Philosophical and Psychological Foundations of Education

QUOTATIONS BY TOPIC

KNOWLEDGE

We will always learn more about human life and human personality from novels than from scientific psychology. ~ Noam Chomsky, Managua Lectures, 1987, p. 159

Each new mind we approach seems to require an abdication of all our past and present possessions. A new doctrine seems, at first, a subversion of all our opinions, tastes, and manner of living. . . . Take thankfully and heartily all they can give. Exhaust them, wrestle with them, let them not go until their blessing be won, and, after a short season, the dismay will be overpast, the excess of influence withdrawn, and they will be no longer an alarming meteor, but one more bright star shining serenely in your heaven, and blending its light with all your day. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Intellect"

The Bacon, the Spinoza, the Hume, Schelling, Kant, or whosoever propounds to you a philosophy of the mind, is only a more or less awkward translator of things in your consciousness, which you have also your way of seeing, perhaps of denominating. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Intellect"

Ai mucho que saber y es poco el vivir, y no se vive si no se sabe. ~ Baltasar Gracián, El Arte de la Prudencia (Number 15), 1647

Folks don't like to have somebody around knowin' more than they do. It aggravates 'em. You're not gonna change any of them by talkin' right, they've got to want to learn themselves, and when they don't want to learn there's nothing you can do but keep your mouth shut or talk their language. ~ Harper Lee

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. ~ Aristotle

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful. ~ Samuel Johnson

Intelligence divorced from judgment produces nothing but foolishness. Understanding is the knowledge of the general. Judgment is the application of the general to the particular. Reason is the power of understanding the connection between the general and the particular. ~ Immanuel Kant, Thoughts on Education

Man's duty is to improve himself; to cultivate his mind; and, when he finds himself going astray, to bring the moral law to bear upon himself. Upon reflection we shall find this very difficult. Hence, the greatest and most difficult problem to which man can devote himself is the problem of education. For insight depends on education, and education in its turn depends on insight. ~ Immanuel Kant, Thoughts on Education

It is better to ask some of the questions than to know all of the answers. ~ James Thurber

It is better to know but little, and that little thoroughly, than to know a great deal and that superficially; for one becomes aware of the shallowness of superficial knowledge later on. ~ Immanuel Kant, Thoughts on Education

But in teaching children we must seek insensibly to unite knowledge with the carrying out of that knowledge into practice. . . . Further, knowledge and speech (ease in speaking, fluency, eloquence) must be united. ~ Immanuel Kant, Thoughts on Education

True opinion is as good a guide to correct action as knowledge. ~ Socrates in Plato's, Meno

Making correct predications in pursuit of a goal is a pretty good definition of "intelligence." ~ Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate, Chapter 3

The importance of genes in organizing the normal brain is underscored by the many ways in which nonstandard genes can give rise to nonstandard minds. ~ Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate, Chapter 3

The importance of knowledge lies in its use, in our active mastery of it—that is to say, it lies in wisdom. ~ Alfred North Whitehead, The Aims of Education and Other Essays

Facts are the materials of our knowledge, but the mind itself is the instrument; and it is easier to acquire facts, than to judge what they prove, and how, through the facts which we know, to get to those which we want to know. ~ John Stuart Mill, Inaugural Address at Saint Andrews

It is not the utmost limit of human acquirement to know only one thing, but to combine a minute knowledge of one or a few things with a general knowledge of many things. ~ John Stuart Mill, Inaugural Address at Saint Andrews

What an utter failure a system of education must be, if it has not given the pupil a sufficient taste for reading to seek for himself those most attractive and easily intelligible of all kinds of knowledge! ~ John Stuart Mill, Inaugural Address at Saint Andrews

What professional men should carry away with them from a University, is not professional knowledge, but that which should direct the use of their professional knowledge . . . ~ John Stuart Mill, Inaugural Address at Saint Andrews

To possess all the world of knowledge and lose one's own self is as awful a fate in education as in religion. ~ John Dewey, The Child and the Curriculum

Knowing and communicating are in their nature highly interdependent, indeed virtually inseparable. ~ Jerome Bruner, The Culture of Education, p. 3

Understanding something in one way does not preclude understanding it in other ways. ~ Jerome Bruner, The Culture of Education, p. 13

Thoughtful people have been forever troubled by the enigma of applying theoretical knowledge to practical problems. ~ Jerome Bruner, The Culture of Education, p. 44

Knowledge, after all, is justified belief. ~ Jerome Bruner, The Culture of Education, p. 59

It is very likely the case that the most natural and the earliest way in which we organize our experience and our knowledge is in terms of the narrative form. ~ Jerome Bruner, The Culture of Education, p. 121

Scientia dependit in mores.

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Last updated:
September 19, 2008 4:23 PM