Does "education" imply decreasing ignorance, or re-engineering ignorance? Its etymology suggests to me that one may be led aright or astray and still be called "educated."

I found this site interesting. I suppose you can be educated in a variety of ways, including being "led astray."

I'm asking this question after getting into this book: http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?book_id=5652%205901 He presents it as kinda the opposite of epistemology.

The etymology of the word is quite interesting. It come from the Latin, educere, "to lead out". Many ancients had the idea that knowledge was inborn, and it was the job of an educator to drawn out the information already there.

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Originally posted by arnie:
The etymology of the word is quite interesting. It come from the Latin, educere, "to lead out". Many ancients had the idea that knowledge was inborn, and it was the job of an educator to drawn out the information already there.

I suppose if you believe in a creator that idea makes sense.

There may be something to it. All my teachers used to tell me to "Get the lead out."

So, Proofreader, does that mean you used to go bobbing for fishing weights instead of apples?

Certainly not! I graduated from school, although the bobbing for French Fries was a tough exam.

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I suppose if you believe in a creator that idea makes sense.

I think the idea makes sense whether or not you believe in a creator.

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Originally posted by Kalleh:

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I suppose if you believe in a creator that idea makes sense.

I think the idea makes sense whether or not you believe in a creator.

If humans have evolved rather than being created with all their characteristics, then the idea doesn't make sense. Education - like all learning - is part of evolution. Of course, any one human contributes only a minute part to the overall evolution of the human race, but each of us who is a parent contributes, though our genes, to the characteristics of the next generation.

I don't see why not.
Chomsky, for example, postulates that we are all born with a Universal grammar built in, in that what happens when we learn our first language is that this grammar is activated by the limited input we hear so that, so to speak, the parameters get set and we develop our language to its full capacity without ever having the opportunity to hear every possible bit of grammar.

The outline given here is very brief but if you want to read more I can recommend a few books and I'm absolutely certain zm or goofy can recommend dozens more.
The theory is given without reference to a creator.

Surely this is an example of knowledge being "lead out" of us.

Clearly we are all born with certain characteristics and abilities and it might well be that Chomsky's hypothesis about grammar is correct. Clearly we all have the ability to learn to read, swim and ride a bicycle, but without some kind of learning that ability will not manifest itself.

According to Arnie, the hypothesis was that "...Many ancients had the idea that knowledge was inborn, and it was the job of an educator to drawn out the information already there..."

I disagree that all knowledge is built in; I accept that ability is.

The point of Chomsky's hypothesis is that the grammar itself must be built in because every child reaches perfect competence in the language it is exposed to even though the range of input is far below the level that would be required to acquire the language by simple imitation of the structures encountered. It's not just the ability to learn that the child has, it's the actual Universal grammar that is already present.

I wrote about Universal Grammar a while ago.

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The point of Chomsky's hypothesis is that the grammar itself must be built in because every child reaches perfect competence in the language it is exposed to even though the range of input is far below the level that would be required to acquire the language by simple imitation of the structures encountered. It's not just the ability to learn that the child has, it's the actual Universal grammar that is already present.

You could make that claim about almost any complex learned behaviour.

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Originally posted by Richard English:
You could make that claim about almost any complex learned behaviour.

Yes and some people do. But that's not an argument against it.

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Originally posted by Richard English:

You could make that claim about almost any complex learned behaviour.

Personally I only agree with Chomsky up to a point. I agree that the competence that a child achieves in separating grammatical utterances from ungrammatical ones is far higher than can possibly be accounted for by exposure alone. The Universal Grammar hypothesis seems to me to be a possible explanation but an untestable one. Nevertheless I feel there must be some other factor in the equation besides the exposure/correction cycle. Like you I don't believe this to be anything supernatural but it could be built in in some way. After all the physical rules that keep your body working - how to get your heart to beat, your lungs to inflate, your body to change sensory input into electrical impulses and electrical impulses into physical responses - are not learned, they are innate.

As I wrote, I believe that some things are innate - but that some things are learned. Most knowledge is acquired, many skills are acquired; the suggestion in Arnie's quote - that all knowledge is present in an individual at birth and it is simply an educators's job to reveal it, does not convince me. It might convince those who believe in creation by a supernatural being.

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the suggestion in Arnie's quote - that all knowledge is present in an individual at birth and it is simply an educators's job to reveal it, does not convince me.

I doubt that many people think that way nowadays, either. That's why I mentioned that it was "ancients" who had that idea.

There are constant arguments about whether a particular human (or animal) reaction is innate or learned, usually with no satisfactory resolution either way.