Learning to see the world again: Josef Pieper on philosophy, prudence, and the university

Abstract

In this article I utilize recent psychological and sociological studies on education along with Catholic philosopher Josef Pieper’s work on the relationship between sight, prudence and the perception of reality to show the importance of vision and experience for moral education. Drawing on the above, I then will look specifically at the importance of liberal arts education in universities and how this would relate specifically to disciplines like the sciences. What this article argues is that education needs to be more holistic. It needs to take seriously the tight integration of both the development of technical learning along with other important kinds of knowledge and experience. One becomes the scientific self not just through gaining technical proficiencies but by becoming a well-rounded and holistic person.

Keywords:

• Josef Pieper
• Thomas Aquinas
• prudence
• virtue
• university
• science
• philosophy

Notes

1. For a further account of the importance of vision and phronesis in Aristotle, see Dunne (1993, p. 293, p. 296, pp. 298–309).

2. For more on essential Form, see Aquinas, 1956b, p. 1, p. 44; Also see 2006, pp. 14–17.

3. The idea that humans construct knowledge and understanding from their active experiences is common in psychological literature (Narvaez, 2006, p. 719; Piaget, 1952).

4. For more on what Pieper means by ‘objective,’ see Pieper (1992, p. 16).

5. Also see Pieper (2011b, p.18).

6. The situtionism being described here should not be confused with the term ‘situtionism’ used in psychology. For a psychologist, situationism has a very specific meaning, derived from social psychologists’ contention that personality is really a minor factor in much behavior. So situationism for a psychologist means the theoretical approach that explains behavior as largely derived from contextual influences (with the corresponding assumption that almost everyone would behave in a similar way in the same situation). See Hauerwas (1974).

7. For more on the relationship between science and philosophy, as described in this paper, see Warne, in press. These two articles are intended to be companion pieces, the one in Theological Studies attending to more of the theoretical assumptions present in this work.