Put the
other way about, to have an aim is to act with meaning, not like
an automatic machine; it is to mean to do something and to
perceive the meaning of things in the light of that intent.
2. The Criteria of Good Aims. We may apply the results of our
discussion to a consideration of the criteria involved in a
correct establishing of aims. (1) The aim set up must be an
outgrowth of existing conditions. It must be based upon a
consideration of what is already going on; upon the resources and
difficulties of the situation. Theories about the proper end of
our activities -- educational and moral theories -- often violate
this principle. They assume ends lying outside our activities;
ends foreign to the concrete makeup of the situation; ends which
issue from some outside source. Then the problem is to bring our
activities to bear upon the realization of these externally
supplied ends. They are something for which we ought to act. In
any case such "aims" limit intelligence; they are not the
expression of mind in foresight, observation, and choice of the
better among alternative possibilities. They limit intelligence
because, given ready-made, they must be imposed by some authority
external to intelligence, leaving to the latter nothing but a
mechanical choice of means.
(2) We have spoken as if aims could be completely formed prior to
the attempt to realize them. This impression must now be
qualified.
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