Giancarlo Tarantino

To the extent that we do not think critically about the matter of authority in education, we are likely to teach much that we would prefer students would not learn: how to submit to authorities, how to play along with unspoken power dynamics through a form of mutual pretense, or the belief that genuine freedom lies outside of the philosophy classroom and not within it, and so on. I argue that Hans-Georg Gadamer’s account of authority offers a series of conceptual distinctions and arguments that can be used to clarify some of the complex dynamics of authority that frame our teaching contexts. In section one, I briefly survey the present state of literature on the topic of Gadamer’s philosophy of education and his account of authority. While much useful work has already been done, there remains a need to grasp just how central the concept of authority is to Gadamer’s thinking about education, or to consider what concrete consequences this concept may hold for our pedagogical work. In section two, I outline the main lines of Gadamer’s concept of authority, paying particular attention to those places where he explicitly connects the concept to educational contexts. Finally, I consider ways in which Gadamer’s work facilitates critical reflection on ourselves as philosophy teachers, and challenges common assumptions about authority and pedagogy.

Gadamer’s retrieval of phronēsis lies at the heart of his philosophical hermeneutics. This paper argues that this retrieval requires a co-retrieval of what Aristotle referred to as character virtue, and that Gadamer’s work largely neglects this. In part one, I review Aristotle’s analysis of the relationship between phronēsis and character virtue. In part two, I show how Gadamer’s double insistence on the importance of phronēsis for his hermeneutics and on taking responsibility for concepts generates the requirement of a co-retrieval of character virtues and vices. Following this, I then survey four ambiguous tendencies in Gadamer’s work that seem to militate against such a retrieval. I conclude with some remarks for future work.

Nicomachean Ethics 6.8 has been interpreted in a variety of ways. One dispute involves Aristotle’s remarks about the relationship of phronēsis to politics: does Aristotle claim that phronēsis is foremost applicable to an individual’s private life, to the political realm, or to some combination of the two? Two features of this dispute make it worthy of closer attention. First, the conflict of interpretations has not been documented as such. Second, I argue this contemporary conflict is a repetition of an ancient conflict about phronēsis that was being waged in 5th/4th century Athens. Phronēsis was a contested term alongside two related terms, apragmosynē (quietism) and polypragmosynē (meddlesomeness), and the construction of lines 1141b23–1142a12 enters into this historical debate to create a productive tension between two rival views. Aristotle heightens the tension between views represented by quietists and busybodies for his own purposes. In section 1, I surface the neglected historical frame of Nicomachean Ethics 6.8. In section 2, I turn to the contemporary conflict of interpretations, showing how it repeats the historical frame in many ways, and I provide a basic taxonomy of the views typically offered. In section 3, I bring the two debates – historical and contemporary – together and offer my own view of what Aristotle is up to in the passage. I argue that centering the historical frame in this passage highlights Aristotle’s use of Isocratean-style phronēsis, while also transforming the concept by connecting it to a series of questions that go beyond Isocrates’ view, thus preparing for a later exploration of the best forms of human living.