Knowledge, Education and Critical Inquiry

Abstract

`The aim of education is to. put knowledge in the place of opinion' (Anderson 1980, p. 70) - and, we can add, in place of belief, or our own ``constructs{''}. In Chapter 1 we developed an account of learning that did not necessarily involve critical inquiry and which results in belief, or opinion. We will argue here that learning processes without critical inquiry cannot result in knowledge. Our point turns on the fact that the big difference between mere belief and knowledge is that knowledge only results from the application of critical inquiry to our beliefs ( a claim that we will restrict in scope in important ways subsequently, especially in the case of direct perceptual knowledge). On the whole, it is only through learning processes that essentially involve elements of critical inquiry that we can get knowledge as the outcome of the learning, especially in the case of science. The difference that philosophers wish to draw between belief and knowledge is not something that is readily appreciated in science education circles, or in education generally. And it is something entirely muddled in postmodernist, constructivist and multicultural accounts of science education. Knowledge is not the only outcome of critical inquiry. It can also yield reasonable or rational belief, or some reasonable degree of support for our scientific hypotheses that is not as full as the support in the case of knowledge. Not all science need reach the standards for knowledge of the kind we will describe here, though much does. To mark this difference some speak of conjectural knowledge, but the adjective `conjectural' tends to undermine the following noun `knowledge'. And again some wish to speak of probable knowledge; but talk of probability again undermines the status of the knowledge claim. Quite often science employs methods which tell us which is the best of a number of rival hypotheses, either on the basis of evidence or on non-evidential grounds, such as offering a better explanation or having wider scope, etc. We will explore issues concerning scientific method more fully in Part II. There we will consider modes of critical inquiry that do not necessarily give us knowledge in the sense defined here, but nonetheless give us good grounds for rational belief in science. Probabilistic reasoning will play a big role here, something largely ignored in most accounts of scientific method found of science education. 1 In this chapter we will consider only the nature of knowledge and the modes of critical inquiry that are needed to produce it in any process of education. What is an education that produces knowledge rather than mere belief or opinion? One of the first philosophers to ask, and answer, these questions was Plato in his dialogue Meno. His answer, roughly, is that we have knowledge if and only if we have a belief which is true and for which we have a justification for its truth. Since this theory is important in its own right, this chapter will be devoted to spelling it out, along with an account of what an education that produces knowledge is like. In the next chapter we will consider how this conception of knowledge arose in the Ancient Greek philosophy of Plato, and the role it plays in Socratic inquiry and education. Both chapters will place the notion of knowledge at the core of critical inquiry and consider its implications for theories of learning and education. We focus on these ancient sources since they contain a richness of epistemological and educational theory that has not been surpassed, and the lessons of which, in our view, need to be revisited by every generation. Plato further qualified his account of knowledge in the Meno in later dialogues (such as the last third of the Theaetetus, not discussed here). In Chapter 4 we will consider some of the more recent reasons for adopting modified versions of the traditional account. Though the conception of knowledge is qualified in further analyses, the central notions of truth and evidence are definitely not abandoned; rather they are modified to meet problems that arise in developing a fully articulated theory of knowledge that meets some quite high philosophical demands (such as meeting the challenge of scepticism). And we will discuss in Chapter 4 whether there are foundations for knowledge, such as perceptual knowledge, that do not result from critical inquiry, or whether they too can be subject to critical inquiry. Section 2.1 begins by clearing away potential confusions due to the wide use of the word `knowledge'. It occurs in many contexts of use such as `knows how to', `knows why', `knows that', and so on. Once these important distinctions are made the focus of the chapter is then on `knows that' and how it might be defined. Section 2.2 briefly returns to the topic of belief again and investigates some of the different constructions in which the word `belief' occurs, in order to focus on belief that. It also considers the idea of degrees of belief and the rational grounds for partial, if not full, belief. Section 2.3 discusses briefly the notion of truth. Many in science education, and education generally, have caught a bad dose of truth phobia. Such has been the unfortunate influence of a range of views from scepticism to postmodernism where a very weak conception of truth is current. Here we will openly embrace a realist notion of truth, and leave until chapter 5 one of the main reasons that constructivists in science education have for rejecting it; in our view they are bad reasons, but nonetheless they have had a wide influence in philosophy and educational theory. Section 2.4 pulls the threads of the previous sections together and spells out reasons why knowledge that cannot be merely a matter of having a belief which is true, a point which is as old as Plato. The idea of knowledge as justified true belief is introduced and illustrated with examples that can serve as model in an educational context. Section 2.5 investigates the notion of knowing why, that is, of explanation and understanding. At this point three important aims intrinsic to inquiry in science will have been introduced in the discussion of knowledge, viz., truth, knowledge and explanation. Section 2.6 considers knowledge as an aim of critical inquiry in relation to normative conceptions of learning and education. The final section considers some of the accounts of knowledge current in writings on science education and highlights some of their deficiencies in the light of theory set out in this chapter. The role we assign to critical inquiry in obtaining knowledge, or rational belief, in the context of education and learning is not widespread in science education. But there are some who adopt conclusions close to ours, but perhaps not for the same reasons. Some authors do stress the need for `inquiry-based instruction' and say: `Students with scientific-thinking skills go beyond learning facts or doing hands-on activity and become able to use logic and reasoning skills to develop scientific knowledge and an understanding of scientific processes' (Bruning et. al. 2004, pp. 350-1). They then go on to do something important that is largely outside the scope of our book, namely provide empirical considerations about how best their model of inquiry-based learning can be used in the classroom. Where we agree is over the role of critical inquiry in instruction as the way students are to obtain knowledge, rather then mere belief. Where there is a difference of emphasis is that Bruning et. al. see their position as evolving out of constructivism. In contrast we see our version of inquiry-based learning and teaching evolving out of the kind of theory of knowledge we set out here, its application in examples of rationally based models of inquiry such as that of Socratic learning ( see Chapter 3), and the use of the history of science as a vast repository of rational inquiry that can be adapted for use in the classroom.