Abstract
In Wittgenstein’s later writings , he occasionally notes (parenthetically) that his remarks pertain to grammatical problems instead of psychological or causal ones (Z §§318 & 419). Briefly discussing Wittgenstein’s own elementary teaching experience to provide background , contrast is drawn between issues of efficacy in teaching and normative training into regular patterns or customs of usage. Following Josè Medina , I bring home a point of particular significance to analytic philosophy of education concerning adept initiation into practices : what Wittgenstein refers to as ‘mastery of techniques’ (PI §199) requires facility and autonomy within the rules not explicable on causal terms, nor diminished by its origins in normative training. Realizing this avenue through training does not however undermine the rational elements of teaching and learning —the space of reasons—sought by the analytic school. Etiological problems connected to teaching and learning are then distinguished from philosophical issues surrounding ranges of meaningful use and degrees of arbitrariness in relation to rule-following . The conclusion, earlier articulated by Standish (1995), is that Wittgenstein’s later philosophy draws a sharp distinction between any possible ‘science ’ of education and his therapeutic concept of philosophy as the dissolution of grammatical problems.
A portion of this paper was given at the PESGB Gregynog Conference, ‘Orientations Towards Wittgenstein ’ (Wales 2015), hosted by Paul Standish and Naomi Hodgson. A shorter version appears in the Wittgenstein section of the Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory (Springer, 2016), co-edited by Nicholas Burbules & Jeff Stickney (Michael A. Peters, Chief Editor).
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Notes
- 1.
Following convention, titles for Wittgenstein’s works are abbreviated (PI = Philosophical Investigations , RFM = Remarks on the Foundation of Mathematics, OC = On Certainty, WL = Wittgenstein’s Lectures, CV = Culture Value, PO = Philosophical Occasions), with section (§) or page number (p.), with full citation and initials (e.g., RFM) in the References.
- 2.
Karl Popper did his doctorate in educational psychology in Vienna at the same time and concluded that most education reforms were ideological rather than scientific (a case of employing his famous demarcation principle, showing teaching to be something not easily tested) (see Fuller 2004).
- 3.
Putnam (2002: 34) addresses the problem of the ethically thick concept of the ‘good teacher’: one who might be cruel, and yet achieve great results.
- 4.
Of course when he wrote we did not have the neuroscience of music , allowing Daniel Levitin at McGill University (author of This is your brain on music, New York: Penguin, 2006) to monitor the parts of the brain activated by music and even to use an algorithm to predict (using Boolean probability) ‘hit clusters’ in the songs submitted by aspiring artists. I sometimes worry that philosophers of education today want to throw out this entire field of science , which draws the boundary too sharply I think between pedagogy and neuroscience . I mean to say simply that this field is not irrelevant or uninteresting for education , even if not giving us the map to ideal teaching techniques.
- 5.
From the case of the ‘harried mathematics teacher’:
The instruction by insistence that seemed to be the way out of the impasse depicted in 185 suggests two important points: (i) That whatever rules the teacher may cite in pressing his case, the hard fact about him is that he is simply not prepared to brook any other continuation of the series than 1002, 1004…. He may adduce various rules in his desperation, but his colours show when the rule proves useless and he simply insists. … (ii) What the student primarily learns is what the teacher insists on: to do it this way—this is what we do here. The practices that he learns in this way can be symbolized, and various of them can be represented in a formula that he comes to be able to use as he advances, but the bedrock of his understanding consists of those things he has simply been told (or, if he has proved recalcitrant or careless, the things that have been insisted upon or drilled into him). (Hunter, 81–82)
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Stickney, J. (2017). Wittgenstein as Educator. In: Peters, M., Stickney, J. (eds) A Companion to Wittgenstein on Education. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-3136-6_3
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