Sophistry, V

By the ~25m mark, Fr. Ripperger is onto a topic he is ascribing to sophistry where he actually disagrees with Aristotle completely. This is a point where I also disagree with Aristotle, so I don't say that as a criticism of the position he is advocating, just again his ascribing that position to "sophistry." 

The particular point he is describing as sophistry (which it isn't) and a violation of natural law (which it is) is the controlling of education by the state rather than the family. He has quite a lot to say about this, so feel free to watch that part of the video directly; I don't think anyone who is a regular here will much disagree with his position. 

Aristotle, however, does disagree with it. In Rhetoric I he is clear that, because the state is made up of families to which we are naturally attached, the law needs to settle "as many points as possible" so that very little judgment is left even to magistrates where their natural ties might incline them to favoritism. In Politics VIII.1-2 he speaks to the law and education in a way that clarifies that education of the youth is particularly a state matter, not a family matter:

None will doubt that the legislator should direct his attention above all to the education of youth; for the neglect of education does harm to the constitution. The citizen should be molded to suit the form of government under which he lives.... [S]ince the whole city has one end, it is manifest that education should be one and the same for all, and that it should be public, and not private- not as at present, when every one looks after his own children separately, and gives them separate instruction of the sort which he thinks best; the training in things which are of common interest should be the same for all. Neither must we suppose that any one of the citizens belongs to himself, for they all belong to the state, and are each of them a part of the state, and the care of each part is inseparable from the care of the whole. In this particular as in some others the Lacedaemonians are to be praised, for they take the greatest pains about their children, and make education the business of the state.

...That education should be regulated by law and should be an affair of state is not to be denied, but what should be the character of this public education, and how young persons should be educated, are questions which remain to be considered. As things are, there is disagreement about the subjects. For mankind are by no means agreed about the things to be taught, whether we look to virtue or the best life.

That could hardly be clearer. It is directly opposed as a view to the one Fr. Ripperger is (rightly, in my opinion) advocating, but it is nevertheless not a sophistic position but Aristotle's own. Likewise, to say as the good father does that this is a post-Protestant position is clearly disproven by the citation; it is in fact the ancient position of Aristotle and the Aristotelians. 

The medieval Aristotelian position, which is to say especially St. Thomas Aquinas' position, is less clear. Aquinas follows Aristotle very, very closely in the Summa Theologiae but he is mostly following Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Physics, and Metaphysics. Aquinas wrote a commentary on the first two books of the Politics only. Insofar as we can piece it together, Aquinas seems to have agreed that the family and not the state had jurisdiction over the education of the young -- but, perhaps like the Church's general endorsement of monarchy during the middle ages, this might partly be because that was the only live option.

I talk a lot about Aristotle here because I think he is of continuing value, and could in many respects restore the habit of thinking things through of which Fr. Ripperger is really also lamenting the loss. Even Aristotle wasn't right about everything; on this point, as well as a few others, he was in my opinion quite wrong. 

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