We're thinking a lot lately about plans for Isaac's schooling, and along those lines, I have been wondering how best to foster various intellectual disciplines in him. The process is more complicated, I think, than simply repeating ideas in front of him over and over -- I don't want to get to a point where my words are meaningless background noises to him, but I do think that some of that repetition will be necessary. I think that the first and most necessary item for me to pursue will be cooperative works; he should help me make things, and making things together will provide natural and easy opportunities to teach him (he has to learn to do what I'm doing after all). To this end, I've been trying to engage with him in little lego projects, and to come up with ways for him help me whenever I fix or assemble things around the house -- he's usually eager to help, and I don't want to shut that down by refusing him.
Once he has a habit of working with me, and when he knows the joy of creation, I expect we'll be able to do projects together, and those projects will be the most valuable time for me to instill ideas in him while we work. I've already seen that he has excellent comprehension skills; when I show him how something works, he is eager to listen, and he is able to repeat what I've taught him and even to teach others. For example, my wife showed him once how she changed the batteries in one of his toys; later, when the batteries died, he brought me the toy and showed me where the compartment was, and explained to me that I needed to turn the screw to remove it from the compartment panel before I could access the batteries. I know it doesn't sound like much, but he only just turned 3, and it's a great improvement from where he was last year, and so I believe he's proving to be very intelligent, and he's developing intellectually at a lively pace, and I'm very much needful to pace my interactions with his growth.
We've been presenting Christianity to him regularly (so far it's been in terms like, "let's thank God for ___", and "Jesus wants you to be kind", because try as I might, he doesn't seem to grasp substitutionary atonement yet), and so I think he'll intuitively have correct philosophical and epistemological leanings, but the difficulty is that the solutions to epistemic concerns are so natural and so intuitive that a person who hasn't been forced to think through them won't have any conscious knowledge of them at all. And so when a proper explanation is given alone, it's so obviously true that it's taken for granted and treated as meaningless, but when someone comes along with a poor or misleading explanation, it isn't easy to see why they're wrong. To this end, I intend to integrate epistemic explanations into practical work, especially as he gets a little older and needs to crunch numbers to complete minor electrical or programming projects. I intend to impress upon him the necessity of acknowledging your epistemic roots when deciding how to process observations.
But also, I've been thinking about some of the thinkers who I admire from long past, and how they decided to pass along their legacies (obviously, through books). In particular, I've always admired Augustine for his production of an enchiridion targeted particularly for his son. I think, since my son is quickly approaching school age, it's time for me to begin work on something like this. I just need to organize the topics for it, so that I can prepare the ideas I think are important in a manner which is relatable and easy to digest, even for very young people.
To that end, here I will write out a rough sketch of the things I want to include in such a work, off the top of my head. This isn't a definitive table of contents; I'm just brainstorming here. These are in no particular order:
- Logic and argument
- laws of thought
- boolean algebra
- identifying necessary conclusions
- various logical errors/fallacies; their limits
- identifying emotions and controlling their influence in a discussion
- deduction, induction, inference, prediction
- types of evidence
- categories of knowledge (laws, theories, etc)
- linguistic barriers and how to cut through them (dismantling intentional linguistic barriers, i.e. "language as a weapon")
- practical steps to drill to the root of a disagreement
- mental blocks/hangups
- how they're formed
- identifying them in yourself and others
- how to dismantle them in yourself
- how to gently handle them in others
- knowing when to stop and let someone else be wrong
- Epistemology
- different ways to frame the problem
- the one and the many
- perception vs reality
- rationalism vs empiricism
- materialism vs idealism
- "other minds"
- logic indefensible on its own; references itself
- nature an unreliable teacher
- capacity for error
- measuring error (probabilities, Bayes)
- various secular theories; their successes and failings in particular
- foundationalism, coherentism, infinitism, constructivism, "pragmatism", naturalized epistemology, standpoint epistemology*, relativism, idealism
- the need for God; the importance of the divine Nature
- the trinity
- natural universe a self expression
- logical laws a self expression
- supernatural (closed/open systems)
- limits on supernatural (necessity of doing vs power to do vs capacity to do)
- trustworthiness, faith, ultimacy, etc
- "one truth, many lies"
- God's nature and the abolition of the supernatural
- limits of knowledge
- limits of certainty
- measuring/assessing confidence (empirical: evidence, experiments, predictions, repeatability... rational: valid vs sound, strength of deduction, degree of removal from ultimate, perspicuity, articulation, communicability, defensibility)
- epistemic weights/priorities
- reason for practical expectation of certainty
- how epistemology affects approach to science, math, language, etc.
- Literacy
- importance of communication skills (both listening and telling)
- importance of reading
- recommended books/authors
- value of fiction, poetry and art
- how to approach the study of history
- how to approach the study of philosophy
- tips for how to power through boring but valuable books
- how to filter misinformation online and in books
- informed skepticism vs broad skepticism
- how and when to speed-read
- Hermeneutics
- using the clear to interpret the unclear
- reading a whole book as a single argument
- avoiding prooftexting
- distinguishing between poetry and literal narrative
- identifying precisely what the text does and doesn't say; limiting yourself first to what it does say
- how to do a word study; (practical guidelines; e.g. words don't have to mean the same thing every time they're used, etc..)
- how to handle passages which quote other passages
- managing symbolism
- taking interpretation tips from Biblical authors
- avoiding convoluted theories which demand unnatural interpretations
- avoiding advice from heretics
- don't waste your time with Rabbinic commentary or LDS D&C
- there's enough good writing out there to occupy all your time, so you'll lose out by spending too much on bad writing
- sometimes it's valuable to read a book you know in advance will be wrong; how to know when that is
- Ethics
- "problem of evil"
- nature of evil
- nature of God
- euthyphro
- necessity of Christianity
- greatest good; its impact in decision making process
- practical decision making
- anxiety and other hidden motive forces
- setting priorities (the highest priority, the greatest good)
- altruism vs expectation of reward
- commitment, following through
- a noble character; abstract topics
- religion
- integrity
- self control/courtesy
- (fruits of the spirit etc)
- hard work/perseverence
- curiosity/inquisitiveness
- respect/honor
- healthy skepticism
- "gray areas"
- masculinity, what it means to be a man
- when to fight
- how to know what hills to die on
- how to view governments in light of the imminent kingdom of God
- the option of taking a government office
- military service
- Topics in Christianity
- the Gospel
- what it means to make your faith "your own"
- having an experiential relationship with God
- grace vs. mercy
- soteriology
- Christology
- theonomy
- eschatology
- prayer & meditation
- forgiving others
- God's knowledge of himself
- infallibility and preservation of scripture
- history of the text, its transmission, etc
- the canon
- translation issues
- the Bible's literary superiority
- how to identify damnable heresy
- examples of tricky false faiths (Mormons, RC, etc)
- other debates of the day
- covenant theology
- spiritual gifts
- predestination
- original sin/federal headship
- what about people who never hear the gospel
- predestination
- age of earth (geology)
- age of solar system (astronomy)
- evolution (biology/archaeology)
- evidence for Biblical events
- evidence for God
- gender
- "victimless" crimes
- multiverse/simulation theories
- why there is something rather than nothing
- etc
- Other miscellaneous topics
- what is "science" and why the word matters
- what is the value of a title -- secular credibility
- the value of education
- repeating what past philosophers have said, regurgitating millennia-old debates, vs contributing to knowledge
- "choosing what to believe"
- purpose and meaning in life
- authority figures (or figures claiming authority); how to view/treat them, and what to expect in return
- being proud of yourself, what/who you are, without being prideful
- masculinity
- femininity (ask your mom; I'm not actually gonna write about this)
- measuring twice, cutting once
- the value of dirt, sweat, and difficult labor
- hard labor a gift from God
- handling stress (Epictetus)
- interpersonal conflict
- pursuing wisdom, knowledge
- being slow to speak
- politics
- government aid and the strings attached
- government protections vs freedom
- the importance of a vote
- local vs national elections
- top-down vs bottom-up change
- social/political trends I've observed; some predictions about the future and what might happen during your lifetime
- how non-Christians see us and talk about us; how to process it
- deciding what you want to do with your life, professionally
- general financial advice
No comments:
Post a Comment