Aristotle on Teaching

Aristotle on Teaching examines teaching in general, and analyzes the objects, procedures, and order found in all student learning, furnishing the guidelines for the culminating section on the inductive and deductive procedures underlying all teaching. It explores Aristotle’s doctrine to discover its relevance for the art of teaching, defined as the act of explaining the truth to those being taught, through the lucid explanations of Thomas Aquinas on the writings of Aristotle. The book is divided into three sections, the first giving a general examination of the definition, purpose, materials, and procedure of teaching. It then discusses the student’s natural procedure for acquiring knowledge by first treating the objects of knowledge, and then the procedure by which the student understands them. The third section examines the instructor’s method of teaching, which is twofold because of the need to be patterned after the student’s natural manner of acquiring knowledge.