Pembuka - Langkah Awal

Apa yang ada dibenak kita mengenai filsafat?? Pada sebuah hari, seorang teman bercerita tentang kisahnya. Seorang sahabat ini mempunyai ketertarikan serta menikmati filsafat dalam kesehariannya serta dalam pola berfikirnya. Sahabat ini menceritakan betapa 'menderita'nya dia mendapat stigma 'berat' dari teman-temannya. Karena sering kali dalam setiap perbincangan yang sederhana dapat menjadi begitu terasa berat. Bahkan stigma ini menjadi semakin menjadi disaat para temannya mengetahui bahwa seorang teman ini tertarik dan menikmati filsafat. Ya,, secara kebetulan juga kisah ini tidak hanya terjadi pada satu orang teman saja tetapi banyak dari teman-teman yang lain yang mendapat stigma berat karena mereka begitu menikmati filsafat,,, dan kembali kebutulan juga stigma ini 'pernah' melekat pada saya sang penulis :)

Seringkali disaat penulis memperkenal diri kepada orang-orang yang baru dan mengatakan bahwa penulis kuliah di STF Driyarkara ada dua tanggapan pertama,, STF apa itu mas?sekolah farmasi ya?? dan disaat mengatakan Driyarkara langsung mereka berfikir sebuah tempat yang dikenal dengan Bidakara,,, memang kedua nama tersebut tidak begitu berbeda di telinga bila diucapkan dengan cepat dan gremeng-gremeng,, hehehe. Tapi begitulah nasib bersekolah di sebuah kampus kecil -yang sedang merangkak untuk menguatkan filsafat di negeri ini dengan membuka program doktoral filsafat (kalau tidak salah pertama kali di Indonesia)- yang tidak begitu terkenal, tidak begitu menjual, bahkan cenderung sepi karena sangat jelas pasarnya (untuk S1nya saja paling banter tiap angkatan hanya 50-80 siswa, dan itu terbagi dalam filsafat serta teologi hal yang sama juga terjadi dengan S2 nya, untuk S3 karena masih merangkak ya siswanya baru sekedarnya tapi bagaimanapun juga telah mengahasilkan lulusan),, kampus ini hanya dikenal oleh segelintir orang saja,,, tapi apalah arti kecil disaat berhadapan dengan dunia serta semesta yang begitu luas,,, tapi kisah ini tidak berhenti sampai disana,, disaat penulis memperkenalkan sebagai mahasiswa filsafat keheningan terkuak dari sarangnya :) timbullah pertanyaan klise yang harus dijawab dengan satire (setidaknya oleh penulis) yaitu kalau lulus ingin jadi apa? kerjanya apa? intinya pertanyaan yang merujuk kepada UANG...



Tapi haruslah kita sadari bahwa kejadian ini tidak mengagetkan, mengapa? karena filsafat begitu terlupakan di negeri ini. filsafat seringkali di cap sebagai kelas buangan disaat tidak diterima dari universitas lain ataupun dari jurusan lain (padahal kalau di STF semua siswa secara sadar serta sukarela untuk terjun dalam filsafat sehingga disadari atau tidak di kampus saya tersebut hanya ada dua model manusia, yang pertama adalah manusia yang memutuskan diri untuk lulus dari STF dan yang kedua adalah manusia yang memutuskan diri untuk tidak lulus dari STF - harap dikoreksi bila salah hehehe) selain itu selalu timbul ketakutan bahwa dengan filsafat kita akan jatuh dalam ateisme, siap jatuh dalam kemiskinan, bahkan siap jatuh dalam stigma 'kamu itu orang aneh,, permasalahan kecil kok dibuat ribet,, nikmatilah selagi bisa dinikmati'.

Padahal bila kita mau sadari bahwa negeri tercinta kita ini dibangun dengan filsafat yang begitu hebat yaitu Pancasila dengan bhineka tunggal ika nya, para founding father kita adalah seorang filsuf-filsuf nusantara yang handal siapa yang tidak mengenal Bung Hatta yang juga di kenal sebagai penulis filsafat, Soekarno yang begitu khas berfikirnya dan masih banyak lagi dan yang sering kali terlupaka yaitu Tan Malaka dengan MADILOG nya yang tidak kalah dengan buku-buku babon filsafat Eropa. Pilar bangsa ini, pendidikan, ekonomi, politik dibangun juga dengan filsafat loch :)

Dengan segenap kisah ini, penulis berusaha kembali menghidupkan blog ini, belajar untuk menulis dan untuk berdialog, berdiskusi, berdialektika mengenai Filsafat agar filsafat semakin menyenangkan. woro-woro jangan harap anda akan mendapatkan tulisan-tulisan yang berat dalam pembahasan filsafat di blog ini,, karena selain penulis bukanlah seorang ahli filsafat,tetapi penulis berusaha dan setuju dengan A.Whitehead yang berikhtiar untuk membumikan filsafat yang seringkali dianggap begitu berat (padahal filsafat bisa dinikmati dengan bahasa yang mudah, sehari-hari loch) Yang pasti kita akan bersama-sama belajar untuk mengenal serta mengetahui filsafat yang begitu mengasikkan serta membakar otak kita...

Dalam kekurangan, pada artikel berikutnya penulis akan membahas tentang apa itu filsafat ... jadi mari kita bersama-sama belajar dalam suasana filsafat. Jangan segan berbagi, mengoreksi, mengkritik, berdiskusi tapi jangan berdebat ya lebih enak berdiskusi,,,

MAu SekoLAh Pa Mau BeRanTem

Berantem Lagi

Gila bro, hari gini masih ada pelajar dan mahasiswa yang berantem???? Diajarin apa ya di kampus n disekolahnya. Yang lebih memalukan adalah yang berantem itu sekolah-sekolah, dan universitas ternama, sebut saja namanya SMA 6 dan 70 dan Universitas Kristen Indonesia dan YAI ( bro, ini bukan sebut saja, ini udah jadi tersangka) Dari berita yang gue denger sich, katanya ga ada alasan yang berarti buat berantem bahkan ga ada yang tahu apa alasannya. Tiba-tiba DHHHHUUUUUEEERRR berantem deh. Antara SMA 6 dan SMA 70 perkelahian ga ngerti kenapa tahu-tahu berantem. Sedang kedua universitas yang disebut diatas berantem karena (katanya sich) uda tradisi setiap penerimaan mahasiswa baru. Acara inisiasi kepada mahasiswa baru. Kenapa ini masih bisa kejadian ya?? Hehehe aneh juga….

Mungkin yang bisa kita tanyakan adalah, dimana peranan sekolah?? Apa sich yang diajarin disekolah, pertanyaan kemudian yang berkembang adalah dimana perenan guru, dosen, apa mereka menutup mata dengan keadaan ini? Lalu dimana peranan sekolah?? Kok ga bersuara ya?? Apa ga ada aturan dilarang berantem ya?? Emmm kalo menurut gue sich, berantem itu uda bentuk kriminalitas dan harus ditindak, sekolah, polisi atau aparatur Negara harus bertindak nih ga bisa tutup mata gitu aja. Harus buat aturan tegas, kalo perlu yang ikut tawuran dikeluarin. Ga bisa ditolerir. Banyak dari kita geram melihat kekerasan di IPDN bahkan banyak dari kedua sekolah itu dan kedua universitas itu juga geram kan, tapi kok mereka mengikuti jejak IPDN ya???

Polisi, emm bisa disalahin ga ya?? Untuk kali ini gue ngebela polisi. Yah, walaupun mereka juga ada salahnya kenapa Cuma nerjunin sedikit orang ya ?? tapi gue kasihan ma mereka, gue yakin mereka bingung mau nindaknya gimana. Kalo mukul ntar diaduin ke komnas HAM, kalo Cuma ngomong doang ya ga didenger, lah wong dikasih tembakan peringatan juga ga digubris hehehehe. Padahal menurut gue kalo polisi mukul (dalam kasus ini) bisa dibenarkan, kenapa ? ya karena mereka juga butuh melindungi diri, sebabnya mereka juga dipukul ma yang berantem.

Wah apa lagi ya yang harus gue tulis…. Sedih iya, gue menerawang kedepan sich, gue ga ngebanyangin gimana masa depan Indonesia kalo di isi sama orang yang berantem terus padahal mereka itu pilar-pilar masa depan Negara. Ga kebanyang sich gimana kalo pilar-pilar negaranya malah mau ambruk ya ga usah ditanya dan diragukan lagi bagaimana masa depan Negara ini

POSTMODERNISM, PEDAGOGY, AND PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION

Clive Beck
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

INTRODUCTION

In recent years, philosophers of education have been paying a great deal of attention to trends within philosophy which may be loosely referred to as “postmodernist.” In this paper, I wish to examine some of these trends and note some implications they have both for pedagogy in schools and for teaching and research in philosophy of education.

It may be presumptuous of me to talk on this vast topic. But I wish to assure you that I am not doing so just because, as PES President for the year, I have a captive audience. I would have been this presumptuous even if my paper had been refereed! But then, of course, it probably would not have been accepted. Today, then, you are seeing academic freedom at work. I hope the results are better than they often are when academics are given freedom.

I should say at the outset that I am not an “expert” on postmodernism. However, postmodernist doctrines and practices kept intruding into my life — especially as an attender of PES conferences and a reader of graduate student theses and course papers — to the point where I could no longer ignore them. Also, from my little “site” in the academic world — some might call it a hind-site but I prefer to see it as a fore-sight — I see enough problems with postmodernism, and enough misplaced criticisms of it, that I am inclined to say “to heck with the experts” and just wade in, a response which postmodernists officially at least must accept, given their avowed rejection of the concept of an expert.

In discussing postmodernism I will, as a non-expert, focus especially on secondary sources, the literature which for me is the most accessible and with which I have been able to become most familiar. I will also give a large amount of attention to one writer, namely Richard Rorty, mainly because among self-proclaimed postmodernists he is one of the more theoretical, which suits my purposes in this paper. Some might say that Rorty’s theoretical approach means that he is less of a postmodernist; but to me it means that he is a more open postmodernist, willing to talk about his methodological and substantive assumptions.

Philosophical postmodernism is a development of which one might say that, like many other things, it has done more good than harm and it has done an awful lot of harm! As with most philosophical movements, it is perhaps best viewed as a rich quarry in which we can go searching for gems of insight while not feeling obliged to take home all the rubble. In this paper I will be concentrating mainly on the gems, looking at the positive side of postmodernism. This should not be interpreted as indicating that I am a postmodernist; however, given the trenchant criticisms of modernism developed by postmodernism, I would equally not wish to be seen as a modernist.

WHAT IS POSTMODERNISM?

Postmodernism is not just a philosophical movement: it is found also, for example, in architecture, the graphic arts, dance, music, literature, and literary theory.¹ As a general cultural phenomenon, it has such features as the challenging of convention, the mixing of styles, tolerance of ambiguity, emphasis on diversity, acceptance (indeed celebration) of innovation and change, and stress on the constructedness of reality.

Philosophical postmodernism, in turn, does not represent a single point of view. There are progressive postmodernists and conservative ones,² postmodernists of “resistance” and postmodernists of “reaction,”³ strongly reform-minded postmodernists and others who concentrate on pricking bubbles. There are bleeding hearts and loose cannons. There is constant debate among so-called postmodernists about how a true postmodernist should approach life and inquiry and hence what qualifies as postmodernism.

The names most often associated with postmodernism are those of Jean-Francois Lyotard, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Richard Rorty. Theoretical approaches most commonly seen as postmodernist are deconstruction(ism), poststructuralism, and neopragmatism.⁴ However, a case could be made for adding other names, e.g., Nietzsche, the later Wittgenstein, Winch, Heidegger, Gadamer, and Kuhn; and other theoretical approaches, e.g., perspectivalism, postanalytic philosophy, and hermeneutics. Even the critical theory of Jurgen Habermas, with its affinity with hermeneutics and its communicative ethics, has clear postmodern elements, despite Habermas’s insistence that he is furthering the project of modernity rather than rejecting it. I mention all these names and movements not to impress or confuse, but to show the great overlap between different schools of thought and the pervasiveness of the postmodernist outlook. I feel that in discussing postmodernism we have often spent too much time searching for a neat central core. What is needed rather is to expose ourselves to and respond to a whole family of related outlooks and approaches.

Overlap can be found not only between contemporary theoretical approaches but also between these and ones of earlier historical periods. This is the view of Lyotard who, according to John McGowan, holds that “postmodern and modern cannot be distinguished from each other temporally…they exist simultaneously, referring to two different responses to modernity.”⁵ Rorty takes a similar position, questioning whether the shifts associated with postmodernism “are more than the latest moments of a historicization of philosophy which has been going on continuously since Hegel.”⁶ Further, Rorty thinks that these changes were “pretty well complete in Dewey.”⁷ He does not see Foucault, for example, as any more radical in the postmodern manner than Dewey. He says: “I do not see any difference between Dewey and Foucault on narrowly philosophical grounds. The only difference I see between them is the presence or lack of social hope which they display.”⁸

There is of course something odd about seeing Hegel, Nietzsche, or even Dewey as postmodernists, given that they wrote within the modern era and in many ways expressed its spirit. Some writers prefer a more chronologically correct definition of postmodernism. John McGowan, for example, sides with Frederic Jameson in expressing the view that “postmodernism as a temporal term designates a (very recent) historical period that is to be identified by a set of characteristics that operate across the whole historical terrain.”⁹ However, despite the awkwardness, I prefer to interpret postmodernism as embracing many approaches and insights which were around before the last few decades and even before the present century. Personally, I feel I have been something of a postmodernist most of my life, even before my exposure to postmodernist writings (I can show you chapter and verse if you wish). And in terms of the history of philosophy, I think the notion that these are entirely new developments exaggerates the extent to which human thought and behavior change, and leaves us wondering how people in earlier centuries could have been so dense as to be completely taken in by the ideas of Plato, Descartes, and Kant. Indeed, it is a good question whether these gentlemen were completely taken in by them themselves: as we know, philosophers often get carried away, and then feel compelled to defend what they have said.

For these various reasons, then, the view of postmodernism I am employing in this paper is a rather broad one. In opting for breadth, however, I am not alone. Some general philosophers, such as Rorty (as we have seen) and Richard Bernstein, take a similar tack, as do many educational theorists — for example, Stanley Aronowitz, Henry Giroux, and William Doll.¹⁰

AN OUTLOOK INFLUENCED BY POSTMODERNISM

Accounts of postmodernism abound today in the literature of both general philosophy and educational theory.¹¹ Accordingly, I will not here provide a general exposition of postmodernism but rather, after the brief statement of a particular theme, will go straight to an integration of it (usually in a modified form) into my own proposed approach. I hope, however, that such a treatment will, incidentally, help clarify the nature of postmodernism.

The understanding of postmodernism I will assume here is a rough composite of ideas from Rorty (especially) and Lyotard, Derrida, and Foucault. It should be stressed, however, that many of these ideas have appeared in other schools of thought, both historical and contemporary, e.g., Marxism, feminism, critical pedagogy. I have chosen to focus on these particular writers because they provide a convenient point of departure; and also because discussing them helps us come to terms with the dominant philosophical tradition, which we have some responsibility to try to influence.

I have called what I am presenting here an “outlook,” but that term is rather too cognitive in its connotations. The word “attitude” is sometimes seen as more appropriate for what postmodernists are talking about. The issues in question also have a strong methodological component: they have to do with an “approach” to inquiry and life in general. One might almost say that what we are concerned with here is a way of life, which includes cognitive, affective, and methodological components.

Reality

Postmodernists have helped us see that reality is more complex than we had imagined. It does not exist objectively, “out there,” simply to be mirrored by our thoughts. Rather, it is in part a human creation. We mold reality in accordance with our needs, interests, prejudices, and cultural traditions.

But reality is not entirely a human construction, “made by us, not given to us,”¹² as postmodernists have claimed. Knowledge is the product of an interaction between our ideas about the world and our experience of the world. As E.T. Gendlin says, “the assumption is overstated, that concepts and social forms entirely determine…experience…. [W]hat the forms work-in, talks back.”¹³ Of course, all experience is influenced by our concepts: we “see” things — even physical things — through cultural lenses. But this influence is not all-controlling; again and again reality surprises us (as modern science has shown) in ways that compel us to modify our ideas.¹⁴ We thought the world was flat, for example, but were obliged eventually to change our minds.

This view may appear dangerously close to Kant’s notion that knowledge is a product of interaction between mental structures and sense data. However, whereas Kant’s mental structures were innate and universal and his sense data natural and pure, I see culture and experience as already deeply infected by each other. They are interdependent, and differ only in degree of determination by human agency.

A corollary of this interactive view of reality is that there is no sharp fact-value distinction. All factual statements reflect the values they serve, and all value beliefs are conditioned by factual assumptions. There is again a difference of degree which enables us to talk of “facts” and “values.” But what we call facts are only somewhat less value-determined: they are not independent of values. This ties in with Foucault’s postmodernist notion that knowledge and power cannot be separated, since knowledge embodies the values of those who are powerful enough to create and disseminate it.¹⁵ Foucault has perhaps an overly conspiratorial view of knowledge, but the link with people’s interests which he identifies cannot be denied.

Change and Difference

Because reality is in part culture dependent, it changes over time, as cultures do, and varies from community to community. Knowledge is neither eternal nor universal. Once again, however, we should not exaggerate this point, as postmodernists have done. There are “enduring interests” (Dewey) and “tentative frameworks” (Charles Taylor) which point to a degree of continuity; and there are some commonalities (again qualified) from culture to culture and probably across the whole human race.

To deny continuity and commonality where it in fact exists, as postmodernists tend to do, is just as irrational and unpragmatic as to see knowledge as eternal and universal. It betrays an absolutist attachment to such values as innovation, originality, and diversity. Furthermore, it can have unfortunate practical consequences, since it leaves people without an adequate basis for daily living. It is one thing to reject the idea of a fixed, universal foundation to reality, quite another to claim that no useful guidelines can ever be identified.

Taking note of the postmodernists’ cautions, however, we should be careful with generalizations: they can be deceptive. Behind a general formulation such as “all humans are rational” or “people pursue pleasure” there is usually a great diversity of realities and interpretations. We should try to become more aware of this, and also more often explicitly qualify claims with words such as “some,” “many,” “most,” “sometimes,” “often.” But even qualified generalizations are of great value in everyday life.

Metaphysics

Postmodernism is often seen by its proponents as bringing an end to metaphysics, ontology, epistemology, and so forth, on the ground that these types of discourse assume a fixed, universal reality and method of inquiry. However, in my view it is better to shift to a modified conception of these fields rather than do away with them completely. Precisely because we live in a changing, fragmented, “postmodern” world, we need whatever stability we can find. And inquiry into general intellectual, moral, and other patterns — limited and tentative though they may be — is a legitimate form of “metaphysics.”

An irony of the postmodernist movement is that, despite itself, it is centrally concerned with what we can say of a general nature about reality. I would even say that it has led to a massive (and salutary) revival of metaphysics. Postmodernists believe they have put an end to metaphysics and have thrown the ladder away after reaching their foundationless perch. But in fact their writings are full of general assumptions about culture, human nature, values, inquiry. As Landon Beyer and Daniel Liston observe, postmodernist analyses are paradoxical, containing “standpoints without footings” and “talking about nothing.”¹⁶ Not that postmodernists always deny that this is what they do — Derrida happily admits that he “crosses out” his own claims; but to admit a fault is different from overcoming it.

The Self

Postmodernism has rightly questioned the idea of a universal, unchanging, unified self or “subject” which has full knowledge of and control over what it thinks, says, and does. It has shown that the self is strongly influenced by its surrounding culture, changes with that culture, and is fragmented like that culture. To a degree, it is not we who think, speak, and act but the culture which thinks, speaks, and acts through us. In many ways Rorty is correct when he describes “the moral self” as “a network of beliefs, desires, and emotions with nothing behind it…constantly reweaving itself…not by reference to general criteria…but in the hit-or-miss way in which cells readjust themselves to meet the pressures of the environment.”¹⁷

It is an exaggeration, however, to maintain that because the self is limited, conditioned, and contingent in this way it has no significance, identity, or capacities. Individuals may be no more important than cultures, but neither are they less so. Individuals are just as unified and characterizable as communities, and they have considerable (though not unlimited) capacity for self-knowledge, self-expression, and self-regulation. There is no basis for emphasizing culture or community to the neglect of individuals.

And the same may be said for specific groups within a larger culture: ethnic groups, gender categories, socio-economic classes, and so on. There is a tendency among postmodernists to emphasize these categories to the neglect of individuals. But in fact two individuals of the same national background, ethnicity, gender, religion, or the like may differ greatly. And two individuals who differ in all these respects may turn out to be “kindred spirits” who can have a close friendship, even a good marriage, and agree on most major matters. Individuals are only in part identifiable in terms of the various categories to which they belong.

Inquiry

Postmodernist insights require a major shift in our conception of inquiry. No longer should we see ourselves as seeking to uncover a pre-existing reality; rather, we are involved in an interactive process of knowledge creation. We are developing a “working understanding” of reality and life, one which suits our purposes. And because purposes and context vary from individual to individual and from group to group, what we arrive at is in part autobiographical; it reflects our “personal narrative,” our particular “site” in the world.

To some extent, then, we must question the notion of expertise. In particular fields, some people do know more than others; but the difference, insofar as it exists, is usually one of degree. So-called “experts” are often heavily dependent on “non-experts” for input if they are to arrive at sound insights; and since each individual or group’s needs and circumstances are different, “expert knowledge” cannot be simply applied; it must be greatly modified for a particular case. The interaction between expert and non-expert, teacher and taught, is often best seen as a dialogue or “conversation” (to use Rorty’s term), in which there is mutual influence rather than simple transmission from one to the other.

The knowledge arrived at, too, is more ambiguous and unstable than we had previously thought. It refers to probabilities rather than certainties, average effects, better rather than the best; and it is constantly changing as each individual or group gives a particular interpretation to it, reflecting distinctive needs and experiences. And as postmodernists have pointed out, language is well adapted to this constant “play” of interpretation. Words are not tied to fixed concepts or referents; they depend for their meaning on a whole system of words within which they are embedded, a system which changes over time and varies from one speech community or language user to another.

Inquiry must also be approached “pragmatically.”¹⁸ We should not insist that reality, including human nature, take a certain form but rather accept what emerges. If altruism, for example, has to be based in part on feelings of group solidarity, then we must acknowledge that: there is no point clinging to a rationalistic view of moral motivation that cannot work.

Once again, however, we should be careful not to exaggerate these points. Postmodernists have often attacked notions of reason, means-end thinking, theory, teaching. But in fact there is a place for them, in a modified form. We must employ reason as well as feelings, intuitions, direct social influence, and so forth. We must think in means-end terms to some extent if we are to know what we want in life and how to achieve it. Theory, understood as a loose interconnection of qualified generalizations, is crucial for daily living. Teaching, so long as it is largely dialogical, is both possible and necessary. And so on. All of these can cause problems if they are understood too strictly and taken too seriously; but without them we would quite literally be lost.

We must also qualify the notion of a “pragmatic” approach to inquiry. While there is no external foundation to reality, no “traditional Kantian backup,” as Rorty says, there are internal continuities which serve as important reference points. It is possible and necessary, then, to develop “theory” which explains particular phenomena in terms of these continuities. Postmodernists often display an “easy pragmatism” which, while claiming to be open and tolerant, is merely superficial, since it fails to develop and use theory of this kind; its doctrines thus become dogmatic assertions, without explanation or justification.

Forms of Scholarship

One of the slogans of postmodernism is that “there is no center,” and in particular there is no central tradition of scholarship (namely Eurocentric, middle- class, predominantly male) of which other traditions — Native American, Afro-American, Islamic, feminist, working class, for example — are mere colonies. Insofar as we study traditional Western scholarship, we should be wary of its white, middle-class, male bias; and we should (if we belong to one or more other categories) approach it as equals, expecting to contribute as much as we learn. This is in line with the view of knowledge and inquiry noted earlier.

With this approach I am in agreement, but as you might expect I have some provisos. To begin with, we should not exaggerate the extent of the bias (great though it undoubtedly is) in traditional Western scholarship. There is much we can learn from such scholarship (although also much we must reject). This is because the writers in question, though white, middle- or upper-class, and male, were also human beings, struggling with basic issues of how humans are to survive, flourish, and find meaning in life. The bias in favor of particular ethnic, class, and gender interests is only part of the picture. Terms such as “Eurocentric” and “patriarchal” are bandied about too much, as though they described everything that an individual or group does, and as if every error that is made is due to the bias in question. As noted earlier, people of different races, genders, religions, or whatever may have a great deal in common. There is enormous scope for people of different categories to learn from each other’s scholarship.

None of this means, however, that we should regard the Western scholarly tradition as the central one to which others merely contribute or add footnotes. Rather, white, middle-class males should just contribute along with everyone else, and any new, common tradition should be pluralistic scholarship, not simply a modification of the “mainstream.”

A key point, in line with my earlier remarks about “the self,” is that in addition to anti-racist, feminist, anti-agist, etc. scholarship we need individual scholarship: Jane Doe scholarship, José Sanchez scholarship, Shiu Chun Leung scholarship, etc. We have not taken the personal quest of individuals seriously enough: every human being is constantly questioning, observing, theorizing, trying to understand life and make the most of it in his or her own very distinctive situation. The radical democracy of postmodernism leads in this direction, but it gets waylaid because of its excessive preoccupation with cultures and speech communities. Every individual should be seen as the center of a scholarship — her or his own — comparing notes on equal terms with other individuals, groups, and traditions.

SOME IMPLICATIONS FOR PEDAGOGY

There are many implications of the foregoing for educational practice, but space permits me only to outline a few of the main ones. To begin with, students in schools from an early age should be helped to see how ideas and institutions are tailored to suit people’s values and interests: how, for example, a picture book or novel expresses the distinctive needs and background of the author; or how TV programming promotes life-styles which benefit commercial enterprises; or how the health professions tend to favor males over females; or how the school curriculum reflects the values of certain sectors of society. This need not involve use of technical language, or be particularly confrontational: such study can be a rather straightforward and enjoyable aspect of the school day. But unless we foster this kind of cultural-political understanding, we are supporting our students’ continued perception of the world as value-neutral, unproblematic, and unchangeable.

Surprisingly, Rorty questions engaging in this kind of problem posing in schools. He maintains that “lower education” (primary and secondary) “is mostly a matter of socialization, of trying to inculcate a sense of citizenship.” It “should aim primarily at communicating enough of what is held to be true by the society to which the children belong so that they can function as citizens of that society. Whether it is true or not is none of the educator’s business, in his or her professional capacity.”¹⁹ However, to me this is an extraordinary and inexplicable betrayal of the main thrust of postmodernism. How can a society succeed in constantly “breaking the crust of convention,” as Rorty advocates,²⁰ when all its school teachers and all its young people up to the age of eighteen are involved in single-minded reinforcement of convention? And how will this affect the self-image and well-being of young people who, as every parent knows, begin systematically to question our conventions from about the age of two? I agree that schools should teach students about social conventions and institutions, probably more than they do at present; but integral to that teaching should be fundamental evaluation and critique.

At the same time as we encourage the questioning of accepted “realities,” however, we must help students find “foundations” for their lives, if of a less permanent kind. Lack of a sense of stability and direction is one of the major problems of contemporary culture and is a factor in today’s reactionary trends in religion, politics, education, and other spheres. If we do not acknowledge this need, our anti-foundationalist teaching may backfire and at any rate may cause students (and parents) considerable distress. We should work with students (and parents, as far as possible) in a dialogical manner, identifying outlooks which are an appropriate combination of old and new elements. Students need to find enduring values (e.g., relational, aesthetic, occupational) and ideals (e.g., pluralistic, global, ecological) which do not contradict their experience of reality but at the same time provide an adequate basis for everyday living.

One way of putting this point is to say, as I did in Part III, that “metaphysics” is important. Schools must encourage and assist students to engage in general theorizing about reality and life. The postmodernist emphasis on concrete, local concerns is important and should be applied in education: school studies are often too abstract and of little apparent relevance. But learning should combine both the concrete and the general. The learning of isolated facts and skills can be equally boring and meaningless. It is often through the drawing of broader connections between phenomena and the exploration of their value implications that learning comes alive. And study of this more “theoretical” kind is necessary if students are to build up a comprehensive worldview and way of life that will give them the security, direction, and meaning they need.

Another set of implications for schooling has to do with the democratic and dialogical emphasis of postmodernism, its questioning of the motives of authorities and its downplaying of the role of experts. We must think increasingly in terms of “teachers and students learning together,” rather than the one telling the other how to live in a “top-down” manner. This is necessary both so that the values and interests of students are taken into account, and so that the wealth of their everyday experience is made available to fellow students and to the teacher.

Of course, the extent to which the teacher may be regarded as an expert varies from subject to subject. In science and mathematics, for example, a teacher may well know considerably more than most of the students in the class, while in values and family life this is less obviously the case; and with respect to a particular values topic, e.g., bullying in the school yard, a student may well know more than the teacher. But even where the teacher does have greater knowledge, we should question excessive use of a teacher dominated method. Lyotard has pointed out the extent to which students today at the postsecondary level can learn from computerized data banks, which he calls “the Encyclopedia of tomorrow;”²¹ and the same point could be made with respect to the elementary and secondary levels. Increasingly, teachers must help students “learn how to learn,” using such technology. One great advantage of self-directed inquiry is that through it students are more actively involved in determining what they learn and why, and thus are able to give expression to their distinctive interests and needs.

However, while I support a democratic, dialogical approach in schools, I believe that Lyotard (like another education critic, Ivan Illich, before him) underestimates the importance of the teacher in motivating and facilitating learning. The activity of teachers in structuring school studies and making learning materials available at appropriate points results in students learning a great many things they would not otherwise learn. It is not enough simply to give students learning skills and set them loose: most young people need ongoing encouragement and help in order to learn what they need for life in today’s world. Perhaps this is simply due to a shortcoming of contemporary culture: it has made young people too dependent on adult help. Or perhaps it is the result of more basic features of human nature. But whatever the reason, so long as students need external help in order to learn, we are hiding our heads in the sand if we do not provide it. (We, on the other hand, also need help from our students in order to learn).

In democratizing education, then, we should not simply dismantle all structures and hope that something happens, but rather try to create structures that give students the support they need and allow them to make a significant input and have optimal control over their learning. While schooling should as far as possible be dialogical, it should not be a mere pooling of ignorance. To be effective, dialogue requires strong input of many kinds: information, examples, stories, feelings, ideas, theories, worldviews, and so on. The point about a democratic approach is not that structure and content are unnecessary, but that students (and teachers) should have a major say in how their learning is structured and what content is made available to them.

SOME IMPLICATIONS FOR PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION

There are many implications of what we have been discussing for philosophy of education, but once again I must be selective. To begin with, students of education, like school students, should be helped to see that knowledge is value dependent, culture dependent, and changeable — that we are not searching for a fixed, universal philosophy of life and education. At the same time, however, they should be helped to identify continuities and commonalities that give some stability and direction to their lives and to the practice of teaching.

One way of achieving the twofold goal of combating foundationalism and yet helping students develop modest “foundations” for life and education is to study various “forms of scholarship” — e.g., anti-racist, feminist, individual, and so on — as advocated in Part III, above. In this way students will see that theory is necessarily tailored to suit diverse group and individual needs. As I have argued, however, this does not involve denying substantial overlap between different forms of scholarship. Indeed, the exploration of what different categories of people have in common should be a major aspect of educational studies.

The philosophy of education classroom, like the school classroom, should also be strongly democratic and dialogical. In this way the energies of students will be engaged, their values respected, and their insights made available to fellow students and to professors. It is surprising how often professors of education advocate democracy for schools and yet do not practice it with their own students. If we believe in a democratic approach to inquiry we should model it ourselves, so that our students understand what we mean and are given the opportunity to develop a democratic pedagogy which they can in turn employ in schools.

Adopting a genuinely democratic and dialogical approach involves a fundamental re-thinking of the nature of philosophy — and of intellectual work in general — and of our role as professors. We should not view our research into educational theory as something that can be carried on separately — in the mind or in the study — and then used as a key to unlock the secrets of education and life. As Rorty says:

…the intellectual…is just a special case — just somebody who does with marks and noises what other people do with their spouses and children, their fellow workers, the tools of their trade, the cash accounts of their businesses, the possessions they accumulate in their homes, the music they listen to, the sports they play and watch, or the trees they pass on their way to work.²²

Philosophers are simply living life like everyone else, working on the same problems as everyone else, but using a distinctive language (often more distinctive than need be). We should “compare notes” with others, including our students, not impose our solutions on them.

In this respect, the postmodernist attitude is the same as the hermeneutic attitude, on Gadamer’s interpretation. As Dieter Misgeld expounds Gadamer’s position:

Hermeneutics…is a mode of inquiry that refuses to legitimate any disposition on the side of those inquiring to exempt themselves from what is topical in the inquiry…. [I]f inquiry is itself a situated activity, just as much as what one studies, the conduct of life of those inquiring comes to be an issue as does the relation of inquiry to their lives.²³

This is not to downplay the importance of theory, as many postmodernists have done. Rather it is to recognize that everyone is constantly theorizing about life — trying to make sense of it — including the academically “least able” student in our class. Our task as professors is not to blind students with our knowledge of the history of philosophy and our command of technical jargon but rather to help them see that they are grappling with the same issues as we are — and have been all their lives — and to enable them to get into conversation with philosophers, ancient and modern, and other theorists, largely as equals.

However, while our educational theory will always be somewhat self-referential in this way, the broader our base of experience the more others (including our students) will gain from our theory. We education professors must as much as possible go out into society, homes, schools. As noted earlier, philosophy is not a theoretical key that unlocks practice. Theory must be fundamentally rooted in practical experience if it is to be of value. The common professorial disclaimer that we are “not equipped” to talk about practical matters appears humble but is in fact arrogant; and it betrays a lack of understanding of theory. If we are not equipped to talk about practice, we are not equipped to talk about theory. We must as far as possible address both theory and practice. That is the most effective way to contribute to education, which is our responsibility. People who specialize mainly in theory or mainly in practice can make a contribution, but normally they would contribute more even in their area of specialization if they did both (in accordance with Buckminster Fuller’s principle of synergy). Far from doing a better job by specializing in theory, we almost inevitably do a worse job.

Finally, just as we should encourage our students to dialogue with us and other theorists rather than “drinking it in,” so we ourselves should be more critical — or dialogical — in relation to so-called “pure” philosophers. I feel that, in general, philosophers of education over the past few decades have shown too much deference to pure philosophy. We have tended to quote people such as Austin, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Habermas, Foucault, Rorty, and so on rather than “interrogating” them. As you can see from this paper, I believe in taking pure philosophers seriously; but they, like us, make enormous errors. I feel that, in good postmodernist spirit, we who are in education should develop a positive image of ourselves as sensitive, knowledgeable people, working away in our particular “site,” interacting with other scholars and learning from them, but having as much to offer as to gain, and as in no way merely “applying” the “findings” of pure philosophy.

In closing, I would like to pose a question: Am I here today engaging in genuine dialogue (and do I with my students back home?) or am I preaching, imposing, controlling, and so forth, in the manner criticized by postmodernists and by myself in this paper? That is something I want to reflect on more. But part of the answer, I think, lies in how active you are in assessing what I have to say. Part of the key to avoiding authoritarianism and indoctrination in classrooms — of school or university — is not to have teachers refrain from saying what they think, but rather to have students feeling free — and acquiring the skills, emotions, and habits they need — to react strongly and honestly to what teachers say. And the same is true here. I have said my piece as forcefully and clearly as I can. Now it is up to you to assess equally forcefully what I have said from the vantage point of your own experience, culture, ideas, interests, needs, values. I am sure my respondents will do that only too soon!

For responseS to this essay, see Feinberg and Greene.

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¹ On this point see Linda Hutcheon, The Politics of Postmodernism (London: Routledge, 1989), 1.

² See Stanley Aronowitz and Henry Giroux, Postmodern Education (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991), 19, 59.

³ See Carol Nicholson, “Postmodernism, Feminism, and Education: The Need for Solidarity,” Educational Theory 40, no. 1 (1990): 43.

⁴ See Nicholson, 198.

⁵ John McGowan, Postmodernism and Its Critics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), 184.

⁶ Richard Rorty, “The Dangers of Over-Philosophication — Reply to Arcilla and Nicholson,” Educational Theory 40, no. 1 (1990): 43.

⁷ Rorty, “The Dangers of Over-Philosophication,” 43.

⁸ Rorty, “The Dangers of Over-Philosophication,” 44.

⁹ McGowan, 181. My parentheses.

¹⁰ See Aronowitz and Giroux’s Postmodern Education and William Doll’s, A Post-Modern Perspective on Curriculum (New York: Teachers College Press, 1993).

¹¹ Apart from works cited above and below, I would like to mention especially Chris Weedon, Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987).

¹² Hutcheon, 2.

¹³ E.T. Gendlin, “Thinking Beyond Patterns: Body, Language, and Situations,” in The Presence of Feeling in Thoughts, ed. B. denOuden and M. Moen (New York: Peter Lang, 1991), 29.

¹⁴ This process of interaction is discussed by Northrop Frye in terms of the tension between centripetal and centrifugal tendencies. See his The Great Code (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983), 52, 61-62, 217-18; and Words with Power (Penguin, 1990), 37-40

¹⁵ See for example Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality (New York: Random House/Vintage, 1990/1976), 11-13.

¹⁶ Landon E. Beyer and Daniel P. Liston, “Discourse or Moral Action? A Critique of Postmodernism,” Educational Theory 42, no. 4 (1992): 383-87.

¹⁷ Richard Rorty, “Postmodernist Bourgeois Liberalism,” in Hermeneutics and Praxis, ed. Robert Hollinger (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1985), 217.

¹⁸ For accounts of Rorty’s pragmatism, see for example, his Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 63-77; and Richard Bernstein’s Beyond Objectivity and Relativism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983), 198-207.

¹⁹ Rorty, “The Dangers of Over-Philosophication,” 41-42.

²⁰ Rorty, “The Dangers of Over-Philosophication,” 44.

²¹ Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984/1979), 51.

²² Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 37.

²³ Dieter Misgeld, “On Gadamer’s Hermeneutics,” in Hermeneutics and Praxis, ed. Robert Hollinger, 162.

Education without Truth in Postmodern Perspectivism

Alexandra Deligiorgi
University of Thessaloniki

ABSTRACT: Poststructuralist relativism, following the Nietzschean critique of Western rationalism, denounces the quest for truth as a quest to legitimize various claims on the level of universal human value, by covering up the indirect coercion of their discourse or imagery. Using perspectivism as an argument against philosophical grounding of various patterns and schemes, post-modern thinkers, under the influence of Poststructuralist relativism, try to depart from the cognitivist tradition by transforming philosophical thought to an edifying discipline (Rorty) or learning (Lyotard) liberated from a theory of knowledge, and giving into a discourse of literary or prosy character. I argue that post-modern perspectivism and the individualistic or collectivistic logic which nurtures its scope can be transcended through construction of hyperperspectivistic prisms based on alogic of interrelation animated by the interdisciplinarian spirit prevailing in the field of modern science. This latter serves as the leading thread for the foundation of a new canonicity which, without losing its historical and cultural character, can make claims to truth and validity of general acceptance. The hyperspectivistic canonicity deriving from such an interrelational logic is in a position to animate a new educational model capable of overcoming both idealistic and romantic versions of Bildung.

During the last third of 20th century, the so-called postmodern world has been technically modernized in an unprecedented way. An unconstrained capitalist economy imposing constantly changing technologies determine, among other systems of social control, various forms of the educational system, each one of them promoting knowledge as a commodity. The ferment that swept, some years ago, not only the Third World but also the industrial societies for revolutionnary change of social and political institutions has given its place to a forceful modernization of established authority, political power and modes of accummulation.

The belief that we live in a rapidly changing world is well spread. In fact, we live in a frenetically modernized but not changing world, given that the deification of the modern against the traditional forms of education, organization and communication levels the need to create a vision of a future society. The creation of such a vision presupposes the critical approach of the legitimacy of the established authority, of political power or wealth; issues which are no longer broadly discussed. The early and forceful advocates of libertarian or socialist values seem to be forgotten or definitely marginalised. (1) The philosophical tradition developed by philosophers like Rousseau, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel or Marx is confronted as a whole of illusionnary meta-narratives mystifying humanity as the hero of freedom who, guided by the light of reason alone, struggled for the change of the established social order by trying to redefine the meaning and goal of human existence, and thus failed dramatically in its project. (2)

Under such conditions, a radical rupture with the Greek-Western tradition of thought is judged as a realistic movement against fantasies of the past and has been attempted by postmoderrn thinkers like Lyotad or Rorty who try to disconnect the triple value of truth-freedom-justice which orientated the classical philosophical tradition and the pattern of education animated by it. The chain with which reflective reason linked justice with truth and freedom is broken and the nexus formed by these three values is dissolved. Reflective and critical reason giving ground to moral, political, juridicial or aesthetical judgments whereupon educational models had to be built, in the past, has been attacked as the main foresight. This polemic is favoured by an arbitrary identification of reflective reason to instrumental reason which favours a violent rationalisation of social practices in order to achieve a more efficient organisation of maintained social order.

The question whether Education is and should continue to be bound to reason and internalization of norms that are in need of justification, has already been given a negative answer by Rorty and Lyotard.

Claiming that any attempt to ground political, aesthetical, juridicial or educational schemes or propositions on premisses deriving form Theory of knowledge constitute a late revival of Platonism (3) or a reinscription of philosophical modernist narratives, (4) the two thinkers both suggest that whenever we insist on relating justice, beauty or education to cognitivist tradition which gives to the quest for truth a primordial role, we become victims of an old fashionned philosophical thought radically cut from the conditions prevailing whithin postmodern social reality, given that this latter favours a nature-like development and organisation withdrawn from reflection. (5)

This turn has been facilitated by the lack of technical kwoledge for mastering contigencies and of theoretical strategies for penetrating the multiplicity of apparent , nominalistically produced contingencies, and has given rise to the conception of consciousness and freedom as mere contingency (6) too. It has also been facilitated by the Nitzschean perspectival theory of the affects taken as basis of the post-structuralist programmatic nihilism in the context of which, neither validity claims nor claims to truth derive from will to truth but from will to power. But whereas Nietzsche, on the basis of the critique of the modern world and of the established rationalism justifying its institutional and normative context , in an attempt to create new paths leading to another world truer than the given one, breaks free from the Universalism of Enlightenment and its programme, post-structuralism and neopragmatism as well, denounce the quest for truth as a quest to legitimize various philosophicasl claims to truth on the level of universal human value by covering the indirect coercion of their discourse or imagery.

Following this vogue, Rorty and Lyotard use perspectivism as an argument against cognitivist grounding of patterns and schemes regulating social practices, and trying to cut off Theory of Knowledge and its rationale from philosophical reflection, they orientate this latter to a metaphilosophical edifying discipline (Rorty) or to an equally meta-philosophical learning (savoir) (Lyotard), in accordance to the meta-philosophical era opend up by the postmodern version of neo-liberalism..

Both the Rortyan edifying philosophy and the Lyotardian learning give into a discourse of a literary or prosy character very little clarified in their ground and function .

More explicitly, according to Rorty, the schemes and patterns regulating social relations do not derive from reason and its canonicity but rather from self-images created by the community on the basis of solidarity of its members. (7) In opposition to reason and its norms, solidarity does not need any justification or legitimation given that the social bond expressed by it is prior to any act of legitimizing claims to truth attempted by reason. (8)

Contingent and improvised as are the perspectivistic schemes and patterns invented by members of community, although they are not capable to ground a canonicity of universal consistency and value, they are still in position to regulate social relations and practices at least within community , thanks to the edifying training given to its members as a part of the metaphilosophical culture in which they have to be integrated, in postmodern era.

The disagreement among community members given rise by the perpsectival character of schemes and patterns created according to specific aims or interests, is not confronted or discussed in the Rortyan problematic of solidarity .

Lyotard fils this gap by his own problematic of linguist games. The multiplicity of linguist games renders universal consent of community members impossible; given that there is no meta-language capable of subordinating their plurality to a set of universal principles to ground upon, political, juridicial, aesthetical or educational decisions or practices. (9)

For Lyotard, since the social bond imply exchanges between non autonomous and unequal subjects, no universal stipulation covering up the heterogeneity of linguistic games can suggest truth, justice, beauty or other values of general acceptance. All it suggets is pieces of these values each one shared by different groups whose players play their own lingustic games warranting their own way of judging and evaluating. Under these terms, the players' consent is not founded by a normative idea-product of an historico-critical synthetic judgment presupposed in their moves; it is rather formed by players' ability to use imagination for experimenting with the existing rules of the linguistic games in order to make them more sufficient or to change them, changing their rules as well. (10)

Lyotard's proposed strategy, here, is the elaboration of multiple heterogeneous patterns and schemes harmonised with the multiple new forms of subjectivity created by multiple linguist games, through learning.

While the modernist meta-narratives attempt to legalize the truth of propositions arising from the currently held (positivist or dialectical) modes of scientific approach, Lyotardian learning (mathesis) undertakes the task of corroborating the trurth of propositions derived from a radically new mode of approach capable of bringing all possible forms of indeterminism into light.

Unlike the deterministic logic of Positivist thought and in opposition to holistic and dynamic character of dialectical thought, the indeterministic logic of such postmodern rationalism is that of paralogy. Paralogy is the logic of the impossible yielded by the libidic economy of human relations related to chaotic phenomena. (11)

Under these terms, Lyotard shifts the founding of truth from the realm of reason, its historico-critical judgments and its reflective evaluations to the realm of the desire for the impossible (12) seated in the nucleus of the unconscious whence springs the sense of sublime. Sublime in unfounded and without an object, so that the desire for it which nurtures various aesthetic schemes defining all possible forms of judging and evaluating, cannot lead to claims to truth of general acceptance. In terms of the desire for the impossible, learning is not in the position to overcome linguistic heterogeneity that gives rise to perspectivism; (13) all it can do is to warrant and corroborate the truth of postmodern scientific thought which sheds, as already said, light upon chaotic phenomena and their paralogy, without being in a position to legitimize such knowledge.

Without drawing a distinction between instrumental and reflective reason and without elucidating the transition of human mind from the irrational of the desire for the impossible to rationalized will to truth (confronted by dialectical thought in strictly historico-critical terms) the Lyotardian spirit is cut off from the modernist scientific and philosophical thought; this latter was put forward by epistemologists and theoreticians of the so-called "nouvel esprit scientifique" like Bachelard, earlier, or Castoriadis, more recently, who have both undertaken the task, in the epistemological-ontological field, to elucidate the controversial relation between conscious-unconscious, intelligible-unintelligible, or effable-ineffable.

In summing up, both Rortyan edifying philosophy (14) and Lyotardian mathesis — perspectivistic in their pragmatist (Rorty) or non pragmatist (Lyotard) scope — seem to be incompatible with reflective reason only because their perpsectivism is used as a step toward justification and legitimation of ad hoc and circumstantially formed schemes and patterns regulating all possible social practices. Such contingent and circumstantial schemes defined within the framework of extracognitive procedures, function blindly, given that they take no notice of the fundamental convention that binds human condition with the quest for truth as the theoretical basis of evaluating judgments guiding decisions and practices.

Theorising, capable in its historico-critical character, to judge and evaluate these schemes on the basis of an hyperperspectivist scope seems to be excluded, here, as a totalitarian or terroristic manipulation of pluralistic prisms favouring attitudes of moral, aesthetic, religious or political tolerance. (15)

However, a more thorough examination of their grounding would reveal that both Lyotardian and Rortyan perpsectivism remain trapped in an individualistic logic which founded an abstract and schematic notion of community.

Individualistic logic, dominant two centuries ago, was overcome when Kant enhanced Aristotelian categories with the category of community (or interdependence). This latter integrated in hegelian philosophy, allowed Hegel to overcome the individualistic prism and determine the relation between civil society and the state, in a non reductive way; that is to say, in terms of an holistic logic capable to elucidate ensembles of relations , i.e. structures. By criticizing the mysticisism of Hegelian logic, Marx did not regress to the 18th century individualism, but tried to render the dialectical type of hegelian logic a methodological instrument capable to analyze the capitalist society and the antithetical relations that articulate its structure, in historico-critical terms.

The marxian logic, identitarian and ensembilistic in its character , is the product of the transcendence of the individualistic logic, and it leads also to perspectivism. (16) The question is whether is possible or not to transcend the individualistic and collectivistic prisms governing these two types of logic. And also, whether it is necessary to overcome their perspectivism.

We could understand better the need to overcome perspectivism , if we reflect on antinomies devastating postmodern problematics like these developed by Rorty and Lyotard. The strengthening of solidarity and conscesnsus ( Rorty) and the respect for disagreement (Lyotard) which are both promulgated as projects for promoting better schemes and patterns of regulation within neo-liberal democracy, exclude or subverse each other; for the former is based on homogeneity which eliminates differences, whereas the latter is based on heterogeneity eliminating similarities.

It is true that perspectivism does not favour the construction of broader prisms under which the antinomies created by two different or opposed prisms would be ressolved or would preserve a creative tension favouring meaningfull acts to grow. However, the need for analysis within the framework of a specific system of reference does not exclude the posssibiility of critical or reflective thought to coordinate singular and specific systems of references which promulgrate each one of them its own perspective, or to put them under an hierarchical order.

Under these terms, while perspectivism is taken as un unsurmountable limit of thought, it is not. For this limit is defined by our efforts to transcend it in order to avoid to become self enclosed within a single prism.

It is through these efforts that we succeed in going beyond perspectivism's inherent relativity and reestimate the truth of the propositions held within its framework, by taking into account the whole of the multiple prisms from which these propositions derive. By doing that, we will have a most thorough and radical understanding of the contradictions or possible convergences they give in; we will have, thus, the possiblity to reconsider the specific needs, aspirations, or ideologies which give them rise, in all their possible interdependences. Our aim , here, is not to legitimate the partial truth of each one of these perspectives , but to grasp the truth given rise by their interconnection and reflect on it. In such a strategy,legitimation is not any more dependent on the power of argumentation woven by each one of the individuals or groups or collectivities in order to impose their will or their belief (i.e. their single prism) to the others. Now legitimation is inherent in the approach of understanding and reflecting on their partialities and subjectivities contradicting or converging one another. Such a radical understanding leading to reflection and evaluation of multiple and various perspectives is the only way out of truth or justice of the powerful or of the privileged economically, politically or culturally.

In this sense, perspectivism which functions as an alibi against the will to power, cannot be an unsurmountable barrier against the will for truth and the cognitive and evaluative approaches implied by its quest. Just as surrealists undertook the task to transcend the limits of realism through their artistic creations, so philosophers too are in a position to transcend perspectivism (yielded by the need for specific systems of reference constructed in the fields of scientific specialisation or the need for particular prisms guided by particular interests or aspirations) and open the way to an hyperpespectivism.

Had Rorty and Lyotard — each within his own perpsective — avoided to raise liberal democracy to an absolute measure for their analyses and evaluations, they would have found the way to transcend the narrowlly deterministic prism of either analytical or of dialectical thought and achieve a further development of its canonicity whereupon evaluation and legitimation of schemes and patterns to ground.

If in our turn, we try to do so, then we should transfer into the heart of analysis of patterns governing various social practices, methodological categories that have been proved to be key-concepts for modern scientific and philosophical approaches; such as the category of interdisciplinarity and the category of interrelation, correspondingly. Examining under the prism of interdisciplinarirty or of interrelation, the prisms of individuality and collectivity, we transform them into interrelated prisms that allow us to go beyond the analysis of civil society in its relation to the state or beyond the analysis of economic system in its relation to political structures or beyond the analysis of educational system in its relation to economical and political strtuctures ; we will be , thus, in a position to analyse the whole of relations developed in ethnic societies which determine political or other practices taking place within their framework, and also those taking place between their respective national states on an international level. This renders possible to reconsider determinations developed by Western countries' neoliberal policies and practices; it renders possible as well to reconsider the interdependences between the West and the third World and thus enhance the study of international law with problematics that could possibly rejuvenate its current stipulations.

The prism offered by categories committed to the interdisciplinarity or interrelation principle, without loosing its historical and relativistic character, is, in fact, the only one to allow us to go beyond the perspectivism unveiled by Nietzsche in his criticizing Western rationalism or by Marx in his criticizing western capitalism.

The question to be answered then is up to what point perspectivism is indeed in a position to cancel our attempts to go beyond the multiplicity and subjectivity of particular prisms or or to go beyond the multiplicity of specific systems of reference elaborated in the framework of science.

Within the framework of technological science that limits itself into calculating and predicting, perspectivism does not only undermine such endeavours; it rather cancels them. Nevertheless, in the framework of a science which does not exclude from its scope the critical and reflective function, perspectivism, even if it makes the transcendence endeavours more difficult, is not in the position to cancel them. Even if it were in a position to do so, we should resist.

Buckbone of such endeavours for transcending perspectivism and to be led to an hyperperspectivism, are, as said, the categories of interdisciplinarity and interrelation, correspondingly. Because they allow us, as implied earlier, to overcome the limitations posed by specialised systems of references and so to be led to an hierarchy or coordination of the particular perspectives they entail. The suggestion that what is true, just or beneficial for A (community or individual ) may well not be for B , is correct and underlies the relativity inherent in all particular prisms of analysis or evaluation. But it is an equally correct suggestion to say that what is unjust or harmful for A or for B may be a just arrangement of the relation between them engaging both parts in a democratic way. The democratic way in which this third arrangemet engage them is the outcome of a critical (and auto-criticised ) reason rather than that of political measures or tactics.

Such pondering judgments concerning truth and justice, and their channeling through education, arise from multi-sided prisms; these latter in their crystal-like forms, express in the most approppriate way the networks of mutual recognitions achieved when individuals or collectivities try to take into account all possible interconnections of their one-sided perspectives through which they search, judge and act. Education, here, is charged with an essential role , by favouring processes of democratization which, in their turn, help in its own strenghtening and corroboration as an institution of capital importance.

In this sense, the idea of interdisciplinarity or of interrelation can function as a theoretical measure against the coercion exercised by one-sided prisms, as well as by one-sided approaches, given that in both cases, one-sidedness facilitates cynical or nihilistic relativisation of values of truth, justice or freedom and leads to their gradual weakening and elimination. Both interdisciplinarity and interrelation are interwoven together with hyperperspectivism; this latter as a telos offers them an epistemological ground of legitimation, being itself the outcome of the attempt of historico-critical, reflective and evaluative reason to overcome perspectivistic approaches.

Thus, the hyperpespectivism to which we are led by a critical relativistic spirit, whereas it remains historically and culturally determined, is nevertheless the leading thread in the search for truth and in the planification of educational programs of Bildung, by making possible the formulation of princiles and rules of general acceptance; that is to say, of principles and rules that can be valid beyond the limits posed by individuals' or communities' particular perspectives.

However, this is done not apriorily and in a platonic way, given that these principles and rules are able to bind all their members and to guide them in their interrelating and interacting, only because they derive from interconnection of the particular perspectives binding each one of them.

If we could be able to look at the order, on a map, of singular linguist games through the multi-sided prism of hyperperspectivism, we would then see that group boundaries within which these games unfold, rather than being closed and inaccessible, ( as Lyotard insists on the argument of their differences) are open and accessible. They are so, for the particular linguist idioms obey the generative grammatical rules that bind all languages. Is there a linguistic game — however peculiar it may be — which does not have a grammar and syntax in which it is expressed? Or is there a society which ignores crime, irrespectively of the way in which it conceives it? The same holds for individual or collective criteria for the true, just, bneneficial or beautiful. Even if they differ from individual to individual, collectivity to collectivity, or from society to society, the fact that they correspond to men's need to stipulate rules in order to judge, remains common to all. This general condition of judging according to rules rationally (i.e. critically and reflectively) elaborated — even if it unfolds with different meaning in each particular linguistic game — remains a characteristic feature of all possiby taking place — actually or potentially — within the given historical and social framework of modern world.

Notes

(1) See N.Chomsky, Language and Freedom, in J.Peck (ed.) The Chomsky Reader, Serpent;s Tail, 1995, pp.139-155.

(2) See, J.-Fr.Lyotard, La condition postmoderne, Les editions de minuit, Paris, 1979, pp.54-62.

(3) R.Rorty, Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth, Cambridge Univ.Press, 1991, pp.21-22. See also,R.Rorty, Consequences of Pragmatism,Univ.of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, pp. 160-166.

(4) J.-Fr.Lyotard, La condition postmoderne, op.cit.

(5) J.Habermas, Legitimation Crisis, Beacon Press, Boston 1975, p.131.

(6) Op.cit. pp.119-120.

(7) R.Rorty, Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth, op.cit., p.28 and p. 32.

(8) Op.cit., p.22. See also R.Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Princeton University Press, I980,p.170 where understanding philosophy is defined as understanding the social justification of belief.

(9) J.-Fr.Lyotard, La condition postmoderne, op.cit., pp.7-8.

(10) J.-Fr.Lyotasrd, Just gaming, Manchester Univ. Press, 1985, p.62

(11) J.-Fr.Lyotard, Economie libidinale, les editions de minuit, Paris 1974; see also J.-Fr.Lyotard, La condirtion postmoderne, op.cit. See also, J.-Fr.Lyotard The Sublime and the Avant-Garde, in Lyotard Reader, Basil Blackwell, 1989; See also J.-Fr.Lyotard, Sensus communis, in A.Benjamin)ed.) Judging Lyoatrd, Routledge 1992. See also, J-Fr.Lyotard, Lecons sur l' analytique du sublime, Galilee, Par;isi 1991.

(12) J.-Fr.Lyotard, L' inhumain, Causeries sur le temps, Galil;ee, Paris 1988, p.147.

(13) J.-Fr. Lyotard, Lecons sur l' Analytique du sublinme, Galilee, paris 1991; see also Sensus Communis, op.cit. p.25; see also A.Baron, Lyotard and the Problem of Justice, in Judging Lyotard, op.cit., p.31.

(14) R.Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Princeton Univ. Press, pp.357-372.

(15) J.Margolis, The Truth about Relativism, Basil Blackwell, Oxford 1991, p.15.

(16) For Nietzsche who follows the individualistic logic, ratio is governed by taste, whereas for Marx who follows a collectivistic (ensemblistic rather than holistic) logic, ratio is governed by market. But for both Nietzsche and Marx, the way out of this perpsectivism is given by critical thought exercised under a prism of negation; negation of exploitation or of authoritarianism. In doionmg that, both Marx and Nietzsche, each one in his own way, tried to fil the gap separating tha classical tradition from the western thought, by recognising in knowledge its emancipating"Only the educated are free.

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