The world of instruction: undertaking the impossible

Abstract

Throughout history, philosophers have reflected on educational questions. Some of their ideas emerged in defense of, or opposition to, skepticism about the possibility of formal teaching and learning. These philosophers include Plato, Augustine, St Thomas Aquinas, Søren Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Together, they comprise a tradition that establishes the impossibility of instruction and the imperative to undertake it. The value of this tradition for contemporary education is that it redirects attention away from performance assessments and learning outcomes to the ethical, aesthetic, and metaphysical dimensions of schooling. I argue that philosophers of education are uniquely responsible for teaching this tradition so that instruction might be undertaken in the right spirit. To this end, my essay is divided into three parts. In the first part, I explain why instructional skepticism has not been prominent in philosophy of education. I follow up, in the second part, by clarifying my choice of the term ‘instruction.’ In the third part, I sketch the instructional philosophies that ‘book-end’ this tradition: those of Plato and Wittgenstein.

Keywords::

• education
• instruction
• skepticism
• Ludwig Wittgenstein
• Plato

Acknowledgment

I wish to thank Mr Alex Hunley for his invaluable research assistance.

Notes

^1. Here, I am invoking Stanley Cavell: if the world is to be accepted and the presence of other minds is to be acknowledged, then instruction, it would seem, is to be undertaken. For philosophers of education on Cavell's philosophy, see: Granger (2004), Jackson (1992), and Standish (2007, 2012).

^2.Phillips agrees with Curren that the field ‘lacks intellectual cohesion,’ but he, unlike Curren, attributes ‘this diffuse state-of-affairs’ to the institutional affiliation of philosophers of education with Schools of Education. See Phillips (2012). See also, Hayden (2012, 3) and McClintock (2005).

^3. For scholarship on Albert Schweitzer and education see Rudd (2007, 2011).

^4. See Austin (2002).

^5. For an example and discussion of compartmentalization, see Todd (2003, 25–26); for a qualitative empirical study of these negative impacts see Pope (2002).

^6. See Biesta (2001), Higgins (2011), Smith (2006), and Wain (2006).

^7. Examples include: Gaita (2001), James (2007), and Orwell (1953).

^8. See Dewey (2008).

^9. Dewey's academic career coincided with the rise of psychology as a discipline: his dissertation was jointly supervised by the educational psychologist, G. Stanley Hall; his first book, Psychology (1887), became a standard textbook for the subject through to the turn of the century; and, his essay ‘The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology’ (1896) formed the basis of his later work.

^10. Bingham writes:

the general sentiment that education must be intensified because information has become intensified. And, they share an underlying theme that progressivism is the best way for the ‘new’ education to operate. An intensified progressivism is said to be the way of the future (86).

^11. See Biesta (2010) and Standish (2007).

^12. See Biesta (2010), Lewis (2011), McClintock (1971), and Masschelein (2010).

^13. Here, I am invoking Gilbert Ryle's task-achievement distinction. See Ryle (1949). For discussion of the distinction as it relates to teaching, see Kleinig (1982, 27–34).

^14. Generally speaking, philosophers conceive of education as evidence of and/or a contribution to human freedom. Human freedom has been variously understood: as autonomy (Richard Rorty); as understanding (Michael Oakshott); and as existential (Rene Arcilla). Here I am well served by Arcilla (2010, 23–26). Rorty argues that teachers enact their freedom by sharing what they most care about, thereby inciting those erotic relationships – between student and text, student and teacher and student and student – so crucial for growth. Oakshott argues that human freedom is more basic than autonomy, residing as it does in the understanding and the recognition of an experience's significance. Thus, Oakshott concludes that education proceeds, not as an affirmation of freedom, but from a deep need to understand. Arcilla argues that human freedom is even more fundamental than the understanding; it resides in the world's questionability and the call that we exercise our freedom in seeking to understand it.

^15. See Biesta (2013).

^16. For a discussion of love and education, see Todd (2003, 65–80).

^17. Here I am invoking a recent discussion, initiated by Taylor (2007), that concerns of the age of disenchantment, associated with our secular and technological existence. The age is one of disenchantment because meaning is no longer believed to be inherent in nature and independent of human existence – it is no longer something that we sense the arrival of and yield to. Significance is created as the manifestation of human interest. For related discussion see Levine (2011) and Dreyfus and Kelly (2011).

^18. See the work of Mihály Csikszentminályi.

^19. Todorov (1996).

^20. This example has been much discussed in the philosophical literature. In particular, see Kripke (1982), Cavell (1990), and Mulhall (2002).

^21. See Diamond (1991b).