Today we are going deep! In this episode I talk about Immanuel Kant and so much more. We are going to discuss how every Catholic teacher can help their students develop a deeper vision of reality than they thought possible.
Transcript
Well, Hey everybody, Jonathan Doyle with you.
Speaker:Once again, welcome friends to the Catholic teacher daily podcast.
Speaker:Hope you're doing well.
Speaker:I hope you're sitting somewhere quiet or walking somewhere quiet or driving
Speaker:somewhere quiet because this one today we're going to talk about something really
Speaker:important, but deep and challenging.
Speaker:Why?
Speaker:Because it comes from the famous continental philosopher, Emmanuel Kant.
Speaker:I came across this this morning.
Speaker:After morning prayer, the holy spirit.
Speaker:Give me something to give these guys something that's going to be useful.
Speaker:And of course he led me to one of the most complex and difficult philosophers
Speaker:of the last several hundred years.
Speaker:Emmanuel Kant.
Speaker:If you're not familiar with carrot, he's had a huge influence.
Speaker:On philosophy, uh, over recent centuries.
Speaker:And part of the reason was because he was a guy that was trying to figure
Speaker:out how can you get people to be good.
Speaker:In the absence of God.
Speaker:So as the enlightenment rolled on, many of philosophers were
Speaker:wrestling with these great themes.
Speaker:You know, coming obviously right through the high middle ages,
Speaker:the Scholastic philosophers.
Speaker:We'd lived in a very Christian cosmology.
Speaker:The, uh, the men and women of Europe had lived in a mill you're in an environment.
Speaker:That was a heavily Christian cosmology.
Speaker:People saw read the reality of life, the cosmos itself as deeply reflective
Speaker:of who God had revealed himself to be.
Speaker:So of course, When you have the enlightenment and you have some of
Speaker:these great shifts taking place.
Speaker:The question became well, how should people behave?
Speaker:You've got isn't real.
Speaker:And I was thinking, you know, we'd get back to Rene Descartes who famously
Speaker:said, you know, Cogito, you'd go Suma.
Speaker:You might've heard of the, I think therefore I am.
Speaker:That's really important because it was a.
Speaker:A massive move that.
Speaker:Um, situated reality and consciousness inside ourselves.
Speaker:So, you know, daycare was like, you know, it's my thoughts that shaped the world.
Speaker:It's my, my thoughts, my thinking that shapes reality.
Speaker:Rather than I guess the Christian cosmology, which is that reality
Speaker:is a given it's given to us to encounter and to discover God
Speaker:amongst the data of reality itself.
Speaker:How are you doing?
Speaker:You're hanging in there cause it's complex.
Speaker:Isn't it?
Speaker:But if I could simplify it.
Speaker:I'll bring you back to that statement.
Speaker:I've already made that really what Kant was trying to work out was how do you get
Speaker:people to be good in the absence of God?
Speaker:How's that relevant to you?
Speaker:Well, think about our work as Catholic educators, right?
Speaker:We're trying to help young people see a moral vision of reality.
Speaker:And in many ways, our societies are massively grasping with this and.
Speaker:Uh, grappling, sorry with this question.
Speaker:And you go back to Benedict 16th again, who sort of was wrestling
Speaker:with a similar thing to Kant.
Speaker:And he was saying that.
Speaker:Particularly in Europe, he said people had, you know, governments are struggling
Speaker:to figure out how to make people be good.
Speaker:If they won't regulate themselves, that goes back to Plato's Republic.
Speaker:Like if we are not able to self regulate, if we're not able to
Speaker:manage ourselves and live in society.
Speaker:Then it's not just sort of societal breakdown that you get.
Speaker:What you tend to get is the raw exercise of power.
Speaker:Usually governmental power.
Speaker:The governments tend to use more and more methodologies
Speaker:to control people's behavior.
Speaker:So you can see why Catholic education.
Speaker:Once again, as I've said so many times becomes a truly prophetic
Speaker:and important thing in our culture.
Speaker:Because rather than, you know, getting people to accept.
Speaker:Or fear the exercise of external power.
Speaker:It can help people to encounter a deep internal experience of the
Speaker:true, the good and the beautiful.
Speaker:So when somebody is.
Speaker:A disciple of Jesus Christ.
Speaker:They tend to operate in the world differently to somebody who isn't.
Speaker:So, let me give you cans, quote, and let's, let's talk a little bit
Speaker:about how it relates to education.
Speaker:He says this, if you punish a child for being naughty,
Speaker:And reward them for being good.
Speaker:They will do right.
Speaker:Merely for the sake of the reward.
Speaker:And when they go out into the world, And find that goodness is not always
Speaker:rewarded nor wickedness, always punished.
Speaker:They will grow into someone who only thinks about how
Speaker:they may get on in the world.
Speaker:And they do right or wrong accordingly, as they find advantage to themselves.
Speaker:That's really deep.
Speaker:It's important.
Speaker:He's saying that if we structure our education system, our parenting,
Speaker:our families, our communities.
Speaker:To simply create systems of reward and punishment.
Speaker:And, you know, we've all been in schools where.
Speaker:You know, the.
Speaker:We can build structures and systems that make it real.
Speaker:We need boundaries, right?
Speaker:I'm not saying of course that we don't need consequences and boundaries.
Speaker:You know, one of the best ways you can have a harmonious and just, and holy
Speaker:school environment is to have clear boundaries around acceptable behaviors.
Speaker:But Kant's going deeper here.
Speaker:He's going, if we simply get young people to understand they should
Speaker:do the right thing or the wrong.
Speaker:Avoid the wrong thing only.
Speaker:Around the concepts of reward and punishment.
Speaker:Then they will go out into the world and begin to look around them
Speaker:and say, what can I get away with?
Speaker:And you look at much of our political class, you look
Speaker:at much of our media class.
Speaker:You look at much of.
Speaker:I guess the, the ruling classes of our culture is.
Speaker:There's a great sense.
Speaker:Um, I'm not amongst everybody, but amongst a significant number.
Speaker:Of what can be got away with.
Speaker:So let's talk about you guys.
Speaker:The vision that you give young people of reality.
Speaker:Of who they are.
Speaker:Of who God is.
Speaker:Creates a profound internal reality over time.
Speaker:We're young people will begin to seek the true, the good and the beautiful.
Speaker:My oldest daughter.
Speaker:Uh, is pursuing a classical education.
Speaker:So she's out of a normal schooling now and she's, um, educating, being home educated.
Speaker:And we're pursuing a very classical curriculum.
Speaker:And one of the things I've been talking about with her recently is that what the
Speaker:classics do, what classical thinking does.
Speaker:Is exposes her to the best thinking of the greatest men and women in history.
Speaker:And helps her to gravitate towards virtue and to discover
Speaker:her interior genius and goodness.
Speaker:Now, this is what you guys are doing every single day.
Speaker:That in the smallest ways, you know, maybe you're dealing with an issue where there's
Speaker:been conflict between students or there's been a behavior that's inappropriate.
Speaker:The ability to move beyond, you know, pure right and wrong, the ability to
Speaker:move beyond pure reward or punishment, reward, and consequence, the ability
Speaker:to help your school community, your classroom, your individual students.
Speaker:Begin to deepen in relationship with Christ so that they begin to live, act
Speaker:perceive, and judge in a particular way.
Speaker:And really friends what that is.
Speaker:That's the interior.
Speaker:It's the indwelling of the holy spirit.
Speaker:Isn't it.
Speaker:It's the release of that baptismal pledge.
Speaker:That, you know, rather than just a dogmatic system of rules and punishments.
Speaker:We come to this system of relationship.
Speaker:Where the relationship with Christ begins to change who we are as
Speaker:educators and can change our students.
Speaker:You know, you look through the old Testament, you know, You know, God
Speaker:first appears to the Israelites in a world that is highly.
Speaker:Structured around consequences, rules and punishments and rituals and laws.
Speaker:And you know, they're not God doesn't jettison those things,
Speaker:but he gradually draws them into what, into a deeper revelation.
Speaker:And then you have some Paul of course, who just, you know, clearly towards
Speaker:the end of the new Testament is saying that, you know, the blood of bulls
Speaker:and goats, you know, that's done away with, there's a deeper reality now.
Speaker:You know, we no longer live.
Speaker:We know, know me to live in fear.
Speaker:And we no longer need to worry that we must do this thing at the right time.
Speaker:Exactly the right way.
Speaker:We're drawn into something else.
Speaker:So friends has been a longer one today.
Speaker:I hope it's not too exhausting to, to listen to this one, but I guess what
Speaker:I'm trying to say from my heart is.
Speaker:You are positioned.
Speaker:In a very important place at a very important time in history.
Speaker:I mean, you can see it all around you.
Speaker:Can't you right there.
Speaker:There is a lot of cultural breakdown happening.
Speaker:There's a lot of loss of faith in our institutions.
Speaker:So, what is going to transform culture is going to be young men and women.
Speaker:Who have had a deep exposure to what is true?
Speaker:What is good and what is beautiful?
Speaker:And that is the person of Jesus Christ.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:Whatever you are doing every day to draw young people, deeper into relationship,
Speaker:moments of silence, moments of prayer.
Speaker:Teaching the sacraments creating reverence, exposing them to the beauty
Speaker:of the church's liturgy and music and art and history and starting
Speaker:each class with silence and prayer.
Speaker:Beautiful poetry, all these little things that create this
Speaker:different interior reality.
Speaker:All right friends.
Speaker:So we have covered everything there.
Speaker:We've covered Rene Descartes, Emmanuel Kant, Benedict 16th, continental
Speaker:philosophy, the enlightenment.
Speaker:The old Testament, the new Testament, you get a lot of bang for your buck.
Speaker:We don't even have the 10 minute marks.
Speaker:So, um, God bless you.
Speaker:I hope this is a blessing to you as you go about your crucial, beautiful
Speaker:culture, changing work, be encouraged.
Speaker:God is seeing everything you do.
Speaker:Ah, I'd love it.
Speaker:If you could subscribe to the podcast and of course.
Speaker:If you can share this with people that would be a huge blessing my name's
Speaker:jonathan doyle this has been the catholic teacher daily podcast and i'll
Recent Comments