Induction & Theory of the Forms

EDU 6526: Week 2

I wonder if induction isn’t the foundation for affirming each our student’s sense of wonder with the world, even if they don’t realize or acknowledge the strategy. Induction places quite a responsibility on the intellectual capacities and motivations of our students as they are entrusted to gather and organize evidence. From there, they begin to recognize emergent patterns and draw conclusions about an evolving (T)truth; perpetually being drawn to what’s next. A mindset that furthers investigation and promotes a curiosity to uncover something new or mysterious about life appears to be the foundation for life-long learning. I hope that my students are compelled to pursue and uncover the mysteries all around them and that school empowers them to feel equipped and eager to embrace such a life.

This reminds me of a potent and pertinent quote from Franciscan friar Richard Rohr who says, “Mystery is not that which is unknowable, it is that which is endlessly knowable.” He is at once, beautifully poetic and right on the button. Our charge as intellectually capable and curious beings is to gather, organize, and scrutinize so that we may inform our thinking and allow the cycle to continue. We are all here, none of us knowing why, given the faculties and powers of observation that we have in order to observe and consider what we can learn and embrace in the time we’ve got.

Although it is slow and certainly not the most efficient strategy for conveying gobs of content (teachers sound just the like entertainment industry we over-emphasize our peddling of content), induction seems like the keystone for life-long learners to cultivate inquisitiveness and deep curiosity.

One example of induction that came to my mind during the reading is one of the primordial and essential contributions to philosophy: Plato’s Theory of the Forms. To understand this theory one must accept Plato’s assumption (which he’d inherited from previous Greek philosophers) that our inherent limitation as humans is our inability to properly or completely perceive the fullest truth and most accurate reality.  Plato argued that there existed an essential metaphysical Form of all objects we can perceive and that only by fully tapping into our mind can we perceive these Form and enter into the most accurate perception of reality. This theory applied to all objects of the known world. There were Forms for the essential human, the fundamental color red and even the perfect chair.

Plato believed that day-to-day human existence was actually an interaction between our senses and the mere shadows that mimic the Forms. That is, Plato believed that our perception was an approximation and but a glimpse of Truth and Reality. Plato asserts and expounds upon this theory throughout one of his most well-regarded works The Allegory of the Cave.

Plato believed that inductive reasoning and the process of investigation and refining the questions we ask about our observable and measurable world get us closer to the Forms and enables us to perceive more clarity despite the shadow world we are bound by. This philosophy undergirds the Socratic Seminar and the Scientific Method both of which were techniques employed and refined by Plato and Aristotle who believed that truth emerges the more we investigate and refine our thinking.

This is a heady notion that a more refined and accurate perception of reality is within the potential of each of our minds and how we choose to explore the world. I imagine that this mystical logic is, at first, not the most accessible explanation to students that they become life-long learners. However, I think when the intellectual time is right, a student’s embrace of inductive investigation will unlock the excitement for exploring all that is endlessly knowable.