ERIC Number: EJ1456804
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2024
Pages: 11
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0022-0272
EISSN: EISSN-1366-5839
Suffering and Misery in History Is Not a Tragic Story: The Ethical Education of Seeing Differences between Narratives
Natan Elgabsi
Journal of Curriculum Studies, v56 n6 p808-818 2024
This article brings out ethical aspects arising in Plato's classical critique of narrative and imitative art in "The Republic," especially when it comes to reading stories about the past. Socrates's and Glaucon's most important suggestion, I argue, is to cultivate an ethical consciousness where one ought to see the distinctions between how the real and the imaginary in narratives are to be conceived, and what that insight ethically demands of the reader. Taken as an ethical insight for the reader when engaging in narrative understanding, this should be to resist the temptation to think that past suffering and misery as told in a story can be read analogously to narratives having a tragic plot. The article clarifies the meaning of Plato's critique through the ideas of Simone Weil, Emmanuel Lévinas and Iris Murdoch. These existential moral philosophers work towards having an ethical consciousness in one's personal relationship with stories of our lifeworld.
Descriptors: History Instruction, Ethics, Ethical Instruction, Classics (Literature), Reader Text Relationship, Philosophy, Aesthetics, Historiography, Tragedy, Differences, Physical Environment, Imagination
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A