Abstract
This chapter aims to give an account of Aristotle’s theory of knowledge and to associate the version of the theory–practice relation that this account offers with work-based learning. To this end, a critical discussion of the reception of some Aristotelian ideas within the work-based learning context is followed by a deployment of Aristotelian ways of knowing and some comments on the subjectivity of the phronimos that can be cultivated in on-the-job and off-the-job settings. It is argued that a more comprehensive account of epistemology through gnoseology, one that acknowledges the relation of time and schooling, accommodates some WBL concerns and highlights the topicality and nuance of various modes of teaching and learning.
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- 1.
A similar tendency is noticeable in educational action research.
- 2.
For the significance of theory for work-based learning, see, for instance, Raelin (1997, p. 565).
- 3.
For a more thorough critique of Toulmin, see Eikeland (2008, p. 41). There, it is argued that ‘Toulmin seems to confuse phronesis’ with what Aristotle describes as deliberation (bouleusis), but phronesis includes more than mere deliberation.
- 4.
For more on this, see Kristjánsson (2005).
- 5.
My treatment of the two tendencies, the disparaging and the favourable, will be uneven here. I shall concentrate only on the disparaging tendency as I cannot do textual and argumentative justice to the other tendency now for reasons of space. But, I believe, the implications of my reading of Aristotle for the phronesis-praxis perspective can occur by association and be kept in view throughout this chapter.
- 6.
I believe that the reading of Greek antiquity by a thinker as important and influential as Dewey has, literally, had concatenated effects on the reception of Aristotelian thought in education. I say, ‘literally’ because it seems that this reading is relayed from one contemporary educational thinker to the other in a chain logic, very selectively and as an assertion in passing. Only few educationists have researched in Aristotle in ways that do not conform to the widely held depiction of Aristotle and of Greek antiquity more broadly.
- 7.
There is no space here for explaining why this dualism of mind and body (although Hager’s phrase ‘incidentally inhabit bodies’ is unclear as such) does not hold for Aristotle. Arguably, it could be attributed to some extent to the Stoics but in no way to Aristotle’s trichotomous ontology of the human being (soma, psyche, nous) and to the extremely complex relation of the three levels that speaks for the living body rather than for the body-machine ‘plus “soul” as separate and independent entities’ (Eikeland 2008, p. 93).
- 8.
This contrast of universality with particularity that entails a supposedly absolute prioritization of universal law/truth at the expense of any serious consideration of experience, the challenges it poses to generalization and its constant claiming of its due does not describe accurately Greek thought. For instance, Plato in the Statesman (294A-295E) and Aristotle in Nicomachean Ethics (EN1104a5) argue that no law could be specific, diversified and flexible enough to be fair to all individual cases, since nothing in human affairs is ever at rest. As Eikeland argues, ‘both Plato and Aristotle emphasize this’ (2008, p. 40). And intellectual virtues aim precisely at localizing truth and making it sensitive to context. That is, they are meant to deal with practical considerations.
- 9.
This is odd, to say the least, given that in Eudemian Ethics (1215a9), Aristotle claims that every inquiry (pasan skepsin) – including theoretical inquiries – should ultimately address the question of how it is possible to live virtuously and well (eu kai kalos zein) (see also, Eikeland 2008, p. 35). This falsifies not only the claim of the priority of contemplation over real-life concerns but also any related identification of Aristotelian eudaemonist utopianism with a kind of contemptus mundi, medieval quasi-utopianism of a celestial kingdom, a cosmos free from real-life interference.
- 10.
‘Hager and Beckett are at pains to dispel the myth that workplace learning is by definition some kind of inferior or applied learning, a second-order kind of activity in which prior skills are deployed in specific workplace situations. Indeed amongst the achievements of [Hager’s and Beckett’s] book is the authors’ determination to dignify everyday, on-the-job learning’ (O’Loughlin 2003, p. 113).
- 11.
As Beckett and Hager explain, they use ‘the term “front-end model” to refer to any instance of vocational preparation that is based on a period of formal education and/or training that needs to be completed by entrants to the occupation before they can be regarded as qualified workers. The formal education and/or training usually takes place in classrooms remote from the workplace’. And they emphasise that they call ‘this model “front-end” “because it implies that all of the learning that is needed for a lifetime of practice has been completed”’ (Beckett and Hager 2003, p. 126; Hager 2004, p. 523).
- 12.
Kristjánsson gives a very clear and accurate account of the main forms of knowledge, but my effort here has been to show that a broader gnoseology, one that, amongst other things, rehabilitates those which are not usually characterized as main forms, can help us disprove the claim that Aristotle’s notions of knowledge are impoverished. Here is Kristjánsson: ‘These three main forms are theoria (knowing) which is based on episteme (true knowledge as opposed to mere opinion) and issues in nous (understanding) or Sophia (pure contemplative wisdom); Techné (technical thinking) which is based on eidos (the idea of a plan or design) and issues in poiesis (making, production); and finally phronesis (prudence) which is based on the idea of eudaimonia (the specifically human good) and issues in praxis (action, practice). While the “good or bad state” of theoria consists simply in “being true or false” (Aristotle, [EN1139a]), the good or bad states of techné are worthy and worthless products, and those of phronesis wise and unwise actions’ (Kristjánsson 2005, p. 456).
- 13.
Passivity meets khresis in cases, for instance, when the other is treated as pliable object amenable to various uses or shaping. This point has not been discussed adequately, I believe, although it could produce interesting associations with biopower and biopolitics. In fact, Aristotle can be more profoundly discussed within contexts of work-based learning in ways that can, at least to some extent, meet or do justice to O’Loughlin’s related concerns. When commenting on Beckett and Hager’s book on WBL, O’Loughlin argues that it seems ‘that while practice is certainly regarded by Beckett and Hager as being constitutive of subjectivity, nonetheless, the biopolitical production of subjectivities through the institutionalised organisation of work and the work force today is, in my view, not sufficiently explored’ (O’Loughlin 2003, p. 115).
- 14.
Yet, I agree with Winch that ‘the whole issue of the mix between the work-based, simulation and theoretical aspects of vocational qualifications needs to be thought through. Doing so involves the government, employers, colleges and the Qualification and Curriculum Authority (QCA) working together to produce a vocational education scheme and a work-based qualification that combines practical experience with academic credibility’ (Winch and Clarke 2003, p. 247).
- 15.
Surely, this cannot be adequately discussed here. But, one benefit that I believe that can be gained from the above is that Aristotelian thought can be conducive to reconciliatory approaches rather than inimical to them. It can be compatible with both Hager’s plea for the integration of front-loaded and on-the-job training and Chris Winch’s (Hager’s opponent in the well-known debate) defence of the theory–practice distinction in some cases. Here is Winch: ‘There may be good reasons independent of a belief in dualism for cleaving to a theory-practice model in some circumstances’ (Winch 2003, p. 118). Such a reason is, for instance, that ‘in some workplaces, the application of theory to practice is vitally important, as is the deployment of occupational as opposed to job skill, the former relating to a broader contextual awareness of what is involved in a work process, including its social, political and moral dimensions’ (Winch 2003, p. 120). And here is Hager: ‘One outcome of considering how best to integrate front-loading with learning on the job might be to favour more sandwich-type course arrangements, where periods of “front-loaded” learning alternate with periods of workplace practice’ (Hager 2004, p. 531). I think that Aristotelian thought can be mediatory in this debate and it can combine both concerns, much against Hager’s own antipathy for what he sees as the Aristotelian connection of theory and practice and his outlook on phronesis as seamless know-how.
- 16.
From a very different perspective but in like manner, Hyland (1996, p. 170) argues that epistemological and ethical dimensions of professional theory and practice are indispensable to the continuous professionalism in education. For an association of these themes with Aristotelian phronesis from another perspective, see Gibbs et al. (2007).
- 17.
For an approach to the temporality of knowledge in Aristotle that tackles different issues from those discussed here, see Gibbs (2008, pp. 272–274).
- 18.
What I am saying here is obviously very different from what has been characterized as hot action. ‘“Hot” action in a profession refers to situations where the “pressure for action is immediate”’ (Hager 1998, p. 528). The urgency of action that I describe as a-scholia, occupation and break with leisurely reflection concerns all professions and any workplace and is not confined to situations, for example, such as a medical emergency or a fire. Thus, I do not share the view that the limits to reflection concern only hot action. I see the reflection I associate with schole (leisure) as a complementary and necessary companion to any a-scholia. And I take issue with another claim that Hager raises when associating limits to reflection with hot action. He writes ‘it is characteristic of “hot” action situations that there is no time for reflection, yet the practitioner usually “knows how to go on”. It is more a case here of “what practitioners find themselves doing”, something that would appear to be at least as affective and volitional as it is cognitive’ (ibid). Although I do not dispute that, seeing from a performative perspective, things might often be as felicitous as described, I cannot endorse the implication that can be drawn here that any pause for thought, outside the urgency of action, is expendable because all requirements (regarding a phronimos practitioner), affective, volitional, cognitive or other, are supposedly met within the context of work itself.
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Papastephanou, M. (2013). Aristotelian Gnoseology and Work-Based Learning. In: Gibbs, P. (eds) Learning, Work and Practice: New Understandings. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4759-3_8
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