What's in an Education?

What’s in an Education? “Education has the potential to oppress or liberate.” Elsa-Marie Solomon Senior Project April 27 2017 1 Education has and continues to be a topic of interest for all members of any society or community. It is an area of focus that raises a plethora of questions ranging from the aims of an education to what counts as knowledge. Creating and fueling a debate over the nature of education within society has been one that remains under continuous construction both in the field of philosophy and around the globe. However, to understand the nature of education -I would argue that- it is necessary to understand the conditions under which knowledge can be acquired. For this paper, I will be using Paul Hirsts’ article titled Liberal Education and the Nature of Knowledge to provide justification for my argument that theories of knowledge when defined too narrowly, or based on objectivity can have negative effects in the classroom setting as well as everyday life. Specifically, I will be focusing on how Hirsts’ theory of knowledge in trying to be objective makes several assumptions regarding the connection between knowledge and reality. Then, I will assess why our demand for an “education, whose definition and justification are based on the nature and significance of knowledge itself, and not on the predilections of pupil, the demands of society or the whims of politicians”1 cannot be met with the Hirsts’ conditions for knowledge. Finally, I will be focusing on advice from Real Knowing: New Versions of the Coherence Theory by Linda Martin Alcoff to illustrate ways that future accounts of knowledge can to be more inclusive. (I) In Ancient Greece, the upbringing of a child, Paideia2, signified the general learning that should be the possession of all human beings. The Paideia was viewed a necessary building 1 ….. 2 Adler, Mortimer Jerome. The Paideia Proposal. 1st ed. New York: Macmillan, 1999. Print. 2 block for shaping of not only the Greek character but man’s3. Their aim was to create amazing citizens as well as individuals. Thus, the classical Greek system of education and training consisted of gymnastics, grammar, rhetoric, poetry, music, mathematics, geography, natural history, astronomy and the physical sciences, history of society and ethics, and philosophy—the complete pedagogical course of study necessary to produce a well-rounded, fully educated citizen. The Greek educational system that rested on two metaphysical “philosophical doctrines” about the mind, knowledge, and reality. The first was that knowledge has a significance role in relation to the mind. This specific doctrine functions under the presupposition that it is through the pursuit of knowledge that one’s mind can activate its true nature, “which thereby attains its own appropriate end”. As “it was held that the achievement of knowledge is not only the attainment of the good of mind itself, but also the chief means whereby the good life as a whole is to be found”. Thus, it casted the pursuit of knowledge as a necessary component to one’s ability to achieve a good life. The second doctrine addressed the relationship between knowledge and reality. Specifically, expressing the notion that within the Greek concept for a liberal education, a “man is more than pure mind, yet [his] mind is his essential distinguishing characteristic, and it is in terms of knowledge that his whole life is rightly directed.” To the Greeks, this sense of clarity is derived from the idea that knowledge corresponds with what is ultimately real. Now with this in mind, knowledge gets assigned the role of a tool that man can utilize to free his mind from what was once his own misunderstanding to what is “ultimately real and immutable”. “Consequently, 3 During that in Ancient Greek women were not educated. Therefore, when Hirst and I are reference the Greek education system. Man is being used intentionally. 3 man no longer needs to live in terms of deceptive appearances and doubtful opinions and beliefs.”4 Based on the idea that if “all knowledge has a place in a comprehensive and harmonious scheme”5,then knowledge itself can be taught hierarchically. When knowledge is attained correctly, it can provide understanding to not only “all [of man’s] experiences, life and thought[s]”6 but also man’s whole understanding of reality via reason. These metaphysical philosophical doctrines created not only the concept of liberal education is a “process that is simply and directly [connected] with the pursuit of knowledge”7 But, upon further investigation one begins to see how the philosophical doctrines “give the general idea [of liberal education] particular meaning and significance”8 that provide a “clear definition of its scope and content”9 and “justification for education in these terms”10. In definition because it requires education to be measured on an objective scale in range, structure and content through forms of knowledge itself and how they relate hierarchically. This definition of education concerns itself less with the incorporation of useful skills and knowledge, or desirable moral virtues and qualities and more with the overall development of the mind. This is under the assumption that all the desired moral, virtues, skill and knowledge are contained within its greatest good. While the justification for such an education that it is geared towards finality through the focus on truth, its value of cognitive ability as opposed to others (i.e. vocational or utilitarian), and the role it plays as an advocate in the necessary of knowledge. Insofar, it views 4"Liberal Education and the Nature of Knowledge," in Philosophical Analysis and Education, ed. R.D. Archambault (London: Routledge, 1965) 247 5 Ibid 6 Ibid 7 Ibid 8 Ibid 9 Ibid 10 Ibid 4 liberal education as “essential to the man’s understanding of how he ought to live, both individual and socially.”11 In Liberal Education and the Nature of Knowledge12, Paul Hirst states that for the Greeks “the concept of an education was ‘liberal’ not simply because it was an education of free man rather than slaves, but also because they saw it as freeing the mind to function according to its nature, freeing reason from error and illusion and freeing man’s conduct from wrong.”13 Therefore, Hirst found it understandable as to why the Greek notion of a liberal education-despite having been adapted, distorted, or opposed to- still can be present within society. However, Hirst rejects the aspect of the Greek notion of a liberal education that does not concern itself with value. Under the basis that “education, being a deliberate, purposeful activity directed to the development of individuals, necessarily involves the considerations of value[s].”14 Hirst points out that to incorporate values into education present questions. Questions such as “Where are these values to be found? What is to be their content? Or how are they to be justified?”15 These questions are used to set the foundation for Hirst’s question whether there is an “ultimate basis for the values that should determine education [on] some more objective grounds.”16 For the Greeks, the final grounds for determining values are in man’s accomplishment of the diverse forms of knowledge, thus giving rise to “the demand for an education whose definition and justification are based on the nature and significance of knowledge itself, and not on the predilections of pupil, the demand of society, or the whims of 11 Ibid 12 Ibid 13 Ibid 14Ibid 248 15 Ibid 16 Ibid 249 5 politicians.17” It was this demand for such an education that led the Greeks to the development of seven liberal arts educational systems in the pursuit of knowledge.18 . For Hirst, the metaphysical doctrines that once were deemed adequate in grounding the concept of a liberal education will no longer be sufficient. For example, under the traditional conception of a liberal education, “knowledge is thought to be necessary [to] developing the mind… promoting the good life.” “If doubt [was] cast on to the functions of knowledge”, then, there is also doubt about the reality, which will result in education and its justification being called into question along with knowledge itself. After, making the decision to reject the traditional notion of a liberal education for the unacceptable metaphysical implications, yet maintain the relationship between the mind and the nature of knowledge. Hirst asserts that one can only understand the nature of education is if they understand the conditions under which knowledge can be obtained. For this reason, Hirst argues that the original concept of a liberal education needs to be reexamined. Any attempt to reassert and reinterpret the concept of a liberal education must be done on logical grounds and completely in terms of the forms of knowledge to eliminate the metaphysical holding that are presented under the Greek account. Through an intellectual approach, Hirst attempts to create an epistemological foundation for liberal education to discover the essence of what is a liberal education by not focusing the content. But rather “the complex ways of understand experience which man has achieved through learning” to show how the human mind is a “rational mind” through the creation of a logical relationship between the concept of “mind” and the concept of “knowledge”. 17 Ibid 18 This is also a component of Paul Hirst Form of knowledge thesis. 6 For Hirst, a liberal education should be “concerned with certain specified forms of knowledge, the essential characteristic [that are] detailed [as explicitly as possible], is to be given a clear understanding of the concept [yet] unambiguous as to the forms of thinking, judgement, imagination, and communication it involves.”19 Based on the understanding that, the forms of knowledge allow the mind to develop the desired qualities and abilities by drawing attention to said qualities through multiple disciplines. Hirst’s Forms of Knowledge thesis claims that knowledge can be reduced into a small number of logical forms that get at the heart of his educational theory which are as follows: history, ethics, mathematics, physical science, religion, philosophy, and social science. “Each [of these] forms of knowledge [includes] the development of creative imagination, judgement, thinking in a way that [helps man with] the understanding [of his] experience”20. This results in a quality of understanding that through a logical, empirical, moral, and aesthetic frame helps man distinguish the true from the false as well as the good from the bad. Hirst’s Liberal Education Objectivity Hirst argues that the acquisition of knowledge “is to become aware of experience as structured, organized and made meaningful in some quite specific way, and the varieties of human knowledge constitute the highly developed forms in which man has found this possible.” When said, knowledge is acquired, man has now been taught “to see, to experience the world in a way otherwise unknown, and thereby to come to have a mind in a fuller sense”. These forms of knowledge act as a distinct way in which human experience is structured around acceptably used public symbols. The forms have a shared meaning and are testable against experiences. By 19 Ibid 20 Ibid253 7 testing symbolic expressions, experiences can be probed further through an explanation of the use of symbols. It is therefore, Hirst’s view, possible for an individual’s experience to be fully structured and fully understood. This is important for the progression of Hirst agreement for a knowledge based education he refers to as a shared scheme. Thus, a liberal education becomes a pursuit of knowledge develops the mind by external to the mind. This includes but is not limited to patterns and structures of reality, through the grounding of education in a set of objective forms of knowledge that allow for a bridge to the mind and reality, while riding the concept of any philosophical backing. For Hirst, knowledge could be found in logical, discrete forms. Therefore, so long as the four epistemological conditions or criteria have been met the proposition can be declared knowledge. “1. The form has certain central concepts that are peculiar in character to the form. 2. In each form of knowledge these and other concepts …… form a network of possible relationships in which experience can be understood. As a result, the form has a distinctive logical structure. 3. The form, by virtue of its particular terms and logic, has expressions or statements ……. that in some way or other……. are testable against experience. 4. The forms have developed particular techniques and skills for exploring experience and testing their distinctive expressions.”21 Then, what can be classified under the Hirstian picture as knowledge is separate into one or two specific disciplines that contribute to the various ways in which ones understanding of an experience. (a) “Distinct disciplines or forms of knowledge (sub divisible): mathematics, physical 21Ibid 258 8 sciences, human sciences, history, religion, literature, and the fine arts, 22philosophy (b) Fields of knowledge: theoretical, practical (these may or may not include elements of moral knowledge”.23 The justification for this knowledge based education, Hirst claims, is that liberal education is the ultimate objective form of education. Due to the fact that, “a necessary feature of knowledge [within a liberal education is] that there be public criteria whereby the true is distinguishable from the false, the good from the bad, the right from the wrong. It is the existence of [the aforementioned] criteria [that makes it possible for] objectivity [to be given] to knowledge; and this in its turn gives objectivity24 to the concept of liberal education”25 as well as one’s moral understanding. Even with the modifications made to the original concept of a liberal education, Hirst still views liberal education as having the ability to free mankind’s actions from wrong through an individual being properly educated. However, Hirst’s attempt to modify the original concept to one that does not hide behind or rest upon metaphysical principles and presumptions seem as though may have actually raised more questions involving the concerns that arise when not only education but knowledge is defined and determined through a Hirstian lens. For the remainder of my paper will be separated into two sections. In section II, I will be addressing how the Hirstian account of knowledge having gained its validity and objectivity 22 The fine arts is actually debatable for Hirst based on his modified criteria for knowledge. For the philosopher holding the belief that knowledge shapes ones reality. I believe struggles to willingly give a defensive answer on the fine arts because “[fine arts] are not communicable simply by words.” Response can be found on [PG 259] 23"Liberal Education and the Nature of Knowledge," in Philosophical Analysis and Education, ed. R.D. Archambault (London: Routledge, 1965),260 24 Hirst does not define objectivity. However, for the sake of this paper and from my reading, I am comfortable with the idea that he means impartiality or Neutrality 25 "Liberal Education and the Nature of Knowledge," in Philosophical Analysis and Education, ed. R.D. Archambault (London: Routledge, 1965).260 9 through public criteria can be problematic from a feminist perspective. In section III I will be focusing on advice from Real Knowing: New Versions of the Coherence Theory by Linda Martin Alcoff to illustrate ways that future accounts of knowledge can be more successful than Hirst’s account. To answer the question: Whether it is possible for humankind to obtain the quality of education that we have been yearning for? (II) For Hirst, the various disagreements that mankind has had regarding education stems from a confusion over the nature of knowledge rather than the nature of education. Although, I agree with the author’s argument. I disagree with the theory of knowledge that Hirst proposes be implemented to remedy the recurring contentions regarding its nature. On the belief that, any theory of knowledge that requires public criteria to be objective will result in humankind being further away from achieve this long-lived desire for an education that requires knowledge to be free from politics, biases, and unqualifiable perspectives. Richard Rorty26 explains how human beings create narratives to make sense of their lives through either objectivity or solidarity. Solidarity requires an individual to conjure up a story about themselves in relation their contribution within a larger community. “This community [can] be the actual historical one ...[that]they live [in], another actual one, distant in time or place, or [even an] imaginary one [filled with] heroes and heroines.”27 while objectivity requires an individual to position themselves in “immediate relation to a non-human reality.”28 In other words, the objective stance involves an individual creating an adequate amount of distance to create a vision that is disembodied, thus neutral. Donna Haraway refers 26 Rorty, Richard. "Solidarity or objectivity?" 27 Ibid 2 28 Ibid 1 10 to the objective stance as the God trick29 because it is a narrative that has been woven into militarism, capitalism, colonialism, and male supremacy so tightly it has become impossible to differentiate the knowing subject from everyone and everything in the interest of autonomous power. Interestingly enough, Rorty mentions that since Greek philosophers there has been a shift away from solidarity and towards objectivity to find Truth. A clear example of this shift from solidarity to objectivity can be found in Paul Hirst’s modification of the original concept in the search for Truth. In his portrayal of Truth as an object that must be chased to obtain an understanding of reality through knowledge, Hirst highlights what can happen in extreme assumptions that can be made when an individual decides to makes sense of the human life through an appeal to objectivity. Then individuals like Paulo Freire30, Deron Boyles31, Dorothy Smith and many others illustrate how objectivity affects us not only in everyday life but in the classroom, as well. Paulo Freire’s Pedagogical concerns Educational institutions have been used to facilitate various roles within society. These institutions are needed to provide students with intellectual, political, and/or social training to create the desired citizens at a given time. As aforementioned in section I, Ancient Greece desired citizens that were well-rounded and educated. This desire is what led to the development of the Paideia. Conversely, Hirst’s desire to have an objective basis for knowledge’s (i.e. liberal education) ultimate outcome should be to obtain a “clearer and finer 29 Donna Haraway, ―Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspectives, ‖ Feminist Studies 14, no. 3 (Autumn, 1988): 575-599, 581. Also known as God’s spectacles coined by Putnam or the View from Nowhere term coined by Nagel 30Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Herder and Herder, 1972. 1 31 Ibid 2 11 distinctions in our experiences32” as individuals. However, it is desires like Hirst’s that result in classroom resembling Freire’s banking concept33 education. An education that is merely an act of depositing in which teachers are the depositor providing students with a narrative education like making deposits. Instead of communicating with the students, teachers are merely making deposits of knowledge as the students wait patiently to receive, memorize, and repeat. In this banking concept, knowledge is a gift that children are blessed with through meekly listening to a neatly narrated view of the reality. For Freire, this view of education can never be label objective if we decide to that objective means neutral or unbiased. Because, under this view of education, teachers are implying that they possess something that the students need. In both the Hirstian picture and the banking concept of education, teachers are classified as the holder of knowledge with a fiduciary duty to deposit not only shares of knowledge but also static images of the world. For Freire, educational institutions are used as a tool with the ideological intention of indoctrinating youth into the world of oppression as well as giving it credibility. Through observing the banking concept of education, we can see how the teacher does not guide but rather regulates the way in which the student views the world through an “objective” point of view. It is at this point that Freire points out that the instructor position is merely the perspective of the oppressor. Therefore, Freire would have major concerns with Hirst advocating for a knowledge based education that gains its sense of objectivity through the public criteria because it is simply another example of the very narrative education that he opposes. Since, the objective stance creates a very narrow line between what it means to know, what it means to not know, and who gets to do either. 32"Liberal Education and the Nature of Knowledge," in Philosophical Analysis and Education, ed. R.D. Archambault (London: Routledge, 1965), 265 33 12 Who are The Knowers and The Know Nots? Deron Boyles makes the claim that the United States educational system’s theory of knowledge in becoming more focused on students acquiring the necessary skill to ensure job placement in the global market, resulting the concept of knowing to be narrowly constructed. This leads to the individuals (i.e. students and teachers) potential for knowing being restricted by not considering “the varied, contextual standpoints of students and teachers.”34 Drawing on the work of Lorraine Code35, in not wanting to completely abandon the notion of objectivity but simply reform it, Boyles argues that the dominant theory of knowledge and epistemology in Anglo-American thinking creates an “epistemological monoculture”. It is this dominant model of knowledge that result in the suppression and filtration of ways of knowing that depart from the rigorous system that scientific knowledge dictates. To further his point, Boyles draws our attention to “the corporate-aligned textbooks, standardized curricula, and the testing industry”36. These “add arbitrary and fixed notions of time”37 while dismissing context and differences. For Boyles, this ideal education system that Hirst and others have been striving to obtain that is free from “predilections of pupil, the demands of society, or the whims of politicians” is impossible to achieve currently. It is only through the clear observation of how the American culture's’ current schooling system operates that we can only be achieved through a deep reconstruction of how the American culture perceives and evaluate school. Boyle’s evaluation on the theory of knowledge that American schooling system can be made about the Hirstian theory of knowledge just as the Anglo-American education system 34 "Liberal Education and the Nature of Knowledge," in Philosophical Analysis and Education, ed. R.D. Archambault (London: Routledge, 1965), 126 35 Boyles, Deron, “Considering Lorraine Code’s Ecological Thinking and Standpoint Epistemology: A Theory of Knowledge for Agentic Knowing in Schools,” Philosophical Studies in Education 40 (2009): 125-137. 36 Ibid 28 37 Ibid 13 filters experience and forms of knowing that cannot structurally fit into the contemporary theory for knowledge. In this case, that would be all skills that fail to meet the criteria as necessary to secure a job on the global market. All propositions that do not fit under the previously stipulated conditions (1-4) or disciplines (a or b) are thus discarded based on the belief that said propositions do not qualify as knowledge. For example, In Hirsts’ theory of knowledge, he requires knowledge to be free from politics, biases, and unqualifiable perspectives. He claims that emotional experiences, mental attitudes, beliefs, or individual knowledge are unintelligible. Because of that they cannot be objective measurable and therefore cannot be classified as knowledge based on the idea that forms of knowledge are basic articulations that can be intelligible to human beings. This, I would argue presupposes that an individual can have or gain a complete objective knowledge. What about Standpoints? Hirst’s belief that an individual can, through knowledge, understand reality in its entirety, happens to be an assumption that standpoint theorists like Dorothy Smith have argued against for some time now. Dorothy Smith has claimed that knowledge is far from objective by using the notion of standpoint to emphasize that what one knows is affected by where one stands in society. In 1960s, she experienced isolation and alienation among her peers in her Sociology department who failed to recognize the particular standpoints from which they spoke as sociologists. Smith noticed how this practice reinforced biases that implicitly made the discipline of sociology a masculine field of study. Smith’s findings remain true in multiple spheres of influence. She also argues that texts (documents, media, books), organizations, and earlier forms of social theory present a view that is often alien to the experiences and situation of individuals. Similar to her own experience, this eventually became the foundation upon which led Smith to the 14 formulation of the theory For Smith, “All knowledge is knowledge from a particular standpoint and what which has been claimed as objective knowledge of society conceals a male bias.”38 In order to combat this idea that knowledge is objective, there should be an attempt to recover this everyday experience by making it our responsibility to recognize, be reflexive, and problematize it so that it may serves as a platform of investigation. It is through a failure to recognize the particular standpoint from which we speak that reinforces biases that are necessary to continue the system of oppression. Standpoint theory can lead us to become more aware of this because it requires that we consider what features, locations, or standpoints are relevant to specific epistemic projects, thus, broadening the range for objectivity that was once extremely limited. However, Boyles argues that to do so we must be willing to reassess our current education system in the United States so that it can make room for a form of knowledge that currently does not fit into our schema. Boyles believes this starts with any theory of knowledge that we choose to adopt, accounting for the fact that there is an intrinsic link to values, politics, and knowledge. A linkage that can be seen through carefully observing how policies and practices have and continue to promote, authorize, support, and be supported by particular ways of knowing. A linkage that Hirst himself fails to see because he is too focused on obtaining this unattainable quality of education. (III) 38 Wylie, Alison. "Why standpoint matters?" Science and other cultures, 2003. 15 Historically, in Real Knowing: New Versions of Coherence39, Linda Alcoff claim that philosophers have been so focused on creating conditions to identify when an individual has knowledge. That this has resulted in knowledge being too narrowly constructed to capture the complexities of life. In her view, the traditional epistemological projects that use the example of “Jones owns for a Ford” have no concern regarding the social dimension of knowledge. After realizing that, analytic epistemologists and philosophers alike have been to quite for too long where the topic of social influences within the process of knowledge production is concerned. She urges philosophers to stop being concerned with setting up criteria for knowledge and start examining other issues. Such as how this knowledge will be produced, what can be said, and who gets to say it. Alcoff express that philosophers cannot simply follow Phillip Kitcher advice to accommodate social factors by amending the standard S-knows-P formula because it fails to account for the whole story. Therefore, Alcoff is advocating for a new paradigm for epistemology to a position that has a wider compass than the traditional epistemological investigations. In her book, the author claims that she would like to shift to a position where “epistemology will not refer to a foundationalism, anti-skeptical project; nor will ontology refer to the carving up of essential categories.40” Rather, “epistemology will refer to the theorizing of knowledge and metaphysical and ontology with refer to the theorizing of reality.”41 For Alcoff, when we make a claim about the world, this implies how the world should be understood. One of her concerns is that currently, epistemologist are making claims about how the world should be without being away of the interpersonal relationships that knowledge has with concepts like power ad desire. Therefore, it is imperative that any adequate account of 39 Alcoff, Linda Martín. Real knowing: new versions of the coherence theory. Ithaca: Cornell U.P., 2008. 40 Ibid 4 41 Ibid 16 knowledge must take into consideration “the interconnections between knowledge, power, and desire.”42 Since, it was from the blurring of boundaries between subject and object that we reach objectivity in the traditional framework. So, it is necessary that those ideas be pulled apart in the future accounts of knowledge to make room for the situated and constituted knowers. Otherwise, we will continue to make ontological implications regarding knowledge that will only make the rigid binary opposition between subject and object established by the traditional frameworks stronger. 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