METHODOLGGmAL iND!V!DUAUSM:

AN ALTERNATWE PARADIGM FOR
EDUCATEONAL MVESTEGATION

Thesis for the Degree of Ph. D.
MICHIGAN STATE UNWERSiTY
JAMES STEPHEN KAMQNSKY

1973

 

H Li] I"!!! I” III! ”QUINN“!!! H! I!!! {I} I!!! {”11”}!!!le

29 p ' ' LIE {Y

MiCth 3“”
University '

 

This is to certify that the

thesis entitled

METHODOLOGICAL INDIVIDUALISM:
AN ALTERNATIVE PARADIGM FOR
EDUCATIONAL INVESTIGATION

presented by

James Stephen Kaminsky

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

Ph. D. degree in Social-Philosophical
Foundations

 

 

W/fléé a:

Major professor

ABSTRACT

METHODOLOGICAL INDIVIDUALISM:
AN ALTERNATIVE PARADIGM FOR
EDUCATIONAL INVESTIGATION

BY

James Stephen Kaminsky

Despite huge investments of federal, state, and
local governments and the most conscientious of efforts by
educational practitioners, there is still apparent massive
dissatisfaction with the conduct of the American educa-
tional establishment. This study attempts to understand
the pervasive dissatisfaction with the educational estab-
lishment in terms of fundamental problems created by the
function of the positivist paradigm adopted by American
educators.

Using some of the tools of common language analysis
as its basic methodology, this study examines the adequacy
of the positivistic paradigm (Hempel's conception) for the
explanation of intentional, purposive, human action and
therein education--assuming that education is an intentional
activity. The analysis indicates that the explanatory
paradigm used by educators is inadequate for understanding

educational events for the following reasons: (1) the

James Stephen Kaminsky

positivistic paradigm depends upon Irreducible Social Laws
which are demonstrated to be either unnecessary or avoid-
able in the explanation of intentional events, (2) the
positivistic paradigm's incorrect assumption of intentional
terms among antecedent conditions, and (3) positivistic
paradigm's dependence upon "mechanism" which assumes a
contingently necessary and unexceptional connection

between external events and human action--which cannot

be demonstrated in the "real" world. .

This study suggests Methodological Individualism
as an alternative paradigm for the explanation of educa-
tional events. Methodological Individualism maintains:
social events can be understood by reference to the
intentional terms of individual agents and without refer-
ence to, or use of, Irreducible Social Laws. An explana-
tion is offered to demonstrate how direct observation of
intentional terms is possible. This is a fundamental
prerequisite for Methodological Individualism if it is to
attain status as a viable methodology. Further, it
attempts to dissolve the commonly held claim of vacuity,
which usually derives from a misunderstanding of the'
initial work on Methodological Individualism done by
J.W.N. Watkins.

Finally some suggestions are developed for
explanation which are apparently indicated by some of the

procedures and postulates of Methodological Individualism.

James Stephen Kaminsky

This deveIOpment focuses upon some considerations of
language, ethics and ideology for Methodological Indi-
vidualism as a qualitative methodology, and cites a
protocol of the prerequisites for qualitative research

which are apparent at this time.

METHODOLOGICAL INDIVIDUALISM:
AN ALTERNATIVE PARADIGM FOR

EDUCATIONAL INVESTIGATION

BY

James Stephen Kaminsky

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillments of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Secondary Education
and Curriculum

1973

© Copyright by
JAMES STEPHEN KAMINSKY

1973

To my parents, Charles and Alice Kaminsky

ii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to acknowledge the help and assist-
ance of several persons who have taught me many things,
and without whom this entire effort would have been'
unnecessary--although I am still not certain this is the
time to name, names. Initially I would like to express
my appreciation to Frank H. Blackington III, George
Barnett, George Ferree, and Marvin Grandstaff; the masters
with whom I have studied these past five years and whose
careful thought inspired many of the ideas in this work.

I would also like to acknowledge those fellow
students and friends whose constant stimulation in many
symposia (that is, within the classic Greek sense of the
word "symposium") represents an experience and a mind-
boggling event. Hereafter my appreciation stands marked
to: Marilyn Liebrenz, Scott and Cara Vaughn, Bob and Peg
Aumaugher, Ram and Donna Chattulani, Jim and R. M. Covert,
Cornell Celia, Howard Teitelbaum, Charles Volin, Joe
Hollerback, J. Bruce Burke and Margaret Waddell--persons

I respect and will remember.

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DEDICATION O O O O O O O O O O O O 0
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. . . . . . . . . . . .
Chapter

I. THE FELT CRISIS . . . . . . . . .

II. THE HYPOTHETICAL-DEDUCTIVE MODEL AND ITS
PROBLEMS O O O O I O O O O O 0
III. METHODOLOGICAL INDIVIDUALISM AND EXPLANA-
TIONS O O O O O O O O O O O I

IV. EDUCATION, SCHOOLING AND METHODOLOGICAL
INDIVIDUALISM. . . . . . . . . .
BIBLIOGRAPHY. O O O O O I O O O I O 0

iv

Page
ii

iii

24

43

64
87

CHAPTER I

THE FELT CRISIS

The Reason:

Whoever is a teacher through
and through takes all things
seriously only in relation to
his students--even himself.l

 

1

F. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Modern
Library, ed. by Walter Kaufmann (New York:

Random House,
1968), Section 4, para. 64, page 269.

l

The Problem:

Involuntarily, parents turn
children into something similar
to themselves--they call that
"education." Deep in her heart,
no mother doubts that the child
she has born is her property; no
father contests his own right to
subject it to his concepts and
valuations. Indeed, formerly it
seemed fair for fathers (among
the ancient Germans, for example)
to decide on the life or death of
the new-born as they saw fit.
And like the father, teachers,
classes, priests, and princes
still see, even today, in every
new human being an unproblematic
opportunity for another posses-
sion. So it follows--2

 

2Nietzsche, para. 194, page 298.

The Crisis:

(W)hen bridges do not stand,
when aircraft do not fly, when
machines do not work, when
treatments do not cure, despite
all conscientious efforts on

the part of many persons to
make them do so, one begins to
question the basic assumptions,
principles, theories and hypoth-
eses that guide one's efforts.3

 

3Arthur R. Jensen, "How Much Can We Boost I.Q. and

Scholastic Achievement," Harvard Educational Review, XXXIX,
No. 1 (Winter, 1969), 3.

 

Jensen was correct when he noted the discipline of
education must call to question the basis upon which edu-
cational knowledge has been based since the late eighteen
hundreds. Contemporary educational theories no longer
serve to explain the "blooming buzzing mass" before our
senses. Educators are faced with a world out of joint.
When it is common knowledge that the school systems of
major cities are failing their students, when minority
students are beaten as a matter of course, when school
systems successfully teach students how to fail at school
and not much more, when schools serve as the prime instru-
ments of repression for the upward aspirations of large
segments of the poor, when schools psychologically defile
their client while intellectually neglecting them, and
socially casting them adrift to seek their own offices--it
is time to examine the basic assumptions, principles,
theories, and hypothesis that guide the educational process.

In the late 1800's academicians interested in the
phenomenon of education adopted the positivist paradigm4
as a fruitful matrix within which to explain, and arrive

at an understanding, of the phenomenon of education.5 The

 

4Paradigm: Some implicit body of intertwined theo-
retical and methodological belief that permits selection,
evaluation and criticism.

[Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revo-
lutions (2d ed.; Chicago: UnIVersity of Chicago Press,

1970), pp. l6,17).]

5James R. Robarts, "Quest for a Science of Education
in the 19th Century," History of Education Quarterly, VIII,
No. 4 (Winter, 1968), 4315146}

 

 

adoption resulted in the rationalization of educational
thought and praxis along the dimension of positive knowl-
edge, transformed those persons of general interest in a
phenomenon, in this case education, into a profession,
promoted a specialized body of knowledge, and the codifi-
cation of that knowledge in bulletins, journals and books.
The rigid definition and adoption of a paradigm
has had other consequences. One such consequence was (is)
the production of an elaborate professional language the
most significant consequence was the production of a uniform
field of paradigm engendered expectations which provides a
constant matrix within which evaluations and criticism can
be made--and anomalies detected. Against the background
produced by the advanced articulation of the positivist
paradigm to educational phenomenon, it has become apparent
that educational phenomenon have not been consistent with
paradigm engendered expectations, anomalies have become
commonplace. The obvious reason for the adoption of the
positivist paradigm was a desire to share in the prestige
accruing to the fledgling natural sciences. There was
never any question as to whether or not the model of the
natural sciences was the model appropriate to the study of
educational phenomenon. The quest for "scientific respecti-
bility" and, therein, public approbation has focused the
attention of educators upon positive research and methodo-

logical problems. The direct result of the decision to

adopt the paradigm was a shift from armchair theorizing to
the verities of empirical research. The consequence for
education has been the development of sophisticated
research tools, usually of statistical character (carrying
most of the logical and mathematical superstructure of the
hypothetical deductive model) and the promotion of the
survey (and the mathematical analysis and display thereof)
as the mode of educational research.

The inability of the matrix provided by the posi-
tivist paradigm to achieve a rapid and economical pene-
tration of educational phenomena indicates dysfunctional-
isms within the positivist paradigm. As Mills notes:

To become aware of the problems of structure, and
of their explanatory significance for even indi-
vidual behavior, requires a much broader style of
empiricism. . . . (T)he very formulation of prob-
lems, becomes available only when our view is
broadened to include comparative and historical
structures. Yet, because of epistemological
dogma, abstracted empiricists are systematically
a-historical and non-comparative; they deal with
small scale areas and they incline to psychologism.
Neither in defining their problems nor in explain-
ing their own microscopic findings do they make
any real use of t2e basic idea of historical
social structure.
The analytic paradigm used for the penetration of educa-
tional phenomena is not adequate. The expected understand-

ings of educational phenomena have failed to emerge, along

with the promised science of education.

 

6C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1959), p. 68.

 

Deutscher correctly notes:

The adoption of the scientific model in the social
sciences has resulted in an uncommon concern for
methodological problems centering on issues of
reliability and to the concomitant neglect of the
problem of validity. . . . We concentrate on con-
sistency without much concern with what it is we
are being consistent about or whether we are con-
sistently right or wrong. As a consequence we may
have been learning a great deal about how to pur- 7
sue an incorrect course with great precision . . .

The "Babylonian astronomy," Deutscher notes, bears impli-
cations for the problematic contemporary educational

situation.

Evidence the phemonenon that:

(T)he New York City school system has an annual
expense budget of well over $1 billion and keeps
producing more and more welfare clients makes

the failure of the schools a significant public
issue. Many of the city's taxpayers increasingly
feel that they have a right to expect more for
their money than the schools are giving them.
Furthermore, city residents and institutions are
often double and triple taxed for the school's
failures, paying for welfare, correctional insti—
tutions, crime, delinquency, and narcotics addic-
tion. Under increasing pressure from the govern-
ment and civil rights groups to hire more Negroes
and Puerto Ricans, big business in New York City,
as elsewhere, has begun to hire "qualifiables"
rather than "qualified" people. It takes the
cripples from the public school system--for
example, ghetto high school drOpouts and gradu-
ates-~and gives them the training the schools
were unable to give. Indeed, a parallel school
system is beginning to emerge in such training
programs, but business strongly resents the

 

7Irwin Deutscher, "Words and Deeds: Social
Science and Social Policy," Social Problems, XIII, No. 3
(Winter, 1966), 241.

 

fact that the school's failures have forced it
into these programs.8

The New York system has been flooded with demon—
strations, experiments, and innovations and few if any
have worked. The New York system continues to collapse
despite massive transfusions of staff, money and material.
Nor is New York an isolated problem, a paradox in a sea
of well being; it is just the classic example, the
exemplar, of problems which are endemic in American edu—
cation. The problems are the same in Philadelphia,
Houston, Birmingham, Pontiac and St. Paul. Perhaps there
are differences of degree but not of kind.

In the 1969-70 school year the bill for public
education reached 35 billion dollars, more than 2,000,000
teachers, administrators, librarians, and counselors
worked with the nation's 45 million student youth.9
Governmental units of America, federal and state, are
involved in massive efforts in support of American edu-
cation. Since 1945 the amount of money spent upon educa-

tion per pupil has doubled.10

 

8David Rogers, 110 Livingston Street: Politics
and Bureaucracy in the New York City_School System
(New York: Random House, 1969), p. 6.

 

 

9Charles E. Silberman, Crisis in the Classroom:
The Remaking of American Education (New York: Random
House, 1970), p. 7.

10

 

 

Silberman, p. 17.

Yet apparently in spite of massive assistance, huge
staffs of instructional personnel, ever more SOphisticated
and expensive hard and software, the public and profes-
sional educators look upon public education with greater
and greater despair. John Kenneth Galbraith argues that
an emergency education system would perhaps be a key step
in the war on poverty. H. Kohl, and Jonathan Kozol, argue
with great cogency that a lack of respect for persons
among educational staff, especially persons in the form of
children, is one of the primary causal factors of psycho-
logical damage in children.

In his book Death at an Early Age, Jonathan Kozol

 

graphically displays the lack of respect for persons which
pervades the Boston schools.

The Boston Teachers' Handbook also contains
these rules: "Corporal punishment shall not
be inflicted when it might aggravate an existing
physical impairment or produce or threaten to pro—
duce permanent or lasting injury. . . . Violent
shaking or other gross indignities are expressly
forbidden. Cases of corporal punishment shall be
reported by each teacher on the dates of their
occurrence in writing. . . . These reports shall
state the name of the pupil, the name of the
witness, the amount of punishment, and the reason
therefor. . . ."

These stipulations are daydreams to anyone
who knows certain of the Boston schools. Whip-
pings were frequently given at my school without
a witness present. Cards were commonly not filed,
if for no other reason that this task alone would
have taken some of the teachers several hours.
Students were repeatedly grabbed, shaken and
insulted. Parents were rarely notified. And at
least one child in my school was whipped in such

10

' 1

a way as to leave on his hand a physical impair-
ment in the form of a large raised scar which may
be with him all his life. I know this boy well,
for he was a student in my room. His name is
Frederick. When I first noticed the curious
protrusion that rose up near the end of his
finger, I asked him about it immediately and he
explained it in these words:

"It happened in September before you were my
teacher. I was talking and I was sent down to
the cellar and when I got the stick I was scared
and I must have pulled back my hand a little so
I got it on the knuckle instead of on the finger
part. I already had a bad infection. They said
it was my fault for not keeping my hand still."ll

Kenneth Clark portrays another pervasive problem
in American education.

Thousands of students drop out of school before
graduation, thereby increasing the chances that
they will end up unemployed or with a menial job.
Harlem has far more than its share of such '
alienated teen agers. A survey by the New York
State Division of Youth shows that in 1960-61,
about 10 percent of Harlem's pupils attending

high school in Manhattan left that year. Of the
students from Harlem who entered academic high
schools in 1959, 53 percent became dropouts;

61 percent who entered vocational schools that
year left before graduating. Even though attend-
ance at school is compulsory until sixteen, more
than a fifth of the boys and more than half of ~
the girls leaving junior high (during 1960-61,

3.8 percent of these pupils left school) were
under sixteen. A number of these boys were sent
to correctional institutions, a number of the
girls were pregnant—-but the schools do not
mention reform schools in their records and far
underestimate the number of pregnancies; they
generally refer instead to "overage."* Nor do

the schools mention discouragement over academic
failure as a cause, though the dropouts themselves

 

llJonathan Kozol, Death at an Eaerly Age: The
Destruction of the Hearts and Minds of Negro Children
in the Boston Public Schools (New York: Houghton Mifflin
Co., 1967), PP. lO—lI:

 

 

 

11

do, and their records show the evidence: 88.1
percent of the boys and 68.5 percent of the
girls leaving high school were inferior in read-
ing: in mathematics, 89.5 percent of the boys
and 84.6 percent of the girls were inferior.

One cannot avoid the question whether it

was the inability of these young people to

learn or the failure of the schools to teach
that led to this pattern of deterioration in
learninglskill, decline in I.Q., and eventual

dropout.l‘

Failures are evident in other areas. For example,

 

in some cases the educational situation is so desperate
that random experimentation is replacing directed research.
Dwight Allen's experiment in methodological trial and
errorism in progress at the University of Massachusetts--
often billed as the most innovative program in contemporary
teacher education--typifies and demonstrates the level of
confidence educators grant present understandings. An

article in the Saturday Review notes about the Allen

 

experiment:

The planning committees cover most of the tradi-
tional areas, plus a few not frequently found at
other institutions. Some groups appear to be
working toward contradictory ends; for instance,
one committee studying "student centered teaching"
is "testing the assumption that effective learning
occurs best in the context of a student exploring
his own interests," while another is concentrating
on means for evaluating teachers according to per-
formance criteria. Both plans will probably be
used next year since, one faculty member recently

 

12Kenneth B. Clark, Dark Ghetto: Dilemmas of
Social Power (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers
Inc., 1967?. pp. 124-125. [Italics mine-1

 

 

12

explained, "We really don't know what works.

That's what this place is all about."13
The potpourri of action engendered by this type of
approach certainly creates an arena--but not much else.
'It should be apparent that when the rules define an
unplayable game, the game cannot be salvaged by coloring
the pieces instead of modifying the rules. Second, if it
is true that no one knows the rules of the game, it is
doubtful if a game can be discovered by trying random
configurations without developing rules. Such efforts as
the one at the University of Massachusetts are fundamentally
mistaken. Shotgun efforts such as these are cul de sac
expenditures; they start in confusion and end when federal
funding is withdrawn, leaving conjuries of independent
studies and projects behind, and few if any residual under-
standings. The level of confidence in present educational
knowledge is so minimal that those hot for action are will-
ing to grasp at the slightest straw. Even speculative
psychology has been pressed to the task of educational
reform. Such has happened to the writings of Carl Rogers.
For example, Rogers writes:

I see the facilitation of learning as the aim of

educatiEh, the way in which we can learn to live

as individuals in process. . . . We know . . .
that the initiation of such learning rests

 

 

13Harold C. Lyon, Jr., Learning to Feel--Feeling
to Learn: Humanistic Education for the Whole Man
(Columbus: Charles E. Merrill Publishing Co., 1971),
pp. 76-77.

 

 

13

not upon the teaching skills of the leader, not

upon his scholarly knowledge of the field, not

upon his use of audiovisual aids, not upon the

programmed learning he utilizes, not upon his

lectures and presentations, not upon an abun-

dance of books,though each of these might at

one time or another be utilized as an important

resource. No, the facilitation of significant

learning rests upon certain attitudinal quali-

ties which exist in the personal relationship

between facilitator and the learner.
It is not uncommon for contemporary educational practi-
tioners to read such words and then immediately cast down
their books and rush into the streets seeking to redress
the problems of education by making themselves right in
their hearts. A decent respect for persons is an important
and functional part of educational praxis, but it does not
provide the theoretical principles, hypotheses and theories
which can be used to order the process of educational
reform.

Perhaps the most ironic and interesting example of
the lack of confidence exhibited by educators in the
theories, principles and hypothesis, which direct their
efforts is the augmentation of educational theory by
magico-religious activity. This phenomena is not unusual
in human affairs, but it is indicative of widespread frus-

tration when instrumental rules are obviously ineffective

in dealing with the "real world." As Malinowski writes:

 

14Carl Rogers, quoted in Lyon, p. 65.

14

Magic15 is to be expected and generally to be

found whenever man comes to an unbridgable gap,

a hiatus in his knowledge or in his power of prac-

tical control and yet has to continue in his pur-

suit. Forsaken by his knowledge, baffled by the

results of his experience, unable to apply any

effective technical skill, he realizes his

impotence.l6

Given the realization that they must continue in

their endeavors despite apparent impotence, educational
practitioners have in many cases invoked magical ritual to
bridge the gap in their understanding. Many.in practice
interpretations and applications of the Rosenthal Effect,l7
are for example, essentially institutionalized magico-
religious supplications which are often invoked by educators
when all known principles seem to fail. The use of magical
principles is not confined to the activity of a few rural
practitioners. It penetrates even the highest levels of
the educational establishment. The penetration of magic is
so replete that a Deputy Associate Commissioner of Education

in the U.S. Office of Education can write with absolute

sincerity:

 

15Magic in the sense intended here means the

abandonment of scientifically manipulativegprinciple§_in
favor of those which are (non-compulsive) supplicative in
form; that is, invoking forces which are not understood
and subject to compulsive controls.

l6B. Malinowski, "Role of Magic and Religion," in
Reader in Comparative Religion, ed. by William Lessa and
Z. Vogt (2d ed.; New York: Harper & Row, Publisher, 1965),
p. 108.

 

 

17Robert Rosenthal and Lenore F. Jacobson, "Teacher

Expectations for the Disadvantaged," The Scientific Ameri-
can, CCXVIII, NO. 4 (April, 1968), 19-23.

 

15

Although Robert Thorndike has shown that the con-

clusions reached by Rosenthal's study are inade-

quately supported by data, there is little doubt

that the theory being tested is a correct one.18

Such a statement is indicative of a religious faith
which provides comfort and assurance in the face of con-
tradictory and frustrating human experience. Such magico-
religious rites provide functional integration and con-
tinuity where none in fact exists, rationalizes inexplicable
happenings, dispels anxieties, and disciplines the educa-
tional organization in the face of anomalous experience.
Given the previous illustrations it would not be

strange if one assumed that schools in general are staffed
by unthinking and uncaring persons dedicated to the syste-
matic "final solution" of the student problem, the bank-
ruptcy of local government, and the destruction of civilized
society. Attractive as this paranoid view may be, on occa-
sion, the problem is certainly more fundamental. Such a
view is naive, and an insult to a vast majority of dedi—
cated, hardworking and concerned educational practitioners.
Jensen's point was well made; when educational institutions
fail despite all conscientious efforts on the part of numer—
ous practitioners it is time to question the basic assump-
tions, principles and hypotheses which guide the educational

endeavor, not the motives or sincerity of educational

practitioners.

 

l8Lyon, p. 7.

16

Contemporary experience has forced professional edu-
cators to question the validity of their efforts. Despite
the best effort on the part of many persons education
remains inadequate and unsatisfactory for the needs of
large segments of the population.. Curriculums are meaning—
less to the students exhorted to master them, and serve
poorly the communities which support them. The clients of
education both private and public, political and civil,
social and individual have become dissatisfied and cynical
about the educational endeavor.

Dissatisfaction with the performance of institu-
tionalized education has generated two major directions in
educational reform. One major direction, "behavioral edu-
cation," has found its impetus in the psychology of B. F.
Skinner, Watson and other behavioral psychologists. The
other major direction, a loosely conceptualized phenomenon,
received its thrust from men as diverse as Abraham MaSlow,
Carl Rogers, Fredrick Perls. In the literature it is recog-
nized under the rubric of "humanistic education."

At the present time the most bitter debate rages
over the articles of faith espoused by each group. The
resolution of the controversy which exists between these
two "schools of thought" will probably chart the course of
institutionalized education for the next decade. The
tragedy lies in that, for the most part, it is irrelevant
in whose favor the debate is resolved for it is a debate

over Babylonian Astronomy--no more. Neither represents

17

a Copernican revolution. At best they represent differing
conceptions of the Babylonian astronomy. The problem is:
both directions in educational reformation are based upon
the positivist paradigm and it (the paradigm) is inadequate
to provide a satisfactory explanation of educational
phenomena and processes. The problem is not to decide
which is Copernican and which is Babylonian as it is
assumed by many contemporary educators. The point is:
that they are both Babylonian. In choosing between the
two the only question is: which will cause the least harm
in the practical affairs of men?

Both directions in contemporary educational reform
are based upon an attempt to discover the rules and ante-
cedent conditions (explanda) from which they can resolve
the idosyncratic behavior of individual human beings
(explandum). That is, both reforms depend upon "positive"
laws of human action which experience has proven inade-
quate, and examples of which, in the social sciences have
proven as illusive as unicorns. As Merton notes, despite
libraries of sociological research, volumes of tabulation
and mountains of studies, writer after writer may diScuss
positive laws in the social sciences without being able
to cite a single empirical study which satisfies the

criteria of the positivist paradigm.19

 

19Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social
Structure (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1957),
pp. 85-99.

 

 

18

Both major movements aimed at educational reforma-
tion are not fundamentally different from the problematic
system they would replace. Given the identity of con-
ceptual foundations between behavioral, humanistic and
traditional education there is little reason to assume
that behavioral or humanistic reforms would be any less
problematic than their traditional predecessor.

The reasons for the preceding claim are
numerous--first, the apparent success of behavioral and
humanistic reforms is a consequence of focusing upon
simple (and sometimes trivial) problems, which are simple
logical functions to which the positivist paradigm nicely
applies. The functional result is to allow these reforma-
tional movements to concentrate upon simple operations
with which they have a modicum of success; while ignoring
serious problems which are not reducible to positive
"puzzle form." Thus, many serious problems, such as

"alienation, which are not reducible to "puzzle form,"
are "de-empiricizedfl and left to the devices of novelists
or poets and thereby stricken from the group of serious
problems.

Second, both "behavioral" and "humanistic" edu-
cational reforms are heavily committed to a metaphysical
essentialism. The essences which behavioral and humanis-

tic reformers hunt may be different but the practical

consequences are the same. Beyond providing a group of

l9

logical primitive terms necessary for the deducation of
positivistic propositions, such terms provide the raw
material for a barren social reductionism. The empirical
regularities which serve as the brute phenomena of the
positivist ontology are significant for theory only if

the rationale for said regularities can be derived from

a set of "other" terms. The development of a set of
irreducible psychological facts which usually serve in

the positivist paradigm as a set of primitive propositions
from which behavior could be deduced, insulates analysis
from important and meaningful references to dispositional
propositions such as: belief, hope, desire, want, need,
hate, etc. It might be worth questioning, given behavioral
and humanistic use of the positivist paradigm, whether it
might not be useful to conceive of man as a puppet awaiting
the proper stimulus. The naive determinism which results
from behavioral and humanistic essentialism cannot serve
well or provide an adequate understanding of educational
phenomena. The deempiricization of mediational states20
commits educators to a naive determinism. The religious
faith attributed to the Rosenthal Effect, positive rein-

forcement, or the "free school" movement (to note but a

 

20A detailed explanation of mediations, their
relation to ideology and their function will be discussed
in Chapters II and III.

20

few) is indicative of the simplistic determinism to which
this type of essentialism leads. Education cannot be
understood or explained without reference to the media-
tional states which the positivist paradigm has so
successfully exorcised.

Third, the combination in practice of the posi-
tivist paradigm and its corresponding metaphysical
essentialism results in a rather odious social totalitar-
ianism. An example of Maslow's combination of positivism
and essentialism is evident in his writings.

Observe that if these assumptions are proven true,
they promise a scientific ethics, a natural value
system, a court of ultimate appeal for the deter-
mination of good and bad, of right and wrong. The
more we learn about man's natural tendencies, the
easier it will be to tell him how to be_good, how
to be happy, how to be fruitful, how to respect

himself, how to love, how to fulfill his highest
potentials. . . .41

 

 

 

 

There is no reason to suppose that a man's nature is the
ultimate court of appeal for the determination of right

and wrong, good and bad. Such would give deontological

status to man's present state of being. For that matter
the ultimate court of right and wrong, good and bad, may
be in man's greatest flights of fancy. That is, the

court of right and wrong might better be found in man's

 

21Abraham H. Maslow, Toward a Psycholggy_of Being
(2d ed.; New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1968),
p. 4. [Italics mine.]

 

21

most profound dreams as to what he might be; rather than
what he is. The totalitarian determinism of biological
nature can be as repressive and odious as the capricious
whim of any dictator. As Herbert Marcuse so incisively
writes:

Under the rule of a repressive whole, liberty

can be made into a powerful instrument of domina-
tion. The range of choice open to the indi-
vidual is not the decisive factor in determining
the degree of human freedom, but what can be
chosen and what is chosen by the individual. The
criterion for free choice can never be an abso-
lute one, but neither is it entirely relative.
Free election of masters does not abolish the
masters or the slaves.22

Reform cannot liberate as long as the language of freedom
is no different than the language of slavery. Happy
slaves are nonetheless slaves. As Goodman notes:

The most dangerous threat to humane letters (and
in my opinion humanity) at the present, however,
is . . . not the ugliness and commercialism of
corporate capitalism, not the ignorance and
alienation of the young, not the hypocrisy or
censorship of power. It is the same dehumaniza-
tion of modern times that I have been discussing
through this book: Language is reduced to be a
technology of social engineering, with a barren
conception of science and technology and a col-
lectivist's conception of community. This
tendency has been reinforced by government
grants and academic appointments, and it con-
trols the pedagogy in primary schools [my
parenthetical insert]. 3

 

22Herbert Marcuse, One Dimensional Man: Studies
in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Sociéty (Boston:
Beacon Press, 1968), p. 9.

23Paul Goodman, New Reformation: Notes of a
Neolithic Conservative (New York: Random House, 1970),
p. 119.

 

 

 

 

22

The result of the combination of essentialism and
positivism is a barren social totalitarianism, whose
emphasis upon authority, expertise, control, passivity and
obedience is a major factor in the instrumentalization of
persons, a reduction of happiness to efficiency, and a
translation of morality into the terms of passivity. The
exclusive use of the positivist paradigm has proven inade-
quate for the economical and fruitful understanding of
educational phenomena--and its by-product has been an
untenable social totalitarianism.

An adequate understanding of education cannot be
achieved without reference to mediational states. As
Karl Mannheim notes:

A human situation is characterizable only when one
has also taken into account those conceptions

which the participants have of it, how they exper-
ience their tensions in this situation and how they
react to tensions so conceived. . . . If we wish

to comprehend such a concrete phenomena as a situ-
ation or the normative content of a milieu, the
purely mechanistic scheme of approach will never
suffice. . . 24

Fundamental educational reformation will depend
upon "extraordinary" research. Normal research cannot
provide the answers necessary for the fundamental revi-
sion of education. Educational reformation will depend

upon the demonstration of an alternative paradigm which

allows for the effectual relation of the social nature of

 

24Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia: An Intro-
duction to the Sociology of Knowledge (New York:
Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., 1936), p. 44.

 

23

thought and knowledge. When confronted with pervasive
anomalisms (paradigm collapse) it is necessary to move from
the normal function of research (puzzle solving) to extra-
ordinary research. Extraordinary research is an activity
not unlike analytic philosophy; within which "primitive"
fundamentals are questioned, problems made explicit, com-
peting articulations tried out, and paradigm rules and
assumptions brought to question. In this manner the
paradigms are faced with the consequents of contemporary
experience in a manner calculated to expose and isolate
the specific formulations which are factors in existential
anomolies. Therein "such and such," perceived originally
only as a "puzzle" in need of more advanced and exact
articulation, can be recognized as an anomaly, opening the
way for the recognition of paradigms or paradigm factors
in need of modification or replacement.

Educational reformation depends upon extraordinary
not normal research. Normal research assumes the adequacy
of the analytic paradigm, and surmises only the need of
further articulation of phenomena to theory. Normal
research in the realm of reformation is a cul se sac
effort. Reformation cannot occur via normal research
when the problem, as in education, rests in the paradigm
not the articulation. Normal research focuses its atten-
tion upon the articulation not the paradigm, first princ-
iples are taken for granted, and these are exactly what

may not be granted.

CHAPTER II

THE HYPOTHETICAL-DEDUCTIVE

METHOD AND ITS PROBLEMS

If first principles are exactly what may not be
granted, then, it is necessary to give reasons why those
first principles may not be granted, and display the dif-
ficulties to which these principles lead.

This study does not fall into the obvious trap of
attempting to maintain that hypothetical-deductive laws do
not apply to human beings and behavior of humans. But, it
does maintain there is a very important segment of human
action not adequately explained by positivist rules. It
would be ludicrous to attempt to maintain that hypothetical-
deductive laws do not apply to the actions of persons.
Hypothetical-deductive bio/physical laws are quite exact
and fruitful. Hypothetical-deductive mechanical laws are
applied with great familiarity by all manner of profes-
sionals; doctors, chemists, pharmacists, physiologists (to
name the patently obvious). The question which addresses
the educators, and the social scientist as well, is: can
hypothetical-deductive rules be used to explain (predict and

describe) purposive human action--as Skinner (to name one

 

case) attempts.

24

25

As indicated in Chapter I, the general direction of
educational research since the late 1800's has been to seek
'a methodological unity with the natural sciences. It has
been the assumption of educators that human behavior is
lawful and determinable and that social human action is a
result of specifiable antecedent conditions.1 The assump-
tion has seen fruition in contemporary events and empirical
implementation in performance contracting, state assessment
programs, behavioral objectives and teacher accountability.
It should be recognized that the first principles of the
positivist model play a central role in educational
policy. Given their role in the present state of affairs,
they may not be lightly dismissed.

Criticism of the positivist paradigm must begin
with the model. The classic explication of the
hypothetical-deductive model by Hempel and Oppenheim
stands as one of the best and clearest explanations of
the positivist paradigm.2 The explication represented by
their work seems the correct place to begin. Hempel and
Oppenheim maintain the following conditions of logical

adequacy:

 

lSee B. F. Skinner, Science and Human Behavior
(New York: The Macmillian Co., 1953).

2Carl G. Hempel and Paul Oppenheim, "Studies in
the Logic of Explanation," Philosophy of Science, XV,
No. 2 (April, 1948), 135-175.

 

 

26

I. Logical conditions of adequacy

(R l) The explandum must be a logical conse-
quence of the explanans; . . .

(R 2) The explanans must contain general
laws, and these must be required for
the derivation of the explandum . . .

(R 3) The explanans must have empirical
content; i.e. it must be capable, at
least in principle, of test by exper-
iment or observation . . .

 

1’ C2, . . ., Ck Statements of
antecedent con-
ditions
Logical Explanans
deduction L , L , . . ., L General Laws
1 2 r
E Description of Empirical Explandum3
phenomena to be explained
In the paradigm quoted above C1, C2 and Ck are simply
statements of antecedent circumstances, which are neces-
sary for the applications of a given law for the deduction
of the explandum event. L1’ L2 and Lr are general and
unexceptional connections between specified event char-
4.

acteristics. The result (the explandum) is a "determined"
causal event. These events are to be distinguished from
statistical events which merely assert an empirical regu-
larity. It is also the position of Hempel and Oppenheim
that the resulting deduction must have predictive ability

if it is to qualify as an adequate explanation. They

 

3Hempel and Oppenheim, pp. 137-138.

4Thus, a determined event is the necessary and
unexceptional result of the relation of antecedent condi-
tions and general laws, without use of purposes or inten-
tions which are not contingently linked to their conse-
quent and therefore unable to qualify as antecedent
conditions in this model.

27

maintain quite emphatically that the utility and adequacy
of any scientific explanation is its predictive ability.

It is the position of Hempel and Oppenheim that
although the behaviors of humans or laboratory animals
cannot as yet be subsumed under general laws of the cover-
ing law model5 it is only a matter of time until an adequate
articulation between theory and event is achieved and indi-
vidual events will be applicable through laws of the causal
type. Within such explanations there is no formal differ-
ence between dispositional predicates, motivational explana-
tion, and statements of antecedent conditions in causal
explanation. Therein the concept of purpose and like media-
tional terms can be satisfactorily eliminated as superfluous

6 At best such terms (mediational)

to empirical explanation.
serve as heuristic and metaphorical devices. But even in
this function they often end up serving only as a rather
facile ex post facto "explanatory" device, which lack,
according to Hempel and Oppenheim, cognitive significance.
If the first principles of this type of explana-
tion cannot be granted, in matters of conscious human

action, then it must be shown (if it is to be judged defec-

tive) that either the model itself is in error in a

 

5For purposes here I will use the terms covering
law model, positivist paradigm, and hypothetical-deductive
model interchangeable, although for other purposes there is
good and proper reason for distinguishing between the three.

6See footnote on page 26 for explanation of this
move within the hypothetical—deductive model.

28

generic sense or that the propositions which it relies
upon for articulation are mistaken.

It seems useless to argue that the model itself is
generically defective. The success of physical science
has proven beyond a real doubt, in Wittgenstein's sense
of real doubt, the correctness of the model at least for
physical phenomena. The work of Skinner, Watson and other
behaviorists in psychology and men such as Pasteur, Mendel,
Harvey and numerous other physicians have proven that, at
least in some aspects of biophysical/reflexive behavior,
the covering law model is appropriate to persons.

The question that remains is: does the covering
law model apply to dispositional events in the same manner
it does to the refraction of light through the human
cornea. Or more specifically, does the covering law model
"really" subsume mediational states7 adequately within the
explanada term of antecedent conditions.

A place to begin, in criticism, is with the work of
R. S. Peters and H. Tajfel.8 They point out that the I
attempt to find a systematic deductive explanation for every
human behavior has been pressed at least since the work of

Thomas Hobbes. It was hoped that human behavior could be

 

7Mediation, a cognitive term that has independent
legislative force in human action and is non-contingently
linked with antecedent stimulus and consequent behavior.

8R. S. Peters and H. Tajfel, "Hobbes and Hull--
Metaphysicians of Behaviour," British Journal of Philosophy»

 

 

29

explained in the same mechanism as inanimate bodies. Such
grand schemes can be found in the first chapters of

Leviathan, or C. L. Hull's book Principles of Behavior,

 

 

or B. F. Skinner's latest, Beyond Freedom and Dignity.

 

Peters and Tajfel point out that however desirable such a
deductive science might be it is probably little more than
a pipe dream-~eSpecially given the "mechanics" upon which
such a deductive system depends. The metaphysical article
of faith that man is rational points out the logical truth

that man's behavior is rule following and that adequate

 

explanations cannot be given in terms of efficient condi-
tions alone. Mechanistic explanations alone will not
suffice. It may be quite easy to establish a contingent
link between sensation and action, but at least in the

case of conscious action, such a linkage may not be com-
plete without certain mediations [habit structures or molar
behavior (Skinner) or dispositional predicates (Winch)].9

Consider, as Winch does in The Idea of a Social Science,

 

the Pharisee and the Publican both of whom prayed to their
God. Without the use of mediations we are faced with
identical behavior--but behavior which is totally inCom-

mensurate. One is not reducible to the other without loss

 

9See Skinner, Science and Human Behavior; and Peter
Winch, The Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation to
Philosophy (New York: The Humanities Press, Inc., 1958).

For example, a mediation such as "deprivation" is
necessary before the link between stimulus and conditioned
response can be established.

 

 

 

30

of meaning. Or on a slightly different tack, without
mediations how does one distinguish the pill taken by the
addict and the pill taken by the patient. Without media—
tions and dispositional predicates one is forced to reduce
incommensurate behavior to a status of identity which is
not observed.

The neurophysical mechanism, upon which systematic
causal explanations depend, cannot show that all human
action is due to external physical causes. If such uniform
causal explanation were possible these laws would be non-
purposive and of the following form.

Whenever an organism of structure S is
in neurophysical state q it will
emit movement m.

Organism O of structure S was in
neurophysical state q.

Therefore, 0 emitted m2.10

As Malcolm notes the first proposition is a contingent11
relation--given S in state q--m2 will result. The con-
tingent relation is dubious in cases in which S was in
state q and still did not emit m2. At this point (disposi—
tional statements) behavioral explanations break down in

as much as they do not conform to the covering law model.

 

10Norman Malcolm, "The Conceivability of Mechanism,"

The Philosophical Review, LXXVII, No. 1 (January, 1968), 47.

11 I O O O
In this case a "certeris paribus" clause 18
necessary, in addition.

31

This is the case.of the man-for whom life is the most
sweet--and then in apparent contradiction takes his life.
Malcolm maintains a more adequate, non-contingent
explanation is purposive and non mechanistic. Such expla-
nations would take the following form:
Whenever an organism O has goal G
and believes that behavior B is
required to bring about G, 0 will
emit B.
0 had G and believed B was required
of G
Therefore, 0 emitted B.12
According to Malcolm the universal premise of a purposive
explanation is an a priori principle not a contingent law.
Thus, these principles a priori assume a logico-meaningful
mediation between stimulus and re8ponse which resists the
reduction of dispositional and purposeful predicates to
necessarily contingent relation between external physical
causes and bodily movement; thus, rejecting the physical
deterministic mechanism upon which the positivist paradigm
depends.

Hume's statement in A Treatise of Human Nature can

 

be made plain. Human behavior is governed by its own
rules in the sense that: the behavior of how 0 will

respond to X, depends upon what mediations impinge upon

 

12Malcolm, p. 47.

32

the situation. That is, as Peters points out X's behavior
will depend upon what rule O believes is required to bring
about G (if 0 has good G) from the repertoire of rules
available to X at that time P.

Prediction in the deductive sense is impossible.
If an observer wants to predict how N will act at time Q
he must ascertain what concepts (rules) N is using to View
the situation. The direction of human activity does not
necessarily depend upon the mechanics of external causes
to bodily movement; the direction of decision depends upon
the intentions disposition (governing rules) of actors
which are not controlled by antecedent conditions. Thus
an understanding of social events is incompatible with
the activity of scientific prediction.

If Malcolm is correct, then some human actions
are explicable by reference to diSpositional predicates.
To admit this much would be to acknowledge that any
single-factor system which claims the ability to predict
and explain human behavior without relying upon independent
non-physiological variables is (ala Winch) self defeating.

Second the very idea of mechanism, upon which
"scientific" explanation seems to depend seems incompatible
with voluntaristic human action. That is,it is not modal
behavior that is in need of explanation. It is not the
general disposition that is in need of explanation. It is

exceptional behavior that is interesting. The deviation

33

from the norm, the non-habitual, the non-characteristic
decision--these are the interesting and important cases
for social science and education. It was the refusal of
Harlem's parents to accept the prevailing status quo that
was of import for the future of public education. It

was the refusal of the Black community to accept the doc-
trine of separate but equal, that was important and inter-
esting. It was the decision of the students of American
colleges in the late 60's, to reject their traditionally
passive political position, which shattered a Democratic
hegemony dating back to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, that
was important and interesting. It is the non-
characteristic action which is most in need of explana-
tion, not the habitual or status quo.

On the other hand there is a serious objection
raised to this type of position by Hempel.13 Hempel
argues, while rational (intentional) explanation gives
good grounds for asserting the appropriate thing for A to
do under circumstances B was X--it does not provide reasons
for asserting that A did X, or that A must do the rational

thing-—X. To accommodate this problem Hempel argues the

 

l3Carl G. Hempel, "Reasons and Covering Laws in
Historical Explanation," in Philosophy and Histogy: A
Symposium, ed. by Sidney Hook (New York: New York Uni-
versity Press, 1963).,

 

 

34

explanans must be modified so as to look something like
the following:

Agent "A" was in situation C

A was a rational agent at the time.

Any rational agent when in situation of

kind C, will invariably (or: with high

probability) do X.l4
Hempel argues that the above modification of the rational
principle of explanation by a descriptive principle,
necessitated by Winch's and Malcomb's assumption of
rationality result in a covering law explanation. As such
reasons, motives, and beliefs are categorized as antecedent
conditions which are formally no different than causal
explanating of the covering law form.

To put Hempel's objection simply, if one cannot
derive the event (explandum) from the general laws and
antecedent conditions (explanda) we are liable to be
deluding ourselves as to the adequacy of our explanation
or we are accepting an ex post facto explanation which is
trivial--an explanation of the following type: aspirin
will alleviate headache because of its pain removing
quality.

Nevertheless if Winch and Malcolm are correct, the
deductive linkages which Hempel demands are impossible.

The resolution of the problem can be found in the

 

l4Hempel, p. 155.

35

realization that if the position of either Winch and
Malcolm are adopted the step of adequacy which Hempel
demands is not necessary. There is no need to posit a
compulsive force (such as Skinner's reinforcement) to
specify the necessary and sufficient conditions to explain
and predict why "X" did "A." It would be necessary to
point out that the paradigm as constructed by Hempel is
in error. Hempel's account:

Agent A was in situation C.

A was a rational agent at the time

Any rational agent, when in situation

of kind C, will invariably (or: with
high probability) do X, . . .15
Even if Hempel's adequacy move is granted and a rational
premise is invoked--Hempel's position still cannot be
salvaged. The error lies in the suppressed premises in
the first line of Hempel's argument. When Hempel invoked
the "first premise"
Agent A was in situation of kind Cl6
here all the problems of mechanism are patched over in the
assumption of the mechanistic argument in this premise.

Expanded the above premise assumes the entire form of

mechanism. That is,

 

lsHempel, p. 155.

l6Hempel, p. 155.

36

Whenever an organism of structure S
is in neurophysical state q it
will emit movement m.
Organism O of structure 8 was in a
neurophysical state q.
Therefore, 0 emitted m2.l7
The uniform mechanism rationality which Hempel's counter
argument depends upon is mistaken. Uniform rationality is
necessary to sustain the hidden metaphysics of the formal-
ist--namely a logical model for the universe. It is the
same intellectual move as that of Bishop Berkeley--a uni-
versal perceiver (to be is to be perceived). That is, the
inclusion of a constant in a formal system. The uniform
deductive rationality Hempel posits must give way to the
non-uniform rationality of self reflective rules of Winch
and Malcolm. There is no necessity, indeed no reason, to
posit uniform rationality. In Winch's and Malcolm's models
"neurophysical state q" is not a uniform electro/chemical
state but an intentional mediation. Mediations are not
uniform terms which are interchangeable. To return to the
original example, the "prayer" of the Pharisee and the
Publican though perhaps formally the same, they are empiri-
cally incommensurate, and one cannot be exchanged for the

other without loss of meaning.

 

l7Malcolm, p. 47.

37

The fact of incommensurate behaviors point out
that the reliance upon mediations, and therein nonuniform
rationality, is not a reduction of the intentional explana-
tion to the covering law model. Such would be the case if
mediations were subsumable under the category of antecedent
conditions. Empirically mediations govern the response to
a given context and in that sense are rules not antecedent
conditions. Empirically the work of Kendler and D'Amato
on reversal and nonreversal shifts demonstrate that minded
mediations are self governing rules which are characteris-
tic of purposive behavior. Thus, it is the mediated rules
which are a priori in conscious activity at any given moment
in time.18 Mediations have the status of rules not ante-
cedent conditions. Mediations give rationality a non-
uniform status (subjective if you will—-in a special sense)
which makes rationality the term irreducible in the cover-
ing law model.

This position does not commit the holder to
posit a world of wildly erratic behavior, it merely points
out that interpersonal consistency depends upon the shared
similarity of the logico-meaningful mediations in the

repertoire of contiguous individuals. As Wittgenstein

 

18Howard Kendler and May F. D'Amato, "A Comparison
of Reversal Shifts and Nonreversal Shifts in Human Concept
Formation Behavior," Journal of Experimental Psychology,
XLIX, No. 3 (1955), 165—174.

 

38

notes regarding the role of language in the consistency

of knowledge and behavior,

How do I know that this colour is red? -- It

would be an answer to say: 'I have learnt

English.'19

What does this mean in terms of explanation?

First, it obviously means that the explanations of pur-
posive human behaviors does not conform to the cover-
ing law model. That is not to say behavior cannot be
explained but it does rule out the deductive type pre-
diction which is necessary for hypothetical-deductive

20

explanations. Second, it means that understanding

 

 

19Ludwig Wittgenstein, PhiloSOphical Investiga-
tions, trans. by G.E.M. Anscombe 73rd ed.; New York:
The Macmillian Co., 1970), 381 para.

2OIt does not seem that the above mentioned posi-
tion imputes an unnecessary rationalism to formalists such
as Hempel-~at least in relation to explanation. Empirical
regularities are important for explanation, only if said
regularity would be derived from a set of other proposi-
tions--invariably--a task Durkheim took up. That is, an
explanation becomes informative when the propositions from
which a brute event are functionally related, can be speci-
fied and thereafter used deductively. For example, in
Suicide, Durkheim attempts to state the propositions of
(1) social cohesion, (2) psychic support, (3) social
stress, which are useful in deducing the social uniformity--
suicide.

In other words, the apparent emphasis upon
rationalism is a function of the role of deduction in
formal systems of explanation. This emphasis certainly
does not imply a denial of empirical evidences, behavioral
evidence, consequents, brute fact as the starting place
of explanation; it is the requirements of what counts as
explanation that are at questibn.

 

 

39

is not interchangeable (in meaning) with the term predic-
tion. To quote Winch,

I want to insist that if a proffered interpre-
tation is wrong, statistics, though they may
suggest that that is so, are not the decisive
and ultimate court of appeal for the validity
of sociological interpretations the way Weber
suggests. What is needed is a better interpre—
tation, not something different in kind. The
compatibility of an interpretation with statis—
tics does not prove its validity. Someone who
interprets a tribes magical rites as a form of
misplaced scientific activity will not be cor-
rected by statistics about what members of that
tribe are likely to do on various kinds of
occasion (though this might form part of the
argument); what is ultimately required is a
philosophical argument like, e.g., Collingwood's
in The Principles of Art.(6:Book 1, Chapter IV.)
For a mistaken interpretation of a form of
social activity is closely akin to the type of
mistake delt with in philosophy.21

 

 

It is not uncommon to be able to make predictions of

great accuracy and still not understand what is being done
or said. Grasping the meaning of an event is a realm far
removed from predictive laws. Third it means that Hempel's
inclusion of "mediations" among antecedent conditions is
mistaken. Such would only be possible if "mediations"
were dependent variables without legislative force, which
were effects of external stimuli. Kendler's and D'Amato's
work demonstrate that "mediations" once acquired are inde-
pendent of external stimuli, and have independent legisla-
tive effect in purposive human action. Fourth, Kendler

and D'Amato's work would indicate that the shape of the

 

leinch, pp. 113-114.

40

world is.related to the "mediations" through which it is
perceived. Fifth the work of these two psychologists

would intimate that rationality is a non-uniform state of

 

affairs (what is rational depends upon the configuration
of mediations through which an individual "views" the
situation); a state of affairs antithetical to the uniform
universal rationality the hypothetical-deductive model
demands and depends upon. In other words, the uniform
rationality upon which the Hypothetical-deductive model
logically depends--appears to be absent in the empirical
world.

What then is the role of prediction in the social
sciences in general and education in particular in regard
to purposive human behavior? If "0" is to make a state-
ment as to the future action of "B," he must familiarize
himself with the "mediations," "B" is using in viewing
situation "T." He must (ala Peters) understand the
rules which B is following.

In this sense prediction is confined to "predic-
tion of the short range." Prediction cannot be any more
accurate than thespecification of "mediations" whiCh are
governing a given situation. In relation to any signifi-
cant sense, prediction of Historical Traditions is absurd.
As Winch points out one significant independent variable

in historical trends is the decisions, choices and goals

41

held by individuals in that moment in time. In illus-

tration,

It may help to recall Humphrey Lyttleton's

rejoinder to someone who asked him where Jazz

was going: If I knew where Jazz was going

I'd be there already!22
The point that has been missed is that education is a
purposive activity. Education is an ideological (mediated,
conceptual) expression of reality. It is when that ideology
is no longer adequate in the context of contemporary
experience that there is a "crisis in the classroom."

A man's social relations with his fellows are

permeated with his ideas about reality. In—

deed, 'permeated' is hardly a strong enough

word; social relations are expressions of

ideas about reality.23

It has been the failure of professional educators

to take into account the ideology (mediation) of education
and the mediations' active role in the state of things.
Such a myopic field of vision is a functional result of
the exclusive search for the problems of education in the
articulation of scientific theory to brute fact. It would
seem that exclusion of ideological considerations is the
reason why massive transfusions of money, technical improve—
ments, and massive increases in expertise have not solved

contemporary educational problems-~the important problems

of education are not technical--they are ideological.

 

22Winch, pp. 93-94.

2‘E’Winch, p. 23.

42

The hypothetical-deductive model has its place in
education. It is its exclusive use that has been proble-
matic. It is the assumption that education functions
exclusively within the necessary and unexceptional connec-
tions of Irreducible Social Laws and antecedent conditions
which has precipitated the "crisis in the classroom."
There can be no comprehensive solution to the problems of
education until the ideological character and social con-
text of education are taken into account. Until then—-

the bridges will not stand.

CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGICAL INDIVIDUALISM

AND EXPLANATION

A man's social relations with his fellows are
permeated with his ideas about reality. Indeed,
'permeated' is hardly a strong enough word:
social relations are expressions of ideas about
reality.

Winch's statement is the key to a demonstration of
an alternative model of theory in education. (One warning
should be entered before proceeding. Winch is not advo-
cating a rather naive nominalism which fails to note the
objective nature of the world. He is pointing out that
we may never question the "total" nature of X. We may only
question the adequacy of "X" as "such and such"; rather
than, "X" as "this and that." To do more would simply bump
the nose of language against the limits of the universe.
Winch is emphasizing the active role mediations2 plan in
reality.) It should be plain then that "reality" is not
equal to the bio/physical brute fact, but rather, is trans-

actional with the province of meaning. In other words it

is the configuration of meanings held by an individual

 

lWinch, p. 23.

21 will in the future use the terms "mediation" and
"language" interchangeably and as equivalent in meaning.

43

44

which constitute reality not the ontological structure of
the object.3 Second, it is the task of education to pene—
trate reality and therein arrive at an understanding of
social phenomena through a recognition and understanding of
the mediations which govern the context of a given situa-
tion. In other words the theoretical stance of Methodologi-

cal Individualism is: purposive social events can be under—

 

stood by reference to the avoidable mediations of individual

 

agents without reference to Irreducible Social Laws.

 

There seems to be two obvious objections to Metho-
dological Individualism: (1) how can we know which media-
tions an individual is using in a given situation (as Nagel
points out Methodological Individualism is dependent upon
whether or not direct observation of intentional terms is
possible at least in principle. That is, as a paradigm
Methodological Individualism depends upon whether or not we
can know the rules which govern the action of X); and (2)
even if we can know which mediations an individual is using
in a given situation such a methodology is irretrivably
empty. These objections will be considered in order.

First, if the hypothetical-deductive model is not
an adequate theory of explanation, how is it possible to

know the mediations or rules "B" is using in viewing

 

 

3Alfred Schutz, "On Multiple Realities," in
Collected Papers: The Problem of Social Reality, ed. by
Maurice Natanson TThe Hauge: Martinus Nijhoff, 1962).

 

45

situation "T" at time "B"? How is it possible to know,
without having to resort to guessing pure and simple?

(S)ince words and phrases for sensations belong

to common natural language, their use "stands in
need of a justification which everybody (who
speaks the language) understands" (PI 261). Such
a justification would be impossible if they were
names of processis that are essentially incommuni—
cable to others.

The problem is the classical problem of private language.
The classic example of the problem is Wittgenstein's
beetle in the box.

Now someone tells me that he knows what pain is
only from his own case! -- Suppose everyone had

a box with something in it: we call it a "beetle".
No one can look into anyone else's box, and every-
one says he knows what a beetle is only by looking
at his beetle.--Here it would be quite possible
for everyone to have something constantly chang-
ing.--But suppose the word "beetle" had a use in
these people's language?--If so it would not be
used as the name of a thing. The thing in the

box has no place in the language-game at all; not
even as a sgmething: for the box might even be
empty . . .3

 

Wittgenstein's example serves to point out the impossi-
bility of knowledge if we are to posit knowledge on the
model of subject and object. Such a model would appear to
make knowledge of other minds impossible or at least force

such claims into the realm of belief.

 

4Alan Donagan, "Wittgenstein on Sensation," in

Wittgenstein: The Philosgphical Investigations, ed. by
George Pitcher (Garden City: Doubleday & Co., 1966),
p. 337.

5Wittgenstein, Investigations, 293. In all
references to WittgensteinTs Philosophical Investigations
and On Certainty, citations refer to paragraph numbers.

 

 

 

 

46

Yet in language we are able to predict, act and
make inferences with success about mental events which
appear to have utter privacy. Such certainly is an odd
state of affairs, which leads to difficult and unsatis-
factory puzzles. By implication

It would be possible to imagine someone groaning
out: "Someone is in pain--I don't know who!"

. . . The proposition "I don't know whether I or
someone else is in pain" would be a logical pro—
duct, and one of its factors would be: "I don't
know whether I am in pain or not" . . .6

If one understands pain only from his own case
there can be no intersubjective agreement as to the use of
the word (concept) "pain." This problem is one of many
siblings born of a common philosophical assumption since
Augustine. The assumption is (was) that all words mean as
a great many nouns do. Augustine's influence has been per—
vasive. Among contemporary philosophers Augustine's
influence can be seen in Russell's work on logical atomism.
Russell had taken for granted that the universe consisted
of a number of simples; independent entities which were
directly understandable when encountered. That is, he
believed that objects could be known independently of
language-~through ostensive definition. Here we find the
idea that: "Every word has 2 meaning. This meaning is

correlated with the word. It is the object for which the

word stands."7 Knowledge is immediately given. The

 

6Wittgenstein, Investigations, 407-408.

 

7Wittgenstein, Investigations, 1.

 

47

relation between the thing and the thing named is the rela-
tion of merely subject and object.

Only I, then, can know the dispositional terms of my
mind because only I have direct access to it, or so the
argument goes. No one can know if I am dizzy, in pain, or
taste something. Each human then gives these words their
meaning independently of others and of others use of them.
Thus, he alone can understand what he fells. To this
Wittgenstein responds:

What reason have we for calling "S": the sign
for a "sensation"? For "sensation" is a word of
our common language, not of one intelligible to
me alone. So the use of this word stands in need
of a justification which everybody understands.

. . . It might be said: if you have given your-
,self a private definition of a word, then you
must inwardly undertake to use the word in such-
and-such a way. And how do you undertake that?
It is assumed that you invent the technique of 8
using the word; or that you found it ready-made?

 

Even in private perception then the naming process pre-
supposes the creation of public rules for the use of the
term. "Stage setting" to use Wittgenstein's term.

When we speak of someone's having given a name

to pain, what is presupposed is the existence

of the grammar of the word "pain"; it shews the

post where the new word is stationed.
That is, even if persons existed in a philosophic sense,

without bodies and behavior, the use of a concept would

be predicated upon an intersubjective agreement upon the

 

8Wittgenstein, Investightions, 261-262.

9Wittgenstein, Investigations, 257.

 

48

use of the word and the conditions which would justify
the use of said word.

The previous discussion serves only to point out
that correct and incorrect have no application to some
supposed inner identification. There is no identity in a
thing-in-itself. Without rules for that which wowd count
for and that which would count against "S" assurance could
never be given that a correct identification was being
made. Perhaps he was mistaken every time!10

"A thing is identical with itself."--There is no
finer example of a useless proposition, which yet
is connected with a certain play of the imagina-
tion. It is as if in imagination we put a thing
into its own shape and saw that it fitted.

Malcolm gives a precise summary of the outcome of
private language when he states:

(I)f I obtain my conception of pain from pain
that I experience, then it will be part of my
conception of pain that I am the only being
that can experience it. For me it will be a
contradiction to speak of another's pain. This
strict solopsism is the necessary outcome of
the notion of private language.1
If the meaning of concepts cannot be acquired from

private ostensive definitions, the mode in which they are

acquired must be explicated.

 

loNorman Malcolm, "Knowledge of Other Minds," in
Wittgenstein: The Philosophical Investigations, ed.by George
Pitcher (Garden City: Doubleday & Co., i966i, pp. 371-383.

llWittgenstein, Investigations, 216.

12Norman Malcolm, "Wittgenstein's PhilOSOphical
Investigations," in Wittgenstein: The Philosophical
Investigations, ed. by George Pitcher (Garden City:
Doubleday & Co., 1966), p. 76.

 

49

The problem then is to account for the apparent
success people exhibit in dealing with mental states; and
explicate a methodology which would justify the use of
words and phrases for sensations in the common natural
language. In other words how can the concept of "pain"
be an objective concept? D. W. Hamlyn writes that to
understand the meaning of a concept

one would have to start with an account of what
it is to understand language, and end with the
kinds of applications that the word has.13

The point of entrance to this problem then is an
account of what it is to understand language. In this
context a word may be thought of as an event-with-meaning.
To the question of what it means to understand language
Wittgenstein gives this answer,

The grammar of the word "knows" is evidently

closely related to that of "can", "is able to"-

But also related to that of understandings.

('Mastery' of a technique,)
A minimal account of what it is to understand language is
the ability to use a concept to discriminate and general—
ize; and justify that discrimination or generalization in
intersubjective examination.

The second step is an examination of what

Wittgenstein means by agreement in definition. Wittgenstein

simply points out, relative to agreement in definition,

 

13D. W. Hamlyn, The Theory of Knowledge (New York:
Doubleday & Company Inc., 1970), p. 68.

14

 

Wittgenstein, Investigations, 150.

 

50

that the evidential value of criteria is founded on defi-
nition. He notes

The fluctuation in grammar between criteria and
symptoms makes it look as if there were nothing
at all but symptoms. We say, for example:
"Experience teaches that there is rain when the
barometer falls, but it also teaches that there
is rain when we have certain sensations of wet
and cold, or such-and-such visual impression."
In defence of this one says that these sense-
impressions can deceive us. But here one fails
to reflect that the fact that the false appear-
ance is preceisely one of rain is founded on a
definition.15

What is agreement in judgment then? Where does this agree—
ment come from. Agreement in judgment is taught.

We do not learn the practice of making empirical
judgements by learning rules: we are taught
judgements and their connexion with other judge—
ments. A totality of judgements is made plaus-
ible to us.16

Criteria then are taught by trial and error irrespective
of formal logics, held fast not by truth values but by
agreement of our environment.

The child learns to believe a host of things.
I.e. it learns to act according to these beliefs.
Bit by bit there forms a system of what is
believed, and in that system some things stand
unshakeably fast and some are more or less liable
to shift. What stands fast does so, not because
it is intrinsically obvious or convincingé it is
rather held fast by what lies around it.

 

15Wittgenstein, Investigations, 354.

 

16Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty, trans. by
Dennis Paul and G.E.M. Anscombe (New York: J & J Harper
Editions, 1969), 140.

17

 

Wittgenstein, Certainty, 144.

 

51

The preceding view nevertheless is not to commit
to a subjective or totally conventional view of the uni-
verse. What is wrong with idealism and nominalism which
tend to emphasize the subjective or conceptual is that
they fail to note the objective character of the world.

We can raise the question only within a given agreed upon,
arbitrary, conceptual scheme; but, you are reminded that

we may not question the total nature of "X, we may only
question its objectivity as a such-and-such.

That which is still missing is an account of the
empirical connection between mental states such as pain,
and said behavioral manifestations. The connection cannot
be one of logical entailment--but it at least must be a
logico-meaningful connectiOn. For if the relation were
merely contingent (say perhaps taught, or conditioned)
pain behavior would at best be unreliable symptoms of
mental (pain) states; further, there would be no justifi-
cation in use of mental state words and phrases. Inter-
subjective examination would be impossible. It would not
be difficult (under the conditions of a contingent rela-
tion) to imagine large segments of the pOpulation using
mental state words and phrases in great variance from
each other.

What then might be this essential connection

between mental states and behavioral manifestations?

Wittgenstein offers this suggestion:

52

How do we refer to sensations. There doesn't
seem to be any problem here; don't we talk about
sensation everyday, and give them names? But
how is the connection between names and the

thing named set up? The question is the same as:
how does a human learn the meaning of the names
of sensation? -- of the word "pain" for example.
Here is one possibility: words are connected with
the primitive, the natural, expressions of sensa-
tion and used in their place . . . the verbal
expression of pain replaces crying and does not
describe it.1

What is the significance of Wittgenstein's suggestion?

Wittgenstein's own solution, like the decisive
movement of the conjuring trick itself, was so
simple that it is elusive. It was to allow that
the Cartesian grammatical facts are facts, that
sensations are private non-dispositional accom-
paniments of the behavior by which they are
naturally expressed but to refuse to recognize
those accompaniments as processes that can be
named and investigated independently of the cir-
cumstances that produce them, and the behavior
by which they are naturally expressed. Sundered
from their external circumstances, such private
accompaniments cannot even be named in a common
language; a fortiori, they cannot be investigated
in any way at all. But, equally, should an
investigation ignore such facts as that something
accompanies a cry of pain, something which is
important and frightful, then to describe it as
an investigation of sensation would be pre-
posterous. 9

Thus the connection between a symbol and a mental state

is no more exotic than the connection between a limp and
an injured leg. Wittgenstein's suggestion has two other
important results. One, it answers the question how does

one know when one is in pain, or agony. And second, it

 

18Wittgenstein, Investigations, 244.

 

19Donagan, p. 350.

53

provides an explanation of how the utterance of first'
person said by others can have meaning for us, roughly
the same importance (meaning) as the natural behavior
which functions as the criterion of psychological states
of others. The essential connection between mental states
and behavior therefore allow a criterion which is, by
logical necessity, evidence for a mental state or process
which is not itself observable. Thus, the criterion for
the color of someone's mental image is what he says and
does: I cannot observe the color of his image, but I

can hear what he says and see what he does (see

Wittgenstein, Investigations, Sect. 377).

 

Thus,

. . . there are certain criteria in a man's
behaviour for the fact that he does not under-
stand a word, that it means nothing to him;
that he can do nothing with it. And criteria
for his "thinking he understands", attaching
some meaning to the word, but not the right
one. And, lastly, criteria for his under-
standing the word right.20

In general "An 'inner process' stands in need of

outward criteria."21

But, it should be noted because a
criterion is behavioral it does not follow its criterion
is behavioral as well. For example, the criterion of pain

is behavioral but pain is not. As Wittgenstein notes

about pain:

 

20Wittgenstein, Investigations, 269.

 

21Wittgenstein, Investigations, 580.

 

54

"Yes, but there is somethihg there all the same
accompanying my cry of pain. And it is on
account of that that I utter it. And this some-
thing is what is important--and frightful."22

 

_In other words pain then is more than behavior.
Wittgenstein's theory of criteria is able to avoid both
the reductionism of the behaviorists and insoluble prob-
lems of Cartesian doctrines. Wittgenstein's interpreta-
tion of the relation between propositions and facts is
not a behavioristic reduction of pain to a "diSposition"
to action, or a Cartesian analogy. Behavioral interpre-
tations capitalize on Wittgenstein's criticism of
Cartesian doctrines and ignore the fact he specifically
states:

The essential thing about private experience is

really not that each person possess his own

exemplar, but that nobody knows whether other

people also have this or something else . .
Furthermore even if such a doctrine did exist it would be
irrelevant for its existence would have no consequence.

Imagine a person whose memory could not retain

what the word "pain" meant--so that he constantly

called different things by that name. . . . Here

I should like to say: A wheel that can be turned

though nothing else moves with it, is not part

of the mechanism.2

Therefore, it is possible to establish mental

states in the empirical realm and to have knowledge of

 

22Wittgenstein, Investigations, 296.

 

23Wittgenstein, Investigations, 272.

 

2‘*Wittgenstein, Investigations, 271.

 

55

them--knowledge as certain and justified as any empirical
statement.

Now what does this mean for problems in ordinary
language? It beComes apparent in Wittgenstein's analysis,
knowledge of other minds does not depend upon having the
"same feeling." For purposes of dissolving this problem
the meaning of the terms "same" and "feeling" must be
examined. The term "same" will be considered first.
Wittgenstein writes,

In so far as it makes sense to say that my pain

is the same as his, it is also possible for us
both to have the same pain. . 25

 

That is he is pointing out that the grammar of possessives
ought not serve to confuse us. Agreed it is impossible
for person "D" to have the "same" pain as person "F" in
the sense of the logical demands of a possessive. But
it is possible that both have the "same" pain in that they
answer to the same description.' One would make the same
type of mistake if one claimed that a son could not have
the same build as his father! No meaning is attached to
the fact that the pains of persons "D" and "F" were, or
were not, numerically the same.

In this analysis the word "feeling" also loses its

mystical significance. He points out that feelings are

not meanings. That is, there is no instant and universal

 

,
2"Wittgenstein, Investigations, 253.

 

56

correlation between "inner experiences" and meaning.
Agreed the "inner experience" is part of the meaning (as

in the example of pain). As in the case of pain "An

0 I U I 26
'Inner process' stands in need of outward criteria."

His point is "inner experiences" are not specified by
themselves and nothing more.

Meaning is then fixed in the linguistic context
of terms. The use of sensation words are fixed by cri-
teria. Our knowledge of others then is fixed by our
access (empirical) to the outward criteria of inner pro-
cesses, and mastery of the techniques of language.
Therefore, the function of meaning in language does not
depend upon a parallel between a speaker's and hearer's
sensation experiences. Berger and Luckman summarize it
nicely in the following quotation:

Human expressivity is capable of objectivation,
that is, it manifests itself in products of
human activity that are available both to their
producers and to other men as elements of a
common world. Such objectivations serve as more
or less enduring indices of the subjective pro-
cesses of their producers, allowing their avail-
ability to extend beyond the face-to-face situa-
tion in which they can be directly apprehended.
For instance, a subjective attitude of anger is
directly expressed in the face-to-face situation
by a variety of bodily indices--facial mien,
general stance of the body, specific movements
of arms and feet, and so on. These indices are
continuously available in the face to face

 

26Wittgenstein, Investigations, 580.

 

57

situation, which is precisely why it affords me
the optimal situation for gaining access to
another's subjectivity.

The first objection to Methodological Individualism
would seem to be mistaken. There are good reasons to
believe that the term "know" may be used as surely, in
reference to mediations, as to any other empirical phenomena.
The previous section then would seem to provide the episte—
mological prerequisites for Methodological Individualism.

At this point the second objection must be con-
sidered. That is, even if we can "know" which mediations
an individual is using in a given situation, such a
methodology may be irretrivably empty.

Methodological Individualism can be saved from its

apparent vacuity.28

Krimerman argues that Methodological
Individualism can be saved by a careful reformulation of
the work of J.W.N. Watkins. Krimerman starts from the
following two statements
(a) that there are no ISL's and
(b) that no social tendency exists which could
not be altered if the individuals concerned

both wanted to Eiter it and possessed the
appropriate information.29

 

27Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann,The Social Con-

struction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology_of Knowl-
edge (Garden City: Doubleday & Company Inc., 1966), p. 34.
281 owe most of this line of analysis to the
brilliant essay by Leonard I. Krimerman, in his book The
Nature and Scope of Social Science: A Critical Anthoiggy
(New York: Appleton-Century Crofts, 1969), pp. 587-602.

29

 

 

 

Krimerman, p. 589.

58

Krimerman points out that this is much like claiming a
man may engage in purposive activity if there are no
forces mitigating against his goal and action toward the
accomplishment of said goal. As should be noted this
type of formulation of Methodological Individualism does
not exclude of necessity that there are no Irreducible
Social Laws. That is, (b) in this formulation is merely
a truism. It can make no claim against the truth of the
law claim in (a). In brief, in the formulation above,
Methodological Individualism is too weak to reject a
single Irreducible Social Law.

Nevertheless, Krimerman acts to save Methodologi-
cal Individualism by making the following move. He
retains statement (a) and reformulates (b). The two
preformulated statements now take the following form:

(a) that there are no ISL's and

(b) will affirm that the occurrence of any social
phenomenon or pattern can be explained by
deducing it from true statements of four

sorts: ascriptions of beliefs and desire to

individuals; propositions asserting that

little or no compulsion was introduced to

prevent those individuals from acting on the

beliefs and desires in question; conceptual
analysis of those beliefs and desires and

their combined implications; and claims to

the effect that beliefs and desires under

analysis are (were) avoidable, in the sense

that there are (were) no social or legal

obstacles preventing the individual agents"

involved from developing alternative beliefs

and/or desires. (To abbreviate this, we can
say that according to "b") any social event

59

or regularity is deducible from the avo§8-

able dlSpOSltlonS of indIVIdual agents.

This move seems to solve various problems seen in
the initial formulations of Methodological Individualism.
First of all this formulation successfully deals with the
problem of cultural conditioning-~which seems to depend
exclusively upon Irreducible Social Laws. Cultural con-
ditioning assumes a social-social31 conditioning process
which is not avoidable. Such is to claim that no social
phenomena exists which can be explained only by the premises
available in (b). Clearly explanations can be arrived at
without the use of irreducible social regularities, or
social connections. Krimerman gives the following example:

1. Illiterates are persons who derive no pleasure
from reading (studying, etc.) books and who

can make little or no use of them.

2. Persons who do not desire and have little or no
use for a given type of thing do not pursue

(or purchase) it, unless compelled.

3. In country A, no one compels illiterates to
purchase books.

4. In country A, illiterates can become literate
and can purchase books; that is, no social or
legal obstacles prevent them from so doing.

 

5. Hence, in country A illiterates purchase few
or no books.

 

30Krimerman, p. 594.

31Social-social: A term used to designate social

events which apparently do not include or depend upon the
actions of individuals or the use of Irreducible Social
Laws for their explanation.

32Krimerman, p. 593.

60

In the above example we have a case where the explanans
do not appear to presuppose any Irreducible Social Law
or social-social regularity. Nevertheless since the cited
case applies only to cases in which Irreducible Social Laws
are not necessary in explanation, a further development
is required in cases where Irreducible Social Laws are
apparently necessary. In this case, Methodological Indi-
vidualism is not concerned with denying social facts (such
as cultural conditioning) but rather, merely to point out
that such conditioning is (was) avoidable. In this formu-
lation of (b) Methodological Individualism can provide a
coherent place for the process of cultural conditioning
and the active role of other cultural objectifications
such as language and institutions. That is, it may be quite
legitimate, in some cases, to point out instances where
phenomenon are impossible to analyze without reference to
Irreducible Social Law. But, this does not entail that
those Irreducible Social Laws are unavoidable, or such
events are not at least in principle capable of explana-
tion by the avoidable actions of particular agents.
Second, Methodological Individualism need not
defend itself on the basis of an all or nothing "holism"
or "individualism" dichotomy. As Krimerman points out
if Methodological Individualism can be identified with
the reformulated conjunction of (a) and (b) then

Methodological Individualism is not a global rejection

61

of the effects of historical tendency or with a concep-
tion of social systems as organic wholes which explain
the behavior of individuals that compose them. That is,
one need not claim to be either an "individual" or
"holist." Revised Methodological Individualism can
abandon this distinction in favor of a more reasonable
stand. In this form Methodological Individualism can
attack what is common to all opponents of Methodological
Individualism, that is, their affirmation of unavoidable
Irreducible Social Laws.

Third, this formulation of Methodological Indi-
vidualism also offers two modes of dealing with supposed
Irreducible Social Laws. The first strategy Krimerman

calls individualization. This move is simply the indi-

 

vidual factorization of purported irreducible social
uniformities. Even in the face of such pervasive uni-
formities as the "incest taboo" it is demonstrable that
this socio-cultural variable did not prevent persons in
courses of action in contradiction of the purported cul-
tural uniformity; or, even in cases where no objective
action in contradiction of the purported uniformity can
be found, it may be demonstratable how men could have
escaped this social uniformity. Thus, the regularity is
granted, but its unavoidability is brought to question,
the uniformity is not irreducible and therefore has no

claim against Methodological Individualism. The second

62

strategy Krimerman calls de-empiricizing. This move is

 

essentially a strategy for revealing purported irreducible
uniformities which are merely analytic. For example, if
a man is a professional murderer, he must at least have
committed one socially non-sanctioned killing, and must
have attempted killings when he has the opportunity. It
simply makes no sense to call a man a murderer if he has
not been engaged in socially non-sanctioned killings.
Thus, the purported irreducible social uniformity is
strictly conceptual.

And this sense of "determine," as we have seen,

does not imply that any state of affairs is

unattainable by human effort. It does not serve

to express a lawful and unavoidable connection

between logically distinct classes of events,

but merely announces an explication of meaning

carried by the antecedent concept. As such,

propositions expressing this sense of "deter-

mined" pose no threat to MI.

The preceding explanation seems to save Methodo-
logical Individualism from vacuity. It also, I believe,
offers a way to account for historical change, and indi-
vidual undetermined action, without reliance upon the
covering law model. It should be evident at this point
that the covering law model is incapable of explaining
purposive individual behavior (see Chapter II); and that

Malcolm's formal demonstration of purposive human behavior

is incompatible with causal (covering law) explanations of

 

33Krimerman, p. 599.

63

behavior and is strong enough to reject such explanations
at least in the case of purposive behavior. Second, it
should be evident that Malcolm's demonstration of pur-
posive human behavior is compatible with Methodological
Individualism, and provides an empirical basis which at
least parallels Krimerman's logical argument for Methodo-
logical Individualism.

In the light of the preceding analysis it would
seem there are good reasons for assuming that both
standard objections to Methodological Individualism have
been dissolved, and it is appropriate to assume that
Methodological Individualism is the most adequate theo-
retical stance for the social sciences--at least at the
moment. Inasmuch as there seems no insuperable problems
in knowing (mediations: concepts, beliefs, rules) which
would epistemologically exclude Methodological Individual-

ism as an acceptable paradigm candidate.

CHAPTER IV

EDUCATION, SCHOOLING AND METHODOLOGICAL

INDIVIDUALISM

As Thomas Kuhn noted,the adoption of alternative
paradigms is a revolutionary not a systematic process.
In many cases the balance between argument and counter
argument is small, and the balance, even in the area of
crisis, will many times fall in favor of tradition--often
convincingly so. If a new candidate paradigm is judged
solely upon problem-solving ability, by hard headed men,
very few paradigms would ever be replaced.

The man who embraces a new paradigm at an early
stage must often do so in defiance of the evi—
dence provided by problem-solving. He must,
that is, have faith that the new paradigm will
succeed with the many large problems that con-
front it, knowing only that the older paradigm
has failed with a few. A decision of that kind
can only be made on faith.

That is one of the reasons why prior crisis
proves so important. Scientists who have not
experienced it will seldom renounce the hard
evidence of problem-solving to follow what may
easily prove and will be widely regarded as a
will-o'-the-wisp. But crisis alone is not
enough. There must also be a basis, though if
need be neither rational nor ultimately cor-
rect, for faith in the particular candidate
chosen. Something must make at least a few
scientists feel that the new proposal is on

64

65

the right track, and sometimes it is only per-

sonal and inarticulate aesthetic considerations

that can do that.1

As Kuhn stated there must be something that
allows one to assume that the new proposal is on the right
track (hopefully some of these considerations have been
made evident in Chapters I, II, and III). But, on the
other hand, Kuhn notes a conclusive proof of the new
proposal in many cases cannot be provided. Such is still
the case with Methodological Individualism. In other
words Chapter I can only evidence the felt crisis in
progress, Chapter II can only demonstrate problems with
the covering-law model, and Chapter III can only point
out that there are no insuperable logical or epistemologi-
cal problems with Methodological Individualism as theory.
The ultimate correctness of Methodological Individualism
as theoretical system will and can only be resolved by
further attempts to articulate Methodological Individual-
ism to brute events. The issue of paradigm adoption can
only be decided by the success of Methodological Indi-
vidualism with the large problems that confront it.
Nevertheless, it is possible at this time to dis-

play the more important apparent implications (in the weak
sense of implicate) of Methodological Individualism for

educational theory--if not for practice per se. The

 

lKuhn, p. 158.

66

former is a "meta" consideration which is subject to the
penetration of philosophical analysis. The latter is a
matter of positive theory which is only subject to the
empirical analysis upon the basis of consequents; which,
obviously, there is no basis for here. That is, the
consideration here concerns the implications of Metho-
dological Individualism for the adequacy of educational
explanation, not the production of substantive explana-
tions of educational events. Considerations that follow
pertain strictly to the implications for theory and ade-
quacy of explanation.

The first implication of Methodological Indi-
vidualism is in exposing the assumption made by con-
temporary educators that all explanation conforms to the
covering law model. That is, their mistake was in assum-
ing all important explanation has predictive ability.
Scriven points out there are perfectly satisfactory
explanations which have little or no predictive ability.
Historical explanations, for example, are not subject to
reasonable doubt and yet, historians cannot deduce
general laws nor make predictive statements from their
findings. Scriven points out another interesting case
in that even in the physical sciences there are cases of
highly validated covering law type explanations from
which predictions cannot be generated at the present

time. Covering law explanations about sun Spots,

67

earthquakes, floods to name but a few do not allow specific
prediction of their occurrence.2 (This example seems a

bit overstated in that at least in principle the Sun

spots, etc. could be predicted. The point Scriven seems

to be striving to make is that even in the physical
sciences predictive ability is not the unique criterion

of hypothesis acceptance.)

The educational significance of this obsessive
concentration, by educators, upon a search for explana-
tions with predictive ability has led to tunnel-vision
understanding of educational phenomena.

The attempt to attain formal, non-intentional,
predictive rules governing educational phenomenon, has
ruled out, by definition, large areas of experimental
practitioner "knowns." The covering law model purges as
irrelevant many non-predictive yet valid explanations.

In thus doing the experiential command, that comes with
contextual knowledge; through acquisition by conse-
quentially antecedent events, is largely denied cognitive
significance through the use of various devices--usually
the application of various epithets such as: subjective,
N of l, lacks predictive ability and the like to various

experiential "knowns"--then operationally exorcising them.

 

2Michael Scriven, "Truisms as the Grounds of His-
torical Explanations," in Theories of History, ed. by
Patrick Gardener (New York: The Macmillian Company,
1969), PP. 443—471.

 

68

The implication of Methodological Individualism
is to point out that it is precisely the experiential
knowledge he or she as a teacher has gained (awareness
of the important and often used mediations of "X") that
allows the teacher to succeed in the process of schooling.
It is here that the often invoked: "know your students,"
"know the community," "know where your students 'are at,'"
"get a feel for the situation" and "be relevant" acquire
significant, non-trivial meaning. At this point some
sense can be made out of the demand of, "Black teachers
for Black children." It is not a trivial demand. It
would seem, within the perview of the Hypothetical-
deductive model, that what is needed, is not teachers

Black and White or Yellow, but good teachers i.e. pro-

 

fessionals who know, and can put into practice the uni-
versal rules of schooling. The demand for Black or Yellow
seems absurd. And in a racial sense it is absurd on one
hand and disgusting on the other. But, in the sense that

Black teachers are language experts in a language Whites

 

have been historically and systematically excluded from
[which is not conversely true for "educated" Blacks, who
are carefully trained in the larger community's language
(mediations)], such teachers are better equipped to "know"
and therein motivate, be relevant and succeed with such

populations.

69

This seems an adequate leaving point for a short
aside. If Methodological Individualism is correct then
many of the purported Hypothetical-deductive principles
passed on in institutions of teacher education are fairly
uselsss. Probably the most blatant example is the attempt
of behavioral psychologists to develop universal principles

of motivation. If Methodological Individualism is correct,

 

motivation and its sister consideration, relevance, is
dependent upon the mediational configuration held by the
client. That is why Bach is relevant to one and the Moody
Blues to another, that is why Op Art stimulates one and not

another, that is why no one stimulus represents a positive

 

or negative reward to all persons (an error of behaviorism).

 

In other words, one of the implications of Methodological
Individualism for education is the importance of particular
knowings; that is the importance of knowing's individual
students and individual classrooms and particular edu-
cational contexts--as a necessary though not sufficient
condition for success in schooling. The previous material
would seem to be significant reason for the expansion of
Intern programs, and early implementation of claserOm
practice in teacher education. The concentration of con-
temporary teacher education programs on "schooling-in-
general" would seem to be in error.

Second, if Methodological Individualism is a more

adequate theoretical position for education, then it would

7O

seem certain ethical (normative) considerations follow.
Probably the most significant for education is the implicit
justification of educational practice in the revelation of
"how things are" inherent in covering law model explana-
tions. As Methodological Individualism unfolds it becomes
apparent that the self evident justification of "how things
are" is closer to intimidation than justification. As
Roszak notes about covering law type justification:

If we probe the technocracy in search of the
peculiar power it holds over us, we arrive at the
myth of objective consciousness . . . cleansed of
all subjective distortion, all personal involve-
ment. What flows from this state of consciousness
qualifies as knowledge, and nothing else does.
This is the bedrock on which the natural sciences
have built; and under their spell all fields of
knowledge strive to become scientific. The study
of man in his social, political, economic,
psychological, historical aspects—-all this, too,
must become objective: rigorously, painstakingly
objective. At every level of human experience,
would-be scientists come forward to endorse the
myth of objective consciousness, thus certifying
themselves as experts. And because they know and
we do not, we yield to their guidance.

In more technical terms, if Methodological Indi-
vidualism is the correct posture for education, the self
evident justification of "how things are" cannot be main-
tained; that is, Nagel's distinction between 'characteriz-

ing' and 'appraising' value judgments4 cannot be

 

3Theodore Roszak, The Making of a Counter Culture:
Reflections on the Technocratic Society and Its Youthful
Opposition (Garden City: Doubleday and Company, Inc.,
1969), pp. 208-209.

4Ernest Nagel, The Structure of Scieng§_(New York:
Harcourt Brace and World, Inc., 1961), pp. 485-502.

 

 

71

maintained as a mode of objective justification. Nagel
claims 'characterizing' judgments may be dealt with some—
.what in the same manner as critical synthetic defini—
tions. That is the definition of "such and such" may in
the first instance be an arbitrary judgment; nevertheless,
Nagel maintains, factual judgments can be evaluated free
from value/subjective/appraising terms subject only to
the canons of objective verification based upon statisti-
cal and logical rules of inference. Therefore, although
'appraising' judgments exist in the human condition there
is no need for them and their existence need not affect
the possibility of an objective social science. For
example, in the case of "idiot savant," the existence

of this condition in an individual can be confirmed (or
disconfirmed) on the basis of behavioral correspondence
between a set of categories which identify the "idiot
savant event" and the behavior of the subject, relative
only to the canons of objective verification.

The distinction seems suspect. Nagel claims
'appraising' judgments are not necessary condition for
making 'characterizing' judgments. Such seems highly
unlikely. If Nagel's position were to hold, terms such
as "idiot" and "savant" would have to be purely analytic—-
to eliminate appraising judgments as a necessary condi-
tion for making characterizing judgments. Immediately

it should be recognized that terms such as "idiot" and

72

"savant" are synthetic. An inseparable and intrinsic part
of the meaning of the terms "idiot" and "savant" are their
normative components. Such terms are not merely normed
they are commendatory, normative, in the sense of a recom-
mendation of approval or disapproval is inherent in the
brute meaning of each term. The term "idiot" for example
is a classification of I.Q. at a statistically significant
variance from human beings in "normal" condition. Normal
is a quasi-primitive term which functions as an apprais-
ing term which is a necessary condition for making 'char-
acterizing' judgments.

In other words the justification of "how things
are" seems to depend on the prior goals and values of
human purpose. It is important to recognize that the
objective mode of justification is an empty form of a
previous time, that will not serve ourselves or education
well. Educational actions cannot be justified on the
basis of "how things are" alone. They can be justified
in relation to human purposes and goals.

Rationality then if Methodological Individualism
is correct is the characteristic way humans deal with the
world. Wilson notes:

'Why?'--questions about human action normally
expect an answer of the second type: that is,

73

some explanations or justification in terms of the
agents' intentions, aims, purposes or reasons.5

In this sense there is an incipient morality in rationality.
Dewey is quite correct when he notes:

An individual usually acquires the morality as
he inherits the Speech of his social group.

The symbolic universe is the level of justification. It
represents a totality of meaning which encompasses the
area of both "fact" and "value" and holds them both in a
natural synthesis.

(P)hilosophy has no private score of knowledge
or methods for attaining truth, so it has no
private access to good. As it accepts knowledge
of facts and principles from those competent in
inquiry and discovery, so it accepts the goods
that are diffused in human experience. It has
no Moasic nor Pauline authority of revolution
entrusted to it. But it has the authority of
intelligence, of criticism of these common and
natural goals.7

Within this context men judge and make judgments.

Judgments about values are judgments about con-
ditions and the results of experienced objects;
judgments about that which should regulate the
formation of our desires, affections and enjoy-
ments.8

 

5John Wilson, Norman Williams, and Barry Sugarman,
Introduction to Moral Education(Great Britain: C. Nichols
& Company, Ltd., 1967), p. 49.

6John Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct: An Intro-
duction to Social Psychology (New York: Random House,
Inc., 1922), p. 55}

7John Dewey, Experience and Nature (New York:
Dover Publications Inc., 1958), p.7408.

8John Dewey, The Quest for Certainty: A Study of
the Relation of Knowledge and Action (New York: G. P.
Putnam's Sons, 1960), p. 265.

 

 

 

 

 

 

74

These judgments are not merely de facto but de jure in
the sense of being the results of critical reflection upon
the goods found in experience and in brute personal knowl-
edge.

Values (to sum up) may be connected inherently

with liking, and yet not with every liking but

only with those that judgment has approved,

after examination of the relation upon which

the object liked depends. A casual liking is

one that happens without knowledge of how it

occurs nor to what effect. The difference

between it and one which is sought because of

a judgment that it is worth having and is to

be striven for, makes just the difference

between enjoyments which are accidental and

enjoyments that have value and hence a claim

upon our attitude and conduct.
The problem of value is one of finding authority for the
regulation of educational conduct, the problem is to find
an authorized principle stable enough to give direction
to the process of education and flexible enough to meet
the problems of education.

If Methodological Individualism is correct and
human action is explicable in terms of the mediations held
by individuals, then the concern of ethics is the exami-
nation of the mediations (reasons) which direct human
behavior. In the sense that the phenomena of education

are explicable in the action of persons--to that degree

ethics must play the same role in it (education)

 

9Dewey, The Quest for Certainty, p. 264.

 

75

as it does in individual action. And these are matters
we must attend to!

Why employ language, cultivate literature, acquire
and develop science, sustain industry, and submit
to the refinement of art? To ask these questions
is equivalent to asking: Why live? And the only
answer is that if one is going to live one must
live a life of which these things form the sub-
stance. The only question having sense which can
be asked is how we are going to use and be used
by these thifigg, not whether we are going to use
them. Reason, moral principles, cannot in any
case be shoved behind these affairs, for reason
and morality grow out of them. But they have
grown into them as well as out of them. They

are there as part of them. No one can escape
them if he wants to. He cannot escape the
problem of how to engage in life, since in the
case he musE—Engage in it in some way or other--
or else quit and get out. In short the choice

is not between a moral authority outside custom
and one within it. It is between adopting more
or less intelligent and significant customs.

To be perfectly clear, lest the position advanced
here be constructed as the flaming conservatism of a
Cadillac liberal, it is not being said that the condition
of those judged inferior is a matter merely of the media-
tions they hold i.e., it is their choice to be poor,
dirty, etc. Such would be the grossest naiveté. Methodo-
logical Individualism does not deny cultural forces (see
Chapter III). In certain cases men may be swept under
despite their best personal efforts to avoid the given
situation. The thrust of Methodological Individualism

is to point out that such culture forces are not

 

10Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct, p. 75.

 

76

Irreducible Social Law, are not the inevitable warp and
woof of the universe but the avoidable results of the
action in the world of men. Methodological Individualism
as a theoretical system is certainly not so naive as to
fail to recognize that some situations take more than the
strength and resources of one man to rectify. The question
Methodological Individualism puts to the institution of
education (perceived as the concerted purposive action of
men) is in what sense does participation in the schooling
process, in concrete ways, facilitate the ability of each
participant to intelligently alter the conditions of his
existence and how can it contribute to the alteration of
blocking conditions that one man cannot alter.
Methodological Individualism has many other inter-
esting implications, one of those implications being for
schooling. The implication for schooling begins with
Methodological Individualism's overwhelming concern with
language, and the use of language in directing life, and
human behavior in particular. If Methodological Individual-
ism is correct in that social action can be understood in
terms of the purposeful (mediated conceptually directed via
linguistic terms) then it would seem correct to conceptual-
ize schooling as an introduction to the language games avail-
able to communities of persons. In other words in a non-

trivial sense schooling is: an introduction to the language.

 

This certainly does not imply anything as trivial as

77

reducing education to the study of grammar on one hand,
and the study of classical English literature on the
other. That is, schooling is an introduction to the
several language games available to the adult community,
in the sense that language (mediations) are the phenome-
non, which for each individual as he develops a command
of it, orders the "blooming, buzzing, mass" before his
senses and provides the basis for his or her action in
the world. It is the recognition that the language of
chess is one game, the language of ethics another, the
language of engineering another and the language of
football etc. are differing language games the intro-
duction to which substantially, significantly and non-
trivially alters the reality of the initiate. It is the
qualitative mastery of a particular language which dis-
tinguishes the Master from the novice. Each term of the
language has an ontological effect or affect. It is this
differing command of individual languages along the axis
of quantitative and qualitative extension which discrimi—
nates between the schooled and unschooled. Language has
a conceptual component and an objectified status in the
world which may be separable for purposes of discussion
but is inseparable in terms of meaning. In this sense

Wittgenstein is quite correct when he noted:

 

 

78

The grammar of the word "knows" is evidently
closely related to that of "can", "is able to".
But also closely related to that of "under-
stands". ('Mastery' of a technique,)

The significance of this concept of language is
(l) the implied desirability of the mastery of many
languages, i.e., the expansion of the schooling curriculum
to the broadest possible state, and (2) this concept of
language should point out the importance of "doing" (the
mastery of both conceptual and praxis-execution axes) as
a prerequisite for mastery. The contemporary emphasis
upon book learning outside of praxis fares poorly within
this concept of language.

The remaining important consideration of Methodo-
logical Individualism is its account of educational change
without the use of Irreducible Social Laws--and the impli-
cations of that account. Methodological Individualism
conceptualizes education as an objectified language game.
Nevertheless, no language is without problems--the language
of education being no exception.

The symbolic universe is conceived of as a

matrix of all socially objectivated and sub-
jectively real meanings; the entire historic
society and the entire biography of the indi-

vidual are seen as events taking place within
this universe. . . .

 

llWittgenstein, Investigations, SO.

 

12Berger and Luckman, p. 96.

79

But,

Because of the inevitable tensions of the
institutionalization, and by the very fact
that all social phenomena are constructions
produced historically through human activity,
no society is totally taken for granted and
so a fortiori, is no symbolic universe.

Every symbolic universe is incipiently prob-
lematic. . . . This intrinsic problem becomes
accentuated if deviant versions of the sym-
bolic universe come to be shared by groups of
"inhabitants". In that case, for reasons
evident in the nature of objectivation, the
deviant version congeals into a reality in its
own right, which, by its existence within the
society, challenges the reality status of the
symbolic universe as originally constituted.
The group that has objectivated this deviant
reality becomes a carrier of an alternative
definition of reality.13

The important problems that educators are facing
are a result of the perhaps unconscious attempt to close
the universe of educational discourse through the dis-
covery of scientific (hypothetical-deductive) truths
beyond which there can be no appeal. The functiOnal
result was a myopic concentration upon the search for
Irreducible Social Laws to the exclusion of other reali-
ties, and has ignored the contradictions between ideo-
logical systems, until they (the educators) were squarely
faced with what Marcuse calls the "Great Refusal" and
Roszak finds in the "Invasion of Centaurs," objectiviations
such as these will not yield to behavioral objectives,

liberal dress codes, long playing records, paperback books,

 

13Berger and Luckman, pp. 106-107.

80

and the aboliShment of teacher brutality. These problems
of education stand as a rejection of the "end of ideology."
Educational problems are a rejection of a one dimensional
technological scientific mode of thought and behavior:

in which ideas, aspirations, and objectives
that, by their content, transcend the estab-
lished universe of discourse and action are
either repelled or reduced to the terms of
this universe. They are redefined by the
rationality of the given system and of its
qualitative extension.

Karl Mannheim notes in agreement:

If the problem of the nature of reality were a
mere speculative product of the imagination,

we could easily ignore it. But as we proceed,
it becomes more and more evident that it is
precisely the multiplicity of the concepts of
reality which produces the multiplicity of our
modes of thought, and that every ontological
judgment that we make leads inevitably to far-
reaching consequences. If we examine the many
types of ontological judgments with which dif-
ferent groups confront us, we begin to suspect
that each group seems to move in a separate and
distinct world of ideas and that these different
systems of thought, which are often in conflict
with one another, may in the last analysis be
reduced to different modes of experiencing the
"same" reality.15

Itshould be recognized at this point that Educa-
tion as an entity does not exist as an Irreducible Social
Fact. It exists, but it exists in many distinct worlds

of ideas, held by individuals and groups of persons; often

 

l4Herbert Marcuse, One Dimensional Man: Studies
in the Ideology of Advanced Industriai Society (Boston:
Beacon Press, 1968), p. 12.

15Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia: An Intro-
duction to the Sociology of Knowledge (New York: Harcourt,
Brace and World Inc., 1936), pp. 98-99.

 

 

81

in conflict with one another. That is, it exists as pur-
poseful activity of human beings (a Methodologically
Individual function). It may be necessary to Speak of
"education" as an Irreducible Social Fact--but it should
be recognized this manner of speaking is a heuristic
device. We must not be confused by the similarities of
surface grammar between descriptive statements such as,
"This is a room," and "That is an education." We must be
careful and recognize the differences in the language
game.

As an intentional activity education is ideologi-
cal. It (education) is subject to the distortions, of
subjective meaning structures--mediations, concepts--
held by individuals. Participants in the educational
process, both practitioner and client, have pre-selected
and pre-interpreted this world (of education) they exper-
ience as reality, through the common sense meaning struc-
tures (mediations) constructed by men living their daily
lives.

To quote Mannheim:

It may well be that our intellectualism will
repeatedly stimulate in us the longing for a
point of View beyond time and history--for a
"consciousness as such" out of which there
arise insights independent of particular per-
spectives, and capable of formulation into
general laws which are eternally valid. But
this objective cannot be attained without

doing violence to the subject matter. If we
seek a science of that which is in process of

82

becoming, of practice and for practice, we can
realize it only by discovering a new framework
in which this kind of knowledge can find ade-
quate expression.l6

As long as human action is explicable in terms of
purpose and goals and it is recognized that reality is
filtered through mediational glasses--education will
inevitably be steeped in ideology. The possibility of
finding a politically neutral understanding of education
is clearly impossible. It has been the closing of the
two dimensional universe that has led to problems in edu-
cational understanding; the liquidation of two-dimensional
educational thought through the mechanisms of scientific
objectification, has served to blind educators by covering
significant differences with the blanket of objectivity,
validity and universalism, until the educational situation
is out of hand as in New York.

(T)he New York City Board of Education is a prime
example of the short-range oriented, reactive,
fire-fighting organization, and this acts to pre-
clude the central board and superintendent from
playing an effective role in managing future
changes. The board's reactive, non-planning
posture is illustrated by a number of delaying
and temporizing strategies, including: lengthy
public hearings, often held before shaping a
public position; studies and committees that
sometimes simply hash over old studies, or often
see any innovative plans diluted or discarded;
hiring outside "experts" and "consultants" who
develop innovative plans that are not used;
insulation behind a wall of "technical" argu-
ments as to why innovations are not feasible;
trying a few local experiments when political
pressures for innovation mount, rather than the

 

l6Mannheim, p. 171.

 

 

83

city wide innovations that are needed; diffusing
authority for formulating and monitoring the
implementation of new programs across so many
units within the institution that it is impos-
sible to pinpoint responsibility for success or
failure.1

It is only through the recognition of the two dimensional
ideological nature of thought that education can be
brought under control. This is not a return to ideology,
it is not an end of ideology (ala Daniel Bell)--it is a
recognition of the ideological function of positivistic
educational thought, a recognition of its political
function and a negation of the human reduction which is
the functional result of the positivist language game.
The study of education:

With the aid of a consistently elaborated analy-
sis of the perspective, particularization acquires
a guiding instrument and a set of criteria for
treating problems of imputation. The range and
degree of comprehension of each of these several
points of View becomes measurable and delimitable
through their categorical apparatus and the
variety of meanings which each presents. The
orientation towards certain meanings and values
which inheres in a given social position (the
outlook and attitude conditioned by the collec-
tive purposes of the group), and the concrete
reasons for the different perspectives which the
same situation presents to the different posi-
tions in it thus become even more determinable,
intelligible and subject to methodological
study. . . .i8

What would be desirable at this point would be an

agenda for future research. But such would represent

 

17ROgers, pp. 396-397.

laMannheim, pp. 284-285.

84

little more than an exercise in futility. It may well be
that it would be desirable to know "the“ categories of
relevant knowledge which would illuminate the process of
education and which would be eternally valid. This objec-
tive could not, and cannot be achieved without doing
violence to history. That which will be important for the
illumination of education cannot be beyond time and
history, and independent of particular perspectives.

All that can be specified at this moment are the
requirements for future research, which are: (l) the
abandonment of Irreducible Social Laws in the explanation
of purposive human action, and (2) the adoption of explana—
tion within the perspective given by the context of a
particular culture through direct participant observation.

In essence then, Methodological Individualism as
a qualitative methodology enjoins social scientists, and
in this case educators in particular, to construct
expalnations which reflect and respect the integrity of
the real world and the perspective of the subjects under
investigation. Methodological Individualism as

Qualitative methodology refers to those research
strategies such as participant observation, in-
depth interviewing, total participation in the
activity being investigated, field work, etc.,
which allow the researcher to obtain firsthand
knowledge about the empirical social world in
question. Qualitative methodology allows the
researcher to "get close to the data," thereby

developing the analytical, conceptual, and cate-
gorical components of explanation from the data

85

itself-~rather than from the preconceived,
ridigly structured, and highly quantified tech-
niques that pigeonhole the empirical social
world into the Operational definitions that the
researcher has constructed.

The direct examination of the empirical
social world embodies a comprehensive analyti-
cal, descriptive, and in-depth analysis of the
data. The fabricated models of human behavior
employing the lock-step research design of
data collection, which are pervasive and deeply
entrenched among sociologists, prevent such
in-depth analysis. Validity becomes a serious
problem in scientific research when a priori
assumptions and artificial schemes of explana-
tion are imposed upon social reality.19

Methodological Individualism as a system of investi-
gation would allow for consideration of the complex matrix
of purposive human behavior that has been ignored on the
grounds of scientific objectivity; thus, allowing for the
possibility of closing the gap between present theoretical
structures and the apparent truculent refusal of persons
to fit within the expectations engendered by contemporary

social theory.

 

19William J. Filstead, Qualitative Methodology:
Firsthand Involvement with the Social World YChiEago:
Markham PubliShing Company, 1970i, p. 6.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

86

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Chapter I

 

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Clark, Kenneth B. Dark Ghetto: Dilemmas of Social Power.
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Deutscher, Irwin. "Words and Deeds: Social Science and
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Frankena, William K. Philosophyyof Education. New York:
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Goodman, Paul. New Reformation: Notes of a Neolithic
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Harris, James Braxton. "Meaning and Pertinence of Edu-
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Jensen, Arthur R. "How Much Can We Boost I.Q. and
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Kimball, Roland B. "Educational Philosophy and Behavioral
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Kozol, Jonathan. Death at an Early Age: The Destruction
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Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
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Leonard, George B. Education and Ecstasy. New York:
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87

 

88

Lyon, Harold C., Jr. Learning to Feel-~Feelingyto Learn:
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Malinowski, Bronislaw. "Role of Magic and Religion."
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Mannheim, Karl. Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to
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Marcuse, Herbert. One Dimensional Man: Studies in the
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Maslow, Abraham H. Toward a Psychology of Being. 2nd ed.
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Nietzsche, F. Beyond Good and Evil. Modern Library,
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Robarts, James R. "Quest for a Science of Education in
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Rogers, David. 110 Livingston Street: Politics and
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Rosenthal, Robert, and Jacobson, Lenore F. "Teacher
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Roszak,Theodore. The Making of a Counter Culture:
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Silberman, Charles E. Crisis in the Classroom: The
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Skinner, B. F. Walden Two. New York: The Macmillan
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The Editors of the Teachers College Record (1960-1966),
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. Do Teachers Make a Difference. U. S. Depart-
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Chapter II

 

Hempel, Carl. "Reasons and Covering Laws in Historical
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Hempel, Carl, and Oppenheim, Paul. "Studies in the Logic
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Kendler, Howard H., and D'Amato, May F. "A Comparison
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Malcolm, Norman. "The Conceivability of Mechanism."

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O'Connor, D. J. An Introduction to the Philosophy of
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90

Peters, R. S., and Tajfel, H. "Hobbes and Hull--
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Ryan, Alan. The Philosophy of the Social Sciences.
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Ryle, Gilbert. The Concept of Mind. London, England:
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Scheffler, Israel. Science and Subjectivity. Indiana-
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Skinner, B. F. Science and Human Behavior. New York:
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Winch, Peter. The Idea of a Social Science and Its
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Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations.
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Chapter III

 

Alston, William P. Philosophy of Language. Englewood
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Albritton, Rogers. "On Wittgenstein's Use of the Term
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Berger, Peter L., and Luckmann, Thomas. The Social Con-
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Sociology of Knowledge. Garden City: Doubleday
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Cook, John. "Wittgenstein on Privacy." Wittgenstein:
The Philosophical Investigations. Edited by
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Donagan, Alan. "Wittgenstein on Sensation." Wittgenstein:
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91

Feigl, Herbert. The "Mental" and the "Physical."
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Hallett, Garth S.J. Wittgenstein's Definition of Mean-
ing as Use. New York: Fordham UniversiEy Press,
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Hamlyn, D. W. The Theory of Knowledge. New York:
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Kenney, Anthony. "Criterion." Encyclopedia of
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Krimerman, Leonard I., ed. The Nature and Scope of
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Malcolm, Norman. "Knowledge of Other Minds." Witt en-
stein: The Philosophical Investigations. Edited
by George Pitcher. Garden City: Doubleday &
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. "Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations."
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Rollins, C. D., ed. Knowledge and Experience. Pittsburgh:
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Schutz, Alfred. "On Multiple Realities." Collected
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Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations.
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. On Certainty. Translated by Dennis Paul and
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92

Chapter IV

 

Berger, Peter, and Luckman, Thomas. The Social Construc-
tion of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of
Knowledge. Garden City: Doubleday & Company,
Inc.,il966.

 

 

 

Dewey, John. Experience and Nature. New York: Dover
Publications Inc., 1958.

 

. Human Nature and Conduct: An Introduction to
Social Psychology. New York: Random House, Inc.,
1957.

 

 

. The Quest for Certainiy: A Study of the Rela-
tion of Knowledge and Action. New York: G. P.
PutnamTE’Sons, 1960.

 

 

Filstead, William J. Qualitative Methodology: Firsthand
Involvement with the Social World. ChiEago:
Markham PuBIIShing Company, 1970.

 

 

Kuhn, Thomas. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
2d ed. Chicago: University of ChiEago Press, 1970.

 

Mannheim, Karl. Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to
the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Harcourt,
Brace andiWorld Inc., i936.

 

 

Marcuse, Herbert. One Dimensional Man: Studies in the
Ideology of Advanced Industrial Sociepy. Boston:
Beacon Press, 1968.

 

 

Nagel, Ernest. The Structure of Science. New York:
Harcourt, Brace and World Inc., 1961.

 

Rogers, David. 110 Livingston Street: Politics and
Bureaucracy in the New York CityiSchool System.
New York: Random House, 1969.

 

 

Roszak, Theodore. The Making of a Counter Culture:
Reflections on the Technocratic Societyiand Its
Youthful Opposition. Garden City: Doubleday and
Company, Inc., 1969.

 

 

 

Scriven, Michael. "Truisms as the Grounds of Historical
Explanations." Theories of History. Edited by
Patrick Gardener. New York: The Macmillan
Company, 1959.

 

 

 

93

Wilson, John; Williams, Norman; and Sugarman, Barry.
Introduction to Moral Education. Great Britain:
C. Nichols & Company Ltd., 1967}

 

Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations.
Translated by G.E.M. Anscombe. New York: The
Macmillian Company, 1969.

 

 

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