. CHRESTOMATHIA: BEING A COLLECTION OF PAPERS EXPLANATORY OF THE DESIGN OF AN INSTITUTION PROPOSED TO BE SET ON FOOT UNDER THE NAME OF THE ...

La présente étude se propose d’examiner la conception tout à fait originale de Bentham concernant une éducation démocratique fondée sur des intellectuels qui visent à établir une société libérale, contrairement à l’éducation civique d’aujourd’hui. Tout d’abord, j’examine les recherches récentes sur l’éducation civique, qui sont liées à un tournant délibératif, en montrant en quoi elles diffèrent des objectifs que Bentham s’assignait pour l’éducation. Ensuite, en évoquant l’évolution des travaux de recherche concernant les relations entre Bentham et Foucault, je souligne que (...) Foucault appréhendait l’aspect démocratique du panoptique de Bentham et le liait à la gouvernementalité libérale. En troisième lieu, j’analyse les idées de Bentham sur l’éducation. Cette analyse comprend deux volets : ses idées concernant l’éducation de bons citoyens dotés d’intelligence, et sa conception de l’éducation comme expérimentation. Bentham considérait l’éducation intellectuelle de l’école chrestomatique comme une protection contre les illusions pernicieuses. Les idées de Bentham sur l’éducation, d’une part, visaient à favoriser l’émergence de bons citoyens pouvant participer au Tribunal de l’opinion publique, et de dirigeants compétents ayant les qualités intellectuelles voulues pour diriger ou suivre l’opinion publique. D’autre part, Bentham souhaitait ardemment que l’éducation fût une expérimentation destinée à établir une société libérale entièrement recréée depuis ses fondements. Il exprima ce souhait dans la dernière partie de ses lettres sur Le Panoptique, qui traitait de l’application des principes du panoptique aux écoles et de son plan de contrôle des pauvres. Afin de réformer la société existante gouvernée par un petit nombre de dirigeants uniquement soucieux de leurs intérêts dévoyés, il chercha à promouvoir la publicité et l’éducation intellectuelle pour contrer cette mauvaise gestion. Si, par contre, la société pouvait être établie de manière idéale dès ses débuts, alors une société entièrement nouvelle pourrait émerger sur la base des principes utilitaristes, qui donneraient corps à l’identification artificielle des intérêts entre chaque individu et l’ensemble de la communauté. La pensée éducative de Bentham était une entreprise à double face, qui s’adressait à la fois au présent et à l’avenir. (shrink)

This paper examines the relationship between some scholia to the IIId book of Plato’s Republic, Proclus’ commentary on it, and the so-called Chrestomathia, a work that the manuscripts attribute to the Neoplatonic philosopher himself. The conclusion is that the relationship between the three texts is highly problematic, and that we cannot think of a simple and direct derivation from one another. The author of the scholia probably made use of texts different from those that have come down to us, (...) or alternatively he has reworked his sources in a personal way. (shrink)

En 1814, Jeremy Bentham entreprend la rédaction de Chrestomathia, qui expose le savoir qu'il est utile d'apprendre. Mais ce texte est plus généralement une organisation entière du savoir de son temps à partir d'une «théorie des fictions », qui est à la fois une réflexion sur les concepts et une critique des nomenclatures. L'article qui suit s'intéresse particulièrement à la cinquantaine de pages consacrées aux mathématiques dans un ouvrage qui porte sur toutes les sciences du début du XIXe siècle (...) et critique l' Encyclopédie de Diderot et D'Alembert. L'une des idées les plus originales développées par l'auteur et dont on trouvera un écho lointain chez Gaston Bachelard est celle d'un conflit entre les concepts et la façon dont ils sont désignés par les mots. Signifiés, signifiants et concepts dérivent les uns par rapport aux autres en des sens que nul ne peut contrôler, pas même les savants; ce qui rend l'éducation durablement difficile. (shrink)

Much has been written about the Benthamite theories of education and their debt to monitorialism. Bentham himself, in Chrestomathia, based his blueprint for the schools of the future on the use of monitors, and James Mill, in his various articles on education, envisaged universal schooling within a monitorial framework. In more recent times, scholars, such as Burston, have discussed the influence of the theory of mutual instruction on Utilitarian educational thought. Yet in all this output, little attention has been (...) given to relations between Benthamites and Joseph Lancaster, one of the foremost practical exponents of monitorial teaching in the early nineteenth century nor to the organization in Southwark which perpetuated his methods. When Lancaster himself has been referred to, it has usually been in unfavourable terms. Bentham expressed his contempt for the ‘self-styled Quaker’, who ‘so notoriously and scandalously abused’ his early reputation as a successful schoolmaster. Francis Place, abandoning his early enthusiasm for Lancaster, decided that he was ‘adapted to the teaching in the school and to nothing else’ and became ‘mischievous, ridiculous and childish’ after he was ‘caressed by the great’. Halévy summed him up as ‘a pure madman’. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Scepticism in the Enlightenment ed. by Richard H. Popkin, Ezequiel de Olaso, Giorgio Tonelli, and: The Skeptical Tradition around 1800: Skepticism in Philosophy, Science, and Society ed. by Johan van der Zande, Richard H. PopkinHeiner F. KlemmeRichard H. Popkin, Ezequiel de Olaso and Giorgio Tonelli, editors. Scepticism in the Enlightenment. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1997. Pp. xiii + 192. Cloth, $99.00.Johan van der Zande and Richard H. Popkin, (...) editors. The Skeptical Tradition around 1800: Skepticism in Philosophy, Science, and Society. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1998. Pp. xix + 462. Cloth, $150.00.Who could reasonably question the importance of skepticism for the philosophical achievements of the period known as the Enlightenment? Skepticism seems to be the most appropriate means for illuminating a philosophical landscape shrouded in fog. The relatively restrained metaphor of “Aufklären” was used first by German philosophers to describe their project of removing prejudice and obscurity. British philosophers instead used the concept of “improvement,” and in France, the endeavours of the philosophes were largely associated with a determined fight against the dogmatic teachings of an all-powerful church and for religious and political freedom. But not every philosopher who employed skeptical arguments or the method of skepticism was therefore a skeptic, or someone who intended to establish a form of skepticism. And [End Page 171] some who sought to provide philosophy with a firm anti-skeptical foundation found themselves being accused of being skeptics themselves. Berkeley’s dogmatic Immaterialism was accused immediately of leading right away to the most abstruse kind of skepticism ever heard of, and Kant’s critical philosophy was forbidden in Hessia because of its alleged skepticism. Furthermore, many philosophers were indebted to some form of skepticism while not being skeptics themselves. Thus Reid’s common-sense-philosophy owed as much to Hume’s skeptical philosophy as did J. G. Hamann and F. H. Jacobi.Modern skepticism goes back to ancient Academic and Pyrrhonian Skepticism, which many philosophers of the Enlightenment for one reason or another still considered as a live option. But exactly what kind of skepticism their own writings entail and to what extent they were influenced by more modern types of skepticism—like that to be found in the works of Montaigne, Bayle, and others—is not always easy to decide. In addition, skepticism was sometimes viewed as a kind of systematic philosophy and the skeptic was considered to be a specific kind of philosopher, different from a Platonist, Stoic, or Epicurean, as in Hume for instance. But the vast majority of philosophers used skeptical arguments as instruments, or as the first step in laying the foundation for a new philosophical system. Finally, there are many much more subtle traces of skepticism in Enlightenment thought, which cannot always be put together easily in a comprehensive picture. The many-sided history of skepticism in the eighteenth century is accordingly difficult to tell.Richard H. Popkin’s work has been decisive for a further investigation of eighteenth century skepticism. His early “Scepticism in the Enlightenment” (1963) was seminal. Popkin pointed out in this article Hume’s central position. Hume marked the beginning of an increasing debate about different and variable types and contents of Enlightenment skepticism. Scepticism in the Enlightenment contains articles by Popkin himself, as well as articles by the late Giorgio Tonelli, known to many as an expert in Kant’s precritical philosophy, and by the late Ezequiel de Olaso, which were directly or indirectly occasioned by Popkin’s work. Only two of the ten articles are new (de Olaso on “Scepticism Old and New,” and Popkin’s very useful contribution on “Berkeley in the History of Scepticism”). But Tonelli’s “Kant and the Ancient Skeptics,” which appeared in 1967 in German, appears here for the first time in English translation. Although Tonelli’s scholarly article is still of interest today, Hume’s influence on Kant’s thought in the middle of the 1760’s should not be underestimated. Tonelli also seems to be too sceptical about Kant’s first-hand knowledge of ancient skepticism. For instance, Johann Matthias Gesner’s Chrestomathia Graeca (Leipzig, 1731), the school book used in the Greek class Kant attended as a... (shrink)

The following modern editions are referred to: Sillig ; Jan ; Mayhoff ; Bailey , The Elder Pliny's Chapters on Chemical Subjects ; Loeb editions ; Budé editions . Abbreviations include: Urlichs1 = K. L. Urlichs, Chrestomathia Pliniana ; Urlichs2 = K. L. Urlichs, Vindiciae Plinianae ii.