Abstract
This book explores the concept of criticality. What do we mean by criticality? How do we use it? And how can we connect the concept with making the world a better place? It also introduces a new philosophical field ‘criticality scholarship’ which is underlined by the notion of human flourishing. How can we live an examined life? How can we be meaningful participants in society? And how can we act in the world as socially transforming agents? In the book I traverse some of the critical traditions that inform the idea of criticality as well as the works of Paulo Freire and Ludwig Wittgenstein. I advance my own political and philosophical endeavours by linking criticality with democracy and social justice. Criticality scholarship, however, allows for different paths to be walked. Also, I reflect on the critical being and a critical education.
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Notes
- 1.
I take Michael Apple’s point that democracy is becoming more of an economic concept rather than a purely political one. He writes: ‘Collective senses of freedom that were once more widespread (although we have to be careful of not romanticizing this) have been largely replaced by individualistic notions of democracy as simply consumer choice’ (Apple 2019: 184; and see 203).
- 2.
And with this recognition comes the ethical obligation to question the extent to which any particular conception is in fact just.
- 3.
Conflicting philosophies will arise given the different assumptions, beliefs and values we all hold. The movements of critical theory, informal logic, race theory, feminisms, queer theory, Marxist theory and Global South discourses as well as Indigenous ways of knowing, to name but a few, will need to be acknowledged and negotiated.
- 4.
In his discussion of how we express observational knowledge, Wilfrid Sellars makes the case that when Jones says, ‘This is green’, this act presupposes that Jones ‘knows general facts of the form X is a reliable symptom of Y’ (Id. 75). Sellars continues, ‘utterances of “This is green” are reliable indicators of the presence of green objects in standard conditions of perception’ (Id. 76–77). This is, in other words, an important part of the story about how we give reasons for our expressions, how we justify their use, within a community of speakers and listeners.
- 5.
Michael Apple’s Ideology and Curriculum presents an extensive account of the relationship between economic and cultural power in education. He, likewise, argues for a critical perspective that foregrounds emancipation (Apple 2019: 168–170).
- 6.
Michael Apple makes a related claim in the context of schooling in the United States. He argues that we have an ‘ethical duty’ to challenge the ‘ideological and valuative visions of what schools do and whom they should serve’ and that we should ‘defend a robust education that is based on human flourishing’ (Apple 2019: 236).
- 7.
Following convention, titles for Wittgenstein’s works are abbreviated (CV = Culture and Value, PG = Philosophical Grammar and PI = Philosophical Investigations), with section (§) or page number, and with the full citation and initials given in the References.
- 8.
‘The philosophers’, Marx maintains, ‘have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it’ (Marx and Engels 2010: 5).
- 9.
Here I am of course repositioning criticality such that I am narrowing its focus to trigger social and political change.
- 10.
See BIS (2016: 5, 43), DfE (2013: 176, 180, 188, 196, 2014: 15, 18, 69, 80–82, 88, 94, 101, 2021: 16, 2022: 16), EC (2016: 5, 2018: 35, 42–43, 52, 56–57, 2018: recitals 7 and 17 and the Annex), OECD (2005: 5, 8–9), Ofsted (2010: 14, paragraph 21; P21 2019: 4), QCA (1999: 11, 20–22, 2004: 11, 20–23, 2011: 1–2), REC (2013: 1), STA (2017: 25, 59), UNESCO (2010: 48, 50, 2016: 16, 44) and UNESCO-IICBA (2018).
- 11.
Here I acknowledge Stephen Brookfield’s successful endeavours in showing how such a task can be approached (See Brookfield 2012).
- 12.
A point well made by Martin Davies and Ronald Barnett (Davies and Barnett 2015: 15–16).
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Deegan, M.J. (2024). Perspectival Horizons. In: Reflections on Criticality in Educational Philosophy. Palgrave Studies in Educational Philosophy and Theory. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-57330-9_1
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