Volume 21, Issue 1, Spring 2014
The Value of Philosophy in the Contemporary World: Special 20th Anniversary Issue
Robert Metcalf
Pages 41-53
Living with the Matter Itself: The Practice of Philosophy Reexamined
The disorientation experienced by those new to philosophy attests to the fact that philosophy is, essentially, a self-transformative focal practice requiring long training and renewed commitment, and this has implications for how we think about the use of technology in teaching philosophy. By examing Plato's famous critique of writing in his Phaedrus, Statesman, and Seventh Letter, we find that his account of philosophy as an epitēdeuma, or "focal practice," demonstrates why teaching philosophy is not a matter of "content-delivery," but rather a process of reorienting the student toward the subject matter of philosophy. The implications of this for the debate over online instructional formats in higher education are then explored in some detail.