In education issues to do with insider and outsider understanding arise in debates about religious education and about certain areas of research, and in argument about education for international understanding. Here I challenge the dichotomy between insider and outsider, arguing that a more collectivist view of human identity combined with elements of 'the self which we share with our fellows' means that we always stand in part as an insider and in part as an outsider in relation to others. I (...) argue further that 'understanding' needs always to be thought of in the plural, as a matter of 'understanding s ', since members of any community, and even any one individual, have different understandings at different times. Against what may seem the strong case in favour of the superiority or exclusivity of insider understanding, I note the force of claims in a variety of theoretical traditions (expressed notably in the Marxist tradition in the notion of 'false consciousness' and in psychoanalytic attention to the unconscious) concerning the limitations of the exclusively insider perspective and in contrast the particular authority of the outsider perspective. Finally, I acknowledge the discomfort with which people respond to outsiders' claims to understand them, especially where such understanding fails to support their own self-understanding, and identify ethical considerations, which might shape sensitive negotiation between insider and outsider perspectives. (shrink)

It is not uncommon in educational research and social science in general either to eschew the word truth or to put it in scare quotes in order to signify scepticism about it. After the initial wave of relativism in the philosophy of natural science, a second wave has developed in social science with the rise of postmodernism and poststructuralism. The tendency here is to relativise truth or to bracket out questions of truth. In contradistinction, this paper revindicates the metaphysical nature (...) of truth. Truth is a transcendental precondition of educational inquiry and is best understood as a formal, regulative norm. Realism about truth enjoins a defence of the correspondence theory, which is provided here. At the same time, however, the development of realism in the social sciences has ironically followed the postmodernists in its scepticism about truth and its rejection of the correspondence theory. This paper critically appraises such recent developments, since all research is unintelligible without realism about the social world and whether our substantive knowledge-claims correspond with it. (shrink)

This essay addresses various issues about interpretive social investigation that arise in recent books by Berel Lerner and by Mark Risjord. The general topics considered are the relation between interpretation and explanation, the explanation of action, and alternative rationalities. Part 1 centers on Risjord’s attempt to draw interpretation into the explanatory enterprise, among other things pointing out the limiting assumptions of his account and asking whether social investigation has epistemologically significant practical ends. Part 2 addresses the roles of normativity and (...) rationality in explanations of action, taking up (1) a disagreement between Risjord and David Henderson on normativity, and (2) Lerner’s account of Winch’s appropriation of Wittgenstein’s idea of expressive action. Part 3, finally, endorses Lerner’s and Risjord’s version of the claim that rationality has multiple criteria while also suggesting that intelligibility, not rationality, lies at the heart of many debates on interpretive social science. (shrink)

Over the past 40 years, the sense of place concept has been well-established across a range of applications and settings; however, most theoretical developments have ‘privileged the slow’. Evidence suggests that place attachments and place meanings are slow to evolve, sometimes not matching material or social reality (lag effects), and also tending to inhibit change. Here we present some key blind spots in sense of place scholarship and then suggest how a reconsideration of sense of place as ‘fast’ and ‘slow’ (...) could fill them. By this, we mean how direct and immediate perception-action processes presented in affordance theory (resulting in immediately perceived place meanings) can complement slower forms of social construction presented in sense of place scholarship. Key blind spots are that sense of place scholarship: 1) rarely accounts for sensory or immediately perceived meanings; 2) pays little attention to how place meanings are the joint product of attributes of environmental features and the attributes of the individual; and; 3) assumes that the relationship between place attachment and behaviour is linear and not constituted in dynamic relations among mind, culture and environment.. We show how these blind spots can begin to be addressed by reviewing key insights from affordance theory, and through the presentation of applied examples. We discuss future empirical research directions in terms of: 1) how sense of place is both perceived and socially constructed; 2) whether perceived and socially constructed dimensions of place can relate to one another when perceived meanings become unsituated, and; 3) how place attachment may change over different stages of the life course based upon dynamic relationships between processes of perception-action and social construction. We conclude with insights into how processes of perception-action and social construction could be included in the design and management of urban landscapes. (shrink)

Despite a constitutional and oft-stated political commitment to an undefined notion of non-racialism, South Africans continue to operate in formal and informal ways with ‘race’ as the common-sense organizing principle of legal systems, ways of thinking, social identities, constructing arguments or closing debate, organizational and mobilizing strategies, policy development and execution, and interaction in daily life. This state of affairs is regrettable and dangerous, often questioned and rejected, but objections are waged and alternatives suggested against the tide of societal trends. (...) What the organizing principle of race thinking does is to close the mind to alternative possibilities – of thought, social practice and ways of living. Here I explore an overview of racialism as it permeates and shapes the life cycles of citizens from birth to death. I make an argument for a way of thinking that is necessarily utopian, as one of few options of escaping a social world made in the image of apartheid. (shrink)

This article analyzes the concept of narrative.How do we recognize a narrative when we seeone? Which criteria do we or should we apply?The article itself serves as a (possible)example of a narrative, and is thus adiscussion of itself as a narrative product. Ialso discuss the possible narrative structureof the process leading up to the completedarticle. I first discuss two approaches tocategorization and the most commonly referredto criteria for identifying narratives. Next Idiscuss various roles found in narratives andthe roles found in (...) the current article. FinallyI discuss the problems principally involved inpunctuation of sequences and thus in decidingwhich narrative we are dealing with. Itis concluded that the categorization criteriaare too vague to perform the job they areintended to do. (shrink)

A diagnosis of schizophrenia is often taken to denote a state of global irrationality within the psychiatric paradigm, wherein psychotic phenomena are seen to equate with a lack of mental capacity. However, the little research that has been undertaken on mental capacity in psychiatric patients shows that people with schizophrenia are more likely to experience isolated, rather than constitutive, irrationality and are therefore not necessarily globally incapacitated. Rational suicide has not been accepted as a valid choice for people with schizophrenia (...) due in part to a belief that characteristic irrationality prevents autonomous decision-making. Since people with schizophrenia are often seen to lack insight into the nature of their disorder, both psychiatric and ethical perspectives generally presume that suicidal acts result directly from mental illness itself and not from second-order desires. In this article, I challenge notions of global irrationality conferred by a diagnosis of schizophrenia and argue that, where delusional beliefs are unifocal, schizophrenia does not necessarily lead to a state of mental incapacity. I then attempt to show that people with schizophrenia can sometimes be rational with regard to suicide, where this decision stems from a realistic appraisal of psychological suffering. (shrink)

Over the last two decades the traditional conception of intelligence and other mental powers as stable individual assets has been challenged by approaches in psychology emphasising context and ‘situated cognition’. This paper argues that the debate should not be seen as an empirical dispute, and relates it to discussions in philosophy of mind between methodological solipsists and varieties of externalists. In the light of this I argue that attempts to conceptualise the identity over time of mental powers qua individual assets (...) run into intractable difficulties. Hence ‘individual asset’ views of many abilities should be abandoned. Implications for education policy particularly in regard to assessment are explored. (shrink)

In this book, the words ‘science’ and ‘social science’ are used in their limited sense that refer to experience-based knowledge. This should not indicate that experience is being used in a positivistic sense. Rather, the important insights of all kinds of post-positivist views are embraced to give an extensive meaning to experience. However, the most important characteristic of experience and science that should never be excluded is its dependence on observation and observational evidence. Thus, when ‘science’ is used in combination (...) with ‘religion’, it should not be confused by religious knowledge. The latter might refer to, perhaps, a certain kind of knowledge that could be found in religious texts and might be different from other kinds of knowledge. However, when the phrase of ‘religious science’ is used, it refers to a scientific knowledge, even though because of its religious presuppositions it is called religious. And this relation between religion and science is exactly the point that is at issue in this book. On one hand, the issue of religious science raises challenges on the ground that the contemporary science has been explicitly non-religious or perhaps in some cases anti-religious. Objectivity of science is usually understood in a way that it does not permit to combine ‘science’ with ‘religion’. Thus, in the first step, the phrase of religious science is considered as nonsense. On the other hand, as far as religious people are concerned, the issue of religious science is enthusiastic. These people sometimes think that a real religion should include all scientific truths. Thus, facing the issue, they immediately verdict that there are or should be religious sciences. However, neither that strong challenge with the possibility of any religious science, nor this hot enthusiasm could be in congruence with the spirit of scientific endeavor. As far as social scientists are concerned, the possibility of religious science should not be rejected a priori. This possibility should not be necessarily considered as a threat for science, rather the plausibility of its being a chance for the development of science should also be taken into account. On the other hand, as far as the religious people are concerned, they should not necessarily consider the possibility of talking about religious sciences as a chance for spreading their religion, rather the plausibility of its being a threat for their purpose should also be considered. This is because entering of a religion into a job which is not relevant to it could be dangerous. Far from these two kinds of biases, it is attempted in this book to deal with the issue in a reflective manner. It seems that thinking about ‘religious science’ requires us to take three steps. In the first step, we need to think about the nature or characteristics of science. In the second step, we need to think about the nature or characteristics of religion. And finally, in the third step, it seem necessary to think about the combination of them. These three steps show the direction of the discussion in what follows. (shrink)

This thesis presents a social ontology. It takes its problem, the emergence of social structure and order, and the relationship of the macro and the micro within this structure, from social theory, but attempts a resolution from the perspectives of contemporary French philosophy and complexity theory. Due to its acceptance of certain presuppositions concerning the multiplicity and connectedness of all life and nature it adopts a comparative methodology that attempts a translation of complexity science to the social world. It draws (...) both this methodology and its inspiration from the work of Michel Serres. After explaining this methodology, it presents a critique of the work of those prominent philosophers of multiplicity who have written on the social: Alain Badiou, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, and Manual DeLanda. Having argued for the need of a ‘non-unit’ of social organisation, it then unsuccessfully surveys the work of Michel Foucault and Gabriel Tarde in search of such a ‘non-unit’. It produces one by extracting elements from different theorists and then proceeds to offer a novel explanation of how these expectations first emerge from the ‘social noise’ and then go through a complex process of self-organisation to produce social structure. Apart from complexity theory, this explanation draws on the temporal ontologies of both Serres and Deleuze. In doing so, it argues that the social replication necessary for this self-organisation cannot be achieved through direct imitation. Instead, it draws on an idea from Stuart Kauffman and argues that this is achieved through autocatalysis. Finally, it argues that social structures and what is perceived to be social order are the effect of the codification, to varying degrees, of these emergent expectations. It concludes that this structure is at its most creative when on ‘the edge of chaos’, when at a point of social chaosmos. (shrink)