The learning process; or, Educational theory implied in theory of knowledge

Front matter

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Contributions to Bbucation

Ceacfieta ffiollese SerleB

Preface

Education as a conscious effort towards human evolution involves the most difficult problems of life,.. The school, like other institutions, has arisen out of practical needs, at first narrowly conceived, and the idea of its aim and naethods has been of gradual development. The meaning of a thing is its relations (p. 44) and naturally the narrow abstract relations involved in immediate ends and rule of thumb methods have been made prominent in educational theory, and often have been perpetuated by tradition long after their usefulness has been outgrown in the progressive discovery of remoter needs involving wider relations. The true meaning of education and consequently its aims and methods will be understood only when its^ fullest and completest relations to the life process have been discovered. It is the purpose of this essay to discover in the light of epistemology some of these wider relations and in themi to find some formal principle or norm that may be of value ini selecting from a confusion of educational aims and methods those which are more in harmony with the evolutionary progress.

The discussion in the first eight chapters presupposes on the part of the reader some familiarity with the theories of knowledge concerned. While an attempt has been made to develop the essay as an organic whole, some, who may not be especially interested in the critical discussion in the first eight chapters, may wish to begin with the constructive theory given in chapter nine, while others may wish to read only the educational implications discussed in the tenth chapter. The last chapter contains a brief summary of the whole.

Acknowledgements should be made both for inspiration and guidance to the writer's teachers, including Professors MacVannel, Dewey, Thorndike and McMurry in Columbia University; Professors Hanus, Miinsterberg and Royce in Harvard University; and Professor Gordy in Ohio State University. Especial acknowledgement is due Professor MacVannel, under whose supervision this dissertation was written, the beneficent influence of whose personality and teaching cannot be forgotten.

4 Preface

Owing to the nature of the problem, much that is here given must be faulty. Life as a self-differentiating tmity ever presents more and more complex relations, so that thought, which must take them into account, can only progressively approximate the truth. Indeed, most of one's activities must be gmded by theory, or opinion, which consists of hypotheses in process of becoming facts, and ever subject to modification. It is hoped that what is here given will be suggestive to the reader, and the correction of error, where he can discover it, is left to him. The solution of the educational problem will have to be done over many times, each time more closely approximating the truth and becoming a more definite guide in the most difficult of all activities, the progressive realization of human nature.

Introduction

In the growth of the tree of knowledge new branches spring from the old. Educational theory, while it develops in a direction distinctively its own, has its basis in other more fundamental branches of thought. That the theory of knowledge and educational theory are most intimately connected is at once evident. Both are QQimsh©dr^4^he_prQbleEcis_.arising-in.-the-stu4y-af-the-, knowing_2rocess-;_the_Qne-iQr jthe-puTpose- of -giving- some -criteriQix. ofjthg _validity o f the. product^jQrJaiQwledg&^he other to reveal a method whereby the process may be controlled in reproducing knowledge. Especially in the early stages of a new development must that which is vital in the older stock be adapted to strengthen the one which is budding. Accordingly, it is the purpose of this essay to consider certain typical theories of knowledge with the hope that some truths may be revealed which will tend to strengthen that movement of thought which is rapidly making the work of the teacher a rationalized endeavor rather than a mere routine.

A theory of Imowledge is jtself a product of the ImoKing procr ess and therefore sub ject,toJJbeJiniLta±iQns-of thought. Accordingly7~i"f ^' not immediately given but must involve presuppositions, without which nothing can be known. The consciousness of immediacy arises through a differentiation of experience into subjective and objective phases, which can be separated only as logical abstractions, and, in this differentiation, the objective phase to a degree loses its immediacy and receives meaning only in the light of presuppositions. Therefore, to limit oneself to immediacy is to join the Eastern mystic in abandoning knowledge and seeking annihilation. Schools of philosophy then must begin with unproved assumptions; and, according as these assumptions differ, there result types of theory which vary in important particulars. In order to judge the relative value of various theories, the assumptions on which they are based must be considered. The cause of difference in assumptions is due to abstraction, or viewing one phase of experience out of relation to the others. This is done when one phase is regarded to be

8 Introduction

independently real, as in subjective idealism, materialism or pluralism; or when one phase is used to interpret another in aspects in which the two are not analogous, as when mental phenomena are interpreted in the light of space concepts. To comprehend the truth free from all abstraction, to see everything in its relations, is the ultimate goal of knowledge, a goal infinitely removed but gradually being approximated. Often conclusions derived from narrow abstractions are useful for certain limited practical purposes and therefore justifiable, as in the case of the special sciences; but, when in relation to some wider purpose conclusions conflict, those which involve the less abstraction are nearer to the truth. The Ptolemaic astronomy is useful for many ordinary purposes of life; but, for the wider purposes of the astronomer, it must give way to the teachings of Copernicus, which explain it and at the same time give a more comprehensive and valuable account of the facts. The common dualistic view of the world is a satisfactory hypothesis to guide many ordinary activities, but its inadequacy to guide the more comprehensive activities of teaching is no less than that of the old astronomy to predict stellar phenomena. Accordingly, the method to be attempted in this essay in considering typical theories of knowledge is to trace apparent inconsistencies and conflicts to the partial points of view from which theories have been made, and, in doing so, to present a more comprehensive point of view which will explain the narrower ones and at the same time make possible a theory of knowledge which will offer truths of vital importance to the theory of education.

The immediate practical value of the result hoped for should not be misunderstood. The mere knowledge of educational theory will not make a good teacher for the same reason that the mere knowledge of logic will not make a good dialectician; or of ethics, a just man. Because the concrete situations to which they apply, although having some common aspects, are in essential particulars infinitely variable and involve appreciation of worth more than description of fact, normative disciplines consist of generalizations which are regulative rather than creative and should furnish in a concrete situation a general basis for the selection of the best of several courses of action; but, although suggestive, they do not, like the descriptive sciences, independ.

Introduction g

ently tell precisely what must be done in order to realize the desired end (cf. pp. 53-54). While practice without theory is blind, theory without practice is empty.

At best a theory of education is only a general idea, a hypothetical plan of action, which has been abstracted from a long process of experience and which must be further tested, corrected and elaborated through its application to the actual process of teaching. Thus may education repay its debt to the theory of knowledge by testing epistemological principles in the court of action, the final court of appeal in the determination of truth.

CHAPTER I The Theories of Socrates and Plato

Thought arises from conflict, from unstable adjustment, (cf. pp. 42-43.) In earliest times the conditions that make thought self-centered did not exist. It was turned outward in an attempt to find unity in the unstable manifoldness of nature, and the first attempts of philosophy were to reduce all to one element, whether it be air, fire or water.

As a tribe developed, the most satisfactory forms of activity which it had experienced were preserved by gradual and imperceptible natural selection and embodied in tradition. This tradition was followed naively and without question, and thus, in each tribe, so complete a connection between the self and nature existed that the difference between them was unnoticed. Naturally the experiences and consequently the traditions of various tribes differed. When, however, through war and commerce tribes met, conflicting traditions tended to become mutually destructive; and, with the destruction of habitual paths of self-expression, a hiatus yawned between the self and the world; and, in the consequent mal-adjustment, the idea of subject was born into consciousness. From now on, philosophy had two terms with which to deal, nature and self, the Tvorld and the individual, the subject and the object, and, from the early problem of harmonizing the unstable manifoldness of nature, it was brought face to face with the infinitely more complex one of harmonizing the self and nature. Thus arose the ■conditions of the problem of knowledge.

With faith in outward authority weakened and nothing apparent to take its place, an age of skepticism naturally followed. 'Traditional uniformity gave way to individual caprice. The individual man was held to be the measure of all things; his belief was for him the standard of truth; his pleasure, the standard of right; and, in the consequent self-seeking, justice was the interest of the stronger. Skepticism may be the pre-condition of a better founded faith, but it is not itself creative. Therefore the skeptics, to whom the name Sophists is generally applied', formulated no positive general theory of knowledge. The method of their educational practice was guided by a narrow empiricism, and, consistent with a belief in the homo-mensura tenet, they were concerned with opinion rather than knowledge,, and consequently emphasized rhetorical persuasion rather than logical conviction. A world of individuals whose opinions,, regarded as truth, could be externally determined would imply a somewhat mechanical theory of knowledge.

The authority of the world without had been denied for definite reasons; but that of the world within, only through ignorance of it. Therefore, when positive philosophy again arose, its attention was naturally centered on the latter. " Know thyself" was the maxim. With a philosophic faith in some ultimate reconciliation in a world of apparent conflicting individualism, Socrates began the investigation of the ideas of those about him; and, by a process of definition stimulated and refined through argument, he attempted to discover the common essence of concepts. The problem was too great for one man. and he confessed his inability to solve it. While in Socrates the theory of knowledge began to germinate, modem students,, whose minds have developed in a social medium enriched by more than two thousand years of philosophic thought, are prone to read into the Socratic position more than was ever distinctly differentiated in the mind of the great teacher.

An adequate theory of knowledge must give some reasonable account of the development of concepts. But Socrates did not do this. While the so-called Socratic method, that of questioning, conforms to the method of creating tensions (discussed in chapter nine), Socrates does not seem to have appreciated its vital significance in the development of knowledge. He was interested in the meanings of ideas as products, rather than in the formal process out of which they develop, and, assuming the existence of concepts in the mind and their essential uniformity, in positive doctrine he advanced no farther than his so-called intellectual "midwifery". To bring already formed ideas to light was his mission as he conceived it. As they could be brought to light only in intellectual form, he failed to recognize

I Some Sophists may have advanced from the position of skepticism. Of. Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, Vol. I, pp. 4.(1 ff. (Auth. Edition, London, 190 1); also. Grote, Plato and the other Companions of Sokrates.

The Theories of Socrates and Plato 13

their underlying volitional and emotional nature. This is most noticeable in his ethical doctrine that one who knows the right will do it. The theory of knowledge here, at its very beginning, received an intellectualistic turn which has in a large measure affected its further development. The results of this are noticeable in education even at the present time.

The Sophistic and Socratic types of thought were the heritage of Plato and the solution of the problem which arose from practical needs became from now on the special work of the philosopher.

Socrates had directed attention to the mind as the source of true and authoritative concepts. For further investigation two problems naturally arose: (r) to discover the basis of the truth or validity of concepts, (2) to systematize them according to their meaning. Plato attempted to solve both.

The universe of experience is infinitely manifold and the phases of it to which one human mind is strongly attracted are limited; consequently, individual thinkers tend either to be satisfied with the account of a part, neglecting the rest; or else to interpret all in the light of a few phases of it. To understand a philosopher and his relation to thought as a wider social product, one must know his point of view. Plato had a natural interest in mathematics and ethics ; and thought previous to him had made prominent two views of the nature of reality: the Eleatics believed it to be static and permanent; the school of Heraclitus viewed it as a ceaseless becoming. The influence of these four phases of thought upon Plato is evident, (a) His interest in mathematics influenced him to look upon ideas as independent of the concrete manifestations of nature. Mathematics deals with the forms, space and time, abstracted from the content of experience. Since the forms are universal, after the abstraction has once been made and mathematics has begun its work of analysis, no further attention to nature is necessary; the mental vision — ^the eye of the soul or sixth sense as Plato calls it — ^sees the relations within the abstraction. With an inclination naturally to use this class of ideas in which he was so strongly interested as typical of all ideas, it was easy for him to follow Socrates in placing entire emphasis upon the concept as the fundamental basis of knowledge, although in reality a concept is an abstraction which marks an advanced stage in. the knowing process, (b) Again, because of the universality of space and time, concepts based upon these abstract forms have a peculiar permanence and finality.

Accordingly, the natural trend of Plato's mathematical bias led him to the Eleatic position in his doctrine of ideas, (c) Then too since these concepts are independent of any particular mind at any particular moment,^ it is easy to imagine them to be independent of all mind. With poetic imagery the permanent and static ideas were hypostasized and viewed as reals of which the changing phases of experience were mere copies. Seeing in the latter the Heracleitean principle of change, he turned to the realm of ideas as more worthy of study ; for a world in flux did not offer the promise of that definite universal truth which Socrates sought. The universal and particular, which can be separated only through abstraction, Plato here practically sundered, although the statement that particulars are copies of universals seems vaguely to refer to some relationship. As a matter of fact, universal and particular are two aspects of a unitary reality and neither can exist nor have any meaning absolutely sundered from the other. "Perception without conception is blind, conception without perception is empty." Thus in two ways did he become the victim of his mental bent; he viewed all ideas in the light of mathematical concepts and neglected one phase of reality to center his attention, on another.

While the practical need which gave rise to Plato's philosophy was primarily a moral one, the purely intellectualistic position, which he had inherited from Socrates had no place for genuine ethics. Using the concept "good" in a fancied analogy, which destroyed its ethical sense, he made it serve to relate ideas and phenomena. Things in the phenomenal world of change were "good" to the extent that they gave adequate expression to the reality embodied in the world of ideas. Again, complete thinking involves both abstraction and synthesis or conscious restoration of the abstraction to the unity from which it was taken. Plato, following the tangent of abstraction, attributed deepest reality to the most empty abstractions, arranged his "ideas" in a system with "the good" as supreme, and then considered the highest aim of life to be the passive contempla--

The Theories of Socrates and Plato i$

tion of this. Here, indeed, is the irony of a philosophy that takes a partial point of view. When activity inquired for a guide, it was made passive: the search begun for the sake of goodness ended by making it either an empty abstraction or a mere link of relation to a realm considered too unreal for seriousstudy.

Plato was an artist; consequently, it was natural for him to be synthetic rather than analytic in the sense of treating ideas only as they are involved in wider relations rather than probing into the processes out of which they develop. The same tendency that inclined him to order them in a system according to their meaning, influenced him to account for their origin and development by the somewhat poetic doctrine of reminiscence. Thisdoctrine is based only upon an analogy with implications favorable to poetic interpretation. Ultimately any analysis must face the same limit of facts which Plato sought to transcend in the myth. The human mind caimot primarily create: it is limited in its investigations to the description of experience, which cannot be transcended. In this descrip|;ion, however, it can to a greater or less extent trace the process in which knowledge develops. And in this very descriptiojti is the promise of an answer to the problems of both epistemology and education.

Even with analytic insight, only a very partial answer could have been given by Plato, because his attention was limited to abstract phases of the knowing process. Therefore, he was soon compelled to take recourse to the myth. In fact, in this matter, he made no advance upon the Socratic doctrine of "midwifery". Ideas were bom with difficulty, with the assistance of dialectic. Other than this he told ;\othing of the process through which they got their highly organized blood and sinew and the breath that made them vital. The limited view to which he gave attention — and this was the view of Socrates also — ^was intellect abstracted from feeling and will. In dialectic, the emotional appreciation of worth and the exercise of will are involved; and, if Socrates and Plato had analyzed this very process, they would lave found a cue to the method of knowledge, but they were intersted in knowledge as a product, and so failed to discover that heir very practice of philosophy reveals the inadequacy of their intellectualistic position. Indeed, the activity of the philosopher to find amid conflicting traditions the right form of self-expression, itself became a form of self-expression, and, when fixed by habit, was felt under tension to be the worthful thing to do.' Activity, which when consciously directed becomes the expression of will, is ftmdamental in life, and out of this activity in the service of further activity does knowledge develop. The intellectualist makes contemplation the highest good because his view-point has excluded everything else, but even in contemplation has he unconsciously slipped in feeling and will: the highest goal even here is inconceivable apart from activity.

Neither the epistemological problem of the validity of knowledge nor the educational problem of the control of knowledge can be solved from the intellectualistic position, for the validity of an idea can be determined only by reference to something else and control takes place only in the direction of a process where certain causes condition certain results. The final answer to these problems from the intellectualistic position, as is clearly evident in later writings, must assume an illogical dualism where validity is made a correspondence between an idea and something else independent of it, and therefore without the pale of consciousness and unknowable ; and the method of education by mechanical analogies descriptive of how that which is out of the pale of consciousness builds up in the mind ideas which correspond to it, bridging an imaginary chasm the existence of which could never be known. Even this theory wotild be impossible without reference to will, for the very mechanical analogies involving force are themselves analogies derived from the ejection of the subjective experience of will into objective phenomena as a means of interpreting them (pp. 47 and 53). Intellectualism views only a product as static, and, after shattering the crystal of knowledge into fragments, it is powerless to get them together again: a test of validity and a method of control demand imiting relations, and relations are ftmdamentally dynamic, existing in a process.

1 Cf . p. 44- — To use a psychological analogy, as the world of "external" vibration is revealed in color, sound and other qualitative sensations, so the tensions in our habits are revealed in feelings of worth.

CHAPTER II The Theory of Aristotle

With Plato's problem, Aristotle inherited his master's point of view. But Aristotle's interest was biological rather than ethico-teleological and mathematical. This naturally led him to a more comprehensive view -point. The demands of biology could not be satisfied with only a formal, static realm of ideas as a working basis, while nature with its rich variety of content was neglected; and, as soon as nature was taken into serious account, a unitary dynamic conception of reality was the result. It was dynamic because nature involves change and growth: it was unitary because both matter and mind are involved in the life process. In Aristotle's thinking, the narrower view-point which he inherited was never brought into complete harmonious relation to the wider one to which his interest led him; and, consequently, the effect of two conflicting principles is very evident in his philosophy. The one principle made him at times an unconscious victim of the Platonic dualism and reached its culmination in his theology, where God is represented to be pure, immovable form, and in his ethics, where contemplation is regarded to be the crowning aim of life: the other made an evolutionary interpretation everywhere prominent. Aristotle's statements which have direct bearing upon the theory of knowledge are fragmentary, and the fact that he was influenced by two conflicting principles makes their interpretation difficult ; for inferences drawn in the light of one principle differ from those made in the light of the other. However, his real contribution to thought is included in his conception of reality as a unitary process; and, to appreciate in its purity the advance which he made upon Plato, it is necessary to eliminate the effects of an occasional unconscious influence of the staticdualistic position, against which he openly contended in so masterly a manner.

The biological point of view reveals an organic unitary process of develo-oment. This process from the lowest to the highest manifestations of life presents two fundamental aspects, which Aristotle called "dunamis" and "energeia". The "dunamis" is the basis out of which the Ufe principle rises to a completer realization. The "energeia" is the realizing viewed in its relation to the "dunamis". As the life principle advances in its realization, the "energeia" for the lower stage becomes the "dunamis" for the higher. A possible translation for these terms is situation and agent, at least when applied to higher forms of life. In the life of man, the process is a conscious one. Based upon a present situation (dunamis), a purpose is formed with a view to a better situation : through the activity (energeia) to realize the purpose, new experience is gained: this experience in turn integrates with the old as a situation (dunamis) for new purposes and activities (energeia) . Thus does experience ever widen, making possible an increasing number of purposes, while the greater number of purposes lead to activities which bring about a further increase in experience. A little child, comparativelyspeaking, is merely a "dunamis", a possibility, a situation, out of which through self-activity a gradual development comes. In this process of self-realization, as each individual progresses in experience, he builds throughout his life the world in which he consciously lives.

Of this conscious life process there are two fundamental phases. The essence of purpose is its view to a better situation: this involves an appreciation of relative worth, an evaluation. The purpose can be realized through activity only in so far as experience is under control. Plato, with his ethical bent, was interested in evaluation; while Aristotle advanced to the investigation of the complementary phase of the process and sought a method of control. Accordingly, while Plato's philosophy culminated in the classification according to worth of ethical concepts, Aristotle developed a system of logic. Control must be exercised in a world of changing particulars and its task can be accomplished only in so far as this world of particulars is amenable to thought, is rational. The relation of thought to its object at once became a question of fundamental importance and here Aristotle took issue with the Platonic dualism. In developing the syllogism, he pointed out the unitary logical process, which involves both the particular and the general, a process by

The Theory of Aristotle 19

which advancing control is gained over experience, whether it be through the unconscious forming and use of simpler concepts, the uncritical reasoning of every-day life or the application of the more refined methods of exact science. In analyzing this process, he gave attention chiefly to the deductive phase, tracing premises back to the categories and showing how the individual is subsumed under the general. Turning from Plato's doctrine of reminiscence, he held that, by a process the potentiality of which is innate, these premises, or principia, develop out of particular judgments of sense, remembered, compared, and through resemblances unified; but he did not further analyze the method of induction, a problem which was left unsolved until the Baconian movement.

That to Aristotle the knowing process was regarded as unitary is evident not only as a logical conclusion from his presuppositions, but also because in his analysis he has revealed both subjective and objective phases throughout it. He held that there can be interaction only where there is something in common and this precludes dualism: for two "things" are the same in respect to what they have in common; and, however they may differ in other respects, these differences must be organic with the common element, else a repeated dualism would break out in both and destroy them. The world cannot be abstracted without including, in a measure, reason: reason cannot be abstracted without, in a measure, including the world. It is true that Aristotle points now to sense and now to intellect as the origin of knowledge, but either the greatest of logicians must be accused of the most apparent inconsistency or his statements must be interpreted to give only greater relative emphasis to one phase or the other. There is little probability that the Platonic position influenced him in the analysis of ordinary everyday experience, for the very purpose in making the analysis was to bridge the chasm which his master had made between ideas and the phenomenal world; in a word, to show that the universal exists in the thing. The common element in subject and object, that which unifies them is, according to Aristotle, the form, the universal. In the process of knowledge in apprehending the forms of things, reason finds itself in the world. Reason is potentially in the world; the world is potentially in reason. In the realization of its potentiality, reason presents two aspects which Aristotle calls creative and passive, and which, in mental evolution, seem to correspond to the "dunamis" and "energeia" of the wider process of development of which reason and the world are but phases.

The problems implied in Aristotle's newly discovered conception of unitary development are infinite both in number and complexity. In consequence, he suffered the limitations of a pioneer: it was impossible for one man or one age to cover the whole field. However much social considerations affected his solution of other problems, in the theory of knowledge it has remained for later generations to account for the logical norms or habits as a social product and to show that reason finds itself in the world because in social progress it has been vicariously ptU there; for each generation has helped to build the world in which future generations are to live. The world is rational because the world is built out of judgments. Aside from the sense symbol, a thing (e. g. a chair) which one seems to see directly is a product of judgments formed in previous experience and ejected into the symbol; indeed, even the symbol itself is not differentiated independently of the judgment. Thus every new judgment, naive or critical, to which one becomes habituated is built into his world: the proved theories of one generation become mental habits and consequently parts of the world of the next. Thus every hypothesis proved by science is a step in the creation of things. With a knowledge of physical and chemical theory, for instance, one puts into the world and then seems to see immediately that which another, ignorant of these sciences, cannot see. The idea is not only in the thing: it is the thing. Logical norms are the essential forms of this creative process having become conscious of themselves, their development and habituation being a social product in accordance with the principles under which any advanced experience is socially developed.