On Learning, Volume 3 : Knowledge, curriculum and ethics

Abstract

This book, as you can see from its title, is about learning, or at least about the concept and practice of learning. It investigates two meta-concepts, knowledge and learning, the relationship between the two, and the way these can be framed in epistemic, social, political and economic terms. Knowledge and learning, as meta-concepts, are positioned in various networks of meaning, principally the antecedents of the concepts, their relations to other relevant concepts, and the way the concepts are used in the lifeworld. This book explores a number of important concepts that are relevant to the idea of learning. These are meta-concepts such as epistemology, semantics, phenomenology, rationality, thinking, hermeneutics, critical realism and pragmatism, and meso-concepts such as a Bildung, justification, mathematical concepts such as averaging, probability, comparison, prediction and correlation, a bureaucratic theory of learning, social categories of learning and knowledge, and the relationship between ethics and learning.

On Learning, Volume 3: Knowledge, curriculum and ethics, like the first two volumes, is a response to empiricist and positivist conceptions of knowledge. The author challenges detheorised and reductionist ideas of learning that have filtered through to the management of our schools, colleges and universities, over-simplified messages about learning, knowledge, curriculum and assessment, and the denial that values are central to understanding how we live and how we should live.

Praise for On Learning, Volume 3

‘With this third volume of his trilogy on learning, and written with the exemplary rigour, clarity and incisiveness that are now trademarks of his, David Scott cements his reputation as one of the world's leading philosophers of education. Those who wish to learn about learning are much in David's debt.’ Ronald Barnett, UCL

‘This third book in Scott’s series on theorising and discussing the lived experience as learning offers a comprehensive capstone to his work. The book shares with the others his perceptive, imaginative and informed scholarship in a well-argued and original text. Its contribution to the literature ought to be assured.’ Paul Gibbs, Middlesex University

‘Like the two previous volumes in this series this book is a radical inquiry in the sense that it probes the rich depths of the innumerable ways human beings relate to a complex world. This book challenges a view of learning that is cloaked in the language of behaviour and outcomes as being best reserved for animal training.’ Tone Saevi, VID Specialized University, Norway