This paper will critically reconsider the potential of Dewey’s pragmatist idea of security without foundation. There is some potential in his anti-foundationalism as a form of wisdom for living beyond the risk society. I shall argue that Deweyan critical thinking needs to be further reconstructed, and even to be destabilized, if it is to exercise its best possible power of transcendence. One way to do this is to open its boundaries towards the ‘East’, towards European poststructuralism as well as towards (...) East Asia, thereby destabilizing and transcending the limit of pragmatism. And I propose to do this through the mediation of Stanley Cavell’s rereading of Emerson’s and Thoreau’s American transcendentalism. (shrink)

Charles Peirce’s model of inquiry is supposed to demarcate appropriate methods of inquiry from specious ones. Cheryl Misak points out that Peirce’s explicit account fails, but can nevertheless be rescued by elements of his own system. While Misak’s criticism is a propos, her own attempt to fortify Peirce’s account does not succeed, as it falls prey to the same criticism she raises against Peirce’s explicit account. The account provided in this paper—the ‘open path’ alternative—draws from Peirce’s corollary to his “first (...) rule of reason”, that one should not block the road to inquiry. The ‘open path’ account is able to withstand Misak’s objections, and when combined with other aspects of Peirce’s work, shows us why the optimal way to conduct inquiry is to follow the path of greatest resistance. Inquiry, however, is rarely conducted in optimal conditions. Actual, constrained conditions of inquiry require a measure of economy in terms of what can be reasonably pursued and how. The question, then, is how to conduct our inquiries so that they are as nearly optimal as possible given actual constraints. As a working scientist, Peirce was acutely aware of the need to economize in research. Nicholas Rescher has recognized this issue’s significance for Peirce, and noted its neglect in discussions of Peirce’s work. One issue that has been largely neglected in the literature on Peirce is what specifically he recommends, based on considerations of economy, for how to go about gathering evidence. Kronz & McLaughlin points out that Peirce’s primary recommendation is that in gathering evidence relevant to a particular hypothesis we should test for empirical consequences that would not have been expected otherwise. The view that is developed in this paper is that economy in research, according to Peirce, follows the general line of his theory of inquiry. Peirce’s theory of inquiry implies that pursuit of truth requires maximizing resistance. I argue that his considerations about how to navigate within the constraints introduced in the context of actual research are also best understood as recommendations for maximizing resistance. (shrink)

Israel Scheffler has only recently written directly and about religion and education in religion, although these are matters in which he has a strong personal interest. Scheffler's views on these issues are outlined and critically appraised, with some reference to the views of R.S. Peters on similar questions. It is suggested that one of the major difficulties which arise in relation to Schelffer's position concern its account of the balance between ‘acceptance’ and ‘critical search for clarity’ needed on the part (...) of students in their engagement with Jewish ritual. This difficulty brings into focus a numer of central questions which arise concerning the reinterpretive account of Jewish tradition which Scheffler offers. (shrink)

In Chapter VIII of Democracy and Education, Dewey objects to all three of the following propositions: (1) education serves predefined aims; (2) Education serves aims that are external to the process of education; and (3) Education serves aims that are imposed by authority. From the vantage point of policy-makers and authors of curriculum guides, these three propositions seem plausible, even self-evident. In this paper, I set forth a critical interpretation and evaluation of Dewey’s objections to them and argue that he (...) saw the aims of education from another point of view, that of a learner. From a learner’s point of view, propositions 2 and 3 are only half-true because external aims that are not shared by the students cannot successfully guide educative activities. As regards proposition 1, Dewey’s philosophy does not accommodate the birds-eye view required to make it literally true. As learners, we cannot have an external view of our entire progress. Some of our aims are, therefore, not predefined but discovered on the way. Dewey’s stance on the role of aims in education is worth serious consideration, because the view of curriculum development and school administration that these three propositions engender is as deeply problematic today as it was when Dewey wrote against them a century ago. (shrink)

This article contributes to work on temporality in education. Challenging the future-oriented focus in contemporary education, the authors question how ideas and assumptions regarding the future—centred on the Child—can set narrow boundaries around children in schools. In carrying out this task, we employ the work of Lee Edelman and John Dewey to examine the educational ramifications of the focus on the future, which we call ‘educational futurism’. The argument seeks specifically to explore how educational futurism imposes limits on educational discourse (...) and privileges a certain future—making it unthinkable to imagine ways outside of such a privileged future. Juxtaposing Lee Edelman and John Dewey, we draw out connections and disconnections between their disparate philosophies, illustrating the ways in which educational futurism ignores or overlooks the lived experiences of children. We conclude by briefly noting the queerness of children and the impact of such queerness on broadening discussions of the future of children and their educations. (shrink)

In an epistemology of contextualism, how robust does consensus need to be for critique to be practically effective? In ‘Relativism and the Critical Potential of Philosophy of Education’ Frieda Heyting proposes a form of contextualism, but her argument raises a number of problems. The kinds of criteria that her version of contextualism will furnish provide, at best, the potential only for an immanent form of critique from within a particular practice, and the possibility that practitioners alone will adopt a general (...) stance of critique. By their nature, the criteria that Heyting endorses will be too transient and ephemeral to assist in any larger project that might be aimed at making effective criticism of the status quo. Further problems are exposed to do with the conditions needed to make critique effective when Heyting's normative argument is situated in the Realpolitik of contemporary education. Drawing on the work of Charles Sanders Peirce, and in a manner intended to be complementary to Heyting's normative argument, the paper offers some suggestions regarding the role that doubt might play in justifying criticisms of the status quo. (shrink)

A theory of learning for the future advocates the teaching of a preparedness to respond in a creative way to difference and otherness. This includes an ability to act imaginatively in situations of uncertainties. John Dewey’s pragmatism holds the key to such a learning theory his view of the continuous meetings of individuals and environments as experimental and playful. That pragmatism has not yet been acknowledged as a relevant learning theory for the future may be due to the immediate connotation (...) and the many interpretations associated with the term ‘experience’, which is at the heart of Dewey’s educational thinking. Dewey defi ned experience in a way that is not well understood within educational research, and in a way that is easily confused with the term ‘experiential learning’. The latter refers to the importance of participants’ ‘experiences’ derived from bodily actions and stored in memory as more or less tacit knowledge. (shrink)