Aristotle's mirror. Key-note ECRPL, UCN, Aalborg, Denmark

Key Note, UCN, ECRPL 1-3. November 2021, Aalborg, DK. Olav Eikeland, OsloMet, [email protected]; [email protected] Aristotle’s mirror Olav Eikeland, OsloMet, Norway, [email protected] / [email protected] First: Thank you very much for letting me address you here today! Let me start by saying that what follows might be a heavy listening exercise for some. This is why I decided to do this in the old-fashioned, academic way by what was previously correctly called “reading a paper” at a conference. The paper will be available for you to read afterwards. I also have a few slides, which I hope will help. In the end, however, my main subject, the importance of Aristotle’s mirror for RPL, is a complex subject, and, maybe, for some, it might just end up as a rather incomprehensible exercise in Greek concepts. My point is: you never quite know where and how whatever you’re saying will hit people. So, I guess I’m just wishing both you and myself good luck! The UCN-platform The UCN has defined what I guess might be called its “educational identity” through a concept of Reflective Practice-based Learning or RPL. This RPL-approach or -platform was summarized by Stine Bylin Bundgaard from the UCN, in a recent presentation I had the pleasure of attending on-line (ref), as consisting in six distinct “stages” or “phases” (slide 1). I have translated them as: 1 experiences (opplevelser og erfaringer), 2 suitable disturbances (passende forstyrrelser), 3 exploration (utforskning), 4 the good example (det gode eksempel), 5 collaboration or cooperation (samarbeid), and finally 6 dialog. According to the UCN’s so-called “white paper” (hvidbog), the principles embedded in the RPL-platform is elicited from thinkers like John Dewey (1933) (1859-1952), Don Schön (1983, (1930-1997) Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus (1986), David Kolb (1984), and Jack Mezirow (1991) (1923-2014). To me, this sounds fine as a programmatic basis and point of departure for teaching professional practice. As I will return to, however, I think there are important nuances which need attention (side 2)when discussing RPL more broadly, and independently from the specific UCN-platform, between being a) practice-based, b) practice-directed, c) theory-based, and d) theory-directed, and ways of combining these. My major concern personally, is the combination of a) and d), meaning practice-based and theory-directed as in square 4 in the table shown: In what some people talk about as “theorizing practice”. This is not simply “combining theory and practice”. I think it is the least understood, and the most lacking, but also the overall most necessary and needed combination. Partly for similar reasons, it is also important when discussing RPL generally, not to restrict “reflective practice learning” didactically to teaching. I therefore believe expanding the perspectives on RPL slightly, will strengthen it: a) maybe as a more explicit part of the basis for the UCN (it’s a question for discussion), b) definitely for professional and vocational educations in general, c) not the least methodologically for research 1 Key Note, UCN, ECRPL 1-3. November 2021, Aalborg, DK. Olav Eikeland, OsloMet, [email protected]; [email protected] and knowledge generation more broadly, and d) ultimately for the organization and institutionalization of learning and knowledge generation in society. The philosophers mentioned in UCNs white paper, and other similar thinkers, are directly or indirectly part of a “grand turn to practice”, also called a “pragmatic turn” in the philosophy and social research of the 20th century. Since institutions transform only slowly, this turn may not yet have become obvious to every conventional social researcher, but influential philosophers like Martin Heidegger, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Karl-Otto Apel (1922-2017), Jürgen Habermas, more recently Theodoor Schatzki, and many other contributors, should be mentioned beside UCNs favorites. Many scholars would probably admit that both Socrates and Plato might figure, at least as inspirational originators of a “reflective turn”, although maybe not as obviously for a philosophical “turn to practice”. But after all, what was it all about, the co-called “Socratic turn” almost 2500 years ago, as explained by Socrates (470-399BC) in Plato’s dialogue Pheado (95A-100A), while pointing in almost every dialog to professional crafts-people as paradigmatic carriers of competence and knowledge? Hopefully, I will manage to return to explain how the Socratic turn in ancient Greek philosophy can be seen as a turn from a) studying external nature from a distance – a form of theory called theôrêsis in the table shown (slide 3) – predominant among the so-called Pre-Socratics, and in the selfunderstanding in modern science, hence studying everything as external things, to b) studying ourselves through praxis and theôría in the table. The Socratic turn was very similar to the current turns of the 20th century, in other words a self-reflective and even a practical turn. My somewhat preposterous additional claim, however, is that both current turns, the reflective and the practical, can be found even more clearly spelled out in Aristotle. Providing some clues to how, is my main purpose in this presentation. Since, then, most of the modern thinkers mentioned seem to be well represented in the bases for the UCN, I will not spend precious time delving into their thinking specifically. I will use my time slot to concentrate on explaining why Aristotle is an important figure in the reflective and practical turn, and how his texts anticipate and, in fact, in many ways, transcend current turns. I am sometimes accused of being stuck in ancient thinking, with Aristotle in particular, thereby understating that I’m stuck in what should be considered not only ancient but also antiquated thinking. I don’t really feel stuck, however. I have been quite involved in modern, practical settings for decades. If I am stuck, however, my excuse and justification is that nobody should really be allowed to forget neither Aristotle nor ancient Mediterranean thinking since we’re all products of it, and it really anticipates the dramatic turns in modern and post-modern thinking, with people like Dewey, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Gadamer, and others. 2 Key Note, UCN, ECRPL 1-3. November 2021, Aalborg, DK. Olav Eikeland, OsloMet, [email protected]; [email protected] Aristotle, however, is a philosopher who is often interpreted by current “turners” as neither a reflective nor a practical turner at all, and even as the ultimate source of almost everything considered wrong in the European philosophical and scientific tradition, although parts of his thinking, mainly around phrónêsis and rhetoric have been “saved” for utilization in the 20th century practical turn. But there is more to this than phrónêsis. Aristotle is a Socratic or Post-Socratic philosopher. His return to natural philosophy is also post-Socratic. Even Francis Bacon’s experimentalism, considered quite antiAristotelian, is Post-Socratic and not as far from Aristotle as commonly thought. It is my contention, which I have suggested and argued in more detail through several books and articles, that Aristotle works with a concept of pragmatic experience more precise than John Deweys, with concepts of knowledge-forms and dialog more profound and precise than Jürgen Habermas’, with ways of reasoning “in and on practice” more varied and precisely distinguished than Don Schön’s, etc. The Wittgenstein expert P.M.S Hacker (2007) has come to characterize Wittgenstein’s influence as part of a wider return to Aristotle, although not to the substantial, physical, and metaphysical theories used in medieval thinking, nor to the deductive formalism of modernist thinking. In my opinion, we are all, consciously or subconsciously, part of Gadamer’s Wirkungsgeschichte or the “historical effects” of Mediterranean, ancient philosophical thinking, and I believe many modern “turners” would agree. Showing all of this doesn’t undermine current reflective and practical turns, it reinforces them. But as Paul Oskar Kristeller (1993: 79) once wrote: «The originality of an author increases with the ignorance of his readers and interpreters». Kristeller’s indictment is hardly true about modern natural science and technology. I do think, however, that it is pretty accurate concerning philosophy, the social sciences, and the humanities, in other words in what concerns our understanding of ourselves as knowledgeable, ethical, and political beings. But as indicated, my purpose in the following is not at all to undermine the UCNs RPL. It is rather to suggest how maybe it could be supplemented and expanded in ways I think will also strengthen it. What is reflection? So, what does reflection mean? Before getting to Aristotle, I will try briefly to make and sort a few distinctions for the sake of clarification. As most conscious promoters of RPL will probably know already; simply, and literally, reflection is derived from the Latin re-flectere, meaning “bending back”. In this literal sense, an elephant’s curved tusks, and even long, curving fingernails also “reflect” or bend back. Also, physical mirrors reflect light, bending it back. What we still might call a positivist, but also a dialectical-materialist or Marxist-Leninist theory of both ideology and scientific knowledge, has often been presented as our minds reflecting either external nature or also the historically dominant social or class relations (even called Wiederspiegelungstheorie, reflection theory), as if our scientific minds somehow receive true, photographic, perceptual “pictures” of either natural or social realities (cf. 3 Key Note, UCN, ECRPL 1-3. November 2021, Aalborg, DK. Olav Eikeland, OsloMet, [email protected]; [email protected] “picture-theory” of language in early Wittgenstein). This is what Richard Rorty (ref) distanced himself from as what he called “the mirror of nature”. Today, the mainstream view, Rorty’s included, is rather that all social and cultural phenomena are more or less arbitrarily “constructed”. But, of course, neither RPL nor the broader practical and reflective turn is concerned with this first kind of photographic mirror-reflection, where our attention or the theory’s attention is directed receptively at external objects. The kind of reflection concerned in RPL and the current reflexive turn, is clearly more like what we think of as “self-reflection”. Self-reflection doesn’t mean reflecting outer objects as perceptive impressions in our senses and as ideas in our minds, nor does it mean considering our behaviors to be merely socially determined as reflections of external social structures, conditions, and stimuli. The “reflection” in RPL means “our self, reflecting itself”, bending our conscious attention back towards ourselves. But how does that happen, how is it done, how can we turn our gaze back at ourselves? Well, certainly not with our own individual eyes alone. Another, somewhat more relevant and elaborate form of reflection, is what George Herbert Mead (ref) wrote about as our significant others or “generalized other”, literally forming our “me-identity” into social roles. We, or, our selves, subconsciously imitate, mirror, or reflect according to the expectations our significant others or to what our generalized other directs at us, thereby forming and fitting us into inherited, pre-designed social roles and historically evolved patterns as specific ways-of-doing-things. We all mirror, copy, and reflect each other’s ways-of-doing-things. This interactive “socialization” is definitely a form of identity-producing self-reflection, quite basic for learning our first language for example, and for becoming a functional member of our social group or society. But even this is hardly the form of reflection most central to RPL, since even this is mostly a subconscious process which “naturally” happens to us all. It may be necessary but hardly sufficient for RPL. Becoming Danish or Norwegian does not simply mean understanding or speaking the languages in isolation. It means in addition, acquiring the history and detailed habits of social life in a specific institutional and historical context. Although hardly merely passive and receptive, this is still a form of uncritical reflection of, from, and to others in the sense that nobody is necessarily conscious about or evaluates what happens when it happens. At first, as a child, we become uncritically like, or at least somehow, either positively or negatively influenced by our closest associates without really questioning the norms and institutions forming us. If our significant and generalized others are inconsistent, criminal, unethical, egotistical, strategic, manipulative, etc. in their mutual relations, we mostly become like them, or sometimes more like their uncritical, congruous negatives, without first examining our formation. Somehow, you have to assimilate in order to get along and be included. But these processes concern primarily what Mead calls our “me”-identity. He also writes more vaguely about an “I”, however. Our selves consist of both 4 Key Note, UCN, ECRPL 1-3. November 2021, Aalborg, DK. Olav Eikeland, OsloMet, [email protected]; [email protected] a “me” and an “I”. As I have tried to show in several other places, this “double self” with long, historical, conceptual roots, is important for self-reflection. So, what kind of reflection is required for RPL? Not mirroring external nature, and not merely our “me’s” formatively mirroring our surrounding social roles and conditions mutually either. What then? Both mechanical and photographic reflection of external things, and also mainly receptive, subconscious, and formative reflection of others’ behavior patterns and adaptation to their attitudes and conduct, may be what is often called reflectivity. For some, reflexivity is more. But clearly, reflectivity seems to be important in determining who we inadvertently become, forming our basic, substantial habitûs and “me”-identities, sometimes almost as if through a kind of osmosis. As such, it plays an important role in learning subconsciously, and sometimes even by conscious imitation – or mímêsis – e.g. by apprentices imitating practical masters. It might also be sufficient for some kind of behaviorist learning by manipulative conditioning, but I would think, hardly for RPL. Mainly, the reflection relevant for RPL must be a form of deliberate and self-conscious bending of your attention towards yourself, i.e. your own self. Somehow, you must be able to bend your attention toward your own self. The Norwegian tutoring and mentoring experts, Lycke and Handal (2012: 161) define reflection, in my translation, as: «an activity where the one reflecting, consciously recalls (gjenkaller) his or her experiences, thoughts, and justifications in trying to understand what is happening or has happened”. With Lycke and Handal, then, you recall your previous experiences in order to interpret and explain new ones. But exactly how is this kind of reflection done? Lycke and Handal still write about “the one” reflecting (den som reflekterer). They write about reflection as primarily an individual affair. I agree, however, that recollection, or what the ancients called anámnêsis, is important. But what does that imply, and how exactly is it done? As we are reminded of by the gospel-writers Matthew (7.3) and Luke (6.41): “Why do you see the speck (tò kárphos) that is in your brother’s eye but do not notice the log (dokós) that is in your own eye”. Of course, one good reason is that an eye cannot literally see itself. Still, the gospels admonish you to fix yourself before accusing others, pointing at each one of us individually “to sweep in front of you own door before complaining about others”. Tidy yourself up morally, is the message. In admitting how easily we miss or pass by our own insufficiencies, however, the gospel-writers in fact echo Aristotle from almost 400 years earlier. Aristotle does not admonish each of us individually to tidy up, however. It is not merely a question of “pulling yourself together” according to some preordained rules or external commands or commandments. 5 Key Note, UCN, ECRPL 1-3. November 2021, Aalborg, DK. Olav Eikeland, OsloMet, [email protected]; [email protected] In the last pages of Aristotle’s Magna Moralia (1213a5-1213b21) – an ethical work rarely consulted these days – we can read quite explicitly that to know oneself is the most difficult thing (khalepôtaton), and, I quote: “Direct contemplation (theasasthai) of ourselves is (…) impossible (ou dunámetha), as is shown by the censure we inflict on others for the very things we ourselves unwittingly or subconsciously (lanthánomen) do – favor (eunoia) or passion (pathos) being the cause, which in many of us blind our judgement or our ability to discern and distinguish correctly (pollois dè hêmôn tauta episkotei pròs tò krínei orthôs). And so, just as when wishing to behold our own faces, we see them by looking in a mirror (kátoptron), whenever we wish to know ourselves, we get to know by looking to a friend; since the friend is, as we say, our “second self” (héteros egô)”. This is Aristotle’s mirror. It’s ramifications are wide and deep. Aristotle also recognized the kind of socialization emphasized by Mead, however, imitating, or mirroring each other mutually but uncritically. As he writes (EN1103b14-17), it is primarily by taking part in transactions with our fellow men, not through segregated, positive, didactic instruction, that some of us become just and others unjust. The ramifications of Aristotle’s mirror are wider than this, however. He requires not just anyone to function as mirrors but “good friends” (philoi spoudaíoi). The necessity of a mutual collective of “good friends” in self-reflection undoubtedly provides 1), an important and necessary context for interpreting and understanding the Delphic-Socratic mantra “Know thyself (gnôthi seauton), as well as 2), a justification for the writing of dialogues for both Plato, Aristotle, and other ancient philosophers, which is more profound than merely stylistically and presentational as “theatrical”. But quite basically, it indicates something about relational, social, and even organisational and institutional preconditions for this form of self-reflection, i.e. about its “how”, “where”, and “when”. Self-reflection is not properly or sufficiently done alone, in isolation, and under any conditions. Aristotle writes quite explicitly: “we are unable to do it (ou dunámetha)”. His mirror is consistent with the influence of Mead’s “generalized other”, since our starting point must always already be in the middle of Meads generalized other. But, still, it requires considerably more than the necessary “natural” socialization through merely interacting with significant and generalized others in any kind of ethical and socio-political order or disorder. As already indicated, feedback from inconsistent, criminal, unethical, egotistical, strategic, manipulative “friends” hardly helps you to “know thyself” “unfiltered”, although it will definitely form your habitus and your “me”-identity. It can make you but also break you. So what is required in addition according to Aristotle’s mirror? Is there such a thing as an “unfiltered” self at all? What does Aristotle mean by “good friends”? Imitating, i.e. being filtered and formed 1 Cf. EN1169b28-1170b19, EE1245a26-b25, MM1212b24-1213a26. 6 Key Note, UCN, ECRPL 1-3. November 2021, Aalborg, DK. Olav Eikeland, OsloMet, [email protected]; [email protected] through the generalized other is necessary as a starting point but still insufficient. Maybe the most really central and key-expression in order to understand Aristotle’s request for mutual mirroring, is “to distinguish correctly” – tò krinein orthôs. Passion (pathos) and goodwill (eúnoia), he writes – psychological self-defenses we might call it, we might even call it idols with Francis Bacon, or hermeneutical prejudices with H. G. Gadamer – come in our way and block us from making the right distinctions. What can we do about these “mental blocks”? Aren’t they unavoidable? The question is: what are “right distinctions”? What is “distinguishing correctly”? According to some divine commandments maybe? According to our hereditary, local customs? Arbitrarily, maybe, according to individual and personal likes and dislikes? According to some preordained moral, theoretical, philosophical or ideological doctrine, arbitrarily chosen “values”, or school of thought? Could it mean looking at yourself through heaven’s eyes as in “the Prince of Egypt” or sub specie aeternitatis, whatever that might mean with Spinoza? The answer is no, none of those in any conventional meaning. To distinguish correctly does, however, imply an orientation towards critical evaluation, somehow seeking or at least heeding ”validity-criteria” like truth, justice, fairness, skill, competence, beauty, equity, and others, not uncritically accepting the non-evaluative, natural process of assimilating to the extant “generalized other” of whatever contemporary but coincidental significant others present in your time- and space- vicinity. It is not a recipe for conformity. And neglecting validity-dimensions like these and others, quickly amounts to carelessness. A complex mirror – kaleidoscopic reflections This, however, is where Aristotle starts getting both complex and complicated, especially when read through modern prejudices. He is complex because he introduces a lot of important and in my view, very interesting distinctions. His writing is complicated as well, not the least because the Corpus Aristotelicum, his selectively surviving works and with them his important distinctions, have not come down to us in the best possible order. But although complex, this is also where Aristotle gets directly relevant and interesting for the current practical and reflective turn; for action research, RPL, and all other forms. Ultimately, however, I believe his thinking is intuitively quite comprehensible for an important reason, which I will try to explain. The questions raised, however, now that Aristotle’s mirror is ”revealed”, is first of all, 1) what does he want us to look for in this mirror, since it obviously is not a photographic reflection of ourselves, nor merely the skewed and biased projections of our associates? The second question, then, once we have some ideas about the “what”, is 2) how do we look for the kind of “what” he wants? But we also need to know at least in outline 3), the circumstantial “when”, and 4) the “where” for this kind of mirroring. (And as a reminder, I hope you will continue casting an eye on the table shown as I continue, since you’ll find brief explanations of several concepts there) 7 Key Note, UCN, ECRPL 1-3. November 2021, Aalborg, DK. Olav Eikeland, OsloMet, [email protected]; [email protected] What to search for in Aristotle’s mirror Concerning the first question, then, 1): what is Aristotle looking for in his mirror, constituted by what he calls “good friends”? What makes them good? Just to emphasize his point about the qualities of “good friends”, he writes in the Nicomachean Ethics (1170a11-12) that “living with good people is like a training camp in virtue (áskêsís tis tês aretês)”. But high standards are hard to realize, so he ends up lamenting that we may be glad to find even a few friends of this sort (EN1171a20). Explaining what Aristotle wants us to look for is also a bit difficult in English, because, to my knowledge, the English language lacks a word comprising all the nuances in the German “Sache”, or “sak” in Norwegian and Danish. But since we all understand Scandinavian, referring to the Scandinavian word ”saklighet” meaning “saks-likhet”, is helpful. Sache in Greek is pragma, and the literal meaning of the Greek-based word “pragmatism”, might be said to be just “sakslikhet”. In German a pragma might be said to be a “Tatsache”, in Latin a form of factum. In ancient Greek there is an important and close semantical connection between praxis and pragma, both springing from the same root, which reinforces its philosophical meaning in interpreting Aristotle. Simply put, a pragma is the result of an activity or praxis. It is what you’re left with, not primarily as an external product but in yourself from practice and exercise. In Aristotle, praxis as a “technical term” does not produce, manipulate, change, or use external objects like the words and concepts designating other kinds of activities imply, like poíêsis and khrêsis. The product of praxis is not an external or externalized object. A pragma is primarily an internal object or even an objective and standard. The pragma is what you search for and approach, then, even subconsciously and unarticulated when your praxis improves. Aristotle says several times that the form of a pragma is the same as the form of virtue or aretê. They coincide as a pragma-adjusted competence. Aretê means all forms of, but still primarily, ethical and political virtue or excellence, but it is more to the point and more easily understood if we call it ethical virtuosity or ethical skill. And becoming virtuous in ethics, politics, and in every other field is Aristotle’s overall objective. Hence, summarized in the table: Poíêsis makes things, khrêsis uses things, praxis makes perfect (as the saying goes), i.e. brings forth an aretê or pragma (In Danish-Norwegian we could call aretê “sakslik kompetanse”). To make a long story short, then, this is what Aristotle’s philosophy is all about. In spite of Greek vocabulary, complications, and complex distinctions, this is why I think Aristotle is yet intuitively comprehensible, because as socialized, every-day practitioners we know tacitly, intuitively, vaguely, and subconsciously, even without any explicit, verbalized knowledge about it, that there is a difference between good and bad performance in just about everything we do. We have “ideas” about the different dimensions of validity. Ian Hacking (1983: 274) points out that this is “what the history of 8 Key Note, UCN, ECRPL 1-3. November 2021, Aalborg, DK. Olav Eikeland, OsloMet, [email protected]; [email protected] philosophy teaches us. The lesson is: Think about practice, not theory”. And this, in my opinion, is what Aristotle does; he searches for adequate formulations by distinguishing correctly (krínei orthôs) – a lógos – for understanding or grasping different pragmata, thinking through praxis and ways of using lógos. In other places, I have called this a form of “reflective reification” as an aim and end in what the table calls praxis and theôría. Since English doesn’t really have the word “Sache” or pragma, however, I’ve had to coin a more suitable English word adjusted to the intentions here, in an effort to clarify. This word is pragmadequacy or “adequate to the pragma”. In the thinking of both Plato and Aristotle, achieving pragma-adequate competence and knowledge is called “lógon ékhein”. But having lógos is not merely having “a theory”. It is to be able to speak with apt and appropriate words about the pragma concerned. Requiring this does not abandon “truth” or replace it with “pragmadequacy”, but I think it is better than “truth” in many contexts. It is for example true that people can be manipulated or used, and that they sometimes, and actually, very often are, but “manipulation and use” is hardly pragmadequate, since manipulating and using them treats fellow lógos-using beings as if they’re not. The use of reasonable and meaningful speech – lógos – is common. Manipulating and using is inadequate to the pragma and virtue of experienced lógos-users – it is inapt according to their specifying difference (differentia specifica) – to be treated, used, and manipulated like inanimate things, or even like animals without speech. Pragma-adequate speech and action is optimally adjusted to the pragma – i.e. tilpasset saken – at hand. Although Aristotle is not an American pragmatist or pragmaticist, he is a thoroughly pragmatizing philosopher from beginning to end, seeking pragmadequacy, as will become even more clear as we proceed, I hope. But we are still discussing question one above: 1) what does Aristotle want us to look for in his mirror? 9 Key Note, UCN, ECRPL 1-3. November 2021, Aalborg, DK. Olav Eikeland, OsloMet, [email protected]; [email protected] The answer, then, to what Aristotle’s mirror is for, is “searching and finding the relevant pragma, aretê, virtue or general competence being attempted or approached through the participants’ present praxis”. Aristotle’s mirror measures the mirrored individuals’ activities not against externally inflicted commandments, ideologies, theories, objectives, or ulterior motives, but against these activities own, internal pragmata; their own inherent standards. By implication, and in case it hasn’t dawned from what I’ve said already, this indicates that the kind of theory called theôrêsis in the table, dominating Table 1: Aristotelian gnoseology: forms of acquaintance or ways of knowing (gnôsis-forms) Practised forms of héxeis (pl of héxis) or habitûs (pl of habitus) Aísthêsis (perception) Empeiría (practically acquired and accumulated experience) and enérgeia (activity, in-work, reality, perfected activity) Acquaintanceform gnôsisform 1.Theôrêsis = epistêmê2 Associated rationality or lógos-form with English equivalents Apódeixis (deduction, demonstration), didactics English explanations 2.Páthos ?? 3.Khrêsis Tékhnê (calculation) Suffering; «passion»; to bear, endure, undergo passively / receptively / «passionately» influences from the outside Use of external(ised) objects as instruments or tools without intentionally changing them Making: produce / bring forth / create; by manipulating external objects and material, forming material in accordance with plan Doing; performance, practical reasoning and ethical deliberation (weighing pro- et contra decisions, actions) to act pragmadequately Practising, exercise, rehearsing, trying: To develop general competence, mastery, aretê, and insight (theôría). Revealing and expressing the general form of praxis-inherent pragmata. Insight, understanding of forms, patterns (critical theory) through concepts as pragmadequate reflective reifications.. 4.Poíêsis 5.Praxis2 Phrónêsis (practical wisdom, prudentia). Specific form of deliberation or boúleusis) 6.Praxis1 Critical (distinguishing, sorting) dialectics / dialogue as reflection The way from novice to expert, from tacit to articulated knowing Critical, distinguishing, inductive dialogue, the way to insight (hê hodós) 7.Theôría epistêmê1 = Spectators’ external observation from a distance, , «objectively» explanatory, predictive modelling (traditional theory) Articulating and articulated theoretical wisdom: sophía Basis in tacit (a-logoi) forms modern ideas about what theories are überhaupt, may just be superfluous in self-reflective praxis, and even in the humanities and social science more generally. Instead, and in line with what I’ve been saying, I suggest exploring what in German is called “geschichtliche Grundbegriffe”. To find real pragmata we have to pass through geschichtliche Grundbegriffe created by evolving “generalised others” since there is no way around them. So, to question 2 above, how do we approach and distinguish the correct form of the pragma or the relevant virtue in each case? As already suggested, it is through developing praxis, which I indicated “makes perfect”. No praxis is blind and merely a chaotic activity. In Danish and Norwegian we talk and write about “praksis” spelled with a ks. Swedish writes “praktik” with a ks too, and even English “practice” is spelled with a ct. This is both fortunate and convenient here since the meaning of modern “practice” is so vague it could mean any of the table’s gnôsis-forms in different contexts: pathos, khrêsis, poíêsis, praxis1 and praxis2. Even the table’s two forms of theory contain a praxis-aspect, they are also ways-of-doing-something, or something we do. This makes praxis the most basic concept in Aristotelian gnoseology, permeating all the rest. 10 Key Note, UCN, ECRPL 1-3. November 2021, Aalborg, DK. Olav Eikeland, OsloMet, [email protected]; [email protected] So, all the gnôsis-forms in the table have a praxis-aspect and therefore produce “experience” as accumulated empeiría, which again becomes complicated to talk about in normal English because English doesn’t distinguish with different words between momentary experience (Erlebnis, or “opplevelse”) and acquired and accumulated experience (Erfahrung or Erfaring). Empeiría is accumulated Erfahrung. This is important, because empeiría in ancient Greek is a word constructed from peira or peírasis which means a trial as in trying something out: as in attempting. By trying things out you gain experience, and the result as Aristotle describes it, is something general, as a formation of character and habitus, or like a general grasp or a tacit, subconscious concept which you carry with you and enact in new contexts and situations. So, empeiría as a result of many attempts at something, is formed “in us” just like the pragmata. There are differences but still large overlaps between pragmata and empeiría, and hence also with the broad meaning of aretê. There is also a way of learning submerged through all of these, moving from novice to expert and virtuoso, as Dreyfus and Dreyfus (1986) has rediscovered. In Greek “tacit” and “subconscious” is álogos or lanthanómenos respectively, words often used by both Plato and Aristotle. Habits, virtues, and experiences but also pragmata, are all basically and primarily tacit and subconscious in the thinking of Aristotle, accumulating over time in us. Moderns say “in our bodies”, Aristotle writes “in our soul, or psukhê”. These can all be “brought to mind” or grasped by reflecting mindful speech, however, through nóêsis and lógos, in the following way: Although empeiría, like habits, is acquired through dealing with particulars, it is not merely the confrontation with particulars as presumed in modern, empiricist reductions of experience to sense-perceptions or impressions. This empiricist reduction has a clear history going through millennia of interpretations of Aristotle, but it is still a misinterpretation reinforced through Stoic and Epicurean influence. Both Aristotle and Plato criticize perception or aísthêsis as an epistemological basis for knowledge but not at all empeiría as something acquired through practice. Empeiría sets itself subconsciously in the soul or psukhê. Empeiría is necessary but insufficient for articulated virtue and knowledge. Both Plato and Aristotle endorse “learning by doing” however, in line with John Dewey. The “how”: Lógos-forms, or ways of using meaningful speech Although sometimes we deliberately train and exercise in order to improve our skills consciously and purposefully in specific areas, as for example in sports or in apprenticeship learning in any field, empeiría forms in and for every normal human being, inadvertently, unintentionally, subconsciously, all the time, everywhere, and under all conditions, as a result of being alive and active. Even people born deaf and blind like Helen Keller develop this form of empeiría, as she herself showed impressively through her life’s example. Hence, experience-formation is not something anyone can arbitrarily start or stop, as when exercising in a modern training studio or “collecting data” in a modern “research 11 Key Note, UCN, ECRPL 1-3. November 2021, Aalborg, DK. Olav Eikeland, OsloMet, [email protected]; [email protected] project”. Empeiría is part of an inescapable human existential structure. For Aristotle and Plato, however, as for any form of RPL, empeiría is necessary but insufficient for competence and conceptual knowledge development. How, then, does Aristotle think we move from this kind of accumulated experience necessarily and always gathered by everyone, which is not merely perceptual and receptive but creates a “capacity to act” as he writes, to pragmadequate virtue and knowledge, explicitly articulated verbally? How do we become a “lógon ékhôn”, i.e. an insightful person with articulated pragmadequate knowledge and understanding, both generally and in particular situations? How does empeiría transform into the table’s theôría through reflective, pragmatic reification as articulated insight and understanding? This is really a question about what constitutes the required competence or virtue from groups of “good friends” in order to form and function as pragmatizing mirrors, sorting out irrelevant stuff (tà exô tou pragmatos) from things properly belonging to the pragma at hand, that is, belonging to the objectives of the praxis we’re already in, have been, or plan to get involved in. Since empeiría is necessary but still something everyone has, this is it. Inchoate and incompetent fumbling and hesitations by novices include a lot of irrelevant and accidental stuff to be sorted out as distractions or differences that don’t make any difference (adiáphora), in order eventually, to become a virtuoso by grasping the pragma. The things mentioned by Aristotle in launching his mirror, too much goodwill or passions of any kind – i.e. psychological obstacles of all kinds – may block a clear pragmatic view. The key to the pragmatizing competence or virtue of “good friends” as reflective mirrors, lies somewhere among Plato’s and Aristotle’s distinctions between different ways of using language or different lógos-forms. In this presentation, I have to deal with this briefly. I have discussed it more thoroughly and comprehensively in previous books in both English and Norwegian for anyone to check out. The key competence or virtue is – not surprisingly – dialog or dialectics. The whole concept of dialog originates with these philosophers. But what do they mean by dialog? Dialog and dialectics have become many, and rather different activities through a confusing and confused conceptual history, somewhat like how “experience” and “empirical data” have currently ended up as completely different concepts, neatly separated and sorted in “experiential learning” and “empirical research”. In the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, however, dialog and dialectics were very close, if not identical. Quite generally, dialogics is a way of using language and thinking which can be done both individually and in groups. It has nothing to do with being just two, however. It is not defined as a “dualog”. Literally “dialog” means “through (día) speech (lógos)” or even more basically and colloquially, as a verb (dialegein), to separate or select. A dialog is cooperative, and generally contrasted to a competitive and polemical word-strife, debate, or quarrel (erízein) where someone wins, while others lose the 12 Key Note, UCN, ECRPL 1-3. November 2021, Aalborg, DK. Olav Eikeland, OsloMet, [email protected]; [email protected] argument. Hence, dialog is a virtue or an art of thinking together, collaboratively, for uncovering the pragma in praxis. The difference separating dialog from other forms of using lógos is not merely collaboration, however. Aristotle distinguishes between many different forms of lógos or language-use which have special uses and “niche-purposes”. Each of Aristotle’s different works can be read as mainly dealing with different meanings and forms of lógos adjusted to different purposes or substantial fields. The persuasive lógos is at the center in his work on Rhetoric. In his so-called Metaphysics a lógos expressing essences gets the attention, in the Posterior Analytic, deductive, or demonstrative lógos is treated, while formal, syllogistic reasoning is treated in his Prior Analytic. Finally, deliberative lógos is the center for his discussions in his works on Ethics. Even eristic reasoning or polemics gets a special treatment in his work on Sophistical Refutations. What specifies the lógos in a dialog, however, is none of these. Dialogics is something else. As indicated, dialog is non-eristic, but it is also non-reasoning, i.e. nonformal or non-syllogistic, and non-deductive. It is also non-persuasive, and non-deliberative. Neither is dialog merely a psychologically comforting conversation, nor is it a modern interview collecting opinions. This doesn’t mean that none of these can be used or might appear in a time and place intended for dialog. They are not excluded but the distinctive core of dialog is none of these. What, then, remains for dialogics? As Aristotle’s mostly neglected work on dialectics, the Topiká, clarifies, the dialogical lógos in Aristotle is primarily what he calls a lógos horistikós, which means an argument which defines. Dialog is cognitively (gnôristikê), that is pragmatically, critical, or distinguishing. For a didactically and practically minded RPL, this may sound disappointing and boring. But with Aristotle, not only the mind (nous) separately and in isolation is cognitive. So is empeiría, aísthêsis or perception, mnême or memory, phantasía or imagination, and other psychological faculties. Our whole, living body is not totally but partly cognitive, all our practices carry their own pragmata as standards of performance inherently, but subconsciously, in themselves. This is why “defining” is not merely a conceptual or linguistic exercise in the mind (nous) alone with Aristotle. Ultimately, defining is practically formative paideía, Bildung or “dannelse” of our soul and body, of what Mead writes about as the “me” part of our selves. How, then, is this defining work done, and by whom or what? The answer is: nóêsis and lógos does it: that is, pragmatizing reflective thinking and dialogical argumentation does it. As Aristotle presents this himself, dialogical arguments seek to distinguish and clarify (tò krínein kaì dêloun) both in its own and other, more substantial fields of activity, through the following: 1) finding differences in apparently similar things, (tàs diaphorás heurein), 2) finding similarities in apparent differences (tou homoíou sképsis), 3) exploring whether things are «the same» 13 Key Note, UCN, ECRPL 1-3. November 2021, Aalborg, DK. Olav Eikeland, OsloMet, [email protected]; [email protected] or «something else» (tauton ê heteron), in order to 4) sort out essential from inessential aspects, and define the inner pragmatic standard and definition (hóros, horismós) through what is called “the four predicables”, i.e. by distinguishing and sorting a) essentials (tò tí ên einai, tì esti) of something, b) its genus (génos), and both c) particular (ídion) and d) accidental (sumbebêkós) traits. This may sound like abstract verbalism when read in isolation on its own meta-level, forgetting the always tacitly presupposed, substantial empirical bases for this kind of activity. Aristotle has a lot more to say about this which cannot be dealt with here. Ultimately, however, it boils down to directly practically and experientially based conversations saying: “like this, but not like that”, exploring differences and similarities in your praxeis and empeiría. Very sketchily and in outline, this is the process of defining, developing, forming, and grasping not only linguistic assertions which can function as premises for other forms of reasoning (protáseis lábein), but your own skills and competences, enabling both thinking and acting. It is gradually building your paideía or Bildung. The basic starting point is that we are always already both defining and defined through the reflective socialization of Mead, forming our “me”-identities as empeiría. We are always forced to start with this. The decisive point in the dialogical lógos is its exploration, distinguishing and sorting, starting with the dialogical partners’ empeiría and praxis, or in widespread, dominant opinions and common ways of acting and talking – what Aristotle calls éndoxa and doxa – in different communities of practice. Because this, according to the Topiká (101a35-b4), is what is most appropriate and specific to dialogics, it constitutes the way towards the basic principles in all kinds of inquiries (exetastikê gàr ousa pròs tàs hapasôn tôn methódôn arkhàs hodòn ékhei). Nothing human is above or higher that dialog, according to both Plato (Rep534E) and Aristotle. Phases and cycles of learning – hê hodós As literally a way or hodós of learning individually and mutually, collectively, it constitutes the most civilized relationship possible between human beings for the philosophers, which in ancient Greek would mean the highest form of mutual citizen-relationship or political and ethical relationship possible. This places ethico-political excellence or virtue on a meta-level in relation to substantial “me”virtues in specific fields. As the way of forming and defining oneself emotionally and intellectually, pragmatically adjusted, then, it is what Aristotle required from his mirror of good friends or “alter egos”. There is no time now to explore the role of recollection or anámnêsis in the thinking of Plato and Aristotle. But even recollection is clearly a task for dialogics as I have discussed extensively in an article from 1998, reprinted in my soon to be published book in Norwegian on these matters. Before moving on to my last paragraphs and pages, however, I would like to mention a suspiciously interesting similarity between phases in 1) what until now has been presented as a way or hodós of 14 Key Note, UCN, ECRPL 1-3. November 2021, Aalborg, DK. Olav Eikeland, OsloMet, [email protected]; [email protected] learning emerging from the thinking of Plato and Aristotle, and 2) an important movement emerging 400 years after their time. I’m thinking about what in the burgeoning Christian religion was adopted as phases or stages in their understanding of human character and morality. The very first Jesusfollowers also called themselves hê hodós or “the way”, divided in specific stages. Almost everyone has heard about these stages in modern linguistic guises; moving from temptation, through sin, remorse, or repentance, and finally forgiveness and absolution. In the Christian religion, this is part of the human predicament, a Christian conception of moral growth; a religious paideía or Bildung. I will not try to interpret this as such, but only bring to your attention two aspects of it. First 1), its striking similarity to what we find in the dialogical, Greek philosophical tradition before and surrounding the emergence and dominance of Christianity. I have tried in other texts to show through scarce and scattered sources, that there is continuity between Plato and Aristotle and what reemerged from within Christianity. As indicated, both Plato and Aristotle refer in several places, to a progressive, cognitively pragmatizing way or hodós of pragma-approaching learning. After being neglected for a couple of hundred years in early Stoicism, this way of growth and learning re-emerged more clearly in a renaissance for Plato and Aristotle in the first century BC. The philosophical way or hodós was coined in the very same Greek words as what the Christians adopted in far more moralistic terms. The staged rule of the Christians moves from a1) temptation (peirasmós), through b1) sin (hamartía) and c1) remorse or repentance (metánoia), to d1) forgiveness or absolution (áphesis / apólusis). The Greek words used in the philosophical tradition are almost the same exactly. The philosophers talk about starting with peira, peírasis, and empeiría, i.e. with trials, attempts, and experience rather than temptation as peirasmós. However, the etymological and semantical similarity is exactly as close between these Greek words as it is between temptation and attempt in English, Versuchung and Versuch in German, and even in other languages. In Greek, the rest of the way is verbally identical. After the initial trial follows b2) hamartía (or hamartêmata); the Christian “sin”, which literally, and more cognitively means “missing your mark”, then comes c2) metánoia or metaméleia, the Christian repentance, which literally and cognitively means reflection or afterthought, and finally, d2) apólusis and áphesis, the Christina “forgiveness”, which means literally and more cognitively, a release from the previous stages, and leaving them behind to start afresh. The second aspect I’d like to mention very briefly concerning this, is 2), the striking similarity of these stages in growth or learning, especially in light of the pre-Christian, cognitive, and philosophical hodós, with the constantly returning and repeated stages of action and reflection in all kinds of current action research, action learning, RPL and similar approaches, under a diversity of names and labels (Jensen & Eikeland ref). Since I am prejudiced I may be wrong, but I even see it reflected in UCNs platform as 15 Key Note, UCN, ECRPL 1-3. November 2021, Aalborg, DK. Olav Eikeland, OsloMet, [email protected]; [email protected] presented at the start. Anyhow, I think these similarities deserve serious attention, but there is no time for it right now. How, when, where? The dialectical gatherings of ancient philosophers My last questions related to the understanding of Aristotle’s mirror, concern the “when” and “where” for mirroring, and the “hows” suited or adjusted to different contexts and purposes. I’m mainly looking for structural, organizational, and relational “whens” and “wheres” though, not clock-times and physical places. I have already suggested how Aristotle distinguishes different ways of using lógos, or meaningful, reasonable speech, for different purposes in different contexts. He provides even more relevant distinctions than I have mentioned here. But time is running out, and I have to be brief about the last questions. So far, I have talked mostly about an aspect of RPL that to me seems not to be quite clear in UCNs platform, placed in square 4 in the second PP-slide (slide 2). As indicated, we might say it is about theorizing practice pragmatically, and that means not through assimilation to some preexisting, modern theory. Since I started out by claiming that Aristotle works with ways of reasoning “in and on practice” or “in and on action” more varied and precise than Don Schön’s, I have to return to this briefly. Schön (1983) primarily discusses knowing and reflecting “-in-practice” or “in-action”, mentioning “reflection-onaction” only a few times, mostly without exploring it, and nearly rejecting it wholesale as based on a general misunderstanding of the relationship between thinking and acting. I will not attempt to discuss Schön in detail, however. I only want to say, I think his discussions, and the discussions he has together with Chris Argyris, as well as the general discussions in their wake as a whole, would have gained a lot from studying and relating to Aristotelian distinctions. Aristotle’s main distinctions between different ways of reflecting-in-action; both practical wisdom (phrónêsis) and cleverness (deinótês, and even his concept of “quick-wittedness” or “shrewdness” (agkhínoia) on the one hand, the remaining gnôsis-forms, forms of theory (theôrêsis and theôría), and corresponding ways of using lógos in the table on the other, are only part of the very complex picture Aristotle left behind. In addition, he distinguishes between general knowing (hôs tê kathólou), concrete knowing appropriate to the pragma at hand (hôs tê oikeía), knowing in action (hôs tô energein, kat’ enérgeian), and different levels of potential knowledge (katà dúnamin). I also think, for example, that differences and similarities between grammar as a paradigm example of theôría and astronomy as a paradigm of theôrêsis, as congruent with Horkheimer’s distinction between critical theory and traditional theory, should have been compared much more clearly to Argyris and Schön’s early (1974) distinctions between “theories of explanation” and “theories of action”. Instead, these concepts live isolated in different discourse-silos, to the detriment of all. 16 Key Note, UCN, ECRPL 1-3. November 2021, Aalborg, DK. Olav Eikeland, OsloMet, [email protected]; [email protected] Aristotle’s right way of using lógos in concrete and specific situations of acting, he summarizes approximately as “doing the right thing, for the right reasons, to the right person, in the right way, at the right time, in the right place etc.”. He calls finding and sorting these things out not “dialog” but “deliberation” (boúleusis) (overveielse), and his distinguishing name for it is phrónêsis. While dialectics is mainly for discovering the general form of the pragma in different forms of praxis, phrónêsis is for fulfilling the pragmatization in adjusting the acquired, appropriate competence or virtue to its appropriate enactment in a specific situation. Ethics, politics, and applied law or jurisprudence, are areas which need this. Speaking your native language mostly don’t. Aristotle’s philosophical intentions is pragmatizing our living bodies or souls, and our minds, all the way up from infancy (or from the confusions in Plato’s famous cave dwelling) to the acquisition of general competence and understanding, and in returning back down to concrete applications or enactments in an enlightened cave. My main point in pointing out this, which I have emphasized for years, is that phrónêsis is not an independent faculty. It requires general competence in all fields, i.e. the virtues. Without the general competence of a musician, good improvisation is impossible. Similarly in other fields. But what corresponds to the competence of a musician in other fields? The preceding paragraphs have been about what Aristotle thinks such general competence means, and how it is generated and achieved in different pragmatic fields. I don’t think it can be neglected. It must either be presupposed or developed properly. I don’t know enough about how things are really done at the UCN, but I do think much of the general reflective turn is not taking this seriously enough. I therefore raise it as a question for discussion: What is the difference between, on the one hand, UCNs reflective practice-based learning, and on the other hand, what the Danish universities have long excelled in as PBL (problem-based learning), since as far as I can see, PBL presupposes funds of already extant knowledge which it can find and apply to solve problems. PBL teaches problem-solving. I’ve sometimes called its learning direction “horizontal”. For research, and even for the advanced, open learning-research (without pre-defined “learning outcomes”) promoted by Plato and Aristotle through dialogical reflection, I fear this is not enough, since it skips the question about who created the necessarily already present fund of knowledge “applied” and how. Aristotle’s mirror could, of course, be deliberative and problem solving but it is not merely problem-solving. It is concept-developing through conscientization about general, common structures in our own practical ways-of-doing-things already in activity; like grammar. Its learning direction is more vertical. It is much more similar to the kind of transformative development of experience presented in Hegels Phenomenology of Spirit. 17 Key Note, UCN, ECRPL 1-3. November 2021, Aalborg, DK. Olav Eikeland, OsloMet, [email protected]; [email protected] I’d like to end this presentation with a short but important note on preconditions for the dialogical reflective thinking, which by the way is the most likely specification of what in Aristotle’s texts is nóêsis as the specific activity of nous which reflects even itself. Nous and nóêsis is also what Aristotle identifies as what Mead calls the “I” with the fortunate sound-similarity to “eye”, since this is the critical “eye” using Aristotle’s mirror. Mead’s “me” is what Aristotle talks about as the soul or psukhê. If there is an “unfiltered” self, then, this “I-eye” is a candidate, while the soul is definitely a “filtered” “me”. It has been said since Plato and Aristotle, that reflective thinking needs skholê. This Greek word has been adopted and transformed in almost all European languages to mean “didactical schools”, places of instruction. It’s meaning in ancient Greek, and in Plato and Aristotle was, however, leisure or otium in Latin; almost the opposite. The schools in ancient Greece, and even some places today, were called didaskaleía or places for didactical teaching. Skholê was the necessary leisure for reflection, for establishing Aristotelian mirrors if you like. That’s what the philosophical schools were. And they were established in gumnasía and palaístrai, places for training and exercise, which means in close vicinity to practical rehearsals. Aristotle is in fact, explicit about the necessity of living and working together (suzên sunergein), and sharing common goals (telê), in order for these kinds of reflections to work properly. What do well-functioning and in that sense “happy” people do (ho eudaimôn), according to Aristotle, who comments almost en passant (EN1100b18-20): He or she will “always or mostly” alternate between “practising and reflecting on things according to virtue (praxei kaì theôrêsei tà kat’ aretên). So, where and when? I was previously engaged in organizational development at the Work Research Institute for several decades, where we developed what has become known as “dialog-conferences”. I will not elaborate on what they were and are now. My point here is that even Aristotle talks about what he called dialektikai sunodoi or sullógoi skholastikoí. This has mostly gone unnoticed, or they have been translated as meetings for competitions in debate, and scholastic gatherings for formal reasoning. This is in my opinion misleading. I have tried above, to outline at least, what “dialogical” or “dialectical” means in contrast to other lógos-forms. The word sunodeúsis means following a way (hodós) together (sun) (sunodeúein). The way intended is the learning cycles described, taken over and moralistically adapted by Christianity, and rediscovered hundreds of times by contemporary action researchers. Súllogos means a gathering or assembly, while its description as skholastikós does not mean “scholastic” in the meaning of the middle ages or as in modern school-based learning. It means the opposite, it means leisured, free from all forced activity, from external commands and controls. It means space and time liberated for building pragmatic character and understanding. It means creating space and time for establishing Aristotelian mirrors. Aristotle even recommends these kinds of gatherings for different communities of practice together with their clients and users of their products 18 Key Note, UCN, ECRPL 1-3. November 2021, Aalborg, DK. Olav Eikeland, OsloMet, [email protected]; [email protected] to develop “quality”. This is what most of the philosophical schools intended. I have written elsewhere why and how this needs to be done in modern contexts by systematizing and institutionalizing spaces for dialogical reflection in modern work life. But that’s another story. I must stop now without trying to summarize. Thanks for listening. 19 Key Note, UCN, ECRPL 1-3. November 2021, Aalborg, DK. Olav Eikeland, OsloMet, [email protected]; [email protected] Slides 20 Key Note, UCN, ECRPL 1-3. November 2021, Aalborg, DK. Olav Eikeland, OsloMet, [email protected]; [email protected] 21 Key Note, UCN, ECRPL 1-3. November 2021, Aalborg, DK. Olav Eikeland, OsloMet, [email protected]; [email protected] 22 Key Note, UCN, ECRPL 1-3. November 2021, Aalborg, DK. Olav Eikeland, OsloMet, [email protected]; [email protected] 23 Key Note, UCN, ECRPL 1-3. November 2021, Aalborg, DK. Olav Eikeland, OsloMet, [email protected]; [email protected] 24 Key Note, UCN, ECRPL 1-3. November 2021, Aalborg, DK. Olav Eikeland, OsloMet, [email protected]; [email protected] References (not yet added) 25