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Rorty and final vocabularies

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The document discusses concepts from philosophers like Foucault, Rorty, and Watts regarding critically examining assumptions and values about schools. It emphasizes developing an "ironic sensibility" by problematizing one's perspectives and engaging in open-minded conversation over establishing certainties. Rorty believes communities should define themselves through a shared curriculum to facilitate common conversations, rather than relying solely on individual preferences or external authorities. The document poses questions about how taking these ideas seriously could impact schooling practices and approaches to knowledge.

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Prespared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaConnecting from last timePED 3102 in a nutshellBecause schools have the potential to be much better places, for both teachers and students, we regard it as very important for everyone involved with education to understand the way in which our schools are organized and operated so that they can ask questions about, and propose changes to, current practices.- Jon Young & Benjamin Levin, Understanding Canadian Schools, Reader p.10
Prespared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaFocaults Epistemological ConundrumPeople know what they do; they frequently know why they do what they do; but what they dont know is what they do [their doing] does.-Michel Foucault, Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, Dreyfus & Rabinow (Eds.), p. 187
The point of critical understandingIn PED 3102 we continuously urge you to first surface and then examine your existing assumptions, beliefs, and values about schools and schooling so that you will not simply reproduce what now exists.Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa
Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaCulture and Final Vocabularies[A]ll vocabularies, even those which contain the words which we take most seriously, the ones most essential to our self-descriptions are human creations, tools for the creation of such other human artifacts as poems, utopian societies, scientific theories, and future generations.-Richard Rorty, Contingency, irony, and solidarity, p. 53
Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawafinal vocabulariesAll human beings carry about a set of words which they employ to justify their actions, their beliefs, and their livesThey are the words in which we tell, sometimes prospectively and sometimes retrospectively, the story of our lives. I shall call these words a persons final vocabulary.- Richard Rorty, Contingency, irony, and solidarity, p. 73
Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaWhen we are talking about the order and structure of the world, we are talking about the order of our grids.-Alan W. Watts, Psychotherapy East and WestGrids = Final Vocabularies
Seeing beyond our gridsLearning to problematize our final vocabularies through the cultivation of the ironic sensibility.Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa
Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaI shall define an ironist as someone who fulfills three conditions:(1) She has radical and continuing doubts about the final vocabulary she currently uses, because she has been impressed by other vocabularies, vocabularies taken as final by people or books she has encountered;
Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa(2) She realizes that argument phrased in her present vocabulary can neither underwrite nor dissolve these doubts;
(3) Insofar as she philosophizes about her situation, she does not think that her vocabulary is closer to reality than others, that it is in touch with a power not herself. - Richard Rorty, Contingency, irony, and solidarity, p. 73-5Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa
Irony and Agency[T]he fact that Newton's vocabulary lets us predict the world more easily than Aristotle's does not mean that the world speaks Newtonian. The world does not speak. Only we do.-Richard Rorty, Contingency, irony, and solidarity, p. 6Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa
The Aim of Irony:Conversation Over CertaintyPrepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa
Michael Oakeshottfrom Rationalism in Politics and Other EssaysIn conversation, facts appear only to be resolved once more into the possibilities from which they were made; certainties are shown to be combustible, not by being brought in contact with other certainties or with doubts, but by being kindled by the presence of ideas of another order; approximations are revealed between notions normally remote from one another . . . Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa
Conversation & DiversityConversation is not an enterprise designed to yield an extrinsic profit, a contest where a winner gets a prize, nor is it an activity of exegesis; it is an unrehearsed intellectual adventure . . . . Properly speaking, it is impossible in the absence of a diversity of voices: in it different universes of discourse meet, acknowledge each other and enjoy an oblique relationship which neither requires nor forecasts their being assimilated to one another. (pp. 177-179; emphasis added)Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa
Knowledge and Community(neither narcissism nor subjugation)[T]here is a middle way between reliance on a God-surrogate and on ones individual preferences namely, reliance on the common sense of the community to which one belongs.-Richard Rorty, Hermeneutics, General Studies, and Teaching, p. 527Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa
[It] does not greatly matter what the core curriculum is as long as there is one as long as each community defines itself by adopting oneWhat matters is that there be some things they all have read and can do, some common subject of conversationTo pick a core curriculum is, therefore, to pick a community or, better, to decide what sort of community one would like to see come into being.-Rorty, Hermeneutics, General Studies, and Teaching, pp. 527 & 532-3Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa
Three Questions:Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa1. What are the implications of Rortysvalorization of curriculum as a conversation disciplined and enriched by community?2. If we take Rorty seriously, what would change in our current schooling practices? What might remain the same? Why?3. How might our approaches to knowing self, other, and world change?

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Rorty and final vocabularies

  • 1. Prespared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaConnecting from last timePED 3102 in a nutshellBecause schools have the potential to be much better places, for both teachers and students, we regard it as very important for everyone involved with education to understand the way in which our schools are organized and operated so that they can ask questions about, and propose changes to, current practices.- Jon Young & Benjamin Levin, Understanding Canadian Schools, Reader p.10
  • 2. Prespared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaFocaults Epistemological ConundrumPeople know what they do; they frequently know why they do what they do; but what they dont know is what they do [their doing] does.-Michel Foucault, Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, Dreyfus & Rabinow (Eds.), p. 187
  • 3. The point of critical understandingIn PED 3102 we continuously urge you to first surface and then examine your existing assumptions, beliefs, and values about schools and schooling so that you will not simply reproduce what now exists.Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa
  • 4. Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaCulture and Final Vocabularies[A]ll vocabularies, even those which contain the words which we take most seriously, the ones most essential to our self-descriptions are human creations, tools for the creation of such other human artifacts as poems, utopian societies, scientific theories, and future generations.-Richard Rorty, Contingency, irony, and solidarity, p. 53
  • 5. Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawafinal vocabulariesAll human beings carry about a set of words which they employ to justify their actions, their beliefs, and their livesThey are the words in which we tell, sometimes prospectively and sometimes retrospectively, the story of our lives. I shall call these words a persons final vocabulary.- Richard Rorty, Contingency, irony, and solidarity, p. 73
  • 6. Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaWhen we are talking about the order and structure of the world, we are talking about the order of our grids.-Alan W. Watts, Psychotherapy East and WestGrids = Final Vocabularies
  • 7. Seeing beyond our gridsLearning to problematize our final vocabularies through the cultivation of the ironic sensibility.Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa
  • 8. Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of OttawaI shall define an ironist as someone who fulfills three conditions:(1) She has radical and continuing doubts about the final vocabulary she currently uses, because she has been impressed by other vocabularies, vocabularies taken as final by people or books she has encountered;
  • 9. Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa(2) She realizes that argument phrased in her present vocabulary can neither underwrite nor dissolve these doubts;
  • 10. (3) Insofar as she philosophizes about her situation, she does not think that her vocabulary is closer to reality than others, that it is in touch with a power not herself. - Richard Rorty, Contingency, irony, and solidarity, p. 73-5Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa
  • 11. Irony and Agency[T]he fact that Newton's vocabulary lets us predict the world more easily than Aristotle's does not mean that the world speaks Newtonian. The world does not speak. Only we do.-Richard Rorty, Contingency, irony, and solidarity, p. 6Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa
  • 12. The Aim of Irony:Conversation Over CertaintyPrepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa
  • 13. Michael Oakeshottfrom Rationalism in Politics and Other EssaysIn conversation, facts appear only to be resolved once more into the possibilities from which they were made; certainties are shown to be combustible, not by being brought in contact with other certainties or with doubts, but by being kindled by the presence of ideas of another order; approximations are revealed between notions normally remote from one another . . . Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa
  • 14. Conversation & DiversityConversation is not an enterprise designed to yield an extrinsic profit, a contest where a winner gets a prize, nor is it an activity of exegesis; it is an unrehearsed intellectual adventure . . . . Properly speaking, it is impossible in the absence of a diversity of voices: in it different universes of discourse meet, acknowledge each other and enjoy an oblique relationship which neither requires nor forecasts their being assimilated to one another. (pp. 177-179; emphasis added)Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa
  • 15. Knowledge and Community(neither narcissism nor subjugation)[T]here is a middle way between reliance on a God-surrogate and on ones individual preferences namely, reliance on the common sense of the community to which one belongs.-Richard Rorty, Hermeneutics, General Studies, and Teaching, p. 527Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa
  • 16. [It] does not greatly matter what the core curriculum is as long as there is one as long as each community defines itself by adopting oneWhat matters is that there be some things they all have read and can do, some common subject of conversationTo pick a core curriculum is, therefore, to pick a community or, better, to decide what sort of community one would like to see come into being.-Rorty, Hermeneutics, General Studies, and Teaching, pp. 527 & 532-3Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa
  • 17. Three Questions:Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa1. What are the implications of Rortysvalorization of curriculum as a conversation disciplined and enriched by community?2. If we take Rorty seriously, what would change in our current schooling practices? What might remain the same? Why?3. How might our approaches to knowing self, other, and world change?