John Lachs's Relativism in Philosophical Education as Seen from a Practical
Perspective
(A shorter version)
John Lachs is a fervent follower of the idea of relativism as is he a devoted educator both in
theory and practice. His emphasizing of the benefits of relativism in philosophy on the one
hand, and, on the other, stressing the role of teaching philosophy make me think of these two
issues, that is 'relativism' and 'philosophical education' at the same time. I want to rethink of it
in the context of the practical implementation with the teaching of undergraduate and graduate
students who take philosophy courses (and similar courses: ethics, aesthetics, history of ideas,
etc.) within the institutions of higher education (at the departments of philosophy, humanities,
the liberal arts, social sciences, and also outside of these). I think that this problem is
important because it deals with the types of obligations of the philosophy teachers to provide
their students with a responsible guidance as far as their (students') developments is
concerned, though the developments of the teachers are at stake here as well. An important
part of this story is how much Lachs's relativism is limited by his universal claims, and,
hence, is it relativism at all. It seems to me that such terms as 'responsibility,' 'obligation,' and
many others: 'growth,' 'happiness,' 'wisdom,' and others do not seem relative in Lachs's texts at
all.
Philosophical Education and its Functions
Lachs's strong point of departure as regards philosophical education in general is his
conviction that it has a wider and profounder meaning than a professionalized education in a
specific area of expertise and/or exercised by a specific methodology, because it (the former)
predominantly should deal with the existential dimension of both social and individual life.
Since "the function of education is to enable people to live longer and better lives" (FL 426),
the main focus of the teachers, philosophers or not, is their contribution to making their own
lives better and their students' lives better. The classroom can make the lives of teachers and
students worse when they spend boring times on memorizing unwanted and unneeded
material, all reduced to the requirements of the curriculum. Evoking interest, if not
enthusiasm in both teachers and students on existentially and socially important issues seems
to be the basics here. These important issues deal with making life better in the most profound
sense of this term.
Philosophical education, that is the education that embraces philosophical themes on
various levels of complexity should be a significant part of education understood generally.
Lachs seems to reiterate that we should not think about the philosophical technicalities so
much evoked in the scholastic philosophy of the past and in the analytic philosophy of today.
Philosophical education should be first of all focused upon what factors are more important in
the realization of a good and intellectually rich life; what ideas and ideals can be implemented
in such a way as to make life better. Philosophy teachers should recognize in their practical
activities that their mission is not merely giving classes and lectures but first of all "educating
young people, as making available to them the skills necessary for a good life" (FL 389-390),
and this calling has both positive and negative dimensions. The former means giving students
stimulation, guidance, knowledge, and opportunities; the latter refers to avoid "failing to
connect critical thought with the concerns of daily existence in the minds of their students,"
and this way contributing "to the impoverishment of personal life and the persistence of social
irrationality" (FL 399).
In order to do that, teachers themselves must represent some internal features:
enthusiasm, knowledge, pedagogical skills being the obvious. But there is something else
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Lachs indicates, something that makes philosophical education a sort of a unique mission,
namely: "what philosophers do must be exemplary" (FL 394). This means giving the students
the living pictures of the good life in practice. Lachs strongly opposes those teachers of
philosophy who treat philosophy as "enabling those who have never profited from its
enriching wisdom to profit by telling others about it" (FL 391). Lachs insistence on
practicality makes one put forward the question of the role of professionalized education so
extensively present in philosophy departments nowadays. What is his opinion about it? In the
very first sentence of his introduction to his book The Relevance of Philosophy to Life, Lachs
writes that "The professionalization of philosophy has distanced it from the concerns of daily
life" (Lachs 1995, xiii). This is an indirect accusation of professionalized philosophers, and
this must mean analytical philosophers in the first instance, to making philosophy
marginalized in the public life. How can Lachs help us see these two ways of 'doing'
philosophy?
In my view, the relationship between philosophical education understood as a set of
skills that facilitate development of human beings and philosophical education understood as
teaching a professionally standardized set of methods enabling the students to write
philosophical papers in high quality journals can be described in terms of: exclusion (either
this or that), conflict (always we will have supporter of both sides), co-existence (there is
place for both), superiority (one more important than the other), and context (depending upon
the type of the students and their level of development, the teachers should be ready to
provide either one or the other). I think Lachs describes this relationship predominantly in
terms of superiority and context; philosophy that helps us live well is superior and more
important in education because of its possible impact upon the practice of living, however,
there are some students on a higher level of their engagement and interested in specific issues
(e.g. bioethics) that would need professional training. I say 'superiority' because of his
numerous emphases on the relevance of philosophy to life;
When philosophers teach ideas without reference to their historical source,
personal relevance, and social consequences, they renege on their responsibility to
help students take charge of their lives. When they teach philosophy as a
collection of puzzles and mistakes, or as a string of deft verbal moves, they
abandon their obligation to make intelligence an effective force in life (FL 392).
There must be also some other reasons for Lachs's reservations about the significance of the
professionalized philosophy, and its inconculusiveness must be one of such reasons: "There is
not a single proposition of philosophical substance on which professional thinkers agree, and
it is highly unlikely that such a proposition will surface anytime soon" (FL 289).
How to Cope with the Diversity of Philosophical Positions?
Lachs in many texts promotes 'philosophical pluralism' that is a variety of stances and views
to be examined and scrutinized. This must reflect his view, that there does not exist a single
system of philosophy that would teach students the very best or the most effective stance.
Philosophers have not possibilities to embrace the complex reality with one single method and
an unbiased view, and this skepticism should be embraced to the students. One of the reasons
-- one that is worthy of being transmitted to the students -- is the philosophers' partial
understanding of the issues they talk about. Philosophers, as anyone else, do not have access
to all the factors that influence given phenomena, hence their perspective is always more or
less biased: "to understand anything is to understand its relations to all manner of other things.
As a result, truly productive philosophy will always be in debt to a variety of other fields in
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the humanities and the sciences" (Lachs 2012, 16-17). Michael Brodrick, commenting on
Lachs, writes about this aspect of the dilemma if philosophers should impose the learners their
(philosophers') views or not: "While some philosophers may be in a position to educate the
public about time-tested attitudes, such as stoicism, pragmatism, and transcendence, they must
not do more than offer them as options. Not knowing what is best for others, philosophers
must take care not to present their favorite attitudes as mandatory for anyone wishing to
achieve a good life" (Brodrick 2014, 9). So to answer to question put above, on how to cope
with the diversity of philosophical views, we can say that for Lachs, these different views are
options to be proposed for people (students) to think about as possible ways of achieving and
having good lives.
There is something in Lachs which does not make him bother about this kind of
disagreements, and this is because he takes as a universal platform according to which the
differences appear to be worthy of having: "I do not think the world would be a better place if
philosophers agreed in their views. Agreement is of value when its absence leads to armed
conflict, bitter resentments, or divorce, but it avails little when critical dialogue is the only
vehicle on the road to truth" (p. 289). Hence a 'critical dialogue' is the universal way by means
of which all the views, however different, can be coped with. Why such a critical dialogue is
necessary and why philosophers are unable to speak with one voice?
Relativism with Universal Claims
Lachs's relativism has its definite limits, and by this I mean his universal claims on human
nature, society, and the progress of morality. I suppose Lachs wants to say that, for example,
moral growth and happiness should be relativized to various contexts and various sides of
human nature, yet the very values: 'moral growth,' 'happiness,' 'critical thinking,' and similar,
should not be seen as relative. I do not believe Lachs would ever aver that, say, the acceptance
of stoning women for adultery is something relative to the given cultures, even if millennia
old, and education should teach Muslim female students to respect their tradition, and this
includes their proper behaving in such a way as to avoid stoning while living in their
countries. Instead, I believe he wants to put forward a universal claim that all individuals, and
this must include women in the cultures where submission to males is seen as obvious,
natural, and worthy for both sexes "are in the best position to determine their own interests
and to devote energy to their own pursuits" (Lachs 2014, 9). Hence, Lachs does not study
much the consequences of unlimited relativism according to which there are no common
criteria according to which we could measure and assess human nature, society, and morality.
Lachs is not a relativist in the sense of 'different criteria' as he often proclaims saying for
example that: "there is no independent standard in terms of which natures can be ranked"
(Lachs 2014, 12); rather he is a perspectivist who uses the same criterion of freedom and the
same criterion of autonomy to measure a variety of goods.
Lachs himself shows his own universal anthropological assumptions saying "the
grounding assumption of freedom is that human beings are self-moving agents who are
capable of recognizing, seeking, and attaining their own good. If we deny human intelligence,
drive, and competence, we will naturally wish to take over the lives of others to help them
along. But this assessment of human ability is scurrilous and flies in the face of facts" (Lachs
2014, 8-9).
The same type of relativism with universal claims we have from Lachs's analyses of
the most contemporary challenges of education, and this refers to the age of the Internet and
access of knowledge accumulated in the cyberspace. Lachs can see the old fashioned style of
many institutions of higher educations that provide the students a version of knowledge these
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students can easily get from their laptops any moments, if they want it, which is not always
the case. In "Education in the Twenty-First Century" we can read the following;
What colleges and universities can offer that is unavailable from the PC is what
they have always offered at their best: firsthand contact with remarkable people
whose knowledge of their fields and whose experience of life have integrated into
the unity of a person. Such conversation is of benefit to both students and
teachers. Students gain access to the accumulated wisdom of the human race
through a dynamic medium that rewards searching and novel questions with
thoughtful and often surprising answers. Teachers, in turn, find stimulation under
the scrutiny of inquisitive young minds (FL 419).
'Wisdom' seems to be a category that is understood in a universal meaning, not relative.
Teaching the History of Philosophy as Expanding Imagination and Possibilities
From this perspective one can take a look at what Lachs says about the differences in
philosophy with the example of something hugely significant for each and every teacher of
philosophy, namely the attitude towards history of philosophy. As examples to show this I
take Lachs's two texts whose titles suggest to the reader the author's exploration into the
history of philosophy abounding in footnotes and examination of the original materials,
namely "Pre-Socratic Categories in Fiche," and "Santayana's Philosophy of Mind." Apart
from some analyses of the two classic figures, I can find almost in the first place Lachs's
reflections on how to treat the history of philosophy.
Hence, in the first he says that "The most fundamental features of our experience,
therefore, have not changed much since Homer or the first city of Ur" (Lachs 1976, 160).
Accordingly, he writes about such categories as 'passive,' 'active,' 'love,' and 'hate' and treat
them as universal features of any philosophy that deals with life, and this includes preSocratic, German, and contemporary. Simply, Lachs believes in "philosophia perennis which,
we would all like to believe, transcends the petty squabble of the schools" (Lachs 1976, 160).
In the other text, he expresses a more detailed view on the history of philosophy saying that is
resembles "a convention of deaf-mutes," with authors presenting their positions and hardly
understood by others (FL 47). Misunderstanding is made even wider when those who study a
given system, do it by means of their own terms, interests, and ways of thinking. Small
wonder, Lachs claims in others texts, that the history of philosophy abounds more in solutions
or dismissals, and example of this is "Nearly all twenty-century analytic philosophers [who]
thought and wrote as if idealists from Hegel to Bradley and Hocking had never existed" (FL
288).
Interestingly, there is not much to worry us, says Lachs; incompatibility of perspective
and diversity of views can provide is with many profits, developing our imagination, which is
"a vital organ of the moral life" (Lachs 2014, 46), and expanding minds being two of them.
The value of philosophy "lies in expanding our minds by developing imaginative new ways of
looking at things and in sharpening our critical skills by offering rigorous objections to every
theory" (FL 289). In different contexts, different people, having specific minds and
sensitivities of their bodies, can hardly enjoy unanimous views on many aspect of living.
However, this does not degrade the results of philosophers' views and philosophical efforts.
Each of them can make effort to develop their own visions, their own criticisms, and their
own ways of making life happy within limits necessary for co-operative activities, interhuman relations, and communal well-being.
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To Leave Students Alone or Not?
In Meddling Lachs develops one of his melioristic ideas, namely: "to make the world a better
place: we have to learn to leave people alone" (Lachs 2014, 7), and by 'letting alone' he means
"to allow them to operate as they see fit, setting their own goals and working to reach them by
their own efforts" (M 37). Lachs does not write too much about students in this book, but I
wonder how much this idea is applicable to students; I mean, how much the instructors should
leave students alone in their (students') efforts to execute academic activities. Lachs explains
that he does not promote in any sense isolationism, indifference, egoism, and the
unrecognizing of others. Instead, "Letting others be as a pervasive moral disposition is
perfectly compatible with living in a community with them, caring for them, and responding
to their needs. All it forbids is uninvited interference in their affairs -- that is, making them do
what we want, even if we think it is justified by being good for them" (Lachs 2014, 7). Lachs
even claims that "Moral wisdom consists largely in knowing when to leave people alone and
when to help them and, when helping them, how not to subvert their aims" (Lachs 2014, 10).
I interpret his position, as presented in this book, from the point of view of the
institutions of higher education and the range of autonomy of students in them. One can claim
that institutions are so omnipotent that they shape the individual minds in such an
overwhelming way, that students are secondary and must accommodate. I read Lachs as
having a different opinion. He claims that "social influence flows from person to person, and
the actions it incites are performed by individual agents. There are no magical social causes
other than what individuals singly or conjointly do (M 26). Hence, "speaking of institutional
actions is just a shorthand way of referring to masses of individual activities" (M 31). One of
the important reasons why students may claim that they are powerless within institutions is
their limited activity in making a difference, according to a more general rule that says: "if I
did not cause or cannot change the status quo, I cannot be charged with having done less than
decency demands" (M 31). The role of the teacher is to skillfully and trustfully show the
possibilities of action. Why Lachs is so resistant to accepting the agency of institutions? Apart
from his anthropological views there are also ethical: "If we want to retain a system of moral
responsibility, we must reject the thought that organizations or states are the ultimate agents in
the world" (M 34). I interpret this particular claim in the following way. Instructors must
develop their own responsibilities and show that they are conscious of what they are doing
with their own lives; this same deals with stimulating this similar awareness among students,
who frequently put their own passivity onto the omnipotential (in their views) academic
institutions leaving them (the students) hardly anything to say, which generates
irresponsibility of the students as regards their developments.
On the one hand, Lachs, in my view, underestimates the role of social persuasion
beyond the recognition of individuals. The stimulation that is had by the free market economy
and the vision of one's career as well as the Internet and the recognition of what is 'trendy' -these hugely influential factors are hardly possible to be seen as work of individuals. These
individual actions, to use Marxian language, at some point get another quality and status. On
the other hand, however, I can see much stimulating power in Lachs's texts to make teachers
do their best to show the students their own possibilities, and this way not only doing a good
job as regards the students but also to make the teachers develop their vocation with a sense of
mission each and every moment they are in the classroom. From this perspective, the students
should not be left alone: "Teaching in our universities would be vastly improved if instructors
aimed at to transmit in each five-minute segment of their classes more knowledge or skills of
a different sort from those one can get by reading books" (CI 16).
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