Socrates' Philosophical Mission

One of the most interesting philosophers in the history of classical Greece is Socrates.  Socrates is considered as the wisest man ever lived.  Though this claim is still a matter of debate, but scholars commonly agreed that Socrates together with Plato –his student, and Aristotle are considered as the penultimate in the high-brow culture of the Greeks –that is, philosophy.

Philosophizing is something unique in the Hellenic culture and civilization in ancient times.  The neigboring civilizations like that of the Jews and of the Egyptians were mostly religious.  With philosophizing, the Greeks were able to break their ties from mythical past –the past haunted by beliefs in gods and goddesses intervening human affairs.

Philosophy, then, is understood as an inquiry for the ultimate principle of everything that is in aid of human reason.  In this definition, we can single out two important characteristics of philosophy.  Firstly, philosophy is a search for one ultimate principle of all things that exist.  This sort of inquiry is like putting all diverse things (multi-verse) into one idea/ principle.  This principle will give a clearer picture of all these diverse things.  This picture, then, depicts one meaningful whole of things.  To put it simply, the ultimate principle bears “meaning” of all diverse things –the “uni-verse.”  Of course, Thales is known to be the first philosopher to have thought of one single principle to be the source of life and of all things, and this single principle is water.  This philosophical belief is what drives rover missions to Mars designed and sent by NASA.  For NASA scientists working in these missions, if water element exists in Mars, then it is very possible that life exists in that red planet and it’s highly possible that it will become a human habitation in the near future.  Secondly, philosophizing is a search for an ultimate principle aided only by reasoning.  Before philosophy came into practice, Greeks relied on myths to explain human and natural phenomena.  For example, earthquakes, lightning, typhoons, tidal waves, etc. were attributed to the activities of gods and goddesses.  Without any resort to mythical explanations, philosophers tried to understand the world based purely on reasoning.  Thales, for example, relied on rational demonstration to attribute the origin of everything –even any form of life, to water.  By logical reasoning, he might have thought that the element of water has properties to transform into other material objects.  By empirical observation, we know how water transforms into gas or transforms into solid such as ice.  Yet, Thales went far in concluding that water is the principle that was, is and will be.  It doesn’t change substantially yet change only accidentally.  On the contrary, the Jews established their identity as a group of people in a strong belief in one eternal God.  The Greeks never had this kind of faith.  Their faith is entirely based on human capacity to understand the world and all things therein.

Based on this analysis of philosophy, we can now understand the person of Socrates and the structure of his thought.  Socrates was not a cosmologist like his predecessors such as Thales, Anaximander, Parmenides, Heraklitus among others.  He was rather a sophist.  Not all scholars would agree such though.  He lived in a democratic Athens depicting himself as a gadfly to a fat slow-moving animal –a metaphor Socrates told his audience during his public trial in Athens.  The fat slow-moving animal means the society he belongs.  As a gadfly, he constantly made noise in the animal’s ears for it to move forward.  In the same way, Socrates should exert force to push his society forward to progress since society takes a very slow progress.

Because of this mission in life, Socrates spent much of his life conversing with other people in the polis.  He conversed with students, other sophists, politicians and those who pretended they knew anything.  Like a gadfly, he asked questions to all he conversed until the person he conversed would no longer knew what he talked about.  This method is now known as Socratic dialogue –a sort of dialogue, which created more enemies than friends.  For those he conversed, Socrates’ way of asking questions is irritating since his questioning will lead them to ignorance.  For Socrates, on the other hand, it’s his mission –to be a wisest man is one who knows only one thing –that is, he does not know anything.  That’s why, he asked questions and furthered his questioning.

Socrates died for his mission.  He died a martyr of his philosophy.  He was martyred in a democratic Athens.

Outcomes-based Education and Its Philosophy

I am very fortunate to have met in person Dr. William Spady, the author and father of Outcomes-based education.  It happened in Surigao City days after an earthquake hit the city.  He was the guest-speaker of a two-day seminar on Outcomes-based Education held in an air-conditioned gym at St Paul University Surigao.  My sincerest thanks to the SPC sisters like Sr. Joseline Lasala, SPC and Sr. Dina Alilain, SPC for sending me there to attend such a philosophically-laden seminar.  Dr. Spady is an old man with brilliant ideas and he is very passionate to share his system of ideas –he termed as Spadyism.  Spadyism, as I struggled to grasp it in the whole period of seminar, is not a pure system of education yet underlying it is the philosophy of pragmatism –particularly, neo-pragmatism, which I’ll try to discuss in this article.

In the event, I was trying to find an occasion to ask Dr. Spady some questions regarding his knowledge on neo-pragmatism, if he knows personally Richard Rorty, the father of neo-pragmatism, or how neo-pragmatism influences Spadyism.  Unfortunately, I was not able to ask him those questions.  Rorty was connected with the University of Chicago –the same university where Spady has conceived his Spadyism.  My hunch was telling me that Spady must have known Rorty, and neo-pragmatism must have been a philosophy behind Spadyism.  

In my interpretation, Outcomes-based Education (Spadyism) is a very revolutionary idea –in the sense that if fully implemented, it will create a 360-degree change in the whole structure of education, which will have an eventual effect to other institutions, like the industries, family, government, and even the church.  OBE begins with the question, “What a university wants its graduates to become (outcome/result)?”  This question bears emphasis of the results of education, not so much of its process.  With such intended end-result, say “competent pilot,” the university, then, has to realign all subjects so as to make all its graduates “competent pilots.”  It has to shape its curriculum to meet its intended outcome –for example, to produce “competent pilots.  Besides curriculum, all other elements like the training environment, facilities, personnel, etc. should have suited to realize the end-result of the university. 

This system really revolutionizes our idea of education.  Traditionally, we think that the role of educators is to impart a body of knowledge to learners so that when they graduate they would become “highly intellectual.”  So, teachers are regarded as “knowledgeable” of their fields.  But, with OBE’s perspective, teachers shall act as “facilitators” of the learning process of learners.  They are not only “knowledgeable” but must be “experts” in their fields.  Their role is not so much to impart knowledge but to “facilitate” or guide learners to become competent in their chosen courses.  As facilitators, they know what conditions or when to vary the conditions of learning to learners.  For example, a learner-pilot already knows how to fly and land an airplane under normal conditions.  The teacher’s role, then, is to put to test the capability of the learner-pilot in different conditions.  He has to let this learner-pilot fly and land an airplane under heavy rain or fly an airplane amidst thunderstorms.  The teachers have to vary conditions to test the competence of their graduates.

The formulation of outcomes is also crucial for the school.  An outcome is futuristic.  It is based on “social hope” –the hope of every agent of education that what they have produced in school may contribute for the betterment of the society as a whole.  It is somehow anchored in the vision, mission, core values, and objectives of the school.  This is to emphasize the trademark of the school like its main thrust to educate the students.  The integration of the school’s vision, mission and core values will ensure that outcomes are value-laden.  Value-laden outcomes will help form graduates a “well-rounded” person, who will serve the public in the coming future with the “heart,” not with the “mind.”

So, what is the philosophy behind OBE?  Spady himself did not mention the term, neo-pragmatism.  However, he laid out the philosophy of OBE in the first day of the seminar.  As mentioned above, neo-pragmatism is associated with the person of Richard Rorty, who used to work in the University of Chicago.  Rorty’s brand of pragmatism is somehow a new breed of what is known as the classical pragmatism.  In general, pragmatism is a philosophical belief which holds that “effectivity” is the measure of a true idea.  If an idea like “education” works in a certain situation, then it is true.  This doctrine contradicts the traditional definition of “true idea,” which is propounded in the correspondence and coherence theories.  In correspondence theory, for example, an idea is true if it conforms with the external reality.  Education (as an idea), for correspondence theorist, becomes only true if and only if the process of educating (imparting knowledge) happens in the mind of the learners.  Thus, there are two important elements in education: (1) imparting of knowledge, and (2) the absorption of it.  If one element is lacking, then education fails.  For pragmatists, on the other hand, education will only become true, if its end-results (outcomes) are given priority.  Outcomes should be conceived first, before knowledge will be imparted to learners.  Spady was taking some cautions that OBE is not disregarding knowledge.  Knowledge is still important to achieve the end-result.  Yet, education should not become knowledge-based.  It should, first of all, be an outcome-based.

In conclusion, outcomes really sound pragmatic.  But, the better future of society is not shaped merely from the “hope” we want our graduates to become.  Research-based knowledge is one indispensable condition to shape our better future.