Is this a five minute argument or the full half hour?

I’m feeling a bit exhilarated at the moment.

There is a famous mathematical/philosophical book called Proofs and Refutations by Imre Lakatos, that looks at the nature of mathematical proof, reasoning, argument, refutations, counterexamples, definitions, and a whole bunch of fun fundamental mathematical things. It’s set up as a script, with a (very clever) class debating about a famous geometrical conjecture and really grappling with meaning.

Anne had decided to have a “Lakatos day” in which a group of interested people would tackle some of the ideas in the book. There were 14 of us, and most of us had read at least some of it in advance. I spent a day on it yesterday—enjoying the maths in it, struggling to hang on to and articulate the larger philosophical ideas, and trying to work out what I thought about it all—and I only got part-way through (fortunately, this was sufficient for the day!).

Today, part of the group met first thing in the morning to tease out some of the basics in the first few pages, and even this got a bit heady. Then, when the whole group was present, we actually read through a good portion of the book as a play reading (it is, after all, a script, and some parts of it are actually quite funny (your mileage may vary!)). We stopped whenever we felt the need to debate, clarify and question what we thought Lakatos might be saying, and then the discussion flew back and forth.

The air of questioning and reasoning was just so stimulating. To add to the excitement, one of the participants had actually been a colleague of Lakatos and could provide additional insight into Lakatos’s* philosophy as well as many of the historical aspects. It was great to be able to wrestle with the ideas, to challenge what we thought Lakatos might have been saying, to tease out not only the philosophical and mathematical ideas but also think about what it might mean for teaching.

So, was this a five minute argument or the full half hour? Neither: it was the full day version, and it was fun. My brain has now had it though!

* Lakatos is a Hungarian name, which means it is pronounced approximately Lokotohsh (I think; my Hungarian is rusty!). Since the s is a “sh” sound, I feel obliged to write ‘s to indicate the possessive rather than the apostrophe on its own. I will readily concede that I could be wrong.

* * * * * * *

There was another particularly intellectually stimulating experience this week. Oxford has seminars happening all the time on a vast range of topics. On Monday night Anne and John suggested we go and listen to Michael Frayn who was giving his inaugural lecture as the Cameron Macintosh Visiting Professor of Contemporary Theatre (a post that has been held previously by Kevin Spacey, Patrick Stewart, Stephen Sondheim, and Ian McKellen, among many others). Michael Frayn is a novelist and playwright (I haven’t seen/read his works, but they include Copenhagen and Noises Off), but he has also translated Chekhov and studied philosophy. He gave a very interesting talk about the origins of theatre and how the idea of playing something else is an intrinsic part of the human condition.

One of the things that struck me during the course of the evening was the question of what it means to be “educated”. There was a witty reference to something from Oedipus on the way through the talk, and I was pleased to “get it”, even before some in the large audience. But it was only as a happy accident of subject choice in Year 11, and the roster of works to be studied that year, that I had actually read Oedipus. Mind you, it was the sort of reference that you might have picked up through a wider alertness to cultural references … provided you pay attention to them and want to make sense of them.

This, however, then raises the question of what things are culturally important to pick up along the way, that are necessary to be “educated” in some sense. Should we expect people to know that Oedipus wanted to marry his mother? Is it helpful to know that “Is this a five minute argument or the full half hour?” is a Monty Python quote? Does the world make more sense if you know to be afraid of the big bad wolf? Is knowing Mozart more important than knowing Pink? Will apostrophes matter in a post-SMS world? Should you know enough Hungarian to at least realise that Budapest is pronounced Budapesht? Is it linguistically literate to alliterate? Should we be able to tell the difference between a Taoist and Confucian? Is the Goldbach conjecture really beyond the ken of people’s curiosity? Can you have your pound of flesh and eat it too, and laugh because you know what it means to mix metaphors?

Thought-provoking stuff, and fun to think about, but, like I said, my brain hurts. 🙂