We are almost at the end of 2022, and I do not want to let the year end without mention of this book – Braiding Sweetgrass – by Robin Wall Kimmerer. For me this has been the best book I have read this year. I had better qualify what I mean by ‘best’. It is a beautifully written book – beautiful prose with the feel of poetry. It is easy to read, but by no means superficial; in fact, it is the exact opposite – a deeply meaningful book. It is the book that has had the most impact on me this year. I will never think about Nature, and plants, in the same way again. It is a book full of wisdom and love. It is indeed ‘A hymn of love to the world’ as is quoted by Elizabeth Gilbert on the front cover. Sweetgrass symbolises healing, peace, and spirituality. The three cords of the sweetgrass represent mind, body, and spirit.
Robin Wall Kimmerer is a decorated botany professor, a scientist with a non-orthodox approach to science. She currently works as a Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental and Forest Biology in New York, but most significantly she is the Director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment. She comes from a Native American background, Potawatomi heritage, and this informs her life and work as a botanist and her approach to science and to our planet.
In her book Kimmerer takes a story telling approach, and through these stories we learn to think of plants not as separate from ourselves, not as ‘things’ we dominate or a resource that we plunder, but as living beings like ourselves with whom we should live in harmony, in the spirit of love, gratitude and reciprocity. Most plants already live with each other in this way, and they can be our teachers. Most importantly, she passes on the teachings of her forefathers in the idea of ‘The Honourable Harvest’; that is, we only take from the ‘Earth’ what we need and use natural resources responsibly. And not only do we not ‘take more than we need’, but we give back, and exist with plants in a relation of reciprocity and gratitude. Robin Wall Kimmerer recounts many stories in the book to illustrate this point.
The book is so rich with wonderful ‘teachings’ that I could not possibly do justice to it here. If you are a scientist, there are lessons for how to include ideas of beauty and reciprocity into the analytical world of science. If you are a botany teacher there are lessons for how to step back and allow plants to teach your students. If you are a mother, there are lessons you can draw on from how Nature acts as a mother. If you are a gardener, there are lessons you can learn about which plants thrive when planted next to each other and why. If you are a conservationist, there are lessons you can learn about collaboration, cooperation and listening. If you are a medic, there are lessons you can learn about the gift of plants. If you are an artist, there are lessons to be learned from the beauty of Nature. If you are spiritual, there are lessons you can learn from the legend of Skywoman Falling.
I would not have come across this book had it not been for the Philosophy of Education Reading Network – the last book of the year to be read and discussed by the group. In our online meeting (zoom) at the beginning of this month, the book was introduced by Louise Hawxwell, who posed these thought-provoking questions for us to discuss, beautifully presented in a lovely set of slides:
You can see from these slides and the questions that Louise asked, that there is far more in this book than I have discussed here. I have barely scratched the surface. Braiding Sweetgrass is a book that deserves to be read many times and it is certainly a book that I will be thinking about when working in my garden next year or caring for my house plants, not to mention reflecting on my personal relationships with humans and non-humans in my life.
References
Robin Wall Kimmerer (2013). Braiding Sweetgrass. Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teaching of Plants. Penguin Random House, UK.
Postscript
The first book to be read by the Philosophy of Education Reading Network in 2023 (Tuesday 17th January, 7.00 pm, zoom details posted on Twitter, @PhilofEd) will be Miseducation. Inequality, Education and the Working Classes (21st Century Standpoints) by Diane Reay
Flourishing would seem an obvious aim of education. To me it’s an indictment of our times that Kristján Kristjánsson felt he needed to write a lengthy book to justify this and that there needs to be a special department at the University of Birmingham, UK, to study and research this. I would hope that it would be obvious that flourishing should be the aim of education, but clearly not.
Kristján Kristjánsson is Professor of Character Education and Virtue Ethics Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues at the University of Birmingham. He is not alone in thinking that flourishing should be the overall aim of education, but his perspective is unique. He attempts to bring a Neo-Aristotelian view to flourishing as the aim of education. In other words, he wants to bring Aristotle’s account of flourishing up to date.
For Aristotle flourishing is more than well-being. Kristjánsson agrees with this and spends some time explaining why flourishing cannot be equated with happiness, writing that it is possible for a person to be happy but not flourish, or a person to be unhappy and yet flourish.
For Aristotle certain external conditions need to be in place for flourishing. Some of these are:
Close parental attachment and good upbringing/education
Good government, ruling in the interests of the people, and a just constitution
Enough wealth to make sure we do not come a cropper
A complete life: namely a life in which we do not die prematurely
Health, strength, and even minimal physical beauty
Friends and family
I would question some of these, for example, a complete life, but we must remember that when Aristotle was writing people did not live to the age of 100 or beyond. For Kristjánsson, Aristotle’s account is not enough; for him we have to go beyond Aristotle’s attempts to describe what flourishing means, but he is concerned that the idea of flourishing can become ‘bland’ in educational accounts and has written (2021) ‘A threat of bland truisms hovers constantly over educational accounts of flourishing ….. The concept of flourishing becomes like a shopping trolley that everybody can fill with his or her random choice of goods.’ As such Kristjánsson attempts specificity in a long definition, which I have heard/seen described (I can’t remember where now) as reading like an insurance policy. This is Kristjánsson’s definition:
Human flourishing is the (relatively) unencumbered, freely chosen and developmentally progressive activity of a meaningful (subjectively purposeful and objectively valuable) life that actualises satisfactorily an individual human being’s natural capacities in areas of species-specific existential tasks at which human beings (as rational, social, moral, and emotional agents) can most successfully excel. (Kristjánsson, 2020, p.1)
Kristjánsson (2020, p.35) goes beyond Aristotle in suggesting that a flourishing education must involve
Engagement with self-transcendent ideals and experiences of awe-filled enchantment
Moral elevation
A clear personal sense of meaning …
… but as mentioned above it does not have to be accompanied by subjective well-being and a person does not have to be fully virtuous to flourish.
This suggests to me that students need spiritual experiences in education in order to flourish. This seems to be supported by William Damon’s research (2008, cited by Kristjánsson on p.43) in which he found from surveying 1200 young people between the ages of 12 and 26, and interviewing a quarter of them in depth, that only 20% of them were fully purposeful. Approximately 25% were ‘dreamers’, about 30% were ‘dabblers’ and 25% were disengaged.
What can teachers do to support flourishing in education? Opinion on this is divided, with some thinking that teachers should become agents of social change, and others that this is not the job of teachers, and that instead they should be good role models. Can teachers do this without flourishing themselves? Do teachers have the necessary moral language and moral identity? Do teachers have meaning in their lives? Do they have a sense of purpose? Have they been adequately trained for this?
And what about a curriculum for flourishing? John White, 2011 (cited in Kristjánsson, p.32) thinks that we should tear up the curriculum and start again; we should not carve the curriculum up into discrete subjects but teach all subjects through themes, such as climate change. Kristjánsson’s view is not as radical as this, but he does think that flourishing should permeate the whole curriculum and influence every salient educational decision taken within the school. He also thinks that teachers should provide students with the space to have ‘peak experiences’ and expose them to the ideals of truth, beauty, and goodness. Students should be encouraged to keep an open mind and explore new ways of seeing (Kristjánsson, 2021).
This book was discussed by the Philosophy of Education Reading Network earlier this month. I don’t think I would have read it had it not been on their list, even though I fully agree that flourishing should be the overall aim of education. The book is very long and academic, and I wonder how many full-time working teachers would have the time to read it. Kristjánsson wants teachers to read it, as at the end of every chapter he has included a list of questions under the title ‘Food for thought for practitioners’. These questions are worth considering and discussing.
Our PhilofEd zoom meeting to discuss this book was introduced by Kenny Primrose who has recently completed his Masters in Character Education at the University of Birmingham with Kristján Kristjánsson as his tutor. Kenny posed three questions for the group:
To what extent does Kristjánsson’s theory/view of flourishing provide a helpful and normative ideal for educators, when compared to other governing aims of education?
How would an education system with flourishing as its core aim look different? (Chapter 2 includes radical proposals like White’s; does flourishing require a radically different approach politically, institutionally and pedagogically?)
A significant difference in K’s theory from other Aristotelian ideas is the addition of experiences of awe/transcendence, which seek to enchant a fairly flat idea of flourishing. To what extent is this a realistic and fair aim for educators, and what would this entail?
I liked Kenny’s questions. For me they focussed on the main concerns for teachers whilst at the same time being broad enough for those who had not had the time or inclination to read the book to be able to join in the discussion. And given that it transpired that not one member of our small group (about six of us if I remember correctly) had enjoyed the book, there was still plenty of discussion. I am glad I engaged with the book. I think the work that Kristjánsson is doing has to be important. He has appealed to colleagues and readers (2021) to help move flourishing discourse forward in order to make it enrich educational policy and practice. I would appeal to him to make his work more accessible to every day full-time teachers.
References
Kristjánsson, K. (2020). Flourishing as the Aim of Education: A Neo-Aristotelian View. London: Routledge
Professor Kristján Kristjánsson: Four Accounts of Flourishing as the Aim of Education (2021)
Damon, W. (2008). The path to purpose: How young people find their calling in life. New York: Free Press.
White, J. (2011). Exploring well-being in schools: A guide to making children’s lives more fulfilling. London: Routledge.
In preparation for this discussion, I listened to Mbembe talk about his book to Theory from the Margins, on You Tube. The text under the video on the You Tube site, provides a brief outline of Mbembe’s work and ideas, which I won’t repeat here.
Out of the Dark Night was first published in French in 2010, the year when most African countries celebrated 50 years of independence. It is a set of reflections on what happened to aspiration for self-determination in countries in Africa. Decolonization is the central theme. Mbembe says this is more profound than coming into independence as it has implications for our ways of viewing the world.
Mbembe goes on to say that we cannot talk about decolonization without saying something about the concept of colonization. Historically the expansion of colonialization had to do with the broader question of who does the earth belong to? This question is still with us. European powers decided that Earth belonged to them and carved out spheres of domination and influence, but Earth doesn’t belong to Europe. It belongs to all who inhabit it.
Colonial expansion was a planetary project, not only earthly, driven in large part by national states, private companies, and monopolies. It had to do with re-allocation of resources by those who had the largest technological advantage. Therefore, decolonization must be a planetary project; it cannot be focussed on just one region. Decolonization is a radical openness of and to the world. It has nothing to do with partitioning of the world but is a radical embrace of the world and all who inhabit it. We deny the fact that we humans all evolve with the biosphere, we depend on it and are defined by it; therefore, we owe each other a debt of responsibility and care. Colonialism is a disavowal of that care and responsibility.
Technological escalation has led to the emergence of a form of capitalism that today is computational. We are now in the age of the algorithm, and the escalation of this is threatening to turn us all into artefacts. It is important to keep in mind that colonialism relied on racial subsidies. Technologies of racialization are ever more insidious, ever more encompassing, as world becomes a huge data emporium. Tomorrow racialization will be generated through data.
Decolonization and de-racialization are not the concern of Africa only. They are also valid for Europe, the USA, Brazil, and other parts of the world. They are of concern because of the aggressive resurgence of white supremacy, the emergence of populism and nationalism, the weaponization of difference and identity, and symptoms of deep distrust of the world fostered by transnational forces which are capable of making the whole world inhospitable for many.
A key element in the ongoing history of colonialism is techno-molecular colonialism. The world is a vast field of data awaiting extraction. We have a different kind of colonialism ahead of us, one which is about the extraction and capture of data.
Decolonization is more than a slogan. It needs to attend to these shifts, particularly in relation to the Anthropocene and computational technologies. Decolonization has to be a real movement.
There was more in this talk than I have written about here and the questions asked at the end were also interesting.
The Philosophy of Education Reading Network discussion, focussed on more academic aspects of the book and its implications for education. The discussion was led by Rowena Azada- Palacios who asked us to consider the following questions:
Source of Image: Rowena Azada-Palacios powerpoint presentation
These were not easy questions to answers and the discussion itself was hesitant. I think this may have been for fear of offending or ‘treading on toes’. Within the group we had participants who had been subject to colonialism in their own life history, participants who had been subject to oppression in other forms and in countries other than Africa, and yet other participants who were raised by parents and grandparents who were colonizers. I, for example, come from a background closely associated with the British Raj.
In relation to the implications for education, one of the participants mentioned that she finds it very difficult to get her students to engage with the topics of colonialism and racism. It seems to me that this is a topic that requires well-established mutual trust for fruitful discussion, but Mbembe’s ideas and thinking offer an open approach which may be helpful.
References
Mbembe, A. (2021). Out of the Dark Night. Essays on Decolonization. Columbia University Press.
I was moved by Martin Buber’s book ‘I and Thou’, which was read and discussed by the Philosophy of Education Reading Network in August 2021, so I was looking forward to reading more by Buber. The Knowledge of Man was the choice of the reading network for discussion in June this year (2022) and I managed to secure a second-hand copy of the book, in very good condition, from Abe Books, my go to site for books to be read with this group. I prefer to have a hard copy than read these books online or on Kindle. So, I was prepared and enthused at the thought of discussing this book, but life and personal circumstances got in the way. Not only was I not able to read much of the book, but, due to many distractions, what little time I did have to devote to the book ended up as largely fruitless. Ultimately, I was only able to skim read a couple of chapters, in this distracted state, and I was not able to attend the zoom meeting when the book was discussed. The time was just not right for me to engage with this book.
But maybe it wasn’t only my personal circumstances that led to my failure to get to grips with this book. Whenever I find a book difficult, I hunt around for secondary sources, to learn from people who have appeared to understand the work, before launching into it myself. This time this did not yield much fruit. Unlike Buber’s ‘I and Thou’ which has been written about and discussed by many, many others (there are countless secondary sources on the web), I could find scarcely any secondary sources for The Knowledge of Man. Perhaps I was looking in the wrong place, or perhaps others, like me, have also found the book challenging.
The Knowledge of Man consists of six essays, plus an introductory essay by Maurice Friedman, and an Appendix – Dialogue between Martin Buber and Carl R. Rogers.
The six essays are:
Distance and Relation
Elements of the Interhuman
What Is Common to All
The Word That is Spoken
Guilt and Guilt Feelings
Man and His Image-Work
Each essay is quite short; between 20 and 30 pages long, so this is not a long book. I was able to spend a bit of time on the first two chapters and hope to return to the rest of the book at another time.
Distance and Relation
In this essay Buber considers the tension between distance and relation. On page 60, he writes:
‘.. the principle of human life is not simple but twofold, being built up in a twofold movement which is of such kind that the one movement is the presupposition of the other. I propose to call the first movement ‘the primal setting at a distance’ and the second ‘entering into relation’. That the first movement is the presupposition of the other is plain from the fact that one can enter into relation only with being which has been set at a distance, more precisely, has become an independent opposite. And it is only for man that an independent opposite exists.’
It makes sense to me that relation depends on and is compatible with distance. Relation and distance are necessary for one another. People in successful marriages know this, as do parents of growing children. As is written in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ‘… without the form of otherness there can be no confirmation of self insofar as the confirmation of the I is always mediated by the other who confirms me, both at a distance and in relation, or rather in the distance that is relation and the relation that is difference.’
My understanding from this chapter is that I-Thou relation is only possible if we recognise distance as integral to relation.
‘Man, as man, sets man at a distance and makes him independent; he lets the life of men like himself go on round about him, and so he, and he alone, is able to enter into relation, in his own individual status, with those like himself. The basis of man’s life with man is twofold, and it is one – the wish of every man to be confirmed as what he is, even as what he can become, by men; and the innate capacity in man to confirm his fellow men in this way.’ (p.67, 68)
‘Genuine conversation, and therefore every actual fulfilment of relation between men, means acceptance of otherness. When two men inform one another of their basically different views about an object, each aiming to convince the other of the rightness of his own way of looking at the matter, everything depends so far as human life is concerned on whether each thinks of the other as the one he is, whether each, that is, with all his desire to influence the other, nevertheless unreservedly accepts and confirms him in his being this man and in his being made in this particular way. The strictness and depth of human individuation, the elemental otherness of the other, is then not merely noted as the necessary starting point, but is affirmed from the one being to the other. The desire to influence the other then does not mean the effort to change the other, to inject one’s own ‘rightness’ into him; but it means the effort to let that which is recognized as right, as just, as true (and for that very reason must also be established there, in the substance of the other) through one’s influence take seed and grow in the form suited to individuation. Opposed to this effort is the lust to make use of men by which the manipulator of ‘propaganda’ and ‘suggestion’ is possessed, in his relation to men remaining as in a relation to things, to things, moreover, with which he will never enter into relation, which he is indeed eager to rob of their distance and independence.’ (p.69)
Elements of the Interhuman
In this essay, Buber continues to develop his ideas about how we communicate and develop I-Thou relationships, where we perceive the ‘other’ in his wholeness and are fully aware of him.
‘But what does it mean to be ‘aware’ of a man in the exact sense in which I use the word? To be aware of a thing or a being means, in quite general terms, to experience it as a whole and yet at the same time without reduction or abstraction, in all its concreteness…Such an awareness is impossible, however, if and so long as the other is the separated object of my contemplation or even observation…. [Such an awareness] is only possible when I step into an elemental relation with the other, that is, when he becomes present to me….An effort is being made today radically to destroy the mystery between man and man. The personal life, the ever near mystery, once the source of the stillest enthusiasm, is leveled down.’ (p. 80-81)
Buber distinguishes this interhuman communication between men from social communication within a group. Communication within groups does not necessarily involve existential relation between one man and another. Interhuman relations go well beyond casual encounters.
Buber writes that two things can prevent men from communicating on this level; ‘the invasion of seeming and the inadequacy of perception.’ (p.82) Genuine dialogue cannot be arranged beforehand; it cannot be achieved when thinking about the impression made on the other. Genuine dialogue is constituted by the authenticity of being. In the interhuman realm, men communicate with one another as they are, and accept one another as they are.
Not only ‘seeming’ and the ‘inadequacy of perception’ prevent genuine dialogue. It is also impeded by trying to impose opinions on another. This is the role of propaganda, but education seeks to affect another’s views and release potential through ‘existential communication between someone that is in actual being and someone that is in a process of becoming’. (p.82) Unlike the propagandist, the educator is interested in individuals. The educator doesn’t impose but unfolds. These two approaches to communication, that of the propagandist and that of the educator are present in all of us to a greater or lesser degree.
‘Man exists anthropologically not in his isolation, but in the completeness of the relation between man and man; what humanity is can be properly grasped only in vital reciprocity. For the proper existence of the interhuman it is necessary …. that the semblance not intervene to spoil the relation of personal being to personal being. It is further necessary …. that each one means and makes present the other in his personal being. That neither should wish to impose himself on the other is the third basic presupposition of the interhuman. These presuppositions do not include the demand that one should influence the other in his unfolding; this is, however, an element that is suited to lead to a higher stage of the interhuman.’ (p.84)
I have included a number of long quotes from The Knowledge of Man in this post. Buber is a beautiful writer. His writing speaks for itself.
As I mentioned above, I was not able to attend the Philosophy of Education Reading Network’s zoom meeting, but the session was introduced by Dr Sam Rocha, Associate Professor of Philosophy of Education at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, who posed the following ideas and questions for the group to think about.
A concern for the ideas at stake in the following questions indicate we can read Buber’s The Knowledge of Man as an explicit philosophy of education. In other words, insofar as (1) appearance, mind, and life, (2) knowledge, and (3) philosophical anthropology are at stake, we do not need to translate the text indirectly into philosophy of education so much as to understand it as directly as possible.
What are the phenomenological, psychological (psychoanalysis included), and pastoral dimensions of this text?
What kind of knowledge is Buber proposing and seeking?
What kind of anthropology does Buber present, i.e., what does he mean by ‘man’ or what is his notion of the human person?
References
Martin Buber (1965) The Knowledge of Man. Selected Essays. Harper Torchbooks. Harper & Row.
This is an important idea, developed by author Miranda Fricker, Reader in Philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London. It is something many of us will have experienced, i.e., we have been wronged specifically in our capacity as knower.
This happens all the time to my husband who has been a quadriplegic for 57 years and as such uses a wheelchair. Despite this, he had a successful academic career. However, this did not and does not prevent many people from assuming that being in a wheelchair equates to lack of intelligence, or the capacity to speak knowledgeably. For example, he often experiences people directing answers to his questions to me over the top of his head. According to Miranda Fricker, this is an example of ‘testimonial injustice’.
‘Testimonial injustice occurs when prejudice causes a hearer to give a deflated level of credibility to a speaker’s word.’ (p.1).
‘Epistemic Injustice. Power and the Ethics of Knowing’, was the book discussed by the Philosophy of Education Reading Network last month. The discussion was introduced by Dr Alison MacKenzie@QUBelfast. I have to admit that I didn’t read the book. Perhaps it was simply the wrong time for me to try. At the time I just didn’t have the energy or motivation to engage with the academic style of writing, but I did look for secondary sources (see list below) and found a couple of videos and a few articles which helped and meant that I did feel that I could still attend the reading network zoom call.
Much of the discussion in the online meeting focussed on testimonial injustice. Most people had examples from personal experience that they could recount. Less time was spent ‘hermeneutic injustice’ which is the second form of injustice that Fricker writes about.
‘Hermeneutic injustice occurs at a prior stage, when a gap in collective interpretive resources puts someone at an unfair disadvantage when it comes to making sense of their social experiences.’ (p.1)
‘An example of the first [testimonial injustice] might be that the police do not believe you because you are black; an example of the second (hermeneutic injustice) might be that you suffer sexual harassment in a culture that still lacks that critical concept.‘ (p.1)
Despite not having read the book, I enjoyed the zoom call and left it rather wishing I had read the book. I think if I had persevered, I probably would have got a lot from it. Dr Alison MacKenzie raised these questions for us to discuss:
What are the merits of Fricker’s work? And does it speak to your own experiences of either testimonial or hermeneutical injustice?
What are we to make of Fricker’s claim that Joe (Enduring Love) merely experiences incidental hermeneutic injustice when the police fail to take his claims seriously that he’s being stalked (p.158)
Relatedly, do you find anything problematic in the claim that a person who experiences a medical condition about which little is known merely experiences ‘circumstantial epistemic bad luck’? (152)
Could Fricker be accused of structural gaslighting because of her failure to engage with the work of black feminist philosophers? (This is the argument of Nora Berenstain, 2020, Hypatia, 35/4)
As ever, the reading network group went its own way and didn’t directly address the speaker’s questions, but the questions are always useful for future reference.
And also, despite not having read the book, I wanted to mark here the idea of Epistemic Injustice, which once you know about it, you can see all round you, not least in yourself, or at least that is my experience.
The next meeting of the Philosophy of Education Reading Network will be on June 21st, when the group will discuss Martin Buber’s The Knowledge of Man. The book will be introduced by Prof Sam Rocha. This is already proving to be an even more challenging read, but since it consists of selected essays, I hope to have read at least some of them before the meeting.
The Philosophy of Education Reading Network is an open group which anyone can attend. Details of how to join the zoom call are usually posted on Twitter a few days ahead of the meeting. See @PhilofEd
Dancing in the Dark – A Survivor’s Guide to the University is the next book to be discussed on April 19th by the Philosophy of Education Reading Network. This is a delightful, curious, and thought-provoking tiny book which defies attempts to pigeon-hole it into a category and particularly not into an academic category, despite reference to the University in the title.
There are many things to like about this book. It really is tiny, roughly 10 x 14.5 cm and about 50 pages in length, but there is no sense that this has been for cost-saving purposes, for example by cramming a lot into a limited number of pages. The font is a good size, there is plenty of white space and there are many pages of intriguing artwork by artist and dream whisperer Geoffrey Baines. In short it is a lovely object in it’s own right, which you can easily slip into a pocket or bag.
And before starting to discuss the content of the book, I should also mention that it is beautifully sold by Golden Hare Books. It came with a bookmark and a message on a postcard from the sales team. The personal touch made receiving the book such a pleasure.
So, what is this book about and who is it for? The authors, Anne Pirrie, Nini Fang and Elizabeth O’Brien say that it is for anyone working or studying in a university who feels they are fumbling around in the dark, but I think it doesn’t have to be confined to this sector. This book is for anyone who is uncomfortable with uncertainty, or not knowing; anyone who feels ‘locked down’ by their and others’ expectations, anyone who questions whether they are good enough for whatever it is they are doing; anyone who equates being ‘in the dark’ with failure.
The authors say that they ‘challenge the binary between shadows and light – and in respect of form – between lightweight and gravitas.’ ‘Our aim’, they say, ‘is to reinstate the shadows as a place of possibility and to reassure the reader that the entertainment of doubt is the heart of the educational project’. In other words, we can embrace being ‘in the dark’, embrace uncertainty and ambiguity, embrace not knowing; and more than this we can be open to doubt, be curious, and learn to ‘dance in the dark’.
What I particularly like about this book is that the authors have created a sense of ‘dancing in the dark’ in the way they have written and presented their ideas. Despite the fact that they reference philosophers, sociologists, psychoanalysts, poets, and artists, they do not present this as an academic text. True to their words, they have challenged the binary between lightweight and gravitas, they have explored the interplay between shadows and light and resisted being governed by ‘linear understanding of learning processes’. They share their ideas with us through conversation and narrative, drawing on their personal experience, and resisting closing circles of inquiry. They do not offer solutions or practical assistance but invite us to acknowledge the essential unknowability of the ‘Other’ and leave the circle incomplete.
Reference:
Pirrie, A., Fang, N. and O’Brien, E. (2021). Dancing in the Dark. A Survivor’s Guide to the University. Tilosophy Press.
What is Philosophy? is the question that Gilles Deleuze (French Philosopher, 1925-1995) and Felix Guattari (French psychoanalyst, 1930-1992) explored in the last book they collaborated on and published in 1991. Of their collaboration Deleuze wrote. “We do not work together, we work between the two…. We don’t work, we negotiate. We were never in the same rhythm, we were always out of step.” (I have selected this quote because it resonates with my experience of working collaboratively, so I just want to mark it here).
This is also the book that has been selected by the Philosophy of Education Reading Network for discussion online on March 15th
‘What is Philosophy?’ is an inquiry into the nature of philosophy itself, i.e., metaphilosophy. The question is a metaphysical question.
I am not completely unfamiliar with the work of Deleuze and Guattari. Between 2014 and 2016 I spent quite a bit of time exploring some of the ideas they discussed in A Thousand Plateaus – principally The Rhizome (see page on Rhizomatic Learning on this blog), but also Lines of Flight; Multiplicities, Wolves, Tribes and Pacts; Smooth and Striated Space; and Nomadism. However, there was a lot in A Thousand Plateaus that I never got to grips with. My experience of this book is similar.
Deleuze and Guattari’s language is abstract and difficult to understand. Yes, it is often imaginative and sometimes poetic, but that hasn’t made it any easier to read.
They start the book by writing:
“The question what is philosophy? can perhaps be posed only late in life, with the arrival of old age and the time for speaking concretely…….It is a question posed in a moment of quiet restlessness, at midnight, when there is no longer anything to ask.”(p.1). It is also a question that is often posed as an icebreaker on the short adult education philosophy courses that I attend and, I realise now, the answers provided by the participants (including myself) are exactly what Deleuze and Guattari say philosophy is not. Philosophy is not, argue Deleuze and Guattari, contemplation, reflection, or communication.
In this book Deleuze and Guattari are interested in how philosophy is distinct from other disciplines, in particular how it is distinct from the sciences and arts. What are the similarities and differences? A novelist generates stories, and a scientist generates empirical knowledge about the world, but a philosopher generates concepts. The philosopher is the friend or lover of wisdom, and the philosopher ‘is the concept’s friend; he is potentiality of the concept.’ (p.5). Philosophy is the creation of concepts.
Philosophers seek to define philosophy, but also to determine the boundaries without which there would be chaos. Deleuze and Guattari try to avoid chaos.
In what follows I am not going to discuss the whole book, but just the first two chapters, ‘The Introduction: The Question Then ….’ and Chapter 1, ‘What is a Concept’. I have found a very useful secondary source which has helped to explain these chapters (see Varsity Bookwork playlist on YouTube), which I am going to draw on heavily 🙂
Philosophy is not contemplation
In seeking to define what is philosophy, Deleuze and Guattari don’t just fill the space, but determine the boundaries (define it) by saying what philosophy is not.
‘It is not contemplation, for contemplations are things themselves as seen in the creation of their specific concepts.’ (p. 6)
Contemplation has always been considered important by philosophers, as far back as the Greek philosophers. Plato said that Ideas must be contemplated. For Deleuze and Guattari the question is, ‘how can you contemplate an Idea, if you don’t know what the Idea is?’ Asking what is the Idea is a conceptual and philosophical question, which has to be asked first before we can contemplate the Idea. So philosophy and concepts come before contemplation. We need concepts first before we can contemplate them. Contemplation considers the concepts that philosophy generates.
Philosophy is not reflection
Philosophy is not reflection, write Deleuze and Guattari (p.6),
‘… because no one needs philosophy to reflect on anything. It is thought that philosophy is being given a great deal by being turned into the art of reflection, but actually it loses everything. Mathematicians, as mathematicians, have never waited for philosophers before reflecting on mathematics, nor artists before reflecting on painting or music. So long as their reflection belongs to their respective creation, it is a bad joke to say that this makes them philosophers.’ (p.6).
On page 122 of his book, Negotiations (1997), Deleuze writes:
‘In barren times philosophy retreats to reflecting “on” things. If it’s not itself creating anything, what can it do but reflect on something? So it reflects on eternal or historical things, but can itself no longer make any move. Philosophers Aren’t Reflective, but Creative. What we should in fact do, is stop allowing philosophers to reflect “on” things. The philosopher creates, he doesn’t reflect.’
Neither reflection nor contemplation are creative activities, but reflection and contemplation are different, because contemplation contemplates concepts, but reflection does not involve thinking about concepts. Reflection is a mode of thinking distinct from contemplation. It doesn’t need concepts. Contemplation needs concepts.
Philosophy is not communication
Deleuze and Guattari also write that philosophy is not communication, because communication ‘only works under the sway of opinions in order to create “consensus” and not concepts. The idea of a Western democratic conversation between friends has never produced a single concept.’ (p.6).
Thus, the aims of philosophy and communication differ. Philosophy aims to create concepts; communication aims to generate consensus (agreement between people).
Deleuze and Guattari do not deny that communication plays an integral role in philosophy. It is part of philosophy but is not itself philosophy. No matter how many people share an opinion it doesn’t make it true. For Deleuze and Guattari, philosophy is about getting us to see where disagreements are; this is where creativity can thrive and a new concept can emerge.
In an interview with Deleuze conducted in 1990 (so before the publication of ‘What is Philosophy’), Deleuze said ‘We’ve got to hijack speech. Creating has always been something different from communicating.’
For Delueze and Guattari, philosophy is a necessarily disruptive act which challenges the status quo; creativity is synonymous with disruption, and philosophy is a creative act.
This is as far as I am going to go in this post. There is a lot more. I have barely scratched the surface. As it says on the back cover of my copy of the book:
‘The first part of the book [ as well as the concept, also] explores … the ‘plane of immanence’ in which [the concept] can be born and the ‘conceptual personae’ which activate it. It concludes with a brilliant account of philosophy’s relation to social and economic development, from ancient Greece to the modern capitalist state. Part two considers other forms of thought: science, art, literature and music.’
However, just this short section has implications for educators. Deleuze and Guattari have argued that philosophy is distinct from the sciences and the arts, describing disciplines such as the human sciences and sociology, epistemology, linguistics, psychoanalysis, logical analysis, computer science, marketing, design and advertising as ‘increasingly insolent and calamitous rivals that Plato himself would never have imagined in his most comic moments’. (p.10).
Saying clearly what philosophy is not, helps to make the case for Philosophy as a unique discipline, a discipline much needed in education today.
Update 15-03-22
Dr Kay Sidebottom who will introduce the discussion about this book, has now posted three questions for us to consider:
The second book of 2022 to be selected for discussion by the Philosophy of Education Reading Network is Martha Nussbaum’s collection of Essays on Philosophy and Literature , ‘Love’s Knowledge’.
The group is organising itself differently this month. The book was selected in the same way as I have described before, although this time we only voted for this month’s book, not for the next 3 months.
Given that Martha Nussbaum’s book was thought to be too long to read and discuss in one meeting, and that it is composed of a series of independent essays, we were then asked (via Twitter) to let the organisers, Elizabeth O’Brien and Vicky Jamieson, know which chapters we would like to read and discuss.
Then came the surprise for those of us who had suggested chapters.
Just for something different, since the chapters stand alone together, how about each of us comes up with a question/provocation for one chapter we’ve suggested?
And that is how I ended up with Chapter 9 – Reading for Life – to come up with a question/provocation for, the chapter on which this post is based.
Like some of the other authors we have discussed in the PhilofEd group, Martha Nussbaum has been on my radar for a number of years, but I haven’t read anything by her until now. First impression: extremely dry and difficult to read. Not particularly enjoyable for me, but at this stage I really know very little about her work as a whole, so I may, in the long term, change my mind. The irony is that Chapter 9, Reading for Life, is about the relationship between book and reader, and how a book should be the reader’s closest friend, with whom the reader has an intimate and loving relationship. So far, I have not developed an intimate and loving relationship with this book!
Nussbaum asks the questions: What is happening to readers as they read? Are people changed by what they read? If people are changed by what they read, then there are ethical and moral implications for both writer and reader, and of course, for educator.
In this chapter, Nussbaum considers the disdain with which ethical criticism of literature has been held over the years. It is often thought to be dogmatic, simplistic, emotive and ‘irretrievably subjective’. This quote below, which I find helpful in explaining why ethical criticism is thought by some to be important, does not come from Nussbaum, but from an article by Marshall Gregory (1998), ‘Ethical Criticism: What it is and Why it Matters’.
Most of us cannot evade the deep intuition that identifying with characters in stories can exert a powerful influence on the quality and content of our own lives. To analyze how fictions exert this influence and to assess its effects is ethical criticism’s job. What literary criticism needs in particular is a theoretical basis for inquiries into and judgments about the potential ethical effects of literature and narrative art in general. We need theoretical grounding because practical ethical criticism goes on all the time, often conducted in a most helter-skelter, contradictory, and intellectually incoherent way. Some contemporary critics may want to insist that ethical criticism is irrelevant, but ethical criticism’s century-long rejection in the academy is matched in scope only by the ceaseless talk about ethical issues that goes on inside and outside of the academy. The persistence of these issues as foci of constant and passionate controversy gives the lie to ethical criticism’s irrelevance. We may not always know how to live with it but we certainly cannot live without it. Ethical criticism cannot be evaded by epistemological relativism, by emotivism, or by the view of art as “mere entertainment,” for none of these views engages the overwhelming evidence both in literature and in life that imitations of fictional models comprise an important source of conduct for most of us much of the time. The aims of ethical criticism are to lead readers to a better and clearer understanding of certain issues: that literary effects are always potential, never determined; that moral and ethical criteria are unavoidable in both understanding and evaluating narratives; and that almost all critical approaches rest to some extent on ethical presuppositions that may be silent but that are always present………….
Nussbaum discusses ethical criticism through the work of Wayne Booth, in particular his book, ‘The Company We Keep: An Ethics of Fiction (1988), in which he makes a ‘compelling case for the coherence and importance of ethical criticism’. For Booth and Nussbaum, critical ethical discourse is essential to a just and rational society. For Booth, ethical criticism should be more than questioning what this work tells me about my moral duty. We should be able to ask certain questions of the text, such as, What relationship does my engagement with it have to my general aim to live well? Ethical criticism should look at the work as a whole and not take characters or particular sentences out of context. It does not have a single dogmatic theory of what literature should be or do, but it can take a stand against certain things such as sadism, racism, and sexism. It does not need to be preachy or formally insensitive, and it is not about the consequences of reading, but about what becomes of readers as they read.
How are our desires and thoughts shaped as we read? Booth suggests that some texts (he uses the example, Peter Benchley’s Jaws) narrow the range of our conceptions and sentiments, but others, such as Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Dickens, Tolstoy, enable readers ‘to live during these moments a richer and fuller life than they could manage on their own’ (p.223). They also enable readers to change their minds and break down long-term entrenched, but possibly misinformed, views on life.
But what about Philosophy and Literature? Is the friendship we have with a novel different to the friendship promised by a philosophical treatise? Nussbaum suggests that ‘Novels … as a form of writing, have a distinctive, and a controversial ethical content.’ (p.237). We succumb trustingly to novels, but ‘philosophical texts, on the whole, do not invite the reader to fall in love’. (p.237). Nussbaum seems to suggest that philosophical criticism could learn from ethical literary criticism and become ‘less abstract and schematic, more respectful of the claims of the motions and imagination, [and] more tentative and improvisatory.’ (p.239). It could, like literature, appeal more for the emotional engagement of the reader.
Richard Eldridge in his review of Reading for Life explains Nussbaum’s view as follows:
‘Once we see human lives as courageous or cowardly, creative or routine, loving or narcissistic responses to such constraints and forces, then the treatise, the favored form of philosophical expression in modernity, immediately becomes less attractive as a vehicle of human understanding of human possibilities. Instead, it will be “texts that narrate the experiences of beings committed to value” (149), novels and perhaps related historical and biographical works of sustained narration, that will have the most to show us about how we might best live in response to our constraints and to the incommensurability of goods’. (Eldridge, p.190)
And…
‘It is through our emotional reactions – aversion, fearfulness, sympathy, grief, awe, love, reverence, or boredom as may be – to narratives that we learn the best possibilities of human life and the best paths toward them that various contexts make available’. (Eldridge, p.191)
Iris Murdoch doesn’t fully agree with Nussbaum. In “Philosophy and Literature” in Men of Ideas (ed. Bryan Magee), she says that she sees “no general role of philosophy in literature” (p.242). She draws the following distinctions between literature and philosophy: literature does many things, philosophy does one thing (has one aim); literature is natural, philosophy is counter-natural; literature arouses emotion, philosophy tries to eliminate emotional appeal; literature is indirect, philosophy is direct; literature has no problem to solve, philosophy seeks to solve a few technical and abstract problems; literature is concerned with aesthetic form, philosophy does not aim at formal perfection. (Cited in Holland, 1998).
There is, of course, much more in this chapter that could be discussed. Richard Eldridge raises some interesting points in his review of this essay, which Martha Nussbaum thought worthy enough to respond to. In seeking to respond to the request from the Philosophy of Education Reading Network organisers, I have focussed not on how we read, for example on whether we can distinguish Booth’s three voices, the narrator (the character who tells the story); the implied author (the sense of life or the outlook that reveals itself in the structure of the text taken as a whole); and the writer (the real-life person, with all her or his lapses of attention, trivial daily pursuits, and so forth) (Nussbaum, p.233). Instead, I have focussed on the value of ethical literary criticism and the different affordances of literature and philosophy. So, the question I would like to raise for the Philosophy of Education Reading Network, which I hope is sufficiently provocative to promote discussion is:
Do we agree with Martha Nussbaum that ethical literary criticism gives a fuller appreciation of Reading for Life than philosophical criticism, and if so, why?
Further questions raised by members of the PhilofEd Reading Network in relation to other chapters are below.
Chapter 5
Moral communication, moral imagination, and love are tied to the singularity of others. To what extent does an attention to singularity complicate and/or complement pedagogical approaches otherwise committed to social transformation/change?
Chapter 11
Assuming that education should help students better know themselves, what role(s) can literature and/or philosophy play in this process? What conceptions of the emotions and the intellect might hamper/help in this regard?
Chapter 12
Reading Nussbaum’s reading of Beckett (and bearing in mind that Beckett began to publish his literary works in 1930s) what are your thoughts on relation, life, and education?
Whilst reading and writing about Martha Nussbaum’s ‘Reading for Life’, I have had an enjoyable email exchange with my friend (and past research colleague) Roy Williams, who joined the Philosophy of Education Reading Network last month for the first time. Roy has written his own response to this chapter, and to Nussbaum’s book more generally, on his wiki. It makes for fascinating reading. See http://resonancesofknowledge.pbworks.com/w/page/147886971/Reading%20-%20in%20and%20out%20of%20time
References/Bibliography
Martha Nussbaum (1990) Love’s Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature. New York: Oxford University Press.
Wayne Booth (1989) The Company We Keep. An Ethics of Fiction. University of California Press
Nussbaum, M. C. (1992). Reply to Richard Eldridge. Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics, 2(1), 198–207. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/20163514
Iris Murdoch, “Philosophy and Literature,” in Men of Ideas ed. Bryan Magee (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982) p. 230.
“Line making of one sort or another is as old as speech. For as long as people have been talking to one another, they have surely also been gesturing with their hands, and of these gestures a proportion will have left traces on surfaces of various kinds.” (Ingold, 2016, p.153)
The first book of the year to be discussed by the Philosophy of Education Reading Network was Tim Ingold’s Lines. A Brief History. When I first opened the book, I was delighted and intrigued. The book, as you might expect, includes many illustrations of line drawings, including Richard Long’s well known work ‘A Line Made by Walking’, but also a number of beautiful line drawings from different cultures, such as the kolam designs from Tamil Nadu, South India. This reminded me of my own photos of kolam designs that I took when visiting Kanchipurum in 2012.
I did at this point wonder what this book might have to do with education, since there is no reference to education in the index, but I speculated that it might have something to do with linear thinking, which it does, implicitly, but not explicitly, and this is not the main theme of the book.
So, at the beginning of January, I started reading the book with great enthusiasm, only to find it very hard work. This is not a bedtime reading book. I had to devote several hours to it, and made many notes, but even then, although I found it interesting, I just couldn’t seem to pull my thoughts about it together. It took the Philosophy of Education Reading Network zoom meeting (which is always held on the third Tuesday of the month) to begin to untangle my muddled lines of thought, although I suspect that the book is one of those that requires several readings to fully absorb.
Ingold starts the book with the question: ‘What do walking, weaving, observing, singing, storytelling, drawing and writing have in common?’ and answers it by saying that they all proceed along lines of one kind or another. ‘It takes only a moment’s reflection’, he writes, ‘to recognize that lines are everywhere. As walking, talking and gesticulating creatures, human beings generate lines wherever they go. It is not just that line-making is as ubiquitous as the use of the voice, hands and feet – respectively in speaking, gesturing and moving around – but rather that it subsumes all these aspects of everyday human activity and, in so doing, brings them together into a single field of inquiry’. (Ingold, 2016, p.1)
Chapter by chapter Ingold explores different types of lines. In the first chapter he explores the relationship between language, music and notation, the distinction between speech and song, the script and the score and the origins of musical notation. I found this a difficult chapter to follow, but Ingold uses eye-catching headings such as ‘How the Page Lost its Voice’, and ‘The Word Nailed Down by Print’, which help to capture the imagination and interest.
Through the following chapters Ingold develops his taxonomy of lines. There are:
Threads, filaments, such as a ball of wool, violin strings, whiskers, rhizomes, Threads have surfaces but are not drawn on surfaces. The making of threads is a human speciality.
Traces, such as two-dimensional drawings and surface decoration. A trace is any enduring mark left in or on a solid surface by a continuous movement, A trace can be additive (chalk on a blackboard, snail slime) or reductive (scratched into the surface, e.g., footprints, made with or without tools). Interestingly Richard Long’s line made by walking is neither additive nor reductive.
Cuts, cracks, and creases, made by rupture in a surface
Ghostly lines, e.g., survey lines, lines of longitude, latitude, line of the equator, and imaginary lines which form the constellations in the night sky.
In writing, knitting, embroidery and lacework, threads may be transformed into traces, and traces into threads. ‘It is through the transformation of threads into traces (as in knotting, weaving, brocade and text) that surfaces are brought into being. It is through the transformation of traces into threads (as in mazes and loop designs) that surfaces are dissolved’. (Ingold, 2016, p.54)
There are also: Trails and routes and lines on cartographic maps, Storylines and Plots, and Genealogical Lines, and Ingold discusses the development of drawing, writing, calligraphy, printing and engraving in relation to lines.
Lines, Ingold tells us, can be active and dynamic flourishes, going where they will for movements sake, having no beginning or end. These lines take us on a journey. These are wayfaring lines, winding, irregular, and entangled.
Or lines can go from point to point. These lines are in a hurry. The line that connects adjacent points is static.
Over history the line has been shorn of movement. It is no longer a trace of a continuous gesture but fragmented into points. Wayfaring has been replaced by destination-oriented transport. Transport lines are straight and regular and intersect only at nodal points of power. Transport lines restrict movement and divide and cut the occupied surface into territorial blocks (Ingold, 2016, p.85).
Tim Ingold argues that over time the line has become increasingly linearized, fragmented and straight. The wayfaring line, which he believes to be the most fundamental mode by which living beings, both human and non-human inhabit the earth, is no longer valued. Instead, in modern times, straight lines are ubiquitous. ‘The inhabitant is one who participates from within in the very process of the world’s continual coming into being, and who, in laying a trail of life, contributes to its weave and texture.’ (Ingold, 2016, p.83)
Thinking about lines is to think about the world in terms of processes – of becoming rather than being.
So, what has all this to do with education?
Vicky Jamieson, who led the discussion in the Philosophy of Education Reading Network’s January zoom call, raised three questions for us to consider.
Is there space in education to teach children to attend, and to learn from what they observe and experience, and embrace the unfinished and incompleteness? And how might we as educators bring education out of the ordinary?
Ingold casts doubt over the contemporary way of life – life which often demands linearity in the pursuit of certainty, logic, and rigour. Chapter 6 explores the implications of straight lines: straight lines have a clear sense of direction (p.167). Education has just experienced a rupture in its ‘straight line’. How might this fragmentation and rupturing of the line be a passage for the future of education?
Ingold draws a distinction between the traveller and the wayfarer. He elevates the path of the wayfarer over that of the traveller. For Ingold, wayfaring is where life is lived where knowledge is forged along the way. As Ingold writes, ‘[i]ndeed the wayfarer or seafarer has no final destination, for wherever he is, and so long as life goes on, there is somewhere further he can go’ (p.76). How might we, as educators, cultivate wayfarers?
These questions led to a fruitful discussion on what the implications of thinking about education as an open journey along an active and dynamic wayfaring line might be, as opposed to moving along a dotted line, from point to point. The group discussed whether learners can make their own lines, threads, and traces, and whether they can cope with the complexity of tangled and interconnected lines.
Whilst Ingold does not discuss education in his book ‘Lines. A Brief History’, he does briefly in this short video (10 mins).
Here he tells us that educators should lead novices out of their fixed positions and expose them to the world. We should learn to attend and respond to the things around us and become more attuned to the world around us, just as a skilled hunter is attuned to the properties of the environment. Not only is the world waiting for us to attend to it, but we should also be waiting for the world. We must push out into the unknown, being both prepared and unprepared. Human life is lived in this tension between mastery and the unknown, and between patience/waiting and responding to world as it is.
At the end of his book, Tim Ingold writes: ‘What matters is not the final destination, but all the interesting things that occur along the way’ (Ingold, 2016, p.174). If just this one sentence was embraced by educators, it would be a challenge to our current straight and dotted line approach to education.
And the PhilofEd discussion was summed up on Twitter with the following thoughts:
‘Tonight’s meeting closed with two different, possible, difficult, beautiful entreaties – to be wayfarers, not knowing things together, and to write and spend time beginning with “I wonder…’
Reference
Ingold, T. (2016). Lines. A Brief History. Routledge
It has actually been more than a year since I joined this reading network, so it’s maybe time to take stock and reflect on my experience. Here is a list of the books and authors that the group has read. Most (but not all) the links are to my blog posts about my reading. Further details can also be found on the Philosophy of Education Reading Network website.
Month
Author
Book
Comment
August 2020
Iris Murdoch
The Sovereignty of Good
I found out about the group just before their first meeting, so didn’t have time to read the book, although I did find information about the work online.
I knew of Mary Midgley as she wrote a review of Iain McGilchrist’s book, The Master and His Emissary. I have been thinking about McGilchrist’s work for more than 10 years, but his books are too long to recommend to this group!
In April the theme of the Reading Network was Decolonising Education, with a particular focus on Higher Education. The group read a selection of papers from a special edition of Cultural Studies journal (2007 – Vol 21, Issue 2-3)
I did not read these papers and took a break in April.
This book was already on my bookshelf. It was required reading for a Masters module in 1994/5. I enjoyed it and could relate to it more this second time of reading. Age does have some advantages!
This is the only book in the list that has irritated me 🙂
The Philosophy of Education Reading Network meets once a month, on the third Tuesday of the month on Zoom. Details of the zoom call are posted on their website and also on Twitter @PhilofEd. It was set up by two philosophy PhD candidates, Elizabeth O’Brien and Victoria Jamieson. How they have time to organise this and do their PhDs and their jobs, and live their lives, I really don’t know. I couldn’t even have contemplated taking this on, on top of everything else, but as one of the group members (Winnie O’Connell-Wong) has said, engagement with this group means that you end up reading books you would never have come across or got round to reading otherwise.
Every book that I have read so far because of @PhilofEd is not what I would have chosen to read myself, but I have been repeatedly surprised by how good the selection has been so far.
I really appreciate the democratic approach to the organisation of the group. The group is open to anyone who wants to join. If you do join you are not required to be on video or to speak. There is no hierarchy of group members. Each month a speaker is invited (either a group member or someone with expertise related to the text) to introduce the book and raise questions for the group to consider. If you go to the PhilofEd website and click on the images of books read, most of the time this will bring up the list of questions raised for the book. The introduction to the book on Zoom usually takes about 10 to 15 minutes. The group can then discuss those questions or discuss anything else that is of interest. If you want to speak you simply unmute yourself and start to speak when there is a pause. The meeting lasts an hour and rarely runs over, and even then only runs over for administrative purposes. I like this tight time-keeping.
The selection of books to be read is also a very democratic process. Members of the group can suggest texts that they would like to read and discuss. These are then posted on the PhilofEd website. Every three months texts are randomly selected from members’ suggestions, which are numbered. A random number generator software is used to pick 4 trios of books. A poll is then set up on Twitter and members vote for which trio of books they would like to read over the coming three months.
It took me about 10 months to find my voice in this group. I have no background in philosophy, although since I retired I have attended a number of different adult education philosophy courses, but they have been taught courses, led by a tutor, who invites you to speak. Currently I am attending a face-to-face course on Fantastic Female Philosophers, which is being run over a number of months. The Philosophy of Education group is a reading network not a course.
I am also a member of my local U3A (University of the Third Age) philosophy group which meets monthly in Kendal to discuss a wide variety of topics dependent on members’ interests and who is willing to lead a session. The last one I went to in November was on the question ‘What can Covid teach us about Climate Change?’ with reference to the Stoics. Again, these are structured sessions.
The PhilofEd reading network sessions are only very loosely structured. There are some introductory questions, but I am always amazed that often few of them are addressed, if at all. The discussion goes in any direction that members want to take it. This lack of structure can be unnerving, particularly for newcomers who have to take the initiative and grasp the bull by the horns to speak.
Also unnerving can be the silences. Sometimes there are long pauses when no-one speaks. I was very amused in one meeting which was introduced by a Professor of Philosophy, who could not cope with the silence that followed the questions he raised, so he answered all the questions himself. This went down very well with the group because he was very knowledgeable and informative and as we know it is easier to sit back and be told than to have to think for yourself.
I definitely had to take the bull by the horns to speak the first time (and even to put my video on initially). I find it easier if I have seen the questions to be discussed before the meeting so that I have time to think about them. I have never been good at thinking on my feet. Ultimately I realised that particularly in the cases where I had done a very thorough reading of the book, then I could be confident that I might have something of value to contribute.
So gradually I have overcome the feeling of being a fish out of water and have found the group meetings more enjoyable. The group itself is not at all threatening. Everyone is very welcoming and over time faces and individual modes of expression become familiar. The books that have had the biggest impact on me this past year have been Hannah Arendt’s The Gap Between Past and Future, Nel Noddings’ A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education, and Martin Buber’s I and Thou. And I have also noted, that on the whole, I find the female authors’ works resonated with me more. I think that is probably a discussion for another time.
January 2022 will start with an intriguing book which I have started to read – Lines by Tim Ingold. Sometimes it takes me a while to see the relevance of some of these texts for education and so far Tim Ingold’s book falls into that category, but I have only just started it, and maybe by the end it will have become clear.
I was asked today how long I have been participating in the Philosophy of Education Reading Network and when I said more than a year, I was then asked how long I was going to continue. It was these questions that prompted this post. I will continue to read the texts selected by the network for as long as I find them stimulating and thought-provoking, and for as long as my ageing brain can cope with them 🙂
Jenny Connected 