The Ways We Think

From the Straits of Reason to the Possibilities of Thought

Emma Williams

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781119129561
• eBook ISBN: 9781119129585
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

The Ways We Think critiques predominant approaches to the development of thinking in education and seeks to offer a new account of thought informed by phenomenology, post-structuralism and the 'ordinary language' philosophical traditions.

• Presents an original account of thinking for education and explores how this alternative conception of thought might be translated into the classroom
• Explores connections between phenomenology, post-structuralism and ordinary language philosophical traditions
• Examines the relevance of language in accounts of how we think
• Investigates the philosophical accounts of Gilbert Ryle, Martin Heidegger, John Austin and Jacques Derrida
• Draws upon experience of own teaching practice as philosopher-in-residence

 

 

1
Today’s Thinking: Following the Lines of Rationalism

INTRODUCTION

‘But I can see very well how it is: my mind likes to wander, and cannot yet contain itself within the precise limits of truth’

(Descartes, 1998 [1641], p. 108)

Three years ago, whilst teaching Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy to my A Level Philosophy class, I was struck by the quotation above. It comes at a stage in the Meditations when Descartes has just rehearsed the celebrated Cogito argument, his first ‘clear and distinct truth’, established by means of that purely deductive, a priori reasoning, which Descartes sought to establish as the method proper for all philosophy (and, of course, for all knowledge itself, insofar as knowledge was to rest upon the secure foundations of philosophy). Yet it seemed to me that something in the aforementioned quotation testifies to a disquiet and a restlessness that lie at the very heart of Descartes’ project: it is as though an excessive quality marks our thinking even when, indeed precisely when, we seek to make our thoughts progress along highly controlled, disciplined lines. As one of my students remarked at the time, ‘it’s almost as though he [Descartes] knows he can’t actually think the way he says he does’.

Of course, in Descartes’ project such an excess is treated as a blip, something to be corrected or ‘ironed out’ once one has become more accustomed to (perhaps, we might say, disciplined in) the way of thinking Descartes takes as his ideal. What Descartes wants from his thinking above all else is, as Martin Warner puts it, ‘a way of philosophising that will bring certitude equal to that of the demonstrations in arithmetic or geometry’ (1989, p. 1). To achieve this level of certainty, we need to use geometric means; we need to think, that is, like Sherlock Holmes, the ‘master of deduction’, and use modes of reasoning conceived after the model of logic.

And yet, in the time since, some philosophers have turned their attention to what Descartes, in his solitary mode of meditation, cast out as a mere malfunction. Whether through a direct consideration of the ways human beings actually think or through an exploration of the relations between thought and language, we find a number of philosophers within very different traditions testifying to a richer conception of thinking than is afforded by the Cartesian project. Gilbert Ryle, to use but one example, has referred to the ‘polymorphous’ nature of thinking (2009b [1951], p. 272) and to the inadequacies involved in construing thinking purely in terms of the ‘dry and chilly’ arenas of ratiocination and logic (2009b [1962], p. 430). As Ryle has put it, ‘not all of our walks are journeys’ – and in the ‘wanderings’ of our ways of thinking, there is much more at stake (2009b [1958], p. 405).

In what I have just said, there is much to be discussed. I have, indeed, made some quite bold claims in a fairly casual manner. Yet I have made them for the purpose of introducing the wider project of the present book within which they will be taken up much more fully. This is because the present book is concerned directly with the nature of thinking. More specifically, it is concerned with the way thinking has been understood, and is presently being understood, within an educational context.

Currently, there is a great interest in thinking in education. Whether in the form of policy makers’ declared intent to embed ‘thinking skills’ across the National Curriculum, the upsurge of practical ‘thinking programmes’ that have occurred in recent years with their corresponding textbooks and teacher guides, or the lively theoretical debates regarding critical thinking, thinking skills, and philosophy for children, thinking in education remains big business. Yet it is the contention of the present book that, in and through such mechanisms, thinking in education gets cast predominantly in a particular and limited kind of way. Throughout the present book, I shall term the kind of thinking that is currently being foregrounded in education the ‘rationalistic’ conception. This is an understanding of thinking that is somewhat brought into view by the above-made reference to Cartesian philosophy – although, as we shall come to see in this chapter, there is much more at stake here than the cursory remarks I initially made.

Let me be quite clear about the aims of the present book from the outset. This is not a negatively critical book. In other words, it is not one that will seek to bemoan the current state of ‘thinking education’ and focus negatively on its problems and limitations. Moreover, and as we shall come to see, it is not a project that will seek to argue against rationality. How, indeed, could a book argue against rationality? What I am aiming for is something much more positive. In short, the aim of this book is to articulate an account of thinking that does justice to the ways human thinking actually works. To this end, I shall seek to provide an account of thinking that is more adequate than the current rationalistic conception, and exposes as faulty the surreptitious assumptions about human thought – and indeed the human being itself – that underpin this account. If I achieve my aims, the final chapter of this book will be able to look towards a reconceptualization of thinking education today – one that gets beyond the ‘straits’ of rationalism and opens up new possibilities for thinking in education.¹

I shall say more about how in particular this book will achieve its aims in the later sections of the present chapter. Before moving on to this, however, it is necessary to firstly lay out what I perceive to be the current predominant conception of thinking education in more detail. To do this, I shall trace some representative ways in which thinking is discussed in educational policy and practice. Following on from this, I will analyse key sources coming from the theoretical field of thinking education and work to show how, in each case, a certain conception of thinking is foregrounded. This will serve to bring into view the way a rationalistic conception is emblematic within thinking education today. Having done this, I will then seek to push the analysis further. In particular, I will seek to bring into view what lies behind the conception of thinking that is currently being foregrounded in education, and makes it possible. Here, we shall turn our attention to what is assumed about thinking and the human being who thinks. Having outlined these broader, philosophical assumptions, I shall then outline how the present book will work to challenge and problematise such a view – by articulating an alternative conception of thought that remains faithful to the concrete ways we think.

THE POLICY AND PRACTICE OF THINKING

Thinking in Educational Policy

Let us begin by examining some of the recent ways in which thinking education has been approached in the British curriculum. Now, while there is currently no compulsory element of thinking education in schools, in 2004 the National Curriculum incorporated a new requirement to develop pupils’ thinking in a way that would be ‘embedded’ across the curriculum (QCA, 2004, p. 23). The genesis of such an introduction can be traced back to at least 1997 and the New Labour government’s first White Paper, which declared the improvement of thinking to be ‘strongly associated with positive learning outcomes’ (Blunkett, 1997, pp. 38–39). The teaching of thinking was hereby cast as a key mechanism through which standards might be raised and pupils’ learning in all subjects, regardless of ability levels, might be improved. These aims were further reinforced in 1999 when a report by Carol McGuiness into thinking education commissioned by the Department for Education and Employment (DfEE) concluded that the improvement of thinking ‘supports active cognitive processing which makes for better learning’ (McGuinness, 1999, p. 3). The findings of the McGuiness Report proved to be hugely influential for educational policy on thinking in education in the years to come. The report claimed that encouraging ‘better forms of thinking’ would equip pupils with the abilities ‘to go beyond the information given, to deal systematically yet flexibly with novel problems and situations, to adopt a critical attitude to information and argument as well as to communicate effectively’ (p. 2). In a House of Commons debate later that year, Estelle Morris (the then School Standards Minister) drew upon McGuiness’ research to declare that the development of pupils’ thinking would now be high on the government’s agenda for education. As Morris put it, since improving ‘the quality of thinking’ was a means of ‘raising standards’, pupils would be ‘taught explicitly’ how to think as a key part of their school education (Morris, 1999, as quoted by Johnson, 2001, p. 2).

As we have seen, with the 2004 revisions to the National Curriculum, such aims were transformed into a concrete reality and the development of thinking came to be taken as a key requirement of education at all levels. One year later, the improvement of thinking was also made a key focus of the 2005 White Paper on 14–19 Education and Skills. Yet it is interesting to note that, by this time, teaching thinking was not only conceived as a means for raising standards and levels of pupils learning. The teaching of thinking also came to be situated more broadly, as a foundational part of the government’s ‘Every Child Matters’ campaign (see Kelly, 2005, p. 39). As a result, the improvement of thinking was portrayed as being integral for equipping pupils with a set of wider abilities, including adaptability to ‘a range of circumstances’, skills for ‘employment and dealing with a range of real world problems’, and preparation for successful learning in Higher Education (p. 41).

On the face of it, and conceived in terms of such aims, the improvement of thinking in education certainly appears a worthwhile project. Who could object to raising the standards of pupils’ learning across the curriculum? Furthermore, do we not want our all students to leave school prepared and ready for the world of work or higher education and able to deal with ‘real world problems’? If improving students’ thinking is a way of achieving such goals, should we not view this as a valuable educational practice? Yet it is worth highlighting that what the improvement of students’ thinking has largely translated as within educational policy has been the development of ‘thinking skills’. This is an important move, and not in the least because, through the use of the term ‘skill’, thinking education comes to be conceived in a particular kind of way. Specifically, by utilising the term ‘skill’, thinking education is seen to involve the development of what the 2004 National Curriculum term ‘knowing how’ – that is, procedural knowledge: cognitive competencies or capacities that are methodical, rule-governed, and technical (QCA, 2004, p. 23). Moreover, and by way of this, thinking education is also been taken to involve the development of processes of thought that are useful and applicable in a variety of contexts. This point is itself exemplified by the way thinking education is often related in the policy literature to a wider discourse of ‘general skills’: thinking skills are often discussed alongside notions of ‘personal skills’ that are (controversially and somewhat ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Today’s Thinking
• 2 A Brief Detour
• 3 ‘Ahead of All Beaten Tracks’
• 4 A Way Beyond
• 5 Following the Sign
• 6 Out of the Ordinary
• 7 The Way Before the Way Before
• 8 A Weaving of the Ways
• Bibliography
• Index
• End User License Agreement