Reflection in education: A kantian epistemology

Educational Theory

Volumn 56, Issue 3, 2006, Pages 237-253

  Procee, Henk ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF TWENTE   (Netherlands)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 38649117735     PISSN: 00132004     EISSN: 17415446     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-5446.2006.00225.x     Document Type: Review

References (59)

1. Immanuel Kant, "First Introduction," in Critique of Judgment (1790), trans. Werner S. Pluhar (New York: Hackett, 1987), part v. The original German text is as follows: "Reflektieren aber ist: gegebene Vorstellungen entweder mit andern, oder mit seinem Erkenntnisvermö gen, in Beziehung auf einen dadurch mö glichen Begriff, zu vergleichen und zusammen zu halten." Note the term "this [activity]" in the translation, which has a double character, serving as both subject and direct object.
2. Elizabeth Anne Kinsella, "Reflections on Reflective Practice," Canadian Journal of Occupational Therapy 68, no. 3 (2001): 195-198.
3. Ilan Gur-Ze'ev, Jan Masschelein, and Nigel Blake, "Reflectivity, Reflection, and Counter-Education," Studies in Philosophy and Education 20, no. 2 (2001): 93-106.
4. For work emphasizing "reflectivity," see, for example, John Dewey, Democracy and Education (New York: The Free Press, 1916);
5. John Dewey, How We Think: A Restatement of the Relation of Reflective Thinking to the Educative Process (Lexington, Massachusetts: Heath, 1933);
6. Donald A. Schö n, The Reflective Practitioner (London: Temple Smith, 1983);
7. and Donald A. Schö n, Educating the Reflective Practitioner (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1987).
8. See also David A. Kolb's Experiential Learning (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1984),
9. which has significantly influenced the pragmatic approach to reflection. For a basic book on critical reflection, see Jü rgen Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interests, trans. Jeremy J. Shapiro) (London: Heinemann, 1972).
10. In line with this approach are Jack Mezirow, Fostering Critical Reflection in Adulthood: A Guide to Transformative and Emancipatory Learning (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1990);
11. Stephen D. Brookfield, Developing Critical Thinkers: Challenging Adults to Explore Alternative Ways of Thinking and Acting (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1987);
12. and Stephen D. Brookfield, Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1995).
13. For work that represents a combination of both traditions, see, for example, David Boud, Rosemary Keogh, and David Walker, "Promoting Reflection in Learning: A Model," in Reflection: Turning Experience into Learning, eds. David Boud, Rosemary Keogh, and David Walker (London: Kogan Page, 1985), 18-40.
14. David Boud and David Walker have also published numerous articles on this topic.
15. Frank Serafini, "Dimensions of Reflective Practice" (2000), http://serafini.nevada.edu/Handouts/ ReflectivePractice.htm. See also Christine A. Krol, "Coming to Terms: Reflective Practice," The English Journal 86, no. 5 (1997): 96-97.
16. For more on these levels, see Ronald Barnett, Higher Education: A Critical Business (London: SRHE and Open University Press, 1997).
17. A comparable classification has been presented by Max van Manen in "Linking Ways of Knowing with Ways of Being Practical," Curriculum Inquiry 6, no. 3 (1977): 205-228.
18. Elizabeth Anne Kinsella, "Toward Understanding: Critiques of Reflective Practice and Possibilities for Dialogue," Canadian Association for the Study of Adult Education-Online Proceedings (2003), available at from http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/CASAE/cnf2003/CASAEpgm2003-3%20. html.
19. David Boud and David Walker, "Promoting Reflection in Professional Courses: The Challenge of Context," Studies in Higher Education 23, no. 2 (1998): 192.
20. Especially the norms described by Jü rgen Habermas in his Theory of Communicative Action, trans. Thomas McCarthy (1984; repr. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1987).
21. Boud, Keogh, andWalker, "Promoting Reflection in Learning," 21.
22. See Henk Procee, Immanuel Kant en het volle leven [Immanuel Kant and the human condition] (Budel: Damon, 2004).
23. For some overviews, see Israel Idalovichi, "Grounds and Perspectives of Critical Reflection - An Educational and Philosophical Inquiry," Essays in Education 6 (2003);
24. Lynn Fendler, "Teacher Reflection in a Hall of Mirrors: Historical Influences and Political Reverberations," Educational Researcher 32, no. 3 (2003): 16-25;
25. Jan Bengtsson, "What Is Reflection? On Reflection in the Teaching Profession and Teacher Education," Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice 1, no. 1 (1995): 23-32;
26. and Jan Bengtsson, "Possibilities and Limits of Self-Reflection in the Teaching Profession," Studies in Philosophy and Education 22, no. 3-4 (2003): 295-316.
27. Ernst Bloch, Philosophische Grundfragen [Basic Philosophical Questions] (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1961), 65.
28. Isaiah Berlin analyzed this tension in his famous study Two Concepts of Liberty (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958).
29. In line with this distinction, Charles Clark tries to point out that politically oriented critical views of reflection - in particular, the "action research" view of Stephen Kemnis and Wilfred Carr in their book Becoming Critical: Education, Knowledge and Action Research (London: Falmer Press, 1986)
30. - may have totalitarian implications. Clark especially criticizes the influential equalization of liberation and psychoanalysis. According to him, psychoanalysis might be appropriate for the sick soul, but it is not apt for a flourishing human being. See Charles Clark, "Carr and Kemnis's Reflections," Journal of Philosophy of Education 35, no. 1 (2001): 85-100, esp. 95.
31. Max van Manen, "On the Epistemology of Reflective Practice," Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice 1, no. 1 (1995): 33-50.
32. Habermas quoted in Chaïm Perelman, "The Rational and the Reasonable," in Rationality To-Day/La Rationalité Aujourd'hui, ed. Theodore F. Geraets (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1979), 224.
33. VanManen, "On the Epistemology of Reflective Practice," 43.
34. Ibid., 45.
35. Ibid., 48.
36. David Mulroy, "TheWar Against Grammar," Wisconsin Interest 8, no. 2 (1999): 14.
37. Ibid., 15. A sympathetic treatment of the ideology of reflection in education can be found in David Coulter and John R. Wiens, "Educational Judgment: Linking the Actor and the Spectator," Educational Researcher 31, no. 4 (2002): 15-25.
38. Coulter and Wiens try to remove the hierarchical relation between educational theory and educational practice. For that aim, they embrace Hannah Arendt's interpretation of Kant's notion of reflective judgment. In contrast to Mulroy, they take education merely as a field of (political) "action," neglecting two other aspects of "the human condition"- "labor" and "work."
39. This is also a central thesis of Henk Procee, De Nieuwe Ingenieur: Over Techniekfilosofie en Professioneel Handelen [The New Engineer: Philosophy of Technology and Professional Work] (Amsterdam: Boom, 1997).
40. George Khushf, "The Aesthetics of Clinical Judgment: Exploring the Link Between Diagnostic Elegance and Effective Resource Utilization," Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 2, no. 2 (1999): 148.
41. Ibid., 154.
42. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (1781), trans. Norman Kemp Smith (London: Macmillan, 1929): B170ff.
43. Immanuel Kant, "First Introduction," in Critique of Judgment, part v (emphasis in original).
44. Immanuel Kant, "Second Introduction," in Critique of Judgment, part iv.
45. Bé atrice Longuenesse, Kant and the Capacity to Judge (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998). For comments on this work, see Henry E. Allison, "Where Have All the Categories Gone? Reflections on Longuenesse's Reading of Kant's Transcendental Deduction," Inquiry 43, no. 1 (2000): 67-80;
46. and Sally Sedgwick, "Longuenesse on Kant and the Priority of the Capacity to Judge," Inquiry 43, no. 1 (2000): 81- 90. See also Henry E. Allison, Kant's Theory of Taste: A Reading of the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
47. Longuenesse, Kant and the Capacity to Judge, 163ff.
48. Henry E. Allison, Kant's Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 204ff.
49. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, B172.
50. Ibid.
51. Ibid.
52. I twice used the adverb "primarily" in these theses because the distinction Kant drew between understanding and judgment is in need of some qualification. In learning processes, that distinction is less absolute than he assumed. Learning concepts and theories also involves exercising (determinative) judgment; furthermore, exercising (reflective) judgment may require the use of concepts. Notwithstanding this qualification, the difference remains very significant. In formal learning understanding is the central issue with judgment playing (at most) a secondary role, whereas in reflection judgment is primary and understanding secondary.
53. Phyllis Chiasson, "Peirce and the Philosophy of Education," Encyclopaedia of Philosophy of Education (1999), http://www.vusst.hr/ ENCYCLOPAEDIA/peirce.htm.
54. The term subjective-universal may require some explanation. Kant introduced this expression in his Critique of Judgment. It tries to cover the nature of communication when one does not have clear concepts or criteria to make a definite judgment, when logical argumentation is (partly) out of order. This type of communication does not refer to an objective rule, but instead consists of inviting one another to see things from different perspectives, thereby widening and changing the existing perspectives. His expression subjective-universal places the obtained outcomes in between objective and subjective judgments. A subjective-universal judgment is subjective and personal, but it is also an invitation - a prescriptive - to others to share one's view, and it therefore also has a specific universal character. As might be clear, this type of communication implies a combination of feelings and insights; furthermore, it is vulnerable because it can be harmed by someone's inability or unwillingness to take seriously the feelings and insights of the participants. When postulating that reflection in education is related to judgment, this subjective-universal kind of communication will be essential; in formal learning, which is related to Kant's notion of understanding, communication might be more objective.
55. In Higher Education, Ronald Barnett presents a well-balanced scheme of possible concepts for reflection in education. It shows the breadth of reflection by distinguishing three domains that may be the object of reflection: the problem at hand (knowledge, skills, approach), the self (including both professional and personal identity), and the social context (broader public, political, and environmental factors). It shows the depth of reflection by distinguishing among four levels of reflection. The 0-level, evaluation, is hardly reflection because it refers to assessment against given criteria. The 1-level, technical reflection, refers to creatively solving a problem in a certain context. At the 2-level, the interpretative level, one explores one's own assumptions and standards of approach and examines how they could be related to other persons involved, who would have different assumptions and standards. At the 3-level, critical reflection, one explores the (often implicit) fundamental scientific, cultural, and ethical presuppositions of one's approach.
56. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, B75.
57. Kant, "First Introduction," part v. Here I use my own translation from German, because the otherwise admirable translation by Pluhar is not as clear on this point as one would wish.
58. These courses were specifically developed for students at the University of Twente, who worked on a research or design project over a period of months.
59. Elsewhere Irene Visscher-Voerman and I published an article that describes the educational organization and the results of this approach. In it we introduced geometrical names for the different types of reflection: point reflection (quantity), line reflection (quality), triangle reflection (relation), circle reflection (modality). See Henk Procee and Irene Visscher-Voerman, "Reflecteren in het onderwijs - een kleine systematiek" [Reflection in education - a systematic approach], VELON 25, no. 3 (2004): 37-45.