Educational Philosophy and Theory 40 (1):213–227 (2008)
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Abstract |
In modern, Western societies the purpose of schooling is to ensure that school-goers acquire knowledge of pre-existing practices, events, entities and so on. The knowledge that is learned is then tested to see if the learner has acquired a correct or adequate understanding of it. For this reason, it can be argued that schooling is organised around a representational epistemology: one which holds that knowledge is an accurate representation of something that is separate from knowledge itself. Since the object of knowledge is assumed to exist separately from the knowledge itself, this epistemology can also be considered ‘spatial.’ In this paper we show how ideas from complexity have challenged the spatial epistemology’ of representation and we explore possibilities for an alternative ‘temporal’ understanding of knowledge in its relationship to reality. In addition to complexity, our alternative takes its inspiration from Deweyan ‘transactional realism’ and deconstruction. We suggest that ‘knowledge’ and ‘reality’ should not be understood as separate systems which somehow have to be brought into alignment with each other, but that they are part of the same emerging complex system which is never fully ‘present’ in any (discrete) moment in time. This not only introduces the notion of time into our understanding of the relationship between knowledge and reality, but also points to the importance of acknowledging the role of the ‘unrepresentable’ or ‘incalculable’. With this understanding knowledge reaches us not as something we receive but as a response, which brings forth new worlds because it necessarily
adds something (which was not present anywhere before it appeared) to what came before. This understanding of knowledge suggests that the acquisition of curricular content should not be considered an end in itself. Rather, curricular content should be used to bring forth that which is incalculable from the perspective of the present. The epistemology of
emergence therefore calls for a switch in focus for curricular thinking, away from questions about presentation and representation and towards questions about engagement and response.
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Keywords | complexity emergence epistemology representation schooling |
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DOI | 10.1111/j.1469-5812.2007.00407.x |
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References found in this work BETA
Representing and Intervening: Introductory Topics in the Philosophy of Natural Science.Ian Hacking - 1983 - Cambridge University Press.
Representing and Intervening.Ian Hacking - 1984 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 35 (4):381-390.
Representing and Intervening.Ian Hacking - 1987 - Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 92 (2):279-279.
View all 25 references / Add more references
Citations of this work BETA
Witnessing Deconstruction in Education: Why Quasi-Transcendentalism Matters.Gert Biesta - 2009 - Journal of Philosophy of Education 43 (3):391-404.
Toward an Epistemology of the Hand.Svend Brinkmann & Lene Tanggaard - 2010 - Studies in Philosophy and Education 29 (3):243-257.
Informal Home Education: Philosophical Aspirations Put Into Practice.Alan Thomas & Harriet Pattison - 2013 - Studies in Philosophy and Education 32 (2):141-154.
Inferentialism at Work: The Significance of Social Epistemology in Theorising Education.Hanno Su & Johannes Bellmann - 2018 - Journal of Philosophy of Education 52 (2):230-245.
Complexity Theory and the Politics of Education.Deborah Osberg & Gert Biesta (eds.) - 2010 - Sense Publishers.
View all 13 citations / Add more citations
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