Imagining Wittgenstein's Adolescent: The educational significance of expression

This paper highlights the philosophical and educational significance of expression in Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. When the role of expression is highlighted, we will be better able to appreciate Stanley Cavell's insistence that: (i) Wittgenstein offers ways of responding to, though not a refutation of, the problem of skepticism concerning other minds, and (ii) Wittgenstein's writing style is an important aspect of his philosophy. The educational implications of this appreciation will be explored with reference to the lives of adolescences.     

Wittgenstein on training: Comment on Norm Friesen’s ‘Training and Abrichtung’: Wittgenstein as a tragic philosopher of education?

The view of Wittgenstein as a ‘tragic’ philosopher of education is examined. Friesen’s claim rests on an interpretation of the way in which Wittgenstein uses the German term ‘Abrichtung’. This involves the claim that Wittgenstein saw training activities closely analogous to the breaking of an animal’s will. Close examination of various of the later texts of Wittgenstein and comparison of the original German with the English translation does not bear out this claim. Wittgenstein used ‘Abrichtung’ and related terms in his own way and for his own purposes. The picture that emerges from an overview of Wittgenstein’s use of these terms is that he sees training as a variegated rather than a single kind of activity.     

Work and Human Flourishing

As a way of participating in the discussion on the disciplinary nature of philosophy of education, this article attempts to find another distinctive way of relating philosophy to education for the studies in philosophy of education. Recasting philosophical skepticism, which has been dismissed by Dewey and Rorty in their critiques of modern epistemology, it explores whether Cavell's romantic interpretation of it can allow us to conceive of skepticism as an exemplary practice of education, especially internal to the learner. This opens up the possibility of viewing the disciplinary nature of philosophy of education as congenial to other humanities like literature or religious studies, rather than to social sciences as usually considered.     

Passionate Utterance and Moral Education

This paper explores Stanley Cavell's notion of ‘passionate utterance’, which acts as an extension of/departure from (we might read it as both) J. L. Austin's theory of the performative. Cavell argues that Austin having made the revolutionary discovery that truth claims in language are bound up with how words perform, then gets bogged by convention when discussing what is done ‘by’ words. In failing to account for the less predictable, unconventional aspects of language, the latter therefore washes his hands of the expressive passionate aspects of speech. To ignore such aspects is to ignore an important moral dimension of language. Finally, I bring Cavell's approach to bear on the epistemic criterion, which Michael Hand applies in his paper ‘Should We Teach Homosexuality as a Controversial Issue?’. I suggest that Hand's approach, by failing to account for the linguistic dimension of truth and the expressive quality that accompanies this dimension, presents an overly narrow conception of moral education.     

Losing Our Way: Pragmatism,Perfectionism and Education as Anxiety

I explore in this paper the extent to which Stanley Cavell's contribution to the philosophy of education is measured by his distance from American pragmatism. I wish to argue that pragmatism and what Cavell calls ‘perfectionism’ are simply not offered in the same key and crucially that it is this stylistic or tonal difference that separates Cavell not only from his pragmatist contemporaries but from the pragmatist picture of democracy and education as sketched so compellingly in the work of John Dewey. I suggest, in other words, not only that Cavell is importantly distant from the pragmatists but that it is this very distance—this very ambivalence to that tradition of thought often taken as the native philosophy of America—that captures Cavell's distinctive educational promise.     

从图像论到游戏说——维特根斯坦哲学的转变

路德维希·维特根斯坦（Ludwig Wittgensten,1889-1951）是分析哲学的重要代表.“语言批判”是贯穿维特根斯坦哲学发展的一条主线,他倡导通过语言分析解决和消除传统哲学问题,提出“语言图像论”和“语言游戏说”两种不同的理论.语言图像论到语言游戏说的转变,使分析哲学由对语言的逻辑分析走向了对语言的语用分析.立足于“语言图像论”和“语言游戏说”,分析维特根斯坦的哲学思想、思想的转变以及其思想在西方哲学中的影响.     

Wittgenstein: Spiritual Practices

This essay suggests that Wittgenstein's philosophy can be read as an example of what Hadot and Foucault call spiritual practices, and it uses that reading to cast light on the way certain experiences can change one's life. These experiences could as simple as reading a book or even, as might be the case with Thoreau, living alone by a pond. The essay concentrates on the spiritual practices of the Tractatus, but it uses the Investigations' discussion of noticing a change in aspect to characterise these life‐altering experiences. Wittgenstein sought to transform our vision of the world and to induce a metamorphosis in our being by weaning us from the expectation that philosophy will solve the problem of life and by pointing us in the direction of a pedagogy of things.     

“DARING TO SAY”: STANLEY CAVELL AND DESIGNS ON LITERACY

In this essay Amanda Fulford examines the subject of inter‐cultural understanding from two perspectives: first, through considering Naoko Saito's exploration of translation and inter‐/intra‐cultural understanding, and second, through a discussion of work from the field of literacy studies, in particular the New London Group's “pedagogy of multiliteracies.” In her consideration of the different approaches taken to the challenge of multicultural and globalized societies, and the experiences of encounters with language, Fulford pursues four principal themes: learning from difference, active design of meaning, a relation with language, and transformation of the individual. She shows how Saito's use of American philosophy, in particular Henry David Thoreau's Walden and Stanley Cavell's readings of Thoreau, can play a crucial role in any reconsideration of teaching and learning in adult literacy education. Fulford further demonstrates how Thoreau's notion of the “father tongue” is central to the idea of learning from difference and to our use of language. She concludes by proposing that literacy education and research within the field of literacy studies could benefit from the kind of philosophical conversation, across the borders of subject and epistemology, that an exposure to, and consideration of, the ideas of Thoreau and Cavell on what it means to read and write can offer.     

Critical Thinking as a Normative Practice in Life: A Wittgensteinian Groundwork

On the point that, in practices of critical thinking, we respond spontaneously in concrete situations, this paper presents an account on behalf of Wittgenstein. I argue that the ‘seeing‐things‐aright’ model of Luntley's Wittgenstein is not adequate, since it pays insufficient attention to radically new circumstances, in which the content of norms is updated. While endorsing Bailin's emphasis on criteria of critical thinking, Wittgenstein would agree with Papastephanou and Angeli's demand to look behind criteriology. He maintains the primacy of the practical, and yet contends that a reasonable person lets rules of rationality compel her. These rules are not mere heuristics. I further examine Burbules' conception of communicative reason, and, among others, his interpretation of Wittgenstein's sign‐post example.     

习近平关于担当重要论述的三个维度

时代、世界和人民是把握习近平总书记关于担当重要论述的三个维度。从时代的维度看,实现中国梦需要担当,这是一种时代的担当,是对历史和民族的责任,是习近平总书记关于担当重要论述的主基调、主旋律;从世界维度看,构建人类命运共同体需要担当,这是一个正在崛起的大国的责任担当,是习近平总书记关于担当重要论述的一个显著特征,是中国推动新型国际关系发展新模式的国际担当;从人民的维度看,为人民谋幸福需要担当,这是中国共产党根本宗旨的体现,是一种理想和道义的担当,是习近平总书记关于担当重要论述的核心和灵魂,是党的先进性的具体体现。     

Training and Mastery of Techniques in Wittgenstein's Later Philosophy: A response to Michael Luntley

Responding to Michael Luntley's article, ‘Learning, Empowerment and Judgement’, the author shows he cannot successfully make the following three moves: (1) dissolve the analytic distinction between learning by training and learning by reasoning, while advocating the latter; (2) diminish the role of training in Wittgenstein's philosophy, nor attribute to him a rationalist model of learning; and (3) turn to empirical research as a way of solving the philosophical problems he addresses through Wittgenstein. Drawing on José Medina's analysis of the fundamental role of training in Wittgenstein's later philosophy, the paper offers a tour of key passages in the Investigations and other works to develop an understanding of what Wittgenstein meant by ‘mastery of techniques’. In opposition to Luntley's liberal‐individual, or his subject as rational agent, the author explores Wittgenstein's non‐foundationalist, forms of life approach to how we act with agreement. More effort must be given to differentiating Wittgenstein's view from that of the analytic school, which Luntley appears to echo despite his criticism of the analytic divide.     

The Case of M and D in Context: Iris Murdoch,Stanley Cavell and Moral Teaching and Learning

Iris Murdoch's famous case of M and D illustrates the moral importance of learning to see others in a more favourable light through renewed attention. Yet if we do not read this case in the wider context of Murdoch's work, we are liable to overlook the attitudes and transformations involved in coming to change one's mind as M does. Stanley Cavell offers one such reading and denies that the case represents a change in M's sense of herself or the possibilities for her world of the kind exemplified by Nora in Ibsen's A Doll's House. In this essay, I challenge Cavell's reading, suggesting that the case, while it may not be an exemplar of the perfectionist outlook as described by Cavell, can and should be interpreted in perfectionist terms. To see this, I reflect on Murdoch's views on the endless perfectibility of language, the importance of humility, and the role of love and attention in moral learning. I conclude that Murdoch's work uniquely sheds light on how we might cultivate a perfectionist outlook in ourselves and others, and describes the distinctive role that some novels can play in moral education.     

Emancipation,equality and education: Rancière's critique of Bourdieu and the question of performativity

Jacques Rancière's work has had significant impact in philosophy and literary theory, but remains largely undiscussed in the field of education. This article is a review of the relevance of Rancière's work to education research. Rancière's argument about education emerges from his critique of Bourdieu, which states that Bourdieu reinforces inequality by presuming it as the starting point of his analysis. What is at stake is the question of performativity, and the means by which discourse has effects. This debate has implications for considering the basis of claims to truth in literary and social science discourse. Parallels are drawn between Judith Butler's and Rancière's portrayal of the relationship between discourse and subjection, as well as their attention to discursive ‘imitation’ in making inequality representable. The article concludes with a discussion of the problematic which Rancière's work suggests for education research.     

Teacher‐educators’ wishes and students’ needs

The present article was written at the request of the Editorial Secretariat in order to start the discussion on the theme of the Bangor Conference. To our delight it also ties in with Philip Taylor's article In this issue. This was not intended, but certainly makes it even more worth while.     

Wittgenstein,Freud, Dreaming and Education: Psychoanalytic explanation as ‘une façon de parler’

Freud saw the dream as occupying a very important position in his theoretical model. If there were to be problems with his theoretical account of the dream then this would impinge upon proposed therapy and, of course, education as the right balance between the instincts and the institution of culture. Wittgenstein, whilst stating that Freud was interesting and important, raised several issues in relation to psychology/psychoanalysis, and to Freud in particular. Why would Wittgenstein have seen Freud as having some important things to say, even though he was sharply critical of Freud's claims to be scientific? The major issues to be considered in this paper are, in Section 1, the scientific status of Freud's work—was it science or was it more like philosophy than science; the analysis of dreams; rationality, and dreams and madness. Section 2 considers Freud and education, including the indignity of Freud's notion of ‘the talking cure.’ Section 3 considers psychoanalytic explanations not as theory but as a manner of speaking: ‘une façon de parler.’     

Bonk,Curtis J. (2009). The world is open: How web technology is revolutionizing education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. US$29.95. ISBN#9780470461303

This book review of The World is Open: How Web Technology is Revolutionizing Education by Curtis J. Bonk (2009) includes a brief overview of the book, along with a discussion of prevalent themes in the book. In addition to the stated theme of online learning, many of Bonk's examples and analyses focus on empowerment of the learner as a core concept in education of the future.     

Film as Moral Education

Stanley Cavell was the first to account for the transformation of theory and criticism brought about by reflection on popular culture and its ‘ordinary’ objects, such as so‐called mainstream cinema. However, Cavell is less concerned with reversing artistic hierarchies than with the self‐transformation required by our encounters with new experiences, and with the moral education they provide. According to him the value of a culture lies not in its ‘great art’ but in its transformative capacity, the same capacity found in Emerson's ‘moral perfectionism’. This new accent on examining the educational value of films as public occurrences of ethical theorising points towards the analysis of linguistic and aesthetic expression in a larger corpus works of ‘popular culture’, hence to going beyond Cavell's focus on the classical Hollywood movie.     

论当下农民工题材小说模式化的创作倾向

在作家们关注农民工生活,写出了大量农民工题材作品的同时,也出现了模式化的创作倾向,如农民工形象的模式化、小说情节的模式化和作家视角的模式化。这些模式化的创作倾向,阻碍了作家对农民工进城复杂性的深入探讨,限制了该类题材小说向纵深发展。     

Political explanations for economic decline in Britain and their relationship to policies for education and training

Abstract

This paper considers a number of explanations promoted by governments over the last two decades to explain Britain's economic decline. It is argued that the explanations are only partially based in economic realities and are contrived to legitimise broader agendas for policy initiatives. The inadequacy of the education and training system emerges as a recurrent theme and has, as a consequence, been subjected to considerable change. However, other explanations for economic decline have been offered: lack of enterprise, lack of flexibility in the workforce and lack of competitiveness. These explanations are examined for their coherence and continuity and for their implications for education and training.     

Tacit Teaching

This essay reflects upon certain aspects of Wittgenstein's own practices as a teacher. Doing philosophy always took priority for Wittgenstein, whether this was in oral or written form: it was important to show the deep puzzles in our language (and our culture and thinking) as a step toward dissolving them. In this respect, one can teach only as a guide; it is a matter of showing more than saying.

Wittgenstein's approach suggests a model that I will call tacit teaching. Tacit teaching refers to the many forms of informal instruction—some intentional, some unintentional, and some difficult to categorize simply as one or the other—by which skills, capacities, and dispositions are passed along within a domain of practice. Wittgenstein repeatedly uses the language of signposts, of wandering through a city, of being lost and finding one's way, of needing a guide, of learning how to go on by one's self, to refer to the complex web of knowledge and understanding that allows successful autonomous practice in some discipline: most pertinently, in the context of Wittgenstein's own teaching and writing, the discipline of doing philosophy, but with clear reference to teaching and learning in other complex and ill‐structured domains as well.