These slides accompany a collaborative talk that will take place at Online Educa Berlin 2018 #OEB18 . I hope it will ignite some ideas.

1. Old Philosophers &
New Learning
A talk with all of us (in the room)

2. Philosophers are often referred to …

3. During this OEB:
socrates,
Aristoteles,
Niklas Luhmann,
Confucius, Jean
Piaget, John
Dewey, Judith
Butler …

4. A lot of the discussions e.g. AI,
machine learning, data …are on
‘ethics’ or ‘ethical behaviour’, but …

5. What do we feel
the need to point
towards
philosophers, and
why so ‘general’ ?
• Is it because we want to raise our
status? To show that we can think?
• Is it because we feel something is
missing when we develop AI, and our
hope lies in philosophy to save us?
• Is it because we want to show, we as
learning developers who produce
machine learning/algorithms… are
actually thinking of humans?
• …

6. And if we refer to
philosophers and link
them to learning…
what do we choose to
highlight?
• Is there a clear deeper context?
• Do all the speakers who refer to
philosophers know what the full
context of the reference is?
• Is it necessary to know the deeper
meaning of all our references?
• Can philosophy help in our AI, data
science projects? And why do we think
so?

7. I will list these questions
again at the end

8. Now let me add some of
my favorite (limiting to
those who are dead)

9. A Vindication of the
Rights of Woman (1792),
calls for women and men
to be educated equally.

10. Juan Luis Vives
• Schools should not be for profit
• Organic pedagogy
(Juan Luis Vives, 1492, Valencia,
Spain – 1540, Brugge, Belgium)

11. Informal learning =>
Living a fearless life
ἀταραξία (ataraxia,) is a Greek philosophy
term used to describe a lucid state of robust
equanimity
Ἐπίκουρος (Epicurus; 341–270 BC) believed
that what he called "pleasure" (ἡδονή) was the
greatest good, but that the way to attain such
pleasure was to live modestly, to gain
knowledge of the workings of the world, and
to limit one's desires
wikipedia

12. Que sçay-je?
Quand je me joue à ma chatte, qui
sçait si elle passe son temps de
moy plus que je ne fay d’elle ?
[When I play with my cat who
knows if I am not a pastime to her
more than she is to me?] – Michel
de Montaigne (1533-1592)
(Book II, chap. 12, p. 401)

13. What is my
interest with
them
(currently)
Three blogs, hoping this will give an idea
• Aristotle and echo chambers post
• Short commentary on Mengzi, Socrates
and social media
• Hayek versus Dewey: opposing
thoughts on democracy

14. So … can old philosophers be of use to new learning: giving us
a compass, providing a looking glass, supporting a case, make
us think deeper?
Maybe start a collaborative online magazine that enables us
to simply reflect and learn?

15. The Questions I
started with …
The need to refer to them
• Is it because we want to raise our status? To show that we
can think?
• Is it because we feel something is missing when we
develop AI, and our hope lies in philosophy to save us?
• Is it because we want to show, we as learning developers
who produce machine learning/algorithms… are actually
thinking of humans?
What do we choose to highlight in reference to learning?
• Is there a clear deeper context?
• Do all the speakers who refer to philosophers know what
the full context of the reference is?
• Is it necessary to know the deeper meaning of all our
references?
• Can philosophy help in our AI, data science projects? And
why do we think so?