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Exploring William James’s Radical Empiricism and Relational Ontologies for Alternative Possibilities in Education

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Abstract

In A Pluralistic Universe, James argues that the world we experience is more than we can describe. Our theories are incomplete, open, and imperfect. Concepts function to try to shape, organize, and describe this open, flowing universe, while the universe continually escapes beyond our artificial boundaries. For James and myself, the universe is unfinished, a “primal stuff” or “pure experience.” However, James starts with parts and moves to wholes, and I want to start from wholes and move to parts and back to wholes again. This is an issue between us I further consider, for while he describes himself as a radical empiricist, emphasizing the parts, my descriptions are in terms of w/holism. I use this opportunity to explore James’s contributions to my metaphor of “pure experience” as being like an infinite Ocean and the fishing nets we create represent our ontologies and epistemologies that help us catch up our experiences and give them meaning. I also make the case for why a better understanding of ontology matters for us as educators, using Maria Montessori’s curriculum and instruction design, Dinè Primary School, and Cajete’s theology of place and culturally based science as examples of relational fishing nets we could be using to teach our children.

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Notes

  1. This is one of many possible metaphors that are rich with possibility. Another is “the jewel net of Indra,” and infinite net that is stretched over the world. See Cook (1989).

  2. Thayer-Bacon (2003, 2008), key sources for me include, from Buddhism: Khema (1999), Loy (1988) and Williams (1989). From ecofeminism: Allen (1986), King (1989), Merchant (1980), Plumwood (1991) and Warren (1990).

  3. James (1976, 1996).

  4. James, A Pluralistic Universe, 253.

  5. Heidegger (2008).

  6. James, A Pluralistic Universe, 129, emphasis in original.

  7. Ibid., 45.

  8. I first came across that term (both/and logic) in feminist scholarship, although I recently found it used in Deleuze’s work. See Code (1993) and Deleuze (1994).

  9. James, A Pluralistic Universe, 66, emphasis in original.

  10. Ibid., 79, emphasis in original.

  11. Ibid., 217.

  12. Ibid., 218.

  13. Ibid., 235.

  14. Ibid., 253, emphasis in original.

  15. Ibid., 262, emphasis in original.

  16. Ibid., 263, emphasis in original.

  17. Ibid., 257.

  18. Merleau-Ponty (2011).

  19. James, A Pluralistic Universe, 280.

  20. Ibid., 319, emphasis in original.

  21. Ibid., 321–322, emphasis in original.

  22. See Relational “(e)pistemologies”, Chapters 5 and 6.

  23. Spring (2012) and Tozer et al. (2012).

  24. Montessori (1912), I have written extensively about Montessori and what Montessori schools are like in Democracies Always in the Making.

  25. See Thayer-Bacon (2008), Chapter Three. I use a pseudonym to refer to the school, as Diné Primary. Names are changes as well.

  26. Ibid., I have written about this experience in more detail on pp. 89–90.

  27. Between Sacred Mountains (1982).

  28. Cajete (1994, 2000), I use Cajete’s language in his description of “Indians.”

  29. Ibid., 68.

  30. Author, 259–260.

  31. Aronson (2014).

  32. Fine et al. (2007), Morris and Morris (2000), Valdès (1996) and Valenzuela (1999).

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  1. Cultural Studies of Education, Learning Environments and Educational Studies, University of Tennessee, 1126 Volunteer Blvd, Claxton-420, Knoxville, TN, 37996-3456, USA

    Barbara J. Thayer-Bacon

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Thayer-Bacon, B.J. Exploring William James’s Radical Empiricism and Relational Ontologies for Alternative Possibilities in Education. Stud Philos Educ 36, 299–314 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-016-9558-8

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