Home > Autodidacticism
Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) is self-education or self-directed learning. An autodidact is a mostly self-taught person (also known as an automath), or someone who has an enthusiasm for self-education, and usually has a high degree of self-motivation. Going back through history, occasional individuals have sought to excel in subjects from outside the mainstream of conventional education. Jean Paul Sartre's Nausea depicts an autodidact who is a self-deluding dilettante. However, other autodidacts have excelled at their disciplines and brought innovative perspectives.Inquiry into autodidacticism has implications in learning theory and educational theory , educational research, educational philosophy and educational psychology.
1 Famous Autodidacts
Mythologist Joseph Campbell is one of the most famous autodidacts, and is seen by some as a poster-boy for the methodology. Following completing his masters degree, Campbell decided not to go forward with his plans to earn a doctorate, and he went into the woods in upstate New York, reading deeply for five years. According to Campbell, this is, in a sense, where his real education took place, and the time when he began to develop his unique view on the nature of life.
According to poet and author Robert Bly, a friend of Campbell, Campbell developed a systematic program of reading nine hours a day. It is speculated by some that Campbell felt the work he did during this time was far more rigorous than any doctoral program could have been, and more fruitful in developing his unique perspectives.
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