Response to Tara

In response to our Aristotle post, Tara asked the following question...

Do you think this statement implies that only an ignorant/naive person believes something they are told, to accept something before understanding it?

Intersting question T-Cat. I see how that could be read. That's not the direction I took it, though. My thought was the opposite, that an uneducated mind is more unwilling to even entertain thoughts unlike their own. Or, a trained mind can contemplate perspectives different than they believe without feeling the pressure to accept them.

For example, I do not claim to be a homosexual. However, I can certainly study homosexuality quite extensively (books, research, etc), as well as engage with homosexual friends and even interact in the gay community without subscribing to homosexuality myself. However, many people would consider that compromise of my beliefs because I am willing to contemplate and experience the gay lifestyle on a personal and social level (obviously I don't mean on a sexual level!). In their case, they would simply reject it from the point that they don't believe it and refuse to engage with another in that liefestyle. (more specifically, picture the person who adamantly claims that homosexuality is an abomonation to human design, a horrible sin, and completely anti-biblical, yet has never talked to someone who is gay, let alone ever having a gay friend.)

Does that make sense? I read Aristotle as making a statement about being close-minded vs. being open-minded. If you are willing to learn, to be educated, is to be open-minded... and it doesn't mean you are accepting everything you encounter/entertain. To be open-minded is to able to understand where someone else is coming from, to see life from their perspective - to be educated. To be close-minded is to judge right and wrong (in someone else) from predisposed bias, with no real personal experience, and thereby no true understanding – ignorance.

But maybe I read too much into it. :) Thoughts?