Disrupting Disengagement, or, Going From Feces to Flourishing with Aristotle

In episode 12, the team disrupts the widespread disengagement in education and the workplace being driven by increasingly sterile, bureaucratic systems. Echoing the critique that traditional schooling can erode curiosity, they ask how human flourishing (eudaimonia) might be recovered and turn to an Aristotelian alternative: a shift from abstraction to embodied practice. Wisdom, they argue, does not emerge from pristine environments, but grows instead in the “manure” of everyday life. Further Reading:Adamson, Peter. Classical Philosophy: A history of philosophy without any gaps, Volume 1. OUP Oxford, 2014. Cloke, Harry. “Aristotle on Learning: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Learners.” Growth Engineering, 16 Feb. 2024.Dweck, Carol S. Mindset: The new psychology of success. Random house, 2006. Fiorella, Logan, and Richard E. Mayer. “Role of Expectations and Explanations in Learning by Teaching.” Contemporary Educational Psychology, vol. 39, no. 2, 2014, pp. 75–85.Kirby, Christopher. “4 Philosophers Who Pioneered the Growth Mindset.” Medium, 25 Aug. 2021.Kirby, Christopher. “Aristotle, On Becoming What We Are Ontology, Logic, and Growth in the Physics & De Anima.” Medium, 22 Oct. 2021.P4C.com. “About p4c.” p4c.com, 2024.PLATO. “What is PLATO?” Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization, 2024.Sapere. “What is P4C?” Sapere, 2024.Episode CreditsProducer and Editor: Dr. Christopher C. KirbyThis work is made possible by the Jeffers W. Chertok Memorial Endowment at Eastern Washington University.**The views expressed in this program are not necessarily those of Eastern Washington University