Pedagogical Investigations

Abstract

In closing, we look at some ways Wittgenstein has been received in the philosophy of education, not portraying the entire community but focusing primarily on some of our own works. First, by contrast we survey the early use of Wittgenstein in analytic philosophy of education (c. 1960s–70s), where concept mapping of educational terminology was all the rage. We then step back and look at how Wittgenstein employed his many ‘scenes of instruction’ within his later philosophy, showing from another angle the significance of teaching and training within Wittgenstein’s ‘method’ of philosophical investigation. Two examples are then provided: one looking at expert judgment as it applies to assessing the soundness of teacher’s practices or curricula; the other, building on Wittgenstein’s remarks on the arbitrariness of mathematics and grammar, looks at rule-drift in top-down curriculum reforms, where educators often deviate from stipulated rules due to variant interpretation or improvisation within the rules. The multiplicity of language-games of educational reform often results in an archipelago of variant usage instead of the uniformity or alignment envisioned by administrators and Ministries of Education. Finally, we look at entrenchment within deeply rooted bedrock or world-pictures that often go unnoticed as we attend from these ‘pictures’ when looking outward. One of the higher aims of education, supported by Wittgenstein’s genealogical perspective, is to reveal through an ethnographic lens (the view from the margins), otherwise taken-for-granted practices and ways of seeing the world.