Student-Teacher Relationship

There were several questions that bothered me while reading, two being what are the appropriate hopes and boundaries between teachers and students? I mean, what can teachers and students reasonably hope to gain from one another and what are the appropriate, if any, boundaries between teachers and students? I think that both teachers and students should hope that all of their arguments are being carefully listened to, evaluated, and criticized. Teachers should be able to hope for students that accept their teaching on more than blind faith to authority, because they deserve more than that. Students should be able to hope for teachers who will value their point of view instead of ignoring it. They should both hope to teach each other and learn from each other. On the other hand, the teacher is still the one in a position of authority. Friendliness between students and teachers is perfectly acceptable, because it helps to create a pleasant environment where learning is a much easier task. However, that does not mean that students and teachers are friends. There doesn't need to be a power struggle between the two, but the teacher needs to be seen as an authority figure or their students will not respect them and both teaching and learning will become much more difficult tasks. Students and teachers have to work together to carefully balance their relationship to maximize the potential for teaching and learning. 

Goals of Teaching

What should be the main goal of a teacher, as a teacher? What is the most important thing a teacher can teach? Segel maintains that the most important thing is a "very special mode of belief-inculcation"(47). By inculcation, he does not mean torture, indoctrination, manipulation, brainwashing, etc. Instead he means that teachers should offer students reasons for their beliefs and try to justify them. They should also try to promote reason-assessment and critical thinking abilities in their students. I think this second part is extremely important, especially in light of the fact that many teachers skip over it. It is often part of the curriculum to teach critical thinking skills in relation to math or writing, or some other discipline in particular. Unfortunately, critical thinking skills are often not emphasized in other areas of every day life. I have rarely heard a teacher encourage his or her students to rethink what they've been taught before, to ask where someone got their sources from, to question authority, to challenge what their textbooks say. A good teacher should encourage their students to practice critical thinking in every area of their lives, both in and outside of school. I think that is probably the most important thing a teacher can teach.

What is the most important value in literature?

Is there any one thing that should be valued the most in literature? I know we talked about cognitive value in class, but is that the most important thing? Literature should help to cultivate the mind, it should help you to think creatively and critically, and see things from many different perspectives. It should convey truth and meaning, and you should learn something important from it. All of these things are very important, of course, but I can't help but think that there is something even more important than that. I believe the single most important value to take away from literature is catharsis. Catharsis can be a soul-cleansing experience, and provides much relief from repressed emotions. Catharsis can actually improve your health and mind, and it eases whatever burden you may carry. After catharsis, your mind and heart open up and are even more receptive to learning whatever more the literature has to teach you. All good things come after catharsis, what could be more important? 

Other Values of Literature

What other values are embedded in literature, besides cognitive? When I hear "cognitive" I think about thinking, the mind, that sort of thing. Of course, literature should be greatly valued because of its ability to make us thing about things in new and interesting ways, but is there nothing more than that? Personally, I usually place catharsis as an important value to be garnered from the arts. Emotionality in general should, in my opinion, be a huge part of the importance of literature. Literature should completely capture the mind, imagination, heart and soul. It should bring you fully into what you are reading, and radiate the truth. I think these kinds of things should be valued at least as much as the cognitive value. What do you value most about literature? 

Critical Monism & Pluralism

Both Critical Monism and Critical Pluralism are mainly good approaches to literary criticism, but the are both ultimately flawed criticisms. However, when used together, and with the added distinction between correctness and acceptability, I think that's the best way to criticize a work. We recognize only one, true, correct interpretation of a work, presumably the authors', but don't discount other acceptable interpretations. There is a limit on what can be considered an acceptable interpretation as well, as they "must be consistent with some facts about the work. For example, it would not be acceptable...to ask readers to suppose that the words of a work were different from those actually constituting the text of a work." (274) This helps to keep critical pluralism from becoming radically inclusive, and helps to further balance the relationship between critical pluralism and monism. Overall, I think Stecker combining the two types of criticism turned out to be the best approach to literary criticism as a whole

Critical Pluralism

Critical Pluralism is "the view that there are many acceptable interpretations of many artworks that cannot be conjoined into a single correct interpretation." (273) I think that's mostly true. Many interpretations of a work, although not necessarily correct, are acceptable. On the other hand, many people may agree on certain aspects of particular interpretations, but everyone could not possibly conjoin all of their different views into one single interpretation. Even if that was possible, who would say that their consensus would actually end up being correct? As important as the audience is to a literary work, they are ultimately not the ones who decide what is or is not correct in a work. The author's interpretation is the only one that is completely correct. Even if you are not able to draw one comprehensive, correct, single interpretation from a work, such an interpretation does exist. Everyone may not be able to agree with each other about their own particular interpretations, but they must all agree upon and accept the author's interpretation as correct and true.

Critical Monism

Critical Monism is "the view that there is a single, comprehensive, true (correct) interpretation for each work of art. (A true, comprehensive, interpretation of  work is one that is true, conjoins all true interpretations of the work, and one that comprehends the whole work.)" (273-274) I think that overall this is a very good way to approach literature. I do believe that there is only one correct way to interpret a work, and that is the author's interpretation. That interpretation may have many elements to it that the audience can see and agree with, but ultimately it doesn't matter if the audience agrees or not. In literature, it all comes back to the author and what meanings he or she ascribed to the literary work. Critical monism looks at a work as a whole and realizes it in its entirety, and yet I still feel as though it might be missing something. Although the author's interpretation of a work is technically the only one that is really "true", there are usually many other insightful interpretations out there. When one comes across an interpretation that is insightful, uplifting, inspiring, and helps you gain from the text, why should that interpretation be discounted? I think that Stecker was right in adding in the distinction that some interpretations can still be acceptable, even if they are not fully correct. There is a lot to gain from multiple interpretations of a text, and Critical Monism should allow that.

Art Interpretation

In "Art Interpretation" Robert Stecker tries to combine critical pluralism with critical monism, and I more or less agree with him. He describes critical pluralism as the view that a lot of acceptable interpretations that cannot be joined into a single one, and critical monism as the view that there is only one true interpretation. He also states that these two seemingly very different things can be combined if one can make the distinction between correctness and acceptability. I like that distinction. I think that only the author can truly correctly interpret the work in question, but that shouldn't mean the end for all outside interpretations. I agree with Stecker that interpretations are not objectively right or wrong, true or false. Different interpretations help the reader to see the work differently, and that is a good thing. Various interpretations can still, of course, be acceptable or unacceptable. Any acceptable interpretation has to be accept some facts in the work. One cannot simply make things up out of thin air and call that an acceptable interpretation. As he puts it, "it would not be acceptable, in the case of literary works, to ask readers to suppose that the words of a work were different from those actually constituting the text of a work." And, "On the other hand, it might be acceptable to attach unusual meanings to certain words in a text..." Overall, I thought Stecker did a fairly good job defending his view.