the merit of the opposing argument, but you should still try to flip the evidence in a positive way. Note how before conceding we include “despite all of the potential for positive learning.” This reminds your reader that, although you are conceding a single point, there are still many reasons to side with you.

• Refutation: To refute this same point you might say something like, “While proponents of more traditional English classrooms express concerns about student distraction, it’s important to realize that in modern times, students are already distracted by the technology they carry around in their pockets. By redirecting student attention to the technology administered by the school, this distraction is shifted to class content. Plus, with website and app blocking resources available to schools, it is simple for an institution to simply decide which websites and apps to ban and block, thereby ensuring students are on task.”

Note how we acknowledged the opposing argument, but immediately pointed out its flaws using straightforward logic and a counterexample. In so doing, we effectively strengthen our argument and move forward with our proposal.

Your peroratio is your conclusion. This is your final opportunity to make an impact in your essay and leave an impression on your audience. In this section, you are expected to summarize and re-evaluate everything you have proven throughout your argument. However, there are multiple ways of doing this. Depending on the topic of your essay, you might employ one or more of the following in your closing:

• Call to action (encourage your audience to do something that will change the situation or topic you have been discussing).
• Discuss the implications for the future. What might happen if things continue the way they are going? Is this good or bad? Try to be impactful without being overly dramatic.
• Discuss other related topics that warrant further research and discussion.
• Make a historical parallel regarding a similar issue that can help to strengthen your argument.
• Urge a continued conversation of the topic for the future.

Remember that your peroratio is the last impression your audience will have of your argument. Be sure to consider carefully which rhetorical appeals to employ to gain a desirable effect. Make sure also to summarize your findings, including the most effective and emphatic pieces of evidence from your argument, reassert your major claim, and end on a compelling, memorable note. Good luck and happy arguing!

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Aims and objectives

• To introduce the intellectual and philosophical, historical, material and visual, and linguistic cultures of Greek and Roman antiquity.
• To develop the practice of interpretation across the whole range of classical study through close study of texts and artefacts.
• To introduce the variety of critical methodologies possible in the study of classical antiquity and major current trends in scholarship.
• To develop a sense of the importance of classical antiquity and its study for the modern world.
• To develop skills in writing research essays.

Scope and structure of the examination paper 2023–24

Candidates will be expected to submit two essays, each related to a different topic chosen from the following four groups: Greek and Roman philosophy (B Caucus), history (C Caucus), art and archaeology (D Caucus), and linguistics (E Caucus). The two essays must be chosen from two different groups. The topics shall be chosen from a list of suggested titles to be issued on Monday of the 8th Week of Lent term. Essays are to be submitted not later than 12 noon on the Monday of the 5th week of Easter Term.

For each essay, students should receive a maximum of 90 minutes of supervision and only one full draft is to be read by supervisor. The word limit is 2,500 words, including notes, but excluding bibliography. From 2023/24, candidates who have taken Prelim must submit at least one essay related to a non-literary topic on which they were not examined in Prelim. Some questions will give opportunity to engage with the issues raised in the ‘Classics Now’ lectures (see below).

Students are required to declare that the submitted essay is their own work, and does not contain material already used to any substantial extent for a comparable purpose. Essays must be word processed (1.5 spacing) unless permission has been obtained from the Faculty Board to present them in handwritten form. The style of presentation, quotation and reference to books, articles and ancient authorities should be consistent and comply with the standards required by a major journal.

Courses descriptions

Greek and roman philosophy.

This set of lectures provides an introduction to Ancient Greek Philosophy. In the Michaelmas term we will look mainly at Plato’s presentation of the figure of Socrates, a presentation that is often inseparable from Plato’s own philosophical views. The lectures will consider how to read and interpret Plato’s ‘Socratic conversations’ philosophically and show how they can be a provocation to further philosophical inquiry.  The main texts will be Plato’s Apology , Euthyphro , Meno , Phaedo , Protagoras , Gorgias , and Symposium . Those attending the course are encouraged to read as much as possible of these in advance. A convenient translation, all in one volume, is John Cooper ed. Plato: the complete works (Hackett: Indianapolis, 1997). In the Lent term we will consider two central texts in greater detail: Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. We will consider their respective discussions of happiness and human excellence in relation to their epistemological and metaphysical views. For the Republic , see the translation in Cooper ed. (above); for the Nicomachean Ethics , see Sarah Broadie and Christopher Rowe (transl. and comm.), Nicomachean Ethics (Oxford 2002). In the Easter term we will look at two themes: the Hellenistic philosophies of Epicureanism and Stoicism and Early Greek Philosophy and Science.

Ancient History

The second-century BC Greek writer Polybius, like many in antiquity, compared Roman hegemony over the Mediterranean with previous empires, which had already come and gone, as well as the current Carthaginian competition. This course examines imperial rule from the Persian empire in the sixth century BC to Late Antiquity, when Roman dominion in the East were threatened by the imperial successors of the Persians centred in what is now Iran. Issues to be explored will include how empires was created in the first place; the ways in which they both exploited the territories subjected to them, and sought to unify their empires under central control; and how the capitals of imperial powers reflected their imperial status.

The first part will cover the rise and fall of empires from Achaemenid Persia through those of Athens, Sparta and Macedon, to the formation of the Hellenistic kingdoms after Alexander. The second part will explore the rise of Roman power in conflict with Carthage and the Hellenistic Kingdoms, its consolidation and then challenge from Sassanian Persia.

Introductory bibliography: A. Kuhrt, The Persian Empire: a corpus of sources from the Achaemenid period (2007); P.J. Rhodes, The Athenian Empire (Greece & Rome New Surveys in the Classics 17, 1985); P. Low ed., The Athenian Empire (2008); A.B. Bosworth, Conquest and empire. The reign of Alexander the Great (1988); G. Shipley, The Greek world after Alexander, 323-30 B.C . (2000); C. Champion, Roman Imperialism: Readings and Sources (2004); A. Lintott, Imperium Romanum: Politics and Administration (1993); P. Garnsey & R. Saller, The Roman Empire: Economy, Society and Culture , 2nd edn. (2015); E. Dench, Empire and Political Cultures in the Roman World (2018); M. Lavan, Slaves to Rome: Paradigms of Empire in Roman Culture (2013); F. Millar, The Roman Empire and its neighbours (1967).

Our connection to the ancient past is indirect and delicate – resting on the proper interpretation of a limited number of small, unevenly distributed, and distorted reflections. This course will introduce this range of reflections – our ancient sources. We will explore the various types of evidence used by ancient historians, considering the pitfalls of each, the kind of history a particular source might produce, and the ways in which historians can critically assess the geographical, chronological, and social perspectives and imbalances of the material. How might the questions we ask of literary evidence differ from those we ask of archaeological data? How might inscriptions and documentary sources illuminate the lives of people neglected by other sources? What determines whether an event or period is ‘well documented’ or not? What are the difficulties and opportunities latent in bringing modern perspectives to ancient material? Students will develop a strong understanding of the landscape of ancient sources, as well as an appreciation for the fragility of the thread which connects modern observers and antiquity

Classical Art and Archaeology

This course provides an introduction to the scope and potential of the art and archaeology of the Greek and Roman worlds. The first 8 lectures will offer an overview of the questions, methods, and themes of classical 'art' and archaeology, and introduce the importance and inter-relationship of these strands of knowledge for studying the Greek and Roman worlds. The following 16 lectures familiarise students with the range of material culture produced by different peoples across the chronological and geographical span of Classical Antiquity. The focus of these lectures is on key sites, issues and approaches.

Suggested readings (double-starred [**] items are accessible online through iDiscover): ** S. Alcock and R. Osborne, Classical Archaeology, 2nd edn. (Oxford, 2011); M. Beard and J. Henderson, Classical Art from Greece to Rome (Oxford, 2001); A. Claridge, Rome: Oxford Archaeological Guides (Oxford, 2010); J. Elsner, The Art of the Roman Empire AD 100-450 , 2nd edn. (Oxford, 2018); R. Neer, The Art and Archaeology of the Greek World , 2nd edn. (London, 2019); R. Osborne, Archaic and Classical Greek Art (Oxford, 1998); **C. Shelmerdine (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Aegean Bronze Age (Cambridge, 2008); ** N.J. Spivey, Greek Sculpture (Cambridge, 2013);  N.J. Spivey and M.J. Squire, Panorama of the Classical World (2004); S. Tuck, A History of Roman Art (Chichester, 2015).

Classical and Comparative Philology and Linguistics

Classical and Comparative Philology and Linguistics : 16 lectures (8 MT and 8 LT). The course is designed to introduce the systematic study of language in general and of the classical languages in particular, with the aim of supporting students’ language learning and consolidation while explaining both the concepts and techniques of modern descriptive and theoretical linguistics and the ways in which these can be fruitfully applied to the analysis of Greek and Latin. There will be discussion of selected testimonia from ancient authors and analysis of passages and examples taken from mainstream authors. An advanced knowledge of Greek or Latin is not presupposed; the lectures in Michaelmas Term do not require any knowledge of Greek.

Students may find the following text-books helpful as introductory or follow-up reading for many of the concepts introduced throughout the whole course: Larry Trask, Language: The Basics ( Routledge 1999 (2 nd edn.)), Ralph Fasold and Jeff Connor-Linton (eds), An Introduction to Language and Linguistics (Cambridge, 2006); Victoria Fromkin (ed.), An introduction to Linguistic Theory (Blackwell, 2000); Egbert J. Bakker (ed.), A Companion to the Ancient Greek Language (Blackwell, 2010); James Clackson (ed.), A Companion to the Latin Language (Blackwell, 2011).

Subject to Directors of Studies’ approval, supervisions will be organised centrally to complement the lectures.

Those who plan to offer one or more of the Group E papers (Historical and Comparative Linguistics) in Part II of the Tripos are advised to attend at least some of the lectures for linguistics in Part IA, even if they do not intend to answer linguistics questions in Paper 6 of Part IA, or to take a linguistics paper in Part IB.

Humans are distinguished from all other animals by their abilities not only in using language, but also in preserving a record of speech over millennia. Our knowledge of ancient literate societies is immeasurably richer than of those which have left no written record. Knowing how language works is essential to learning Latin and Greek and understanding ancient cultures. These four lectures serve as a general introduction to the study of languages with especial reference to some of the differences between ancient languages and modern languages. The lectures will introduce the terminology used in studying languages and linguistics, setting out the different areas of linguistic analysis. We shall also consider wider questions concerning how Latin and Greek reflect and relate to ancient society, how languages change, how languages are related.

Introductory Reading

James Clackson, Language and Society in the Greek and Roman Worlds, Cambridge 2016

Coulter George, How Dead Languages Work , Oxford 2020

Tore Janson, A Natural History of Latin , Oxford, 2004

Peter Matthews, Linguistics, A Very Short Introduction , Oxford 2003

Joseph Solodow, Latin Alive: the survival of Latin in English and the Romance Languages

In these lectures we are going to explore the Latin language as a system. A system that despite its considerable complexity and many rules still seems to show a great number of anomalies. Why is it facere but interficere ? How do we get to bewildering paradigms like fero, tuli , latum ? Why do you say in urbe but ruri ? And what are all these cases for anyway? By analysing the phonology and morphology of Latin and their history we shall try to come to better understand why Latin looks and works the way it does.

Introductory reading:

Leonard Palmer, The Latin Language , London 1954 (older, but still useful; many reprints)

W. Sidney Allen, Vox Latina , Cambridge 1978

Michael Weiss, Outline of the Historical and Comparative Grammar of Latin , 2 nd edition, 2020 (advanced, but a useful place to look for particular details)

These lectures offer a corresponding introduction to the study of Greek as a linguistic system - a system which often looks bewilderingly more complex than Latin. By looking at important phonological and morphological developments in the history of the language we will tame some of that complexity, and answer questions such as: why does Greek look so similar to Latin and yet so different from it? Why does it have fewer cases and use them differently? What exactly is ​ an optative?

Suggested reading:

L. R. Palmer, The Greek Language , Bristol Classical Press, 1996

W. S. Allen, Vox Graeca , Cambridge University Press, 1987

S. Colvin, A Brief History of Ancient Greek , Wiley-Blackwell, 2014

Ancient Greek and Latin are “dead” languages, meaning that we only have written evidence for these languages. In these lectures we will explore the relationship between speech and writing. We will discuss the nature and the workings of the alphabet and then look at its origin, development and spread, and discuss how it is used by putting it in a linguistic, historical and cultural context. We will then read a number of primary sources (inscriptions) and literary texts in order to see how all of this works in practice.

Peter Daniels and William Bright,  The World's Writing Systems  New York 1996

Andrew Robinson,  The Story of Writing , London 2007

James T. Hooker,  Ancient writing from cuneiform to the alphabet , London 1990

Alison E. Cooley,  The Cambridge Manual of Latin Epigraphy ,   Cambridge 2012

Arthur Geoffrey Woodhead,  A Study of Greek Inscriptions , 2nd ed., Cambridge 1981

Classics Now: live issues past and present

This lecture series will consist of 8 lectures each year, focused on different topics. The lectures will introduce students to some key aspects of the history of Classics as a discipline, and the many ways in which the study of Greece and Rome has participated and continues to participate in live issues of politics, power and identity in the modern world. Core topics will include race, gender and class. Every Caucus will also offer one lecture for the module. Each lecture will address one central issue through one specific case study. Essay questions reflecting this module will be set in IA Paper 6.

The schedule of lectures will be:

• 19 January - Simon Goldhill, Race and raciness
• 26 January - Geoffrey Lloyd, Classics: Past, Present and Future
• 2 February - Michael Squire, Body/Image
• 9 February - Tim Whitmarsh, Firing the Canon
• 16 February - James Warren, Should we cancel Aristotle?
• 23 February - Shushma Malik, Empire and Nationalism
• 1 March - Susanne Turner, Decolonising the Museum
• 8 March - Krishnan Ram-Prasad, Language, Identity and Origin

Upcoming events

• 14 May 2024 J. H. Gray Lectures - Gabriel Zuchtriegel
• 15 May 2024 J. H. Gray Lectures - Gabriel Zuchtriegel
• 16 May 2024 J. H. Gray Lectures - Gabriel Zuchtriegel
• 22 May Craven Seminar 2024
• 23 May Drink and Draw

View all events

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This summer Professor Caroline Vout is co-curating an Olympic Exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum, 'Paris 1924: Sport, Art and the Body' which looks back on the pivotal moment, 100 years ago, when traditions and trailblazers collided, fusing the Olympics’ classical legacy with the European avant-garde spirit. It was a...

Mary Beard to give The Sir Robert Rede’s Lecture 2024

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2.1 An initial exploration

To begin your own exploration of the Classical world, you will first read the introduction to the book of essays, Experiencing the Classical World . It has been written not only to introduce the essays in the book, but also to introduce you to some of the fundamentals of Classical Studies.

Click to open Experiencing the Classical World [ Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. ( Hide tip ) ] .

Below is a list of learning outcomes that illustrate what you might expect from a course on the Classical world. As you read, tick off the relevant learning outcome each time you meet a section of the course which addresses that outcome:

acquire a broad knowledge of the political, social and cultural history, as well as the geography, of the Classical world;

acquire a broad knowledge and understanding of the various disciplines that make up Classical Studies, and develop your ability to practise the methods of enquiry used by these disciplines;

develop your ability to examine critically different kinds of ancient material and modern interpretations of this material;

develop skills to communicate your knowledge and understanding in an appropriately scholarly manner.

The aim of this activity was to make you think about what you were learning, as you were reading. Such reflection helps you to focus on topics as you learn and also to realise just what it is that you have learned. You should have been able to tick off each one without too much trouble.

Obviously, you haven't had much chance to develop a ‘broad knowledge and understanding’ quite yet, but you've made a start, and we hope that you came away from the introduction having learned and understood some new things about the Classical world. Similarly, you might not have had much chance to develop your powers of critical examination, but you were given some examples of looking at images of artefacts and ancient sources that provide you with an idea of what you should be learning as you progress with your studies in the area. Source analysis, as it is called in shorthand, is a fundamental skill in Classical Studies. The results of source analysis can then be organised into a discussion and argument to communicate your knowledge and understanding. This course doesn't actually give you the opportunity to do the communicating, but the case study within the text that you have just read did provide an example of an argument about the significance of the curia of Pompey, drawn from the analysis of a variety of sources. You might like to use the course forum to develop and communicate arguments drawn from source analysis, but this is not an expected outcome of this introductory course.

The introduction also emphasises how exploration of the Classical world can be an interdisciplinary study, and promises more in the following essays. However, there is no single interdisciplinary approach. The selection and combination of subdisciplines and how they may be used together varies, depending on the questions being asked and the material being studied. The introduction will have given you an impression of the enormous range of possibilities for studying the Classical world. No surprise then, that you can't do it all in one course. The course will not cover everything; it does not attempt to provide you with an overview of the whole Classical world. Instead, it provides you with interesting examples to equip you with the basic skills that you will require to undertake further studies on the Classical world.

4.2 Classical Philosophy

Learning objectives.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Evaluate the influence of Egyptian scholarship on classical Greek philosophy.
• Describe the key ideas of the most influential Greek philosophers.
• Describe the key ideas of the most influential Roman philosophers.
• Distinguish between major schools of classical thought.

Egyptian Origins of Classical Philosophy

The understanding that the roots of classical thought lie, at least in part, in Egypt is as old as the ancient Greeks themselves. In The Histories of Herodotus , the ancient Greek historian Herodotus (c. 484–425 BCE) traces Greek beliefs about the gods, religious practices, and understanding of the natural world to Egypt. Herodotus claimed the ancient Greeks adopted practices and ideas as diverse as solemn processions to temples, the belief in an immortal soul, and the knowledge of geometry and astrology from the Egyptians. Herodotus notes that the people of Heliopolis , one of the largest cities in ancient Egypt, “are said to be the most learned in records of the Egyptians” (Herodotus 1890, 116). Plato spent 13 years in Heliopolis, and Pythagoras (c. 570–495 BCE) studied mathematics in Heliopolis for more than two decades (Boas 1948).

Egyptian and Babylonian Mathematics

Could Pythagoras have learned, rather than discovered, the “Pythagorean” theorem—the law of relationships between the sides and hypotenuse of a right triangle—in Egypt ? Almost assuredly. A Babylonian clay tablet dating to approximately 1800 BCE, known as Plimpton 322, demonstrates that the Babylonians had knowledge not only of the relationship of the sides and hypotenuses of a right triangle but also of trigonometric functions (Lamb 2017). Further, the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus provides evidence that the Egyptians had advanced knowledge of algebra and geometry as early as 1550 BCE, presenting problems that include calculating the volume of cylindrical granaries and the slope of pyramids. The Berlin Papyrus 6619, usually dated between 1800 BCE and 1649 BCE, contains a solution to a problem involving the Pythagorean theorem and evidence that the Egyptians could solve quadratic equations. Pythagoras studied with the priests of Heliopolis more than 1,000 years after these documents were created. It is possible that this Egyptian mathematical knowledge had been lost and that Pythagoras rediscovered the relationship during or after his studies in Heliopolis. However, given what we know now about Greek individuals visiting and residing in Egypt, it seems more likely that he was introduced to the knowledge there. As with mathematics, there are specific philosophical ideas that can be traced back to Egypt. This is particularly the case within metaphysics, the branch of philosophy that studies reality, being, causation, and related abstract concepts and principles.

Akhenaten’s Metaphysics

In the mid-14th century BCE, Akhenaten became pharaoh in Egypt . Partly in an attempt to undercut the growing power of the priests, Akhenaten abolished all other gods and established Aten , the sun god, as the one true god. Akhenaten held that solar energy was the element out of which all other elements evolved or emanated (Flegel 2018). In proposing this idea, Akhenaten established an unseen divinity responsible for causation. Aten became the one true substance that created the observable world. One hymn reads, “You create millions of forms from yourself, the one, / cities and towns / fields, paths and river” (Assmann [1995] 2009, 154). Although the Egyptian elite quickly reestablished the temples and the practices of the full pantheon of gods after Akhenaten’s death, theological thought incorporated this idea of an all-powerful invisible first cause. This idea evolved, with the phrase “one and the millions” coming to signify the sun god as the soul and the world as its body (Assmann 2004, 189). As you will see later in this chapter, this same concept—a single, invisible, unchanging substance expressing itself through forms to give rise to the material world—is the key principle in Plato’s metaphysics.

The Egyptian Origins Controversy

Scholars have long puzzled over to what extent the origins of classical thought can be said to lie in Egypt . In recent years, a heated debate has erupted over this question. In the three-volume text Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization , Martin Bernal , a contemporary American professor specializing in modern Chinese political history, argued that the ancient Egyptians and Phoenicians played a foundational role in the formation of Greek civilization and philosophy. He further claimed that an “ancient model” recognizing the African and Middle Eastern origins of Greece was widely accepted until the 19th century, when it was replaced by a racist “Aryan model” proposing Indo-European origins instead. Mary Lefkowitz , a contemporary professor of classical studies, has famously critiqued Bernal’s work. Lefkowitz’s position is that though it is important to acknowledge the debt the Greeks owe to Egyptian thought, Greek philosophy was not wholly derived from Egypt, nor did Western civilization arise from Africa. A bitter academic war of words has ensued, with Lefkowitz and other prominent scholars noting significant errors in Bernal’s scholarship. Lefkowitz authored Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth as History in 1997. Bernal responded with Black Athena Writes Back in 2001. This exchange reflects a much broader phenomenon in which academics spar over the accuracy of historical narratives and the interpretation of philosophical ideas, often presenting the issues as ethical questions. By thinking critically about these disagreements, we gain deeper insight not only into the topic of study but also into philosophical and political discourse today.

Write Like a Philosopher

Read the summary of these two articles: (1) Mary Lefkowitz’s “ Egyptian Philosophy: Influence on Ancient Greek Thought ” and (2) Simphiwe Sesanti’s “ Teaching Ancient Egyptian Philosophy (Ethics) and History: Fulfilling a Quest for a Decolonised and Afrocentric Education ”. Identify two arguments from each article, and identify two to three sources that could provide evidence to substantiate or refute each argument.

Ancient Greek Philosophy

Classical philosophy emerged in ancient Greece , following a procession from what are known as the Presocratics; to the three great philosophers, Socrates (470–399 BCE), Plato (c. 428–347 BCE), and Aristotle (384–322 BCE); and then to later schools of thought, including the Epicureans and Stoics. As is the case with all ancient societies, knowledge of these thinkers is limited by the documentation that has survived. Socrates, for example, wrote down nothing. Rather, Plato wrote dialogues featuring his mentor Socrates engaged in philosophical debate with various individuals in Athens, some of them his fellow citizens and other prominent visitors to the city. The material that has survived from ancient Greece has fueled philosophical discourse for two millennia.

The Presocratics

The term Presocratics is somewhat problematic. At least a few of the thinkers considered part of this school were contemporaries of Socrates and are mentioned in Plato’s dialogues. Foremost among these are the Sophists , traveling teachers of rhetoric who serve as foils for Plato ’s philosophers. Plato sought to distinguish philosophers, seekers of truth, from Sophists, whom he regarded as seeking wealth and fame and peddling in fallacious arguments. Indeed, one of the most prominent Sophists, Protagoras , is a main character in the dialogue that bears his name.

Researching the Presocratics is difficult because so little of their work has survived. What we have is fragmentary and often based on the testimony of later philosophers. Still, based on the work that is available, we can characterize the Presocratics as interested in questions of metaphysics and natural philosophy, with many of them proposing that nature consisted of one or more basic substances.

The fragments of the works of these early philosophers that have come down to us focus on metaphysical questions. One of the central debates among the Presocratics is between monism and plurism . Those who think nature consisted of a single substance are called monists, in contrast to pluralists, who see it as consisting of multiple substances. For example, the monist Thales of Miletus thought that the basic element that comprised everything was water, while Empedocles the pluralist sought to show that there were four basic elements (earth, air, fire, and water) that were resolved and dissolved by the competing forces of love and strife.

Prominent Monists

Presocratic philosophers who sought to present a unified conception of nature held that nature ultimately consists of a single substance. This proposition can be interpreted in various ways. The claim proposed by Thales of Miletus (620–546 BCE) that the basic substance of the universe was water is somewhat ambiguous. It might mean that everything is ultimately made of water, or it might mean that water is the origin of all things. Thales and two of his students, Anaximander and Anaximenes , made up the monist Milesian school . Anaximander thought that water was too specific to be the basis for everything that exists. Instead, he thought the basic stuff of the universe was the apeiron , the indefinite or boundless. Anaximenes held that air was the basic substance of the universe.

Parmenides , one of the most influential Presocratic monists, went so far as to deny the reality of change. He presented his metaphysical ideas in a poem that portrays himself being taken on a chariot to visit a goddess who claims she will reveal the truths of the universe to him. The poem has two parts, “the Way of the Truth”, which explains that what exists is unified, complete, and unchanging, and “the Way of Opinion”, which argues that the perception of change in the physical world is mistaken. Our senses mislead us. Although it might seem to us that Parmenides’s claim that change is not real is absurd, he and his student Zeno advanced strong arguments. Parmenides was the first person to propose that the light from the moon came from the sun and to explain the moon’s phases. In this way, he showed that although we see the moon as a crescent, a semicircle, or a complete circle, the moon itself does not change (Graham 2013). The perception that the moon is changing is an illusion.

Zeno proposed paradoxes, known as Zeno’s paradoxes , that demonstrate that what we think of as plurality and motion are simply not possible. Say, for example, that you wish to walk from the library to the park. To get there, you first must walk halfway there. To finish your trip, you must walk half of the remaining distance (one quarter). To travel that final quarter of the distance, you must first walk half of that (an eighth of the total distance). This process can continue forever—creating an infinite number of discrete distances that you must travel. It is therefore impossible that you arrive at the park. A more common way to present this paradox today is as a mathematical asymptote or limit ( Figure 4.4 ). From this point of view, you can never reach point a from point b because no matter where you are along the path, there will always be a distance between wherever you are and where you want to be.

The Paradoxes of Zeno

Prominent pluralists.

Parmenides and Heraclitus (525–475 BCE) held diametrically opposed views concerning the nature of the universe. Where Parmenides saw unity, Heraclitus saw diversity. Heraclitus held that nothing remains the same and that all is in flux. One of his most well-known sayings illustrates this well: “[It is not possible to step twice into the same river]. . . . It scatters and again comes together, and approaches and recedes” (quoted in Curd 2011, 45).

Anaxagoras (500–428 BCE) and Empedocles (494–434 BCE) were substance pluralists who believed that the universe consisted of more than one basic kind of “stuff.” Anaxagoras believed that it is mind, or nous , that controls the universe by mixing and unmixing things into a variety of different combinations. Empedocles held that there were four basic substances (the four elements of air, earth, fire, and water) that were combined and recombined by the opposing forces of love and strife.

Finally, there are the schools of the atomists , who held the view that the basic substance of the universe was tiny, indivisible atoms. For the atomists, all was either atoms or void. Everything we experience is a result of atoms combining with one another.

Connections

The chapter on metaphysics covers monism and pluralism across cultures.

Presocratic Theology

The Presocratic philosopher Pythagoras (570–490 BCE) and his followers, known as the Pythagoreans , comprised a rational yet mystical sect of learned men. The Pythagoreans had a reputation for learning and were legendary for their knowledge of mathematics, music, and astronomy as well as for their dietary practices and other customs (Curd 2011). Like Socrates, Pythagoras wrote nothing, so scholars continue to debate which ideas originated with Pythagoras and which were devised by his disciples.

Among the Pythagoreans’ key beliefs was the idea that the solution to the mysteries of the universe was numerical and that these numerical mysteries could be revealed through music. A reminder of their mathematical legacy can be found in the Pythagorean theorem , which students continue to learn in school. Pythagoreans also believed in the transmigration of souls, an idea that Plato would adopt. According to this doctrine, the soul outlives the body, and individuals are reborn after death in another human body or even in the body of a nonhuman animal.

Another important Presocratic philosopher who produced novel theological ideas is Xenophanes (c. 570–478 BCE). Xenophanes, who was fascinated by religion, rejected the traditional accounts of the Olympian gods. He sought a rational basis of religion and was among the first to claim that the gods are actually projections of the human mind. He argued that the Greeks anthropomorphized divinity, and like many later theologians, he held that there is a God whose nature we cannot grasp.

Socrates and Plato

As Socrates never wrote anything, he is remembered today because thinkers like Plato featured him in their writings. Plato deliberately dramatized the life of his teacher Socrates. One of the key questions of Plato’s scholarship is exactly how many liberties he took in depicting the life of his teacher. Scholars generally agree that the dialogues that Plato wrote early in his career are more faithful to the life of Socrates than later ones. His writings are usually divided into three periods: early, middle, and late.

The early dialogues feature a skeptical Socrates who refuses to advance any doctrines of his own. Instead, he questions his interlocutors until they despair of finding the truth at all. These early dialogues tend to be somewhat short with a simpler composition. One of the dialogues features a young man named Meno who is the pupil of a prominent Sophist. The dialogue focuses on the nature of virtue and whether virtue can be taught. At one point in the dialogue, Meno famously compares Socrates to a torpedofish, a fish similar to a stingray that paralyzes its prey. Socrates does this to his dialogue partners: they begin the discussion believing that they know something and over the course of the dialogue begin to question whether they know anything at all.

See the introduction to philosophy chapter for more on Socrates as the paradigmatic philosopher.

Gradually, Plato has Socrates give voice to more positive doctrines. These include what comes to be known as the theory of the forms , a metaphysical doctrine that holds that every particular thing that exists participates in an immaterial form or essence that gives this thing its identity. The invisible realm of the forms differs fundamentally from the changing realm we experience in this world. The invisible realm is eternal, unchanging, and perfect. The material things themselves change, but the immaterial forms remain the same. Consider, for example, the form of a rectangle: four adjacent straight sides that meet at 90-degree angles. You can draw a rectangle, but it is an imperfect representation. The desk or table you are sitting at might be rectangular, but are its edges perfectly straight? How perfect was the instrument that cut the sides? If you nick the edge of a table, then it changes and becomes less like the form of a rectangle. With the doctrine of forms, Plato may be said to combine the metaphysics of Parmenides with that of Heraclitus into a metaphysical dualism.

The philosopher’s task is to access the immaterial realm of the forms and try to convince others of its truth. Plato further believed that if we understand the true nature of virtues like wisdom, justice, and courage, we cannot avoid acting in accordance with them. Hence, rulers of states should be philosopher-kings who have the clearest understanding of forms. Yet philosopher-kings never have perfect knowledge because our understanding is based on a material realm that is always changing. True knowledge is only possible in the abstract realms, such as math and ethics.

In the dialogues, Socrates claims that he was divinely inspired to question prominent citizens of Athens to determine whether their claims to know could be verified. These citizens grow annoyed with Socrates after some years of this treatment, eventually bringing charges against him for corrupting the youth and making the weaker argument appear the stronger. The proceedings of the resulting trial were immortalized in Plato’s Apologia , where Socrates presents his defense of his life’s work as a philosopher. The dialogue’s name derives from the Greek apologia , meaning “defense”—Socrates never apologizes for anything! He is found guilty and sentenced to death. Socrates becomes a martyr to philosophy, put to death by the democratic government of Athens.

This text examines Plato’s ideas in greater depth in the chapters on metaphysics , epistemology , value theory , and political philosophy .

During the Middle Ages, people referred to Plato’s most famous pupil Aristotle as simply “the Philosopher.” This nickname is a testament to his enduring fame, as well as to the fact that he was driven by philosophical curiosity to try to understand everything under the sun. The first sentence of his famous work Metaphysics states, “Philosophy begins in wonder.” He exemplified this claim in his writing. His works ranged widely across all the main areas of philosophy, including logic, metaphysics, and ethics. In addition, he investigated natural philosophy , the fields of study that eventually gave rise to science. Aristotle also researched topics that would today be classified as biology and physics. Stylistically, his work was very different from that of his teacher. While Plato’s work was literary and even dramatic, Aristotle’s writings are presented as lecture.

Explore Aristotle’s ideas in greater depth in the chapters on metaphysics and epistemology .

Plato and his successors were prone to mysticism. It was easy to translate the philosophical theory of the forms into a mystical doctrine in which the forms were known by the mind of God. Aristotle resisted this trend. At the center of Aristotle’s work was his doctrine of the four causes . He believed that the nature of any single thing could be understood by answering four basic questions: “What’s it made of?” (material cause), “What shape does it have?” (formal cause), “What agent gave it this form?” (efficient cause), and, finally, “What is its end goal?” (final cause). Not only can we explain the nature of anything by answering these four basic questions, we can also understand the nature of the universe. Aristotle’s universe is a closed system that is comprehensible to humanity because it is composed of these four causes. Each cause leads to another, until we get to the first cause or prime mover at the head of it all. Somewhat obscurely, Aristotle claims that this first cause is “thought thinking itself.”

In addition to the doctrine of the four causes, it is important to understand Aristotle’s account of the soul. Unlike Plato, who held that the soul is an eternal substance that is reborn in various bodies, Aristotle has a functional conception of the soul. He defined the soul based upon what the soul does. In Aristotle’s understanding, all living things have souls. Plants have a vegetative soul that promotes growth and the exchange of nutrients. The animal soul, in addition to taking in nutrients and growing, experiences the world, desires things, and can move of its own volition. Added to these various functions in humans is the ability to reason.

With the four causes and the functional conception of the soul, we can begin to understand Aristotle’s ethics. Aristotle systematized Plato’s conception of ethics based upon his conception of the self and his four causes. Since everything that exists has a purpose, one of the basic questions for ethics is “What is the purpose of the human being?” After considering such candidates as pleasure and power, Aristotle settles on the answer “happiness” or, more accurately, “ eudaimonia .” Rather than a fleeting emotional state, eudaimonia is better understood as “flourishing.” So the question at the heart of Aristotle’s ethics is “How should humans best achieve happiness?” His basic answer is that we achieve eudaimonia by cultivating the virtues. Virtues are habits of character that help us to decide what action is preferable in a particular moment. Cultivating these virtues will helps us to lead a fulfilling life.

It is generally true to say that Plato tended to be more focused on the transcendental world of the forms while Aristotle and his followers were more focused on this worldly existence. They shared a belief that the universe was comprehensible and that reason should serve as a guide to ordering our lives.

Aristotle’s virtue ethics are explored in much greater depth in the chapters on value theory and normative moral theories .

In the wake of the giants of Greek philosophy—Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle—some philosophers turned away from Plato’s ideal forms and toward materialism. In this, they can be seen as furthering a trend already present in the thinking of Aristotle. For Aristotle, there can be no immaterial forms—everything that exists has some material basis, though he allows an exception for his first cause, the unmoved mover.

The Epicureans steadfastly rejected the existence of immaterial forms, unmoved movers, and immaterial souls. The Epicureans, like Aristotle, embraced empiricism , which means that they believed that all knowledge was derived from sense experience. This view was the basis of the revival of empiricism in 18th-century British thought and scientific practice. They espoused an ethical naturalism that held that in order to live a good life we must properly understand human nature. The ultimate goal of life is to pursue pleasure. Despite their disagreements with Plato and, to a lesser extent, Aristotle, the Epicureans agreed with their predecessors that human existence ought to be guided by reason.

The two principal Greek Epicureans were Epicurus himself (341–270 BCE) and his Roman disciple Lucretius (c. 99–55 BCE). Although Epicurus’s views are characterized as hedonistic, this does not mean that he believed that we ought to be indiscriminate pleasure-seekers. Instead, he proposed that people could achieve fulfilling lives if they were self-sufficient and lived free from pain and fear. Of course, complete self-sufficiency is just as impossible as a life utterly free from pain and fear, but Epicurus believed that we should strive to minimize our dependence upon others while limiting the pain in our lives. Epicureans thought that the best way to do this was to retire from society into philosophical communities far from the hustle and bustle of the crowd. Epicurus and Lucretius saw the fear of death as our most debilitating fear, and they argued that we must overcome this fear if we were going to live happy lives.

Lucretius developed Epicurean philosophy in a poem called De Rerum Natura (On the nature of things) . This poem discusses ethical ideas, but physics provides its focus. Lucretius adopts a material atomism that holds that things are composed of atoms in motion. Rejecting religious explanations, he argues that the universe is governed by chance and exemplified by these atoms in motion. Although the Epicurean philosophers were critically responding to the work of Plato and Aristotle, it should be evident that they also have antecedents in Presocratic thought. We can see this in their atomism and their religious skepticism, which hearkens back to Xenophanes.

Roman Philosophy

Just as Hellenistic philosophy developed in the long shadows cast by Plato and Aristotle, Roman philosophy also used these two giants of Greek philosophy as reference points. While Roman philosophical traditions were built upon their Greek forebearers, they developed in a Roman cultural context. Rome began as a republic before becoming an empire, and Roman philosophy was affected by this political transformation. Still, Roman philosophical schools were thoroughly grounded in Greek philosophy, with many Roman philosophers even choosing to write in Greek rather than Latin, since Greek was viewed as the language of scholarship.

Rhetoric and Persuasion in Politics

Recall that Plato defined philosophy in opposition to sophistry. Whereas the philosopher sought the truth in a dispassionate way using reason as a guide, the Sophist addressing a crowd was indifferent to truth, seeking power and influence by appealing to the audience’s emotions. This harsh critique of rhetoric, which can be defined as the art of spoken persuasion, softened with subsequent philosophers. Indeed, Aristotle wrote a text called Rhetoric in which he sought to analyze rhetoric as the counterpart to philosophy. The tension never disappears entirely, however, and the relationship between philosophy and rhetoric and, more generally, the relationship between philosophy and politics remains a perennial question.

Despite the fact that his ideal statesman was a philosopher, Plato generally sought to keep philosophy distinct from the grubbiness of real politics and was concerned about the messiness of democratic politics in particular. In the Roman political context, this ambivalence becomes less apparent. Examples of philosophers who were also statesmen include Cicero (106–43 BCE) and Marcus Aurelius (121–180 CE). Marcus Aurelius even served as emperor of Rome from 161 to 180 CE. However, as the Roman Republic gave way to the Roman Empire, philosophers shifted inward by focusing on things that were in their control.

Aristotle held that eudaimonia is worthwhile at least in part because it helps us to better deal with various inevitable misfortunes. The Roman Stoics further developed this idea, proposing four core virtues: courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. The Stoics were wary of the type of false judgments that might arise from the emotions. They were also uneasy with the loss of control associated with strong emotions, observing that some people can become enslaved to their passions. The Stoics prized rational self-control above everything else. This constant work at maintaining inner freedom epitomizes the Stoic conception of philosophy (Hadot 2002).

Marcus Aurelius was both a Roman emperor and a Stoic philosopher. His writings, which he meant only for himself, were eventually published in Meditations , a work that serves as one of the major sources of Stoic thought. Although much of Marcus Aurelius’s reign fell under a period known as the Pax Romana, when the empire enjoyed relative stability and peace, the end of his reign occurred during a period of major wars and a plague. This famous passage, taken from Book VII, Section 47 of the Meditations , provides advice about how to deal with pain or grief called by an external source. Translate it into your own language. Then explain why you agree or disagree with Marcus Aurelius’s conclusions.

If you are grieved about anything external, ’tis not the thing itself that afflicts you, but your judgment about it; and it is in your power to correct this judgment and get quit of it. If you are grieved at anything in your own disposition; who hinders you to correct your maxims of life? If you are grieved, because you have not accomplished some sound and virtuous design; set about it effectually, rather than be grieving that it is undone. “But some superior force withstands.” Then you have no cause of sorrow; for, the fault of the omission lies not in you. “But, life is not worth retaining, if this be not accomplished.” Quit life, then, with the same serenity, as if you had accomplished it; and with good-will, even toward those who withstand you.

The Stoics were systematic philosophers whose writings focused on ethics, physics, logic, rhetoric, and grammar. For the Stoics, the world consists of material bodies in motion, causally affecting each other. Real entities are those capable of causally affecting one another. The Stoic god is a material entity who exists in nature and meticulously manages it, the material first cause of the universe, Aristotle’s unmoved mover incarnated as a material entity. In other words, God is an animating reason that gives life to the universe. Unlike the Christian God who transcends the universe, the Stoic god is found within it, a force immanent to the universe who combines and recombines the four elements into things we can experience because they act upon us and we upon them. Stoicism developed at a time when politics in the Roman world was increasingly seen as something outside individuals’ power to change. So Stoics let politics go. While turning away from politics may indeed promote a tranquil life, it also promotes passivity. Thus, Stoicism reached a conclusion similar to that reached by Daoism, as explored in the chapter on early philosophy .

Stoic ideas are enjoying something of a revival, as evidenced by the popularity of Ran Holliday’s Daily Stoic podcasts.

Academic Skepticism

Academic Skepticism is another aspect of Roman philosophy that developed out of a tendency found in earlier Greek thought. Recall that Socrates questioned whether we could ever know anything at all. The Academic Skeptics opposed the Stoic claims that sense impressions could yield true knowledge, holding instead that knowledge is impossible. Instead of knowledge, Academic Skeptics articulated the idea of degrees of belief. Things are more or less believable based on various criteria, and this degree of believability is the basis for judgment and action. Disciples of the Greek philosopher Pyrrho (c. 360–270 BCE) held that we had to suspend judgment when it comes to knowledge claims, going so far as to say that we cannot even reliably claim that we cannot know anything. Rather than suspending all judgment, Academic Skeptics sought to demonstrate that knowledge claims lead us to paradoxical conclusions and that one can argue cogently both for and against the same proposition.

The philosopher, orator, and statesman Cicero (106–43 BCE) was the most prominent of the Academic Skeptics . His works provide much of the information we have about the school. He had a decisive influence on Latin style and grammar and was decisive in the introduction of Hellenistic philosophy into Rome. The rediscovery of his work in the 15th century ushered in the European Renaissance.

Neoplatonism

Plotinus (c. 204–270) led a revival of Plato’s thought in the late Roman Empire that lasted until Emperor Justinian closed Plato’s Academy in 529. Plotinus believed that he was simply an expositor of Plato’s work, but the philosophy he developed, known as Neoplatonism , expanded on Plato’s idea. Neoplatonism arose during a time of cultural ferment in the Roman Empire, incorporating ideas borrowed from sources such as Judaism and early Christianity. The key metaphysical problem in Neoplatonism was accounting for how a perfect God could create a universe that was manifestly imperfect. Plotinus solved this problem by applying ideas similar to Plato’s theory of forms. The perfect, unchanging realm is the one inhabited by God, but creation inhabits the changing realm, which only mirrors forms imperfectly. Plotinus claims that creation emanates from God, but the further one is from this source the less perfect things become.

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Rick Hess Straight Up

Education policy maven Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute think tank offers straight talk on matters of policy, politics, research, and reform. Read more from this blog.

Classical Education Is Taking Off. What’s the Appeal?

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Classical education has seen remarkable growth in recent years. Since the pandemic, hundreds of new classical schools have opened. Across the nation, it’s estimated that there are around 1,000 classical schools in operation today. These schools have tapped into a population of families attracted to their “back to the future” emphasis on the great books, traditional virtues, and the foundations of Western civilization. But it’s not always clear what this translates to in terms of pedagogy or practice. What’s driving the appeal? What’s happening in these classrooms? And where does this model fit in the educational landscape? To answer these questions, I reached out to Rob Jackson, the founder of Classical Commons, a web-based social network designed to further the advancement of classical schools. Here’s what he had to say.

Rick: Rob, there’s a lot of talk about “classical education” today. But that term strikes me as pretty vague. So, for you, what exactly is classical education?

Rob: Simply put, classical education is a recovery of liberal arts education, where language, mathematics, history, and the sciences are integrated in K–12 academics. Good and great works serve as the exemplary content for those subjects—e.g., Herodotus on history, Faraday for chemistry, literature from Jane Austen, and so on. In addition, most classical education incorporates training in the fine arts and athletics for a well-rounded experience of schooling. Most importantly, K–12 classical schools place character—which includes the development of intellectual virtues like understanding and craftsmanship alongside moral virtues like courage and self-control—at the center of students’ formative years. In short, classical education is a holistic approach to schooling that encompasses mind, body, and spirit.

Rick: So, practically speaking, how do curricula and instruction look different in a classical education school from what’s in other rigorous school settings?

Rob: The use of good and great works distinguish a classical education from a nonclassical one. Classrooms are filled with exemplary models of language, scientific reasoning, musical composition, philosophical speculation, and more, which serve first as standard-bearers—i.e., this is what greatness looks like —and then as models for emulation. In many ways, classical schooling is an apprenticeship to the great minds and creators of the past, where students develop their own thinking and creativity by close study of past masters. First, they study the master’s craft through careful observation and analysis. Then, they repeatedly practice producing similar arguments, demonstrating proofs, drawing objects, and so forth. Classical education resembles the atelier, or workshop, of a master artist, where students apprentice under the guidance of the master—learning and practicing the use of tools, materials, techniques, styles, and so on to produce fine art of their own.

Rick: What you’re describing strikes me as quite different from popular instructional practices such as project-based learning or SEL. Is that fair? How do classical educators generally think about these kinds of practices?

Rob: While the virtue of justice is certainly central to a classical education, teachers in this tradition recognize the integral quality of all the virtues. If you want justice done, you’ll need to develop courage, self-control, and prudence, at the very least, for justice requires giving each person what they deserve, and often the ego is the source of error and injustice. The tradition teaches that much injustice is done by those who claim to be acting in the name of justice. As for project-based learning and SEL, we could get into the finer details, but suffice to say that human flourishing is the objective of classical education.

Rick: How many classical schools are there? Do they tend to be private or public?

Rob: We estimate that nearly 1,000 classical schools exist today in all 50 states. Nearly three-quarters of those schools are private, while the remaining quarter are public charter schools. Interestingly, state funding of classical charters has propelled increases in their student populations, which are often two to three times the size of their private counterparts. And that does not include the hundreds of thousands of home schoolers who are pursuing classical education. Private classical schools can be found in every state. Public classical charters are more likely to be found in states where charter laws have been receptive to the growth of classical—which has happened largely in the past decade. Arizona, Texas, Colorado, and Florida have dozens of classical charters.

Rick: I’ve the impression that there’s been growing interest in classical education, but that’s rooted more in anecdote than evidence. What do we know about that?

Rob: The number of classical schools has doubled in the past 10 years. The growth in the last decade has been aided by the arrival of a few charter-management organizations taking the classical model to scale, including Great Hearts, Founders Academies, American Leadership, Classical Academies, etc. Then, there’s the Hillsdale College Barney Charter Initiative, which has provided support—in the form of a liberal-arts curriculum, counsel, training, and best practices—for two dozen schools within its K–12 school network. However, the vast majority of classical schools are operating independently, in relative isolation, which means that we have an opportunity to develop some collective wisdom by connecting these schools to discover the many ways in which classical education serves diverse local communities.

Rick: You mentioned Hillsdale’s charter initiative. As readers may know, Hillsdale is a famously conservative college. Indeed, it strikes me that classical education is frequently regarded as “conservative” in today’s polarized environment. Is that accurate?

Rob: It’s disappointing to see classical characterized as political, as though studying good and great works with children was intrinsically partisan. So, no, I don’t think it is accurate. In fact, “conservative” and “progressive” are categories that were established in the past 200 years. This means that it would be anachronistic to apply those labels to the study of politics in antiquity, the medieval period, the Renaissance, and early modernity. The classical schools with which I’m most familiar read deeply and broadly into the political philosophical tradition, from Plato through Marx, while studying the history of various regimes from antiquity to modernity. In that sense, classical education is philosophical and pre-political, seeking to teach students the political options that exist based on human thought and the historical record.

Rick: Can you talk a little more about what happens in classical classrooms? What do pedagogy, assessment, and technology look like in these schools?

Rob: I’ve touched on the imitative or apprenticing aspects of classical education. It might be helpful to discuss Mortimer Adler’s useful description of the “Paideia Proposal,” which includes studying great works in three distinct ways: didactic instruction, or lecture; coaching in skills; and conversational seminars. You will see all three in a good classroom. The assessment of students will measure their ability to retain certain information from the didactic component, practice specific skills under the coaching of the teacher, and explore great works in the context of a vigorous conversation among peers, guided by a teacher. Technologies from the book through the web are used judiciously in a classical school, but cellphones and digital distractions are severely limited—for the sake of focusing students’ attention on the good and great works that they are exploring and learning to emulate.

Rick: At a gut level, I find this all pretty appealing. But is there much in the way of evidence to suggest that the classical model is effective?

Rob: Yes, there is—but much of the evidence is anecdotal and aggregated from local classical schools, where students have attended, gone off to college, graduated, and are now making their way in the world. Alumni of classical schools are qualitatively better prepared, in academics and in character, than their nonclassical counterparts. For instance, classical graduates have exceptional standardized-test scores and very high college-acceptance rates. Moreover, classical education is concerned with the quality and character of the graduate—including intellectual qualities such as wonder, inquiry, and discipline and moral qualities like compassion, generosity, and courage. If classical education accomplishes its purpose, a young person becomes knowledgeable, competent, and good. Still, the classical world needs more empirical evidence of its success: Though there has been at least one longitudinal study of classical alumni, there need to be numerous studies of the long-term effects of classical liberal arts education. I think we are on the cusp of an educational revolution, and it deserves to be chronicled by scholars and researchers around the country.

Rick: I get the sense that classical classrooms require highly skilled teachers with deep subject knowledge and skill at leading seminars and discussions. How hard is to find these teachers? Where do they get trained and what kind of support do they receive?

Rob: Sure, it’s harder to find the right kind of teachers. They need to have both the subject-matter expertise and the pedagogical acumen to deliver the content with didactic instruction, seminars, and the coaching of skills—no easy job! What we’re finding is that the best teachers love their subject area and are always growing in their understanding, even while they continue to master the craft of teaching their subject to K–12 students. Training is being done within schools and networks, but we’re also seeing higher education get involved with graduate programs designed specifically for classical education. And we’re on a mission to bring those colleges and universities into contact with K–12 communities across the country, through a virtual platform, social network, regional programs, and a research agenda that creates a K–20 ecosystem around classical—a national organization of local communities united around classical liberal arts education.

Rick: Finally, we live in a time when many in education have argued that the Great Books themselves are outmoded or irrelevant. How do you respond? And, more generally, how do you explain the value of classical education in a 21st-century world of TikTok and AI?

Rob: We should point out that any criticism leveled against the Great Books can first be found in those books. Simply put, classical education is a systematic program of study highlighting the best arguments in every subject area. Thus, when it comes to exploring specific topics, a classical education introduces students to a chorus of authors who prepare students’ minds to engage those topics. For example, if you want to root out racism, you should read the greatest thinkers and arguments that address the perennial human error of viewing others with disdain—e.g., Augustine, Bartolomé de las Casas, Ghandi, King, and others. Such writers remind us that society’s defense of human dignity is ongoing—and those writers inspire the next generation to take up that just cause. A classical education equips today’s students with a treasure chest of ideas from which they can create a more humane and just society.

The opinions expressed in Rick Hess Straight Up are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.

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5.4. Classical School

Brian Fedorek

During the Enlightenment, citizens and social thinkers began to question how they were ruled. In the Leviathan (1651), Hobbes made a few assumptions about human beings. [1] He assumed humans were at conflict with one another, pursued their self-interests, and were rational. Moreover, people would create authority figures out of fear of others, and people should democratically create rules that all citizens must follow. Hobbes wanted a new type of government, one that was ruled by the people and not by monarchs. He believed people had natural rights such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If we grant the assumption that people are rational, we would assume people have the ability to consider the possible consequences of their actions. Hobbes was one of the first social contract thinkers. Social contract thinkers believed people would invest in the laws of their society if, and only if, they know government protected them from those who break the law. People will give up a little of their self-interests as long as everyone reciprocates.

Building on Hobbes and other social contract thinkers at the time, humans were assumed to have free will and were rational beings. We can choose one action over another based on perceived benefits and possible consequences. Moreover, human beings are hedonistic. Hedonism is the assumption that people will see maximum pleasure and avoid pain (punishment). Consequently, if we grant the assumptions of classical theory, we can hold people 100% responsible for their actions because it was a choice. These assumptions have been the basis for the American criminal justice system since its inception. Although theories may have changed the landscape of understanding criminal behavior and may have changed the philosophies of punishments over time, the criminal justice system has maintained the assumption that crime is a choice. Hence, we can hold offenders 100% responsible for their actions.

Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794) was an Italian mathematician and economist. He was shocked by the unfair treatment of the accused. In protest, he anonymously wrote An Essay on Crimes and Punishment (1764), which attacked Europe’s use of harsh treatment. [2] Ideally, he wanted to change the excessive and cruel punishment by applying rationalistic, social contract ideas. At the time, judges had tremendous power to determine guilt and create laws based on their decisions. Intellectuals well received his essay at the time, but the Catholic Church banned it. His ideas were exceptionally radical at the time, mainly because his writing questioned the power structures at the time.

Beccaria laid out his ideas about legal reform including how and why to create effective punishments. His Essay was highly influential during the Enlightenment, and it may have served as a model during the creation of the American Criminal Justice system. For example, Beccaria advocated that punishments should fit the crime and be proportional to the harm done, laws should only be determined by the legislature, judges should only determine guilt, and every person should be treated equally under the law. He claimed the sole purpose of the law was to deter people from committing the crime. Deterrence can be accomplished if the punishment is certain, swift, and severe. These may seem like common sense today, but they were considered radical ideas at the time.

Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) was an English philosopher and regarded as a founder of utilitarianism, which is the belief that decisions are considered right or wrong depending on their effect. He believed a person’s expectation of the future was most predictive for deterrence. Therefore, the utility of punishment should be severe enough to deter people from crime. Punishment would promote happiness throughout society by maximizing social benefits. He helped popularize classical theory throughout Europe. [3]

• Hobbes, T. (1651/1968). Leviathan . Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books. ↵
• Beccaria, C. (1963). On crimes and punishments (H. Paolucci, Trans.). Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merril. (Original work published in 1764) ↵
• Bentham, J. (1823). Introduction to the principles of morals and legislation . Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ↵

5.4. Classical School Copyright © 2019 by Brian Fedorek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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A Classical Teacher's Journal

Essay writing #4: the classical argument.

The second essay format I teach my students is the classical argument. It is more advanced than the simple argument for a number of reasons.

To begin with, the thesis in a classical argument is debatable in a consequential way, meaning there is something at stake. That something might be political, social, religious, or any number of things that affect the broader world. Given this substantive nature, the argument often requires outside research as opposed to simply one’s own personal analysis. Finally, in order to lend authority to one’s position, the essay format spells out and refutes the opposing position .

In a middle school classroom like mine, I might use a simple argument for analysis of King Arthur but a classical argument for analysis of the justice of the Crusades. Given their complicated history and enduring legacy, a meaningful position on the Crusades requires research and attention to a vast array of conflicting viewpoints.

As I explain to my students, a classical argument is more than “I think this about such and such.” It’s also, “You should think this, too.” It’s clearly a persuasive argument because it tries to draw people to the writer’s viewpoint and dispel any doubt that other views could be correct.

The essay structure itself consists of five parts, which support a single thesis statement through deductive writing , meaning they begin with the thesis statement and then move on to support it.

PART ONE – THE INTRODUCTION AND THESIS STATEMENT

Happily, the introduction of a classical argument models the same format as that of a simple argument. It introduces the topic to be discussed and presents the thesis statement . I instruct students to limit themselves to approximately 3-5 sentences. The brevity of the opening paragraph is one of its strengths and should not be compromised by extraneous information.

This paragraph consists of three parts. The first is the opening sentence itself. This should typically consist of a simple statement of fact, especially for students who are just learning to write an essay for the first time. More “provocative” openings like questions or startling facts are a lot harder to pull off, and I recommend new writers avoid them.

The second part of the opening paragraph offers transitional background information and justification for why the topic is relevant.

Well-done transitional sentences pave the way for the final part of the opening, which is the one-sentence thesis itself, or the position the essay takes. I always remind students that the thesis should be something debatable much like an opinion. In other words, it is not simply a fact.

PART TWO – THE NARRATION

This part of the essay establishes context for the argument . First, it tells the story, so to speak, behind the essay. That story might be the history of a war or the facts of a case or some other relevant background.

Next, it addresses the reality that there are opposing views about the subject matter. It should state what those views are without actually getting into the arguments for either position. That will come later.

Finally, the narration makes a type of appeal to the reader, letting him know what is at stake in the essay and asking him to weigh each side carefully.

There is no set number of sentences, but a good paragraph of 8-10 sentences usually does it for middle school students. More advanced writers might write several paragraphs in this part.

PART THREE – THE CONFIRMATION  

Much like the body of a simple argument, the confirmation presents the evidence to support the thesis. It should have a topic sentence, at least three pieces of thoroughly explained evidence, and a concluding sentence that clearly ties the confirmation back to the thesis.

Again, a good paragraph of 8-10 sentences is ideal for middle school students, but more advanced writers might have several paragraphs in this section as well. .  

PART FOUR – THE REFUTATION AND CONCESSION

With careful planning, this part of the essay is often the strongest because it allows the writer to dismiss all, or nearly all, of the opposition’s claims .

It should have a topic sentence followed by as many objections as the writer can come up with. If there are areas where the opposition may have a good point, the writer should concede that but without giving full weight to their overall position. Finally, this part of the essay should have a concluding sentence that relates back to the thesis.

The refutation and concession should mirror the confirmation in structure and length.

PART FIVE – THE CONCLUSION

Its purpose is to drive home the thesis statement by casting its relevance more broadly than what was initially presented in the introduction and narration.

Beginning writers often erroneously think of a conclusion as a restatement of what has already been said. Though this might work on a basic level, it represents only a superficial understanding of the key purpose of the conclusion and tends to be boring.

I find it helpful to refer to the conclusion as the “so what” part of the essay . We often think of it in terms of the broad lessons we learned from exploring an argument in a specific context. In other words, it is the student’s opportunity to reiterate what is at stake in the argument.

The conclusion should be divided into three parts, inversely mirroring the introduction . It, too, should be relatively short but powerful.

The first part of the conclusion recalls the thesis but presents it in a new way. I refer to this as a “thesis with a twist.” The second part provides transitional information on the connection between the thesis and the stakes at play in the argument. The final part is broader still, typically consisting of only one or two sentences, and should press the moral imperative of making the “right” choice for “the world.”

A REMINDER ABOUT PROCESS

If the writing process is important for the simple argument, it is all the more important for the classical argument, which is far more complicated.

From using Socratic discussions and disputations, to developing a thesis, to outlining the argument, to writing it out, every phase needs thorough, well-planned attention. Any breakdown in the writing process can greatly undermine the strength of the argument, and it shows all the more in this essay format.

Conversely, careful adherence to the process results in a persuasive argument even if the writing is wanting in style and beauty.

The classical argument, when followed properly, is as full-proof of a persuasive format as it gets. Naturally, there will be many readers who are not convinced in the end, but they will at least have to concede that the argument is convincing.  

First image courtesy of the New York Public Library, New York

Second image courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

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The following videos provide an explanation of the classical model of structuring a persuasive argument. You can access the slides alone, without narration, here .

‘Classical’ schools and other schools of strategic thinking Essay

Introduction, the classical school of strategic thinking, other schools of strategic thinking, reference list.

Strategic thinking focuses on creating creative dialogue among people that shape the direction of the organization. The aim is to make the dialogue quite proactive in order to improve the operations of the organization. Strategic thinking is a mean of understanding the key drivers of business as well as improving the conventional thinking through dialoguing with the others (Mintzberg, 1996, 96).

It is a main component of strategic planning and it uncovers the potential of the company’s management in order to create valuable opportunities for the growth of the company.

Strategic thinking entails thinking, planning and acting strategically in order to ensure the success of the business (Lampel & Mintzberg 1999, 21). There are various schools of strategic thinking that have been developed in order to explain the meaning of effective strategic thinking. The purpose of this essay is to discuss classical school and other schools of strategic thinking.

The classical school of strategic thinking was come up with during the industrial revolution when factories in the industries faced management problems. There were vast labor dissatisfactions and the management was unsure on how to deal with the situation. The other issue was how to train the employees to make them loyal members of the organizations.

The key objective of this school of thought was to determine the best way that could be used to undertake and manage tasks (CliffsNotes, 2010, 1). The classical school of strategic thinking was broadly categorized into classical administrative school and the classical scientific school of thought. The classical scientific school was developed to satisfy the need to improve efficiency and productivity within the factories.

The main aim was to ensure that the most work is done and that the workforce has the most desired skills to do the work. This should be done through scrutinizing the skills possessed by the workforce and also paying more attention to the work process. The main proponents of the scientific classical school are Lillian Gilbreth, Fredrick Taylor, Gantt and Frank whose contribution led to the development of the classical scientific school.

The administrative school on the other hand concentrated on the total organization where emphasis is laid on the developing managerial principles in the organization. The proponents of the administrative school based their study on the flow of information in an organization.

Their main emphasis is to understand how the organization operates and how it can be improved to increase the performance of the organization. One of the greatest proponents of this school, Max Weber, argued that the organization should not be managed personally because people will be loyal to their personal supervisors instead of the organization itself. Weber believes in a bureaucratic structure of the organization where there are rules to be followed by the members of the organization.

This way, he believed, would detach the organization from the personalized management. He condemned the European organizations for personalizing their management which he described as family-like system of management. The other proponents of the administrative school include Henri Fayol, Mary P.F., and Chester B. whose contributions were very significant in the development of the school.

Many theorists have come up with various schools of thought in their attempt to describe the issue of strategy in business management. These schools have greatly enriched the classical school of strategic thinking. The question that has brought about the emergence of these schools is why some strategies fail while others succeed.

One of these schools is The Planning School that describes strategy systems as conscious processes of formal planning (Mintzberg, 1990, 171). This school argues that the strategy systems are subject to control and can be decomposed in to various distinct steps.

The other school is The Design School of strategic thinking. This school describes strategy systems as processes of conception and deliberate action of conscious thought (Goold M. 1992, 169). This school also asserts that the chief executive officer has the responsibility of controlling the strategy systems in the organization. The Positioning School of Strategic Thinking has its roots in economics. This school describes the strategy systems as analytical processes that are carried out by the analysts in the organization.

The strategies of business management are described as being identifiable and generic in nature (Chakravarty, 2005, 1). The Entrepreneurial School on the other hand explains system strategies as strategic processes that organizational leaders have in their mind. This school argues that the strategies are long-term plans of the organization and that they define the vision of the organization (Segars & Grover, 1999, 202).

There is also Cognitive School whose notions are based on psychology. The school describes that there are cognitive processes in the mind of the strategist and they determine the success of the strategies implemented. The Learning School is also based on psychology of the strategists and the strategy systems are taken to be processes that are learnt over time. The Power School of strategic thinking asserts that strategies are a result of power game within the organization and is therefore believed to have its roots in politicology (French, 2009, 59).

The other school is Environmental School which has its origin in biology. This school describes strategy systems as reactive processes resulting from the reactions of the organization to the external environment (Kemp & Ashish, 2003, 1). The environment therefore determines the strategies adopted by the organization.

The Cultural School also affords a description of strategies in business management. The school is based on anthropology and describes strategy systems as collective processes of social interaction of members in the organization. The social forces of culture in this case play a big role in shaping the strategies of the organization. The last school in this list is called The Configuration School that describes strategy as a form of organization transformation (Miller, 1986, 236).

The strategy systems are a complex process defined by several factors that are described in the above schools of strategic thinking.

Chakravarty M. 2005. The 10 schools of strategic planning . India: rediff.com India Limited. Web.

CliffsNotes. 2010. CliffsNotes. Classical Schools of Management . New York: Wiley Publishing Inc. Web.

French S. 2009. Re-thinking the foundations of the strategic business process. Journal of Management Development Vol. 28 No. 1, pp. 51-76.

Goold M. 1992. Research Notes And Communications Design, Learning And Planning: A Further Observation On The Design School Debate. Strategic Management Journal (1986-1998); 13, 2; ABI/INFORM Global pg. 169.

Kemp J. & Ashish J. 2003. The 9 Schools of Strategic Thinking . New York. The Free Press. Web.

Lampel J. & Mintzberg H. 1999. Reflecting on the strategy process. Sloan Management Review; 40, 3; ABI/INFORM Global pg. 21.

Miller, D. 1986. Configurations of Strategy and Structure: Towards a Synthesis. Strategic Management Journal (7,3: 233–249).

Mintzberg H. 1990 . The Design School: Reconsidering The Basic Premises of Strategy management. Strategic Management Journal; ABI/INFORM Global pg. 171.

Mintzberg H.1996. Reply to Michael Goold. California Management Review; ABI/INFORM Global pg. 96.

Segars H. & Grover V. 1999. Profiles of Strategic Information Systems Planning. Information System Research ; Vol.10, No. 3. Pp. 199-232.

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1. IvyPanda . "'Classical' schools and other schools of strategic thinking." January 31, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/classical-schools-and-other-schools-of-strategic-thinking/.

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IvyPanda . "'Classical' schools and other schools of strategic thinking." January 31, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/classical-schools-and-other-schools-of-strategic-thinking/.

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Elektrostal Page

• Information /Russian-Federation--Moscow-Oblast--Elektrostal#info
• Demography /Russian-Federation--Moscow-Oblast--Elektrostal#demo
• Geography /Russian-Federation--Moscow-Oblast--Elektrostal#geo
• Distance /Russian-Federation--Moscow-Oblast--Elektrostal#dist1
• Map /Russian-Federation--Moscow-Oblast--Elektrostal#map
• Nearby cities and villages /Russian-Federation--Moscow-Oblast--Elektrostal#dist2
• Weather /Russian-Federation--Moscow-Oblast--Elektrostal#weather
• Sunrise and sunset /Russian-Federation--Moscow-Oblast--Elektrostal#sun
• Hotel /Russian-Federation--Moscow-Oblast--Elektrostal#hotel
• Nearby /Russian-Federation--Moscow-Oblast--Elektrostal#around
• Page /Russian-Federation--Moscow-Oblast--Elektrostal#page
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Geographic coordinates of Elektrostal, Moscow Oblast, Russia

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Coordinates of Elektrostal in decimal degrees

Coordinates of elektrostal in degrees and decimal minutes, utm coordinates of elektrostal, geographic coordinate systems.

WGS 84 coordinate reference system is the latest revision of the World Geodetic System, which is used in mapping and navigation, including GPS satellite navigation system (the Global Positioning System).

Geographic coordinates (latitude and longitude) define a position on the Earth’s surface. Coordinates are angular units. The canonical form of latitude and longitude representation uses degrees (°), minutes (′), and seconds (″). GPS systems widely use coordinates in degrees and decimal minutes, or in decimal degrees.

Latitude varies from −90° to 90°. The latitude of the Equator is 0°; the latitude of the South Pole is −90°; the latitude of the North Pole is 90°. Positive latitude values correspond to the geographic locations north of the Equator (abbrev. N). Negative latitude values correspond to the geographic locations south of the Equator (abbrev. S).

Longitude is counted from the prime meridian ( IERS Reference Meridian for WGS 84) and varies from −180° to 180°. Positive longitude values correspond to the geographic locations east of the prime meridian (abbrev. E). Negative longitude values correspond to the geographic locations west of the prime meridian (abbrev. W).

UTM or Universal Transverse Mercator coordinate system divides the Earth’s surface into 60 longitudinal zones. The coordinates of a location within each zone are defined as a planar coordinate pair related to the intersection of the equator and the zone’s central meridian, and measured in meters.

Elevation above sea level is a measure of a geographic location’s height. We are using the global digital elevation model GTOPO30 .

Elektrostal , Moscow Oblast, Russia