Most of what I believe is drawn from and inspired by people who are far more intelligent and insightful than myself. It makes sense therefore to start a blog, not with my own thoughts, but those of someone who has fundamentally shaped the way I see the world (at least at the time of writing): the British philosopher, Anthony Grayling.
Since I read Grayling’s book, The Mystery of Things (2004), several years ago the following quote has, at varying stages, been on my apartment wall, my classroom door and in resources I have passed on to students and colleagues. Of course the quote doesn’t capture everything about my historical or educational worldviews but it captures something that sits at the heart of how I see both history and education (what this blog is ultimately about). It is, therefore, a logical place to begin.
The quote is this:
“Knowledge is a great treasure, but there is one thing higher than knowledge, and that is understanding. Mere information by itself is worth little, unless it is arranged in ways that make sense to its possessors, and enable them to act effectively and live well. To make sense of information – to understand it – one has to put it into fruitful relationship with other information, and grasp the meaning of that relationship, which implies finding patterns, learning lessons, drawing inferences, and as a result seeing the whole. This task – achieving understanding – is par excellence the task of philosophy… There are many resources people can use to attain understanding, but three are of special value to philosophy, because they supply the best materials for reflection. They are science, history and the arts. These enterprises are lenses that bring into focus the three connected things we most wish to grasp: the world of nature, the nature of humanity, and the value in both.”
(Anthony Grayling, The Mystery of Things, Phoenix, London, 2004, p. 1)
In what I think is the spirit of Grayling’s comments, I will let you decide why this is where I have chosen to begin.
. . .
For more from Anthony Grayling see his website
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