Running head: PHILOSOPHICAL
BASIS FOR THE NEW BASICS IN THE CONNECTED AGE
Philosophical Basis for the New
Basics in the Connected Age
Texas A&M
University-Commerce
EDAD 641
Dr. Timothy Jones
December, 2005
Abstract
With monumental changes
taking place in our world there are growing demands for students to be equipped
with more democratic and sophisticated skills sets (new basics) for solving
complex global issues. New connectivity, collaborative-based
New Basics in the Connected
Age
The world is shrinking via new
Epistemology: What is truth/knowledge
and what are the sources?
Historically, philosophers attempted to find conceptual or natural models
to justify the source of knowledge. Plato held that knowledge was an ideal, a form,
or model. Like a true circle, which is never seen in nature, the concept was still
considered valid and real. Plato believed in priori knowledge and knowledge
that was attainable through reason. When attained, this knowledge was infallible, fixed,
and unaltered by experience. He also believed that knowledge could not be
transferred from teacher to student. The teacher could only point the way for
the student hoping enlightenment would follow.
Both Descartes and Plato believed in eternal truths and fixed laws
which to them represented the highest forms of knowledge. Among these ideals were
democracy, liberty, justice, goodness, equity and unity (Rachels,
1941). To investigate each of these forms was to draw nearer to the ideal. Arithmetic
and geometry represented the perfect laws of logic and reasoning. Even so, Descartes
admitted that any man could err in any matter even if he clearly perceived it to
be true (Chappell, 1986). Some knowledge, according to Descartes was fleeting
at best and only compelling while the thought was under consideration, a
concept that would reverberate in the twenty-first century.
Socrates, Aristotle, and
John Locke expanded the study of natural phenomena in search of principles to
represent permanent realities. They believed that new knowledge was built upon
previous knowledge in an active mind able to create mental images,
abstractions, and complex axioms. Learning took place through interactions with
natural processes. Experiences alerted the mind to general truths and the new
knowledge was tied to what was already known thus building on certainty rather than
opinion.
Francis Bacon and John Locke harmonized on the concepts of cause and
effect (determinism) and upon reality, knowledge and values existing
independent of the human mind. Bacon and Locke justified knowledge through empirical
and scientific methods. Knowledge and truth were derived through inductive methods
of data gathering, validation, and logical generalizations. If the data was
valid, then the knowledge inferred from reflection about the data was also
valid.
Thomas Hobbes, Rene Descartes,
and Galileo, as
mathematicians upheld observable natural laws, inductive reasoning, empiricism,
and scientific inquiry as methods for justifying knowledge. Like Francis Bacon,
these shunned mysticism and traditional persuasions. In response, Pascal, also a
mathematician, wrote a Christian apologetic in which he condemned scientific
methods for being narrow in both truth and perception. Pascal’s Pensees detailed the limitations of
human perception, man-made instrumentation, and scientific observation by
demonstrating that all human sensory organs fail to detect beyond their capacities.
Both Pascal and Immanuel Kant opposed the claim empiricists had on infallible
truth. No form of human sense or man-made instrumentation would be able to
detect all the data or information actually available. At some point the senses
fail and erroneous information enters the experiment or observation. Pascal
called this failure, the limited window of observation (Pascal, 1660). He held
that the natures of God and man were invariable. Empiricism would never be able
to sense or observe all truth, all reality or for that matter, ever be able to validate
or invalidate the existence of God. These arguments re-surfaced in the twentieth
century.
Bacon and Locke became the
fathers of pragmatism and influenced John Dewey in his thinking. Dewey went on
to embrace not only observation and measurement but logic, reflection and
reasoning as sources of knowledge. Dewey was able to deduce influential aspects
of learning that are still reverently held in Western educational thought. His
major contributions to understanding the teaching-learning process were the
core practices of teacher as facilitator to learning, learning as active,
experiential, connecting to previous knowledge and relevant to the learner, based
on clear goals and the learner’s interests, utilizing social interaction, reflection,
feedback, collaboration, encouraging creativity and innovation in projects or
artifacts, and basing all student endeavors on real-world audiences with clear
and significant purpose.
Dewey recognized
knowledge as being derived from eclectic sources, social interactions, experiences,
reflections, and the ability of the learner to make connections-a significant
twenty-first century staple. According to Dewey, knowledge and learning evolved.
Education did not have an end-state of perfection as a final goal, but the
ever-enduring process of perfecting and refining (Dewey, 1997). His innovative thinking endorsed
a democratic, learner-centered, social-learning process involving individualized
curriculum rather than a single curriculum prescribed to every child.
Henri Bergson and Bertrand Russell represent the contemporary
European philosophers. Each contributed to spiraling strands of earlier
philosophies. Much like Dewey, Russell believed knowledge came from direct experiences or scientific methods. For Bergson, knowledge was born in the mind as an idea. Truth
was dynamic and existed in relationship to the flow of reality and the events
from which an idea was born. This constantly changing, evolving, and mutating
truth post dates Darwin and Spenser and very closely resembles existentialism with
central themes in constructivism. That knowledge was linked directly to the
individual’s experiences in relation to time, place, and social event is a
major contribution to modern Western thought. Knowledge, not unlike biological
evolution, grew from personal experiences and mutated through a continuous
stream of endless interchanges, cultural movements, and contemplations.
In 1962 Thomas Samuel Kuhn added a divergent theory to the evolving-knowledge theory in his book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, a work that also challenged empiricism. Kuhn echoed Pascal and Kant claiming empiricism involved human bias and observational errors due to the limitations of the human senses and instruments of measurement. But it was Kuhn’s most famous premise that shook up the knowledge theories by attributing the creation of significant theory to the development of a revolutionary framework or paradigm shift. A paradigm shift occurred when a unique, out-of-the-box, innovative solution is generated for existing dilemmas. Paradigm shifts do not result from an evolutionary process (i.e. candlestick makers did not invent the light bulb), but rather, they result from environments where freedom and latitude prevail to create ideologically cutting-edge solutions or premises.
New Leadership
Theories: Quantum mechanics presented
revolutionary frameworks and shifts in multiple paradigms from which educators may
now take important leadership cues in respect to a connected world. These new
paradigms include innovative ideas about knowledge, learning, ethics, control and
leadership. quantum theory questionS whether experience,
observation, and measurement can be used to determine reality. According to
this theory there
are at any one point in time multiple versions of an observable quantum object--
as wave and particle. Secondly, the very act of observing or measuring an
object causes it to react differently. This postulate, known as the Heisenberg
Uncertainty Principle (Salkever, 2003) validated the search for meaningful relationships
rather than focusing on defining objects. Relationships or entangled states require
that two or more objects be described in reference to all others, even if the
objects are not in close proximity. In leadership, this theory challenged
commonly
held ideas about social units. Organizations usually defined membership predisposing
close proximity to ensure communication, engagement, accountability, and social
interaction. In quantum theory everything near or far is interconnected and
interrelated bearing influence on everything else, no matter the distance. This
influence is easily observed in modern socially dynamic global networks.
James Gleick
described in his book, Choas: Making a
new science, the works of two theorists and their contributions to
interconnectedness and chaos-pattern recognition; Edward Lorenz's proposition
of the Butterfly Effect on weather systems and Benoit Mandelbrot’s fractals patterning
(Gleick, 1988). Mendelbrot and Henri Poincaré also describe
sensitive dependent initial conditions (tiny initial inputs that determined
fractal patterns or
in the case of
a butterfly’s wing producing weather) and the potential of complex
relationships within and among global and atomistic dynamic systems.
Poincaré mathematically demonstrated that tiny uncertainties in
initial conditions could magnify into enormous uncertainties in the final
predictions virtually defeating cause and effect theories. Even when the
initial uncertainties are diminished to the smallest imaginable size, the possible
discrepancy between two sets of initial conditions always resulted in huge
discrepancies, making long-term predictions in complex systems nearly
impossible-a classic depiction of chaotic systems. As with fractals,
researchers in the field of self-organizing theories maintain a prevailing
optimism that pattern recognition would eventually become evident in chaotic
systems (Trump, 1998).
The uncertainty
of knowledge and reality has opened new doors for philosophers. Taking their
cue from quantum physics, Fritjof Capra and Margaret
Wheatley postulated the necessity for leaders to concentrate energy on defining
relationships rather than things, facilitating process rather than describing
task, and generating a feeling of freedom, community and connectedness rather
than hegemony. According to Wheatley, “None of us exists independent of our
relationships with others.” (1994, p. 34)
Chaos,
network, and new science theories have generated a new epistemology. Instead of
organizational knowledge being only a symbolic mental construct, internalized,
memorized, or mentally filed by the learner as a result of an experience,
intuition, or cognitive exercise, knowledge is now seen as multi-faceted, abundant,
non-linear, fluctuating, primarily stored outside the learner, needing evaluation,
validation and qualification before learning begins. Knowledge is also
distributed requiring effective connectivity decisions before learning begins,
and often chaotic or cryptic requiring meaning-making and complex pattern
recognition before learning begins. It is vital to recognize what this view of
knowledge does not require. It does not require nor is it possible, as Pascal
predicted, for learners to experience, memorize or internalize all necessary knowledge
to perform crucial tasks. The new theories require learners to gain entirely
new sets of skills including recognition of what is true and worth knowing. These
requirements lead us to the ontological and axiological discussions of what is
real and what has worth?
Discussing what we hold to be concepts of truth, existence, reality,
and the relationship of each to the other helps educators establish a common
language from which to build deeper meaning. Examining diverse ideologies also
assists in the creation of possible problem-solving scenarios or future
pattern-recognition processes.
For Plato, truth and reality had an objective existence apart from what
could be experienced. Traits like freedom, justice, beauty, and truth were perfect forms
that man could only strive to approximate. Empiricists, on the other hand, such
as John Locke only believe in what was experienced, observed or measured. In
their view, reality could be hypothesized, tested, predicted, and then given some
degree of probability. Thomas Aquinas and Immanuel Kant innovatively identified
reality as a synthesis of experience, reason, intuition, and faith. Some things
could be detected through the senses, some reasoned, and some had to be held on
the basis of faith. In the realm of God, freedom, immortality, and goodness, it
was apparent that philosophers hung their hats on pegs of faith (assumptions) whether
it was faith in the degree of uncertainty or faith in Divine revelation or
faith in intuition. At some point in time, everyone constructed a bridge of faith
over the lack of human perception or insight associated with a particular source
of knowledge. In realms where science was unable to answer questions about
truth, goodness or morality, it was not too difficult to infer that reason,
faith, and as Bertrand Russell believed, intuition would each play their
fitting roles.
In the new sciences reality took
on a delicate mix of complex, heterogeneous identities. While some realities rarely
change (human nature), some realities are reduced to a shrinking half-life of milliseconds.
The half-life of an object is a measurement of the time between when something comes
into existence until the time it becomes obsolete (Gonzales, 2003). Monitoring,
judging, or even arguing about some realities may become as obsolete as trying
to define some quantum objects.
Axiology: What is right, good, or virtuous?
What is good,
right or of quality constitutes the meat of leadership’s value analysis and
discernment abilities which in turn gives meaning to an organization. Quality and
worth, as determined by idealists, was
a set of virtuous universal forms. According to Plato, goodness existed in form
but not in reality. Empiricists used
practical measurements to make vacillating appraisals of the ends and
the means often determining goodness by what resulted in serving the
betterment of mankind.
It was Newtonian
mathematical models of the universe which the realists used to define how life
should be ordered. The laws of liberty, justice and virtue were cited as being
a part of the reasonable order of things. These laws, however, were taken on some
measure of faith as they can not be empirically validated. Immanuel
Kant established moral teleology (highest good) along with the inherent
goodness of freedom, justice, and truth based
on his assumption of intelligent design and the nature of God.
James Rachels discussed a
minimal definition of morality in his book, The
Elements of Moral Philosophy as “the effort to guide one’s conduct by reason”
(Rachels, 1941, p.14). The reasoning he refers to “carefully sifts facts and
examines their implications” (p. 16). This explanation reiterates the aphorism, "As a man thinks
in his heart so is he" and carries the idea that one’s reasoning defined
moral action. The problem with relying purely on reasoning was
the assumption that everyone used the same rules of logic, had the same mental capacity,
or had equally educated judgment. Human reasoning is often influenced through
bias, self-interest, self-deception, and even unconsciously by personal filters.
Rachels conceded that humans tended to ignore reason in
favor of feelings.
Lawrence Kohlberg postulated that not all humans
developed to a point where they were able to make mature moral judgments based on
supported reasoning. Obviously, reasoning cannot be totally discounted as a
part of the valid support for moral judgment, but it cannot be the sum total of what is
relied on.
Utilitarian thinkers defined morality on the
basis of the outcome. They restricted that outcome to the amount of
happiness created. If happiness becomes our moral compass then we are in danger
of the whimsy of what makes us happy at any one point in time. The fact that
happiness is a fleeting state is a given for the human condition. Making moral judgments on fleeting conditions
of happiness would play havoc in most circumstances.
In the film collaboration by the
Capra brothers, Mindwalk (Capra and Capra, 1991), the discussions between a poet,
politician, and scientist demonstrated the subtleties between philosophy and
practice, professed values (ethics) and personal actions, within the freedom of
self-organizing systems. The film highlighted the paradigm shift away from
Descartes’ mechanistic thinking to a holistic system-thinking model as evidenced
in both quantum physics and musical intervals. Achieving enlightenment meant
acknowledging the “crisis of perceptions” (Capra & Capra) by realizing that
musical notes, subatomic particles and even humans are all interconnected and
afforded meaning via relationships. Though this idea may be as old as the 17th
century adage, “No man is an island”, the film rendered the concept in a
broader, more global and even immortal sense. “No saint stands alone” (Capra
& Capra) concomitantly espoused that nothing is accomplished, not even
sainthood, without interdependence.
Victor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor, formulated a theory of moral motivation, the “will to meaning” (Frankl, 1984), based on deep relationships. Unlike Nietzsche’s “will to power”-the driving force humans exert over other humans to gain position and status, Frankl’s theory held that man’s search for ultimate meaning was the motivation for existence. Likewise, Karen Stevenson’s Quantum Theory of Trust (Kleiner, 2002) sanctioned six sources of knowledge/trust relationships. Stevenson and Frankl agreed that a meaningful and moral life is created through relationships of trust, love, and duty. "Man is never driven to moral behavior. Man does not behave morally for the sake of a good conscience but for the sake of a cause to which he commits himself…"(Frankl, p.166). According to Jonathan Schwartz of Sun Microsystems, relationships of trust have become the “currency of the participation [connected] age” (Werback, 2005).
The Case for New Basics and Educational
Leadership
"Something fundamentally big is happening that will profoundly affect the life of every person…over the next five to 15 years--the collapsing of everything into one single, global, ubiquitous, collaborative virtual IT world" according the president of AT&T's Global Networking Technology Services (Werback, 2005). As educators we must realize that we are living in a time where the tipping point has already passed for formal education. A significant result of new connectivity and accessibility is that formal education no longer comprises the majority of learning experiences (Lee, 2005).
The world is shrinking, knowledge has become mimetic,
self-replicating (Heylighen, 2001) and new challenges loom imminent. E-leaders franchise
innovations as commodities while trust and freedom have become essential tools in
global relationship-building. Technology has turned knowledge into complex
patterns held by storage devices capable of retention, replication, distribution
and even expression via socially interconnected modalities (i.e. podcasts, blogs, wikis). This freedom of self-organizing relationships among
network entities has created useful and amazingly productive and influential
patterns of interchange.
To address the principles and processes of a burgeoning transparent
social network, George Siemens created the learning theory he termed “Connectivism”
(Siemens, 2005) mirroring Capra’s philosophy of the “web of life”. Siemens’ metaphor
of the World Wide Web exemplified how currency in knowledge, understanding, and
learning is taking place through the power of multi-faceted interactivity and interdependence.
An integration of chaos, network, complexity and self-organizing theories, Connectivism
implies more than interconnectivity. It refers to the process of learning as facilitated
by remote associations and distributed tasks across a network using knowledge-based
appliances, specialized information sets, free exchange environments
(including text messaging), and collaboration
with critically profiled interconnected nodes. Nodes are defined as any source
of influential information such as teacher, peer, web site, expert or database that competes
for attention along a network. When participating in a dynamic nerve center of
a network world, according to Siemens (2005), "what is learned is not as
important as the capacity to learn more.
Since
The Big Questions:Contrary to systems that deify individual accomplishments (students in rows doing their own work), the implications of holistic systems-thinking suggests that the potential to learn, grow, or adapt rests in the ability to freely cultivate interdependent trust relationships. Without these new sophisticated skills, today’s students will find it difficult to adeptly participate in value-added communication events, knowledge-exchange collaborations or active representation and expression within global learning communities, the highest form of liberty according to Wheatley (1994, p.97-98). The timely high-stakes questions resting with education leaders include: Are these new basics attainable in today’s classrooms? Are we building capacity in the next generation to collaborate in the necessary trust relationships required for world leadership or in communities of practice with the efficacy to improve the global quality of life?
References
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