Process Thought's Challenge for Education and Life
Wednesday April 26, by Jerome F. Keating Ph.D.
Change, progress, and stability, who does not support this unlikely triumvirate? The founder of process philosophy Alfred North Whitehead believes in all three. For him, the art of progress is to preserve order amid change, and to preserve change amid order.
Whitehead's work, The Aims of Education, starts with its recipients. The students are alive, and the purpose of education is to stimulate and guide their self-development. It follows as a corollary from this premise that the teachers also should be alive with living thoughts. (v) His whole book is a protest against dead knowledge, that is to say, against inert ideas.
Ideas are inert if they have been received without being utilized, or tested, or thrown into fresh combinations. Surprisingly, this man who had developed the philosophy of organism in Science and the Modern World, and Process and Reality, is quite utilitarian in his approach to education. He considered a merely well-informed man, the most useless bore on earth.
Facts are only a burden on the memory unless they are invested with possibilities. Whitehead believed that the ideas conveyed in education should be few and important and thrown into every combination possible. To do this, he conceived a rhythmic approach to knowledge that both requires interdisciplinary studies and specialized study in one discipline.
First, however, look at some of the tenets of process thought. Nothing remains the same. No static maintenance of perfection is possible. This axiom is rooted in the nature of things. Advance or Decadence are the only choices offered to mankind . . . The very essence of real actuality�Xof the completely real�Xis process. Thus each actual thing is only to be understood in terms of its becoming and perishing. There is no halt in which the actuality is just its static self, accidentally played upon by qualifications derived from the shirt of circumstances. The converse is the truth.�� (Adventures of Ideas, pp 274-5)
Whitehead extends the pre-Socratic notion that no man steps in the same river twice. No situation, no response, no happening, no thought is ever the same. One can never go home again, in life or in knowledge. Therefore, how the past perishes is how the future becomes. To try and maintain the past exactly as it was is to stagnate and stagnation is decline.
Educators will readily agree that no two classes respond the same way to the same material. No two given lectures or courses come out exactly the same. Yet, despite this reality and despite years of change, instructors' lecture notes often do not change; they may be the same ones used three years ago.
If a professor's knowledge acquired in earning a degree has not changed, been improved upon, expanded, or been supplemented with, that professor may be giving students dead fish. For Whitehead, in successful education there must always be certain freshness in the knowledge dealt with. It must either be new in itself or it must be invested with some novelty of application to the new world of new times. Knowledge does not keep any better than fish. You may be dealing with knowledge of the old species, with some old truth; but somehow or other it must come to the students as it were, just drawn out of the sea and with the freshness of its immediate importance. (The Aims of Education p.98)
Next, process thought raises the question whether university departments or disciplines, or courses, or curriculum requirements or anything should remain the same. The fact that in our changing society, many of the current positions in the job market may be obsolete by the time that starting freshmen reach graduation and that many new openings, currently non-existent, will appear, means that a person must be educated for change.
The pressures and needs of today are not those of the past, nor will they be those of the future. However, educators must consider that while things change, they will not necessarily change for the better. Whitehead well recognized that process is involved in decadence as well as in advancement. Nothing remains the same. Whether the change is progress or decline depends on the creative response of those involved.
Two further tenets of this organic philosophy of process are that nothing exists in isolation and that things are known by their functional activity. Any local agitation shakes the whole universe. The distant effects are minute but they are there. The [Newtonian] concept of matter presupposed simple location. Each bit of matter was self-contained, localized in a region with a passive static network of spatial relations . . . But in the modern concept, the group of agitations, which we term matter is fused into its environment. There is no possibility of a detached, self-contained local existence. The environment enters into the nature of each thing. (Modes of Thought, p.138)
The above has overtones of Behaviorism, but Whitehead can never be considered a strict Behaviorist. While a thing is influenced by its environment, it is also an influencing agent in the environment of everything else. The conception of the world here adopted is that of functional activity. By this I mean that every actual thing is something by reason of its activity; whereby its nature consists in its relevance to other things, and its individuality consists in its synthesis of other things so far as they are relevant to it. (Symbolism, Its Meaning and Effect, p.26)
Whitehead maintained the necessity of studying separate disciplines, but he also noted the curse of departmentalization. It is an example of what he called the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. The concrete is the real; it is that which is neither subjective nor objective. Misplaced concreteness occurs when abstractions which are half-truths are taken to be the truth or reality. Life in all of its manifestations is the only subject matter for education, yet educators too often act like our departmental courses are actual and not artificial.
Few professors would assert that their courses are self-contained units unrelated to the rest of life. However, these same courses may be taught in a vacuum-like atmosphere and unexplained in terms of functional activity. A course's relevance to life should explain its nature; its method of synthesis of relevant materials should explain its individuality. Courses must aid students to see the woods by means of the trees. We as educators must periodically demonstrate the continued relevancy of our departments.
When we abandon an unchangeable, substantial concept of nature, we can then focus on the interdependence and relationships that exist between things. As the many creatively strive to be one, no entity is beautiful in itself, but only in relation to the beauty of the whole.
Since nothing remains the same, we come to the next point of process thought. The laws of nature as regards interrelationships can change; they also are not fixed and immutable. Since the laws of nature depend on the individual characters of the things constituting nature, as the things change, then correspondingly the laws will change. Thus the modern evolutionary view of the physical universe should conceive of the laws of nature as evolving concurrently with the things constituting the environment. Thus the conception of the Universe as evolving subject to fixed, eternal laws regulating all behavior should be abandoned. (Adventures of Ideas, p.112)
Even God in Whitehead's metaphysics cannot be invoked as an outside figure to save things on the verge of collapse. God is an entity as is the most trivial puff of existence and is the exemplification of rather than the exception to the laws of process.
That laws reflect rather than govern relationships is a formidable proposition. It admits a potential leaning towards relativity, but for the artist it is an enticing creed. He/she can weld imagination and experience to create the new. Artists are of necessity not bound to any set rules of expression. Reality may even demand that they create new modes or forms of art.
The critics and viewers of art bear more of the burden; they must readjust their laws of criticism and appreciation to new developments in art. In drama for example, the theatre of the absurd cannot be judged by the same criterion as previous theatre; nor is Aristotle's conception of tragedy considered the final word on what determines tragedy for every age.
That no laws are sacred leads to the next point of process thought. There are no final answers in life; man can only strive for a deeper understanding. Causality is asymmetrical in Whitehead and the full explanation of any thing, event, or occasion will never be known. With the overlapping interplay of all things this also means that nothing can be exhausted; there will always be a new point of view, a new insight.
Hence the adventure that life holds for man is an adventure that education should mirror. Whitehead admits that his own metaphysics is not the final explanation of life. At best he says it is a ��shallow�� and ��puny�� attempt to sound the depths of the nature of things. To expect certainty would be folly.
Educators must ultimately and overall seek to impart wisdom rather than teach subjects. Now wisdom is the way in which knowledge is held. It concerns the handling of knowledge, its selection for the determination of relevant issues, its employment to add value to our immediate experience. The mastery of knowledge which is wisdom is the most intimate freedom obtainable. The ancients saw clearly�Xmore clearly than we do�Xthe necessity for dominating knowledge by wisdom. (The Aims of Education, p.30)
Our goal as educators is to aid students in acquiring freedom in the presence of knowledge, and self confidence in the face of uncertainty, so that they can handle the multiple potentialities and possibilities of a living creature confronting a changing environment. Education is the acquisition of the art of the utilization of knowledge, the art of creative response to knowledge.
Education pursues this art because there is no clear formula which tells us how to respond. There is no one answer. Once learning solidifies it is useless. Man in process is always the student. He seeks renewed understanding of the interdependence of all things, the causality of the past and the creative possibilities of the future. He fosters his ability to relate one idea to another, to relate ideas to his and others experiences goals and interests.
In the open-ended, pluralistic universe of Whitehead there is no finality; enjoyment, fulfillment and understanding can always be increased. Whitehead has set idealistic goals for educators and students, but they are the ideals that are needed to make change become progress and not decline. When one's ideals sink to the levels of practice, the result is stagnation.
Besides the preceding points of process thought, Whitehead also presents a rhythmic analysis of learning in Aims of Education. For him life is periodic, but some periods are more important for growth than others. Some involve drastic changes and others involve little change. There is no uniform or steady advance, instead one proceeds in cyclic stages. He states, Lack of attention to the rhythm and character of mental growth is a main source of wooden futility in education. I think that Hegel was right when he analyzed progress into three stages which he called Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis, though for the purpose of application of his idea to educational theory I do not think that the names he gave are very happily suggestive. In relation to intellectual progress I would term them the stage of romance, the stage of precision, and the stage of generalization.(Aims p.17)
The romantic stage is that of first apprehension, the initial vision of the import of unexplored possibilities and relations. It is the period of wonder. The Montessori system, for Whitehead, focuses on this aspect of growth. Adventure predominates in this stage. The territory is large and unlimited. There is little discipline as one jumps from insight to insight finding fruitful vistas everywhere.
Precision follows romance; here one is no longer concerned with width but exactness. One has grown used to large experiences; now the stress is on facts, details, and perfection. It is a boot camp where one secures the basics. Without romance there is no spark or adventure; without discipline there is no focus. Discipline goes over the long heritage of civilization and selects the key periods, transitions, facts and ideas. Here the student sees that there are right ways and wrong ways to do things, and there are definite truths to be known.
It is in this stage that Whitehead sees the need for specialized study, for it is specialized study that gives the sense of precision, relevance, and economy. Accuracy is hard to come by. We do not solve a problem in one discipline by relying on a dubious truth of another. Specialized study develops a certain tough-mindedness and skepticism necessary for maturity.
Strive for simplicity advocates Whitehead, yet distrust it. Wherever you exclude specialty, you destroy life. But specialized study is never an end in itself; it is always a preparation for the proper understanding of the final stage, that of generalization. Nothing but exact study can give an appreciation for the exact formulation of general ideas, for their relations when formulated, for their service in the comprehension of life. (Aims, p.12)
The final stage is that of synthesis and generalization. The spirit of romanticism is regained but it is tempered by the discipline of learning classified ideas and relevant technique. The student again approaches life in all its manifestations and possibilities, but now he has the self-confidence necessary for successful creation. He not only explores, but builds, develops, and improves both ideas and situations. He can apply the principles he knows. He can relate specifics to the whole, and interrelate his disciplines without fear of slighting one or the other. He links ideas to ideas within one discipline, principles to principles within disciplines, and discipline to discipline within the framework of life. He has learned to utilize his knowledge in the adventure of life.
Whitehead cautions against a too great exaggeration of the distinctive stages of the cycle. There are no set times at which one stage ends and another begins, nor are the stages mutually exclusive. Romance, precision, and generalization are pervasive qualities, distinctions of emphasis. Similarly there is not just one cycle in a man's life. There are cycles within cycles, and cycles of cycles. The interior strands of a man's spiritual life are many and they do not grow by uniform extension. The cycles and stages interweave. The educator must be astute and learn to meet his students in the stages they are at. He/she must be adaptive. This is the great challenge of teaching.
Whitehead offers two final quotes on education and renewal. The teacher has a double function. It is for him/her to elicit the enthusiasm by resonance from his own personality, and to create the environment of a larger knowledge and a firmer purpose. He/she is there to avoid the waste, which in the lower stages of existence is nature's way of evolution. The ultimate motive power alike in science, in morality, and in religion is the sense of value, the sense of importance. It takes the various forms of wonder, of curiosity, of reverence, or worship of tumultuous desire for merging personality in something beyond itself. This sense of value imposes on life incredible labours and apart from it life sinks back into the passivity of its lower types. The most penetrating exhibition of this force is the sense of beauty, the aesthetic sense of realized perfection. (Aims, pp.39-40)
The secret of progress and renewal is found in balancing innovation with tradition. The art of free society consists first in the maintenance of the symbolic code; and secondly n fearlessness of revision, to secure that the code serves those purposes that satisfy an enlightened reason. Those societies which cannot combine reverence to their symbols with freedom of revision must ultimately decay either from anarchy or from the slow atrophy of a lie stifled by useless shadows. (Symbolism, p.88) As educators, we are entrusted with the adventure of life.
Whitehead, Alfred North, Adventures of Ideas (New York: The Free Press, 1968)
Modes of Thought (New York: The Free Press 1968) Symbolism, Its Meaning and Effect (New York, The Macmillan Co. 1927) The Aims of Education (New York: The Free Press, 1967)