METAPHILOSOPHY Vol. 6, Nos. 3-4, July-October 1975

THE PHILOSOPHER AS TEACHER

INSTITUTIONAL OBSTACLES TO THE TEACHING OF PHILOSOPHY’

MCHAEL GOLDMAN

There have been any number of incisive analyses of the ways in which educational institutions in general and universities in particular manifest positions which are plausibly labelled “politi- cal”, even more plausibly labelled “moral”, and in any case are matters of some controversy. The sponsorship of programs de- signed to train and educate on one side of politically sensitive issues : ROTC programs, Asian studies programs, police train- ing, government research projects, have all been rightly criticized as being inconsistent with most of the ideals of the university as well as with standards of morally acceptable behavior. More significantly, the frequent absence of certain areas of possible concern, such as Black studies, women studies, peace studies, political economy, “revisionist” history, etc., have also been noted as contributing to a distortion of educational ideals. Vocationally oriented programs and departments have been criticized for training people for certain kinds of employment but not for other kinds: business schools thrive but there are no programs in “alternative life styles”, education schools are well supported but there is no training for teaching in “free schools”; home economics is taught, but there is no preparation for communal living, etc.

These criticisms may well be valid, but I want to insist that even should all of these deficiencies and imbalances be rectified, there will still be at least two ways in which educational institu- tions as we know them will manifest fundamental social, politi- cal, and moral values. The first of these will be recognized as itself a significant philosophical problem. I wish merely to point it out here, and will not pursue it. The second will be seen to seriously affect the way in which we teach philosophy.

1The considerations articulated in this paper, and many others like them, have been intensely discussed in and around the philosophy department of Miami Uni- versity for the past four years. If there are any valuable insights in this paper, they are the result of this collective activity.

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OBSTACLES TO TEACHING PHILOSOPHY 339 1. All universities and departments insist upon staff who are “professionally credentialed”. This hardly seems a commitment to a particular social or political value, but it almost always is. To become professionally credentialed in any area, it is necessary to have adopted criteria of professional relevance, standards of evidence, methodologies, and ways of conceptualizing reality. It is gradually becoming evident to philosophers in general and philosophers of science in particular, that these criteria embody in significant ways certain ideological commitments. The social sciences offer the clearest, although not the only, examples. By insisting, as they have for many years, that measurable para- meters are necessary for legitimate scientific study, the social scientists have effectively removed from consideration the Marx- ist theory of alienation, which is almost a purely qualitative (not quantitative) phenomenon. By defining, as Parsonian sociology does, all “non-conformity” as “deviance”, the social scientist adopts a single conceptual category for mass murderers, juvenile delinquents, freedom riders, homosexuals, etc. This renders plausible a certain uniform social response to these people. By defining “political behavior” in terms of voting frequency, cam- paigning activity, etc., they render i t conceptually impossible to consider the deep political significance of, say, the institution of the family. By denying the uniqueness of the human being (something which “must” be done if psychology is to become a science like physics) the psychologist makes it plausible to con- sider human beings as exclusively “resources” to be used as a means to externally defined ends.

Some of these are fairly obvious points. There are other, how- ever. The adoption of methodological individualism as a guiding methodology in social science renders any historicist analysis (e.g., Hegel or Marx) incoherent, and also, more importantly, renders implausible any social policy aimed at restructuring major institutions rather than individual minds. Under this theory it is appropriate to see a psychiatrist about your inability to adjust; it is not appropriate to join a revolutionary movement whose goal is to provide a wider variety of life alternatives.

These assumptions about methodology, these ways of organiz- ing data, are all part of what is learned in the process of becom- ing “professionally credentialed” and hence illustrate a second way the university commits itself to a certain political, social, and moral stance. Of course, nothing above is by way of proof of the claims made. I merely mention them as a fruitful avenue for further philosophical investigation. I wish now to turn to

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the central claim of this paper: that all teaching, and especially the teaching of philosophy at the introductory level, is made particularly difficult by the educational structures imposed on us as college and university teachers. 2. There are some who insist that in teaching philosophy and other subjects in which there are traditionally differences of opinion, the teacher is obligated to present a “balanced” view of controversial issues. Sometimes this is interpreted to mean merely that the instructor must not state his or her opinion for fear of influencing the class not by reason alone but by virtue of the authoritative position he or she possesses. Other times this is interpreted to mean that the arguments on all sides must be presented with equal vigor and persuasiveness. As against either of these views, however, there are those who insist that the teacher’s job is to present the truth as he or she sees it, as long as the other positions are presented fairly and as strongly as their merit warrants, and as long as the conclusions are s u p ported by reason and fair argument alone. To do otherwise, this argument insists is to play a disingenuous game with one’s students: to misrepresent oneself in a way as to lose credibility with people who know perfectly well that you do have an opinion and that you don’t take them seriously enough to share it with them. (This conflict raises an interesting paradox: if you do state an opinion there is little doubt that, given the tradi- tional authoritative position of the teacher, you will have undue influence. This creates an unhealthy student-teacher relation- ship. On the other hand, if you don’t state an opinion, it will be clear to the students that you are unwilling to share something important with them. This too creates an unhealthy student- teacher relationship. Conclusions : a healthy student-teacher relationship is impossible given the traditional authoritative position of the teacher.)

My thesis is that there are epistemological, ontological, and most importantly, moral and political presuppositions embodied in the educational structures we teach in, which, if we are try- ing to give a “balanced” or “neutral” picture of things under- mine our efforts at neutrality, and if we are trying to teach the “truth” are often at odds with it. In so far as we take the learn- ing of philosophy to be a mere intellectual achievement, with little or no influence on the life or attitudes of the learner, this ought not overly concern us. We can speak our piece, and if we are persuasive enough, if our techniques are highly enough developed, our students will remember and be able to repeat

OBSTACLES TO TEACHING PHILOSOPHY 341 what we say, perhaps even be able to emulate our logical exhibi- tions. But they will do so only in the context best described as “this is what they do in philosophy, which has nothing very much to do with ‘real life”’. If on the other hand we are genuinely interested in developing in our students an attitude toward life, a critical stance embodied not merely in their minds when they think “philosophy” but embodied in their behavior when they respond in any and all situations, then these struc- tures must be viewed as subversive of our efforts.

I will concentrate on those structures which embody moral and political ideals, since our failure to successfully develop a critical faculty with regard to them is of much greater signifi- cance than our failure to develop a critical faculty with regard to epistemological or ontological matters. The grading system embodies several very profound social presuppositions. By re- warding educational “success” and punishing educational “failure”, the system teaches by example rather than word that it is perfectly appropriate for one’s life activity to be engaged in not for its own sake but for the sake of extrinsic rewards. From the ages of 5-22 the activity which dominates a person’s life (or at least a college student’s life) is school learning, and the student learns, despite all our efforts to tell him or her other- wise, that what “counts” in terms of prestige and success is the grade that they achieve, not the learning that they may have done. In response to a question from Glaucon, Socrates argued that it is better to be a perfectly just man who is perceived as unjust than a perfectly unjust man who is perceived as just. I fear, however, that there is little in the experience of our students to indicate that knowledge is intrinsically valuable or that learning is something to be engaged in for its own sake. What they learn, and it begins in the earliest grades, is that important activity, like learning, is important because of some- thing else. Such activity is classically (although not in modern parlance) called alienated activity, and while it is certainly true that the philosophy teacher does not initiate such an approach to learning, the fact remains that it is in philosophy courses that the distinction between alienated and non-alienated activity is most frequently learned, if it is learned at all, so that the grading system works a special hardship on the teacher who wishes to portray non-alienated behavior as an ideal model. It might be claimed, and it is almost certainly true, that most human behavior in most modern societies is alienated in just this way; that virtually all of our labor is engaged in for the sake

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of a wage, so that schools ought to be considered training for life activity. Perhaps so, but because we, as teachers of philo- sophy, are required to reinforce this value, it becomes virtually impossible to offer “utopian” alternatives which might motivate persons to seek significant social change in the direction of altering this unhappy feature of modern life. In short, we are precluded from doing our job effectively. If we try to be effective, we are brought up short by the grading requirement. Inevitably students will view our remarks with cynicism; often we will foster a disrespect for learning, or higher education, or the university, or philosophy, or ourselves. If even we as philoso- phers engage in and require others to engage in alienated activity, how can we expect our students to take seriously our remarks and ideals? The structure in which we are required to work fatally undermines our effectiveness, and in effect makes certain positions antecedently less plausible, or at least less teachable.

A second consequence of the grading system, logically, if not politically distinct from the first, is that learning, 2nd again by extension the important elements of life activity, is made a competitive rather than a cooperative venture. As long as grades are awarded differentially on the basis of “superior perform- ance”, and as long as grades are viewed as the purpose or goal of study, it will be apparent even to the slowest students that it is desirable to know more than another person not to be able to help him or her learn, but to score better on an exam; that it is in your interest to help someone learn only if he or she can help you at least as much, and preferably more. Again, this is a feature of virtually all school learning and is not unique to philosophy class, but it is in philosophy class that one is most likely to encounter competing theoretical models of social organization. One will have to compare, say, Hobbes’s concept of the social order as a war of all against all held in check by powerful political organization with an anarchist or Marxist model of total social cooperation with no or minimal political organization. Whatever efforts the teacher may make in favor of the latter, and certainly if he or she tries to present a “bal- anced” view, the structure in which the student operates and has operated for years clearly prejudices the case in favor of the Hobbesian model. He or she understands, if not in a con- sciously articulatable way, certainly in terms of appropriate behavior in specific situations, that school is a competitive arena where anything goes as long as there is no school regulation

OBSTACLES TO TEACHING PHILOSOPHY 343 against it (e.g., cheating of various sorts) or as long as we don’t get caught. Even if we can persuade the student of the possi- bility or desirability of an anarchist state, the continued struc- ture of differential grading, which is imposed on us and in turn imposed by us on students, will effectively turn our success into a meaningless intellectual achievement with little or no effect on the behavior and response of our students in real situations. He or she may believe that it is philosophically desirable-that is, desirable in terms of the presuppositions and arguments one learns in philosophy class-to have one sort of social organiza- tion, but he or she knows perfectly well in terms of behavior in particular situations, that it is politically impossible to have it, since even the philosophy teacher does not live by it, and in learning it it is necessary to compete with our fellow students to achieve a higher grade!

There are other structural problems. By teaching, as usually we must, in pre-arranged classrooms and at pre-arranged class times we reinforce the notion that human activity must be role or function oriented rather than integrated. Learning philosophy is something that happens in schools, from 9-10 a.m. or 1-3 p.m., etc.; playing is something that happens in other places and other times (and moreover is something one is supposed to enjoy); working is something you do during summer vacations or after school, and is neither learning nor playing (nor to be enjoyed). So much of our life is organized in this way that it might seem extraordinary to mention i t as raising a special problem in the teaching of philosophy. Again, however, philosophers are charged with exposing and encouraging serious speculation about alternatives, especially social alternatives. If we are anxious to defend the value of an “integrated” life-one in which work, play, and learning are all embodied in the same activity-the structure in which we are forced to do it makes a mockery of the theory. Again, if all we care about is the verbal response of our students to appropriate questions, this is un- important. But if we care about them carrying this response beyond classroom situations, then it is very important.

Two structural elements in the classroom combine to seriously undermine any theory of democracy, and especially participatory democracy. In the first place, the university is designed so that we teach “subjects”, thereby, as other critics have noted, per- petuating the myth that the universe comes packaged in plaus- ibly separable units (so that, for instance, it makes sense to study economics but not sociology or political science or history

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or philosophy, something that is inconceivable to the political economist), but even more importantly, and less noted, encour- aging the relativization of knowledge. Something becomes “true €or history” or “true €or political science”, etc.2 What is “true for psychology” is sometimes “false for philosophy”. The social consequences of this are enormous. Not only does it breed cyni- cism when the discrepancies are noted, but it breeds a fatal unwillingness to participate at a significant level in social and political affairs. Unless one is an “expert in politics” (or eco- nomics, or environmental science, or whatever) it is deemed inappropriate to act or sometimes even to have an opinion about such matters. General education makes us expert in nothing, and specialized education makes us expert in a t most one thing. We must therefore let others make the decisions. (There is an important corollary to this: since morals are not taught at all-even philosophers prefer to teach metaethics and other clearly theoretical topics-no one is willing to take on the difficult issues at a moral level. Moral relativism thrives, and decisions fall by default to those who have the fewest scruples. Relativism serves an important though unfortunate therapeutic purpose: if people were taught to have a sense of right and wrong it is extremely unlikely that they could tolerate the consequences of most of the things their job requires them to do. Relativism frees them from the anxieties inherent in such a situation.)

Efforts to redress this problem-by for instance articulating the virtues of a Millean democracy in which truth and right social action is generated through (an admittedly mysterious) process of total social participation and interaction is thor- oughly undermined by the concept of “subjects” and the con- commitant concept of “expertise”. The structure in which we teach embodies these concepts and dooms to failure our efforts to teach otherwise.

Secondly, virtually all school learning is designed for the transmission of information, not the generation of truth by co- operative effort. Even where other things are at least partially valued (originality, creativity, imagination) the very architecture of the classroom-with the teacher often necessarily in front, set apart, on a platform, with different, more comfortable furni- ture, with students forced to look only forward, at each others’ backs, etc.-tends to diminish the possibility of those values being maximized. The grading system guarantees an aura of

This way of putting the problem was suggested by Peter Schuller.

OBSTACLES TO TEACHING PHILOSOPHY 345 authority, even when illegitimate, to the instructor. In such situations it is respect for authority, not reason, which is encour- aged. Even when the instructor preaches the value of reason, the structure in which he or she does it belies the ultimate efficacy of reason. The creation of non-autonomous persons is the end result of all of this: persons who do not insist upon or engage in direct and efficacious political activity. I t is almost as if the university were designed to make a living reality out of Plato’s philosopher-king: the expert who knows the truth and ought, therefore, to have the power not only to transmit i t but to run society.

One might ask why this has happened. No doubt i t is possible to recite historical and causal explanations of the structure of the university, but I think that in this case functional explana- tions are more appropriate. We live in a society which, for many reasons I cannot go into here, requires its citizens to be non-autonomous, non-cooperative, and alienated (in all of Marx’s senses). Schools and universities are major social institutions; they will either serve this social purpose or they and society as we know it will die. The relationship is organic, and the schools serve their purpose in the organism. Although we, as teachers of philosophy, might be sensitive to alternatives, and even attempt to convince our students of their validity, we are com- pelled to do our teaching in a structure which undermines our message.

If there are alternatives or solutions they don’t appear to be things we can do in the classroom, unless we look forward to explaining why we do not turn in grades, meet at assigned times, etc. A possible model which springs to mind is the “foreign language house” in which persons interested in learning a language live together using only that language. If several conditions could be met, this might be possible in philosophy and could overcome many of the structural defects I have men- tioned, as well as others which I have not : !1> that few enough people wish to be accommodated. I t is, I believe, important not to turn people down, since to do so would encourage the same sort of competitiveness which is so objectionable in class. (2) that no grades or “credit” be given for the experience; (3) that no externally imposed limits be placed on the nature and extent of things studied and discussed; (4) that no conflicting or addi- tional alienating obligations be placed on the participants. If this were not met, I fear that most persons involved would by necessity ignore, or fail to take seriously, the experiment. Such

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conditions, while much stricter than a person like Illich might propose, would nevertheless combine to create something more like a philosophy collective or commune than a university pro- gram. It is unlikely that such an arrangement would be possible within a university, but it might be possible outside of one. There is no way such an approach to learning could be uni- versally extended (to all persons a t all levels for all interests) without a total social change. MIAMI UNIVERSITY OXFORD, OHIO