Postmodernism: a 'Sceptical' Challenge in Educational Theory

Postmodernism: a ‘Sceptical’ Challenge

in Educational Theory

STEFAN RAMAEKERS

Recently several educational theorists have argued for theincorporation of a scepticism of a postmodern kind intoeducational theory and into educational research morespecifically. Their understanding of postmodernism in termsof scepticism harbours much potential, but to avoid confusionand misunderstanding it is of importance that the ‘scepticism’associated with postmodernism is distinguished fromtraditional philosophical scepticism, be it as part of the veryprocess of theoretical scrutiny or as a challenge towards itsresults. In this paper it will be argued that the interest ofpostmodernist ‘scepticism’ lies not in a quest for ever morecertainty but rather in the way it moves beyond bothfoundationalism and philosophical scepticism. This will beelaborated from the point of view of a Wittgensteinianunderstanding of theoretical scrutiny (as found in OnCertainty). This opens up the possibility of shedding light onpostmodernist ‘scepticism’ in educational theory in terms ofan aesthetic distance towards what is reflected upon.

INTRODUCTION

Several educational theorists over the last few years have highlighted theimportance of incorporating a scepticism of a postmodern kind intoeducational theory and into educational research more specifically. InPostmodernism and Education, Robin Usher and Richard Edwards drawon the ‘big four’ of postmodernity — Jacques Lacan, Michel Foucault,Jacques Derrida and Jean-Francois Lyotard — to argue that, in general,‘education needs a critical scepticism and a suitable degree of uncertaintywhilst close attention must be paid to the need for a careful deconstructionof the theorisations and discourses within which educational practice islocated’ (Usher and Edwards, 1994, p. 31). They want to make a case foran ‘imaginative development of knowledge’ by drawing on Lyotard’sidea of a postmodern science (ibid., p. 182). Leaving open the question ofwhat this imaginative development actually entails, they suggest that ‘itnonetheless seems clear that generating ideas is far more preferable, and

Journal of Philosophy of Education, Vol. 36, No. 4, 2002

&The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 2002. Published by Blackwell Publishing,108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

indeed scientifically more ‘correct’, than putting the ‘certainties’ ofscience to use in enhancing the performance of the social system’ (ibid.,pp. 182–183). What seems to be implied here is that postmodernism andthe critical scepticism it supposedly embodies should be essential ingre-dients in educational theory.

A comparable case is argued for by Ian Stronach and Maggie MacLurein their Educational Research Undone: the postmodern embrace. They tryto show how educational research can (and should) be engaged withpost-structuralism, deconstructionism and postmodernism. What unitesthese ‘-isms’ in common cause is resistance to closure (Stronach andMacLure, 1997, p. 6). Stronach and MacLure do not systematicallydiscuss what deconstruction, for instance, is (or what Derrida meant byit); rather, they seek directly to employ deconstruction in educationalresearch and to show what it is supposed to mean, or, rather, do. Forthat purpose they develop some examples of (what they take to be)postmodernist educational research — on the topics of identity andvocationalism. In this sense, theirs is less a meta-discourse than Usherand Edwards’. Familiar notions in educational discourses such asidentity, empowerment, emancipation, innovation, effectiveness, auto-nomy and so on, are, Stronach and MacLure argue, in need of continualproblematisation, that is, continual deconstruction, since, as they see it,these notions are all too often treated as the ‘givens’ of educationalresearch (ibid., p. 152). Criticising methodologies based on modernistpremises, they argue in favour of a research approach understood as ‘astrategic act of interruption of the methodological will to certainty andclarity of vision’ (ibid., p. 4). They commit themselves to, methodolo-gically speaking, ‘strategic uncertainty’ (ibid., p. 5) — which is perhaps thebest description of what they understand by a deconstructive approach.This allows the researcher to generate ‘multiple and dynamic possibilitiesfor meaning’ (p. 28) and helps to prevent her from ‘being dragged towardsa singular reading or an essential meaning or a static once-and-for-allinterpretation’ (ibid., p. 30).

Obviously, the educational theorists and researchers mentioned touchupon difficult matters concerning educational theory and educationalresearch in particular. What is at stake here in general terms is the ideaof educational theory modelled according to modernist criteria. To bemore specific, by conceptualising their case in sceptical terms they seem tooppose themselves to one of the most central tenets in modernist episte-mology, the idea of certainty. For educational theory in general, the leastone can say is that the (philosophical) connection between knowledgeand objective certainty is put under severe strain; but the implicationhere — and this pertains to educational research in particular — seems tobe not only that the idea of objective certainty is compromised but thatthe very possibility of gathering knowledge is called into question.

Their understanding of postmodernism in terms of scepticism harbourssome potential for educational theory, but the very framing of the issueas a ‘critical scepticism’ or as a ‘strategy of uncertainty’ also gives rise toconfusion and misunderstanding. Scepticism is a concept embedded in a

630 S. Ramaekers

&The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 2002.

rich tradition of epistemological enquiry, especially since the advent ofmodernity. The ‘nature’ of postmodernist ‘scepticism’ (if such there is)needs to be distinguished from traditional philosophical scepticism, forotherwise, one risks the possibility that postmodernism is being dismissedprematurely, as for instance Jim Mackenzie has done, as just anothermove ‘in the long dialectic between scepticism and claims to knowledge’(Mackenzie, 1998, p. 53). Moreover, postmodernism is frequently iden-tified with anti-foundationalism and relativism. Thus, in a recent articlein this journal’s special issue The Ethics of Educational Research, DavidCarr charged the postmodernist critique of the value neutralityof testing with relativism of the worst kind (Carr, 2001, p. 468). Ingeneral, there is a danger that the debate about postmodernism ineducational theory becomes polarised in terms — to paraphrase ZeusYiamouyiannis — of a foundationalist one-and-only account, on the onehand, and a postmodern anti-account, on the other (Yiamouyiannis,1999, p. 449). It is worth noting that theorists writing in what theyconsider to be a postmodernist vein sometimes themselves (unwittingly)give rise to such polarising. Stronach and Maclure are examples here — Ishall come back to this below.

Postponing for the moment the question of what postmodernistscepticism might mean, my main interest is in what is involved in usingthis kind of ‘scepticism’ in educational theory. How does its use affect ourconception of educational theory? I should say that I do not intend toengage in a discussion about the ‘correct’ reading of the postmodernistphilosophers the educational theorists mentioned draw upon. Rather, Iaim to explore some issues with respect to their understanding of post-modernism in terms of a kind of scepticism that, they feel, needs to beemployed in educational theory. First, therefore, I need to say something,briefly, about the general idea of scepticism as part of theoretical inquiry.This will serve as a background against which, second, the distinctivefeatures of postmodernist ‘scepticism’ in educational theory can emerge.One of its distinguishing features is that the ‘post-’ signals a move beyondthe polarisation of claims to knowledge and philosophical scepticism. Igo deeper into this matter in a third section by invoking a Wittgensteinianunderstanding of what is involved in the process of inquiry in orderfinally to try to see postmodernist ‘scepticism’ in terms of an aestheticdistance towards what is reflected upon.

SCEPTICISM IN THEORETICAL INQUIRY

The idea that scepticism should be part of good research in general is afamiliar one. This need not only be taken in its explicit form — an ideaindebted, I think, to Hume’s conception of scepticism in his EnquiriesConcerning Human Understanding (I shall come back to this). As withany other area of research, educational theory proceeds along the ordi-nary lines of what most basically and commonsensically constitutes theterms of theoretical investigation — the fact that any item of research is

Postmodernism: a ‘Sceptical’ Challenge in Educational Theory 631


in one way or another sceptical toward previous research, be it towardsthe results obtained, the arguments elaborated, the terms in which it isconceived or any combination of such factors. In this broad sense, then,being sceptical in some way or other can be considered to be the drivingforce behind human intellectual endeavour. It has since Socrates’distinction between epist �eem �ee and doxa been seen to be inherent in thedevelopment of knowledge itself. Socrates is almost invariably portrayedas a disinterested seeker after epist �eem �ee— real, certain and indubitableknowledge about the nature of things. But what is sometimes over-looked is that he himself engaged in a dynamic of sceptical procedureswhile seeking epist �eem �ee. Classical textbooks tend to emphasise Socrates’maieutic pedagogy as the indispensible part of dialectical method inthe quest for epist �eem �ee. What is thereby ignored or at least cast in theshadows is the importance of his use of the so-called elenchus,the procedure of refutation by giving counter-examples. Because ofthis refutational procedure a relevant number of Plato’s dialogues — theearly ones especially, according to Robert Hankinson (1995, p. 83) — areaporetic, ‘arriving at no conclusion save the discomfiture of theirinterlocutors and the destruction of various attempts to providedefinitions . . . which are immune to counter-example’ (ibid., pp. 83–84). This Socratic sceptical dynamic can be considered to be aconstructive element in the search for epist �eem �ee.

This idea of scepticism at the heart of theoretical scrutiny needs to bedistinguished from scepticism understood as a (more or less) systemati-cally conducted challenge to claims to know anything with certitude.The Sophists can be considered examples here, though strictly the firstconsistent challenge to any claim to know anything with certitude wasPyrrhonian scepticism.1 These challenges aim to undermine the very ideaof epist �eem �ee. Sextus Empiricus, for instance, points out that the(Pyrrhonian) sceptic considers every argument, finds none worthy ofcredence, and suspends judgment, and thus neither rejects nor positsanything with certainty (see Hankinson, 1995).

It should be noted that both these conceptions of scepticism areinherently ethical. Epistemology is not distinguished yet from ethicalissues in a way we, as inheritors of modern philosophy, are familiar with.Scepticism thus should not be understood as a purely epistemologicalissue but as intrinsically interwoven with questions concerning the goodlife: how is one to act — let alone educate — without the comfortingassurance of real knowledge? Socrates’ ponderings over the questionwhether the virtues can be taught are paradigmatic here.

The distinction between the epistemological and the ethical is set bythe Cartesian turn towards the knowing subject. This turn made thematter of certainty of knowledge a primary concern and brought with itan understanding of scepticism primarily along epistemological lines.Moreover, scepticism is explicitly integrated in that search for certaintyof knowledge. To be sure, this does not entirely preclude scepticismhaving implications for the everyday praxis of life. Descartes himselftakes account of an important connection between the two levels: ‘I was

632 S. Ramaekers


always eager’, he writes, ‘to learn to distinguish truth from falsehood, sothat I could make intelligent decisions about the affairs of this life andact with greater confidence’ (Descartes, 1960, p. 9). But the very fact thatDescartes is able to express this relationship marks the beginning ofscepticism’s bearing primarily on epistemological issues and onlysecondarily on ethical issues. Scepticism on Descartes’ account reallybears value only insofar as it advances, as methodological aid, the searchfor absolute truth and certainty. Its direct repercussions for, or rather, itsinterwovenness with the everyday practice of life are obscured.

Hume’s scepticism as it is expressed in his A Treatise of Human Natureis indebted to Pyrrhonian scepticism and is, as such, a serious threat tocertainty of knowledge. Being rigorously consistent in his application ofthe experimental method into the study of human beings, he cannot butconclude that all knowledge degenerates into mere probability, that is, itcannot be definitively justified. What is of more interest for presentpurposes is that Hume, in his Enquiries concerning Human Under-standing (written a considerable time after his Treatise and in fact anabridged and slightly revised version of the latter) has recourse to a‘moderate scepticism’ (Enquiries, #129), incorporating this into what isinvolved in good investigative procedures. In order to counter dogmaticthinking, Hume argues, every philosopher or scientist should display acertain degree of doubt: ‘In general, there is a degree of doubt, andcaution, and modesty, which, in all kinds of scrutiny and decision, oughtfor ever to accompany a just reasoner’ (ibid.).

This is the idea of scepticism that has left such a deep impression onthe conception of good theoretical inquiry. Whereas in the Treatisescepticism is cast as a devastating threat to any commitment to truth, inthe Enquiries it is understood more moderately as pointing to thefallibility of all knowing in any philosophical and scientific enterprisewhatsoever. It was especially through Karl Popper that this kind ofscepticism found its way into the constitution of good scientific research.Popper ‘institutionalised’ Humean scepticism by converting Hume’sproblem of induction into a strategy or method of falsification. OnPopper’s account scepticism loses its challenging and threateningcharacter to (the possibility of) real knowledge, and becomes conduciveto achieving it. Objective truth being a regulative idea and ideal to guidethe praxis of scientific inquiry, scepticism is in a relevant wayconstitutive of the logic of falsification: every act of doubting takes usone step closer to the truth. Notice that this kind of scepticism — wecould call it constructive scepticism2 — can go hand in hand with afoundationalist account of knowledge. To be sure, Popper is not a hard-core foundationalist — that is, he is not dogmatically asserting that thisor that is objectively true. Rather, Popper’s fallibilism is supported by acertain kind of foundationalist tenaciousness (see De Martelaere, 1987).

Popper surely is not the only one to include scepticism, or minimally asceptical component of some kind, in what is considered to be goodscientific research. For instance, the sociologist Roger Merton definesscepticism as the preparedness to question every step and every argument



of the inquiry (cf. Merton, 1973, in Van Brakel, 1998, p. 210). Paul Kurtzunderstands scepticism as an essential methodological rule guiding us incritically examining all knowledge-claims and judgments of value: everygood researcher ought to be a sceptic — that is, ought to be willing toquestion every claim to truth, to demand definitional clarity, logicalconsistency and adequate evidence (see Kurtz, 1992). Undoubtedly thereare others arguing along similar lines. What is, I think, important tobear in mind is that, in enacting scepticism against the background ofthe quest for epist �eem �ee, theorists such as Popper express their modernlegacy. That is, once scepticism has inherited the belief that realknowledge and objective truth should be the proper goal of scientificinquiry, it is treated either as a threat to the certainty of knowledge thatis sought after (and hence is something to be disposed with), or asconducive to achieving such certainty.

In sum, this brief consideration of the idea that scepticism is aconstituent of good theoretical inquiry shows that this idea turns aroundthe matter of the certainty of knowledge, especially as this is understoodin modernist thought. The same goes for scepticism understood as aphilosophical challenge to epist�eem �ee. In both cases the issue can be under-stood summarily as a scepticism-against-the-background-of-certainty.Bearing this in mind is important, for, among other things, it helps usto distinguish between an ordinary form of philosophical criticism, acriticism that is perfectly in order, on the one hand, and scepticism, onthe other; both of these may, though they do not necessarily, coincide.

POSTMODERN ‘SCEPTICISM’

One way of dealing with postmodernism in educational theory in generaland in educational research in particular is to reduce it to the status ofsuch a scepticism-against-the-background-of-certainty. I have alreadymentioned that recently Carr has aligned postmodernism with relati-vism, thus opposing it to his own position in educational theory, whichaims at objective knowledge and truth (see Carr, 2001; also 1998, 1999).Another way he deals with postmodernism is to understand its messageas essentially a fallibilist one: postmodernism teaches us that much, ifnot all, human knowledge is inescapably provisional (see Carr, 1994,1998; also, Siegel, 1998). In line with what he understands to be thesefallibilist insights of postmodernism, he readily concedes that ‘importantquestions about the nature and meaning of knowledge and truth are byno means finally settled’ (Carr, 1999, p. 445). That is, he restrictivelyincorporates postmodernism into the usual business of the justificationof claims to knowledge, which allows him to keep intact his view thatobjective truth is the proper goal of educational theory, and more parti-cularly, that objective truth is necessarily presupposed in any conceptionof education (as initiation).

A little conceptual clarity should help to clear some ground here. Forinstance, Usher explicitly identifies Lyotard’s notion of incredulity with

634 S. Ramaekers


a kind of scepticism (see Usher, Bryant and Johnston, 1997, p. 6); this isgrist to the mill of those ill-disposed to scepticism, at the same timesaving them the trouble of trying to grasp what Lyotard’s incredulityitself is actually about. A similar difficulty arises with concepts such asStronach’s and MacLure’s ‘strategic uncertainty’. It suggests too stronglya denial or refutation, or even a philosophical position generating counter-arguments, whereas incredulity involves something more like an attitude,‘an inability to believe’, as Nicholas Burbules has put it (Burbules, 1996,p. 40).

Given the tradition of philosophical scepticism, and in line withBurbules’ account, it is therefore perhaps more accurate to speak ofpostmodern doubt, or of being sceptical in a postmodern way. This wayof phrasing the issue resonates with the history of postmodernity, andits cultural offspring postmodernism and post-structuralism, much morethan a phrasing in terms of scepticism could suggest. The ‘scepticism’postmodernism conveys is in important ways entangled with the existentialdoubts and uncertainties experienced in (what is now commonly referredto as) our contemporary postmodern condition — doubts and uncertain-ties that stem from a disillusionment with the promises of the projectof modernity. It is an inability to believe ‘for reasons that have becomeall too evident in the social and historical events of the modern era’,thus Burbules (1996, p. 40).3 Traditional scepticism is not an exponentof (neither does it hook onto) existential doubts in the way that post-modernism and poststructuralism can be understood to be (doing). Putotherwise, in postmodernist ‘scepticism’ the interwovenness of the epi-stemological and the ethical is re-emphasised, without, of course, re-introducing at the same an aspiration towards epist �eem �ee in the Socraticsense. Postmodern doubt directly touches upon human existence as awhole; it cannot be reduced to a purely epistemological matter in thesense of either being a threat to knowledge or being a convenient toolwithin the construction of knowledge.

Postmodern doubt then is to be distinguished from a scepticism-against-the-background-of-certainty. The relevant distinction here is theone between between scepticism about grand narratives, on the onehand, and scepticism about the purported certainty of knowledge, onthe other. The latter is a scepticism that operates within the parametersset out by the project of modernity; the former questions that veryproject — for instance, modernity’s educational project of enlighteningthe ignorant, that is, its idea that knowledge, amassed in a particular(scientific) way serves the end of freeing people through learning.Postmodern doubt is not a Cartesian doubt, a doubt in the cause ofattaining certainty (Burbules, 1996, p. 42; Usher, Bryant and Johnston,1997, p. 7); it does not hinge on the epistemological question of thejustification of a claim purporting to be knowledge, and thereforecannot be incorporated into the search for some ‘alternative and moresecure foundation’ (Scott and Usher, 1996, p. 25; Usher, Bryant andJohnston, 1997, p. 201). Rather, Usher (again following Burbules, 1996,p. 41) claims that postmodernism ‘is about doubting whether we should



be doing more and more of what we have always done, even when itmight have brought benefits’ (Usher, Bryant and Johnston, 1997, p. 7).As such, then, postmodernist ‘scepticism’ bears close resemblance to‘ordinary’ philosophical criticism. It points to elements that cast doubtupon, for instance, the self-evidence of the idea of knowledge as emanci-patory. As educators, we cannot any longer uncomplicatingly understandour context as ‘that of producing and disseminating certain knowledge,determinate truth, mastered and masterful meaning in the service of themastery of the self and the world’ (Usher and Edwards, 1994, p. 124).

This does not imply, for education in general, a wholesale rejectionof the possibility of passing on knowledge in education, or worse, awholesale rejection of the idea of objectivity — which is in fact the verything that Carr fears postmodernism to be doing (Carr, 2001, p. 468).We cannot, just like that, place ourselves outside discourses that havemade us who we are. It is hard for educators, for instance, to avoidthinking and talking in terms of progress (Usher, Bryant and Johnston,1997, pp. 6–7). Burbules aptly captures the ambiguity: postmoderndoubt is about ‘our stance . . . toward ways of thinking that for us arenecessary, that we do not know how to live entirely without — but inwhich an unshaken confidence is no longer possible’ (Burbules, 1996,p. 40). Instead of outright rejection then, it is a matter of recognising‘the complexity and socio-historical contingency of the practices throughwhich knowledge is constructed about ourselves and the world’ (Scottand Usher, 1996, p. 25; Usher, Bryant and Johnston, 1997, p. 201), ofrecognising that language, discourse and sociocultural locatedness havea significant bearing on the making of knowledge-claims, and that theseknowledge-claims are dynamically interwoven with power in ways that‘distort and compromise even the best of human intentions’ (Burbules,1996, p. 42). This is not to say that insights of this kind are exclusive topostmodernism, but they are important elements in its thought.

Something of the nature of postmodern doubt is aptly captured in theexpression ‘the return of the repressed of modernity’ (Usher and Edwards,1994, p. 201). What is argued here is that foundations ‘work’ in educa-tional practices only by virtue of repressing certain features character-istic to the processes of constructing knowledge. The ideal of objectivetruth and certainty can only be upheld by suppressing the constantquestioning of the presuppositions of this very ideal — a questioning towhich the uncertainties, experienced under the condition of postmod-ernity, give rise.

In becoming aware of what is repressed, reflexivity becomes a keyissue. Usher and Edwards base this reflexivity upon Derrida’s notionof the textuality of the world, more particularly upon this textuality’slogic of supplementarity. The meaning of a text cannot be fixed in a singleinterpretation, let alone be founded transcendentally, that is ‘as residingin a presence or a centre outside thought’ — a ‘philosophical habit’ called‘logocentrism’ (Usher and Edwards, 1994, p. 127). It is the dual dynamic oflanguage itself that resists such permanent fixing of meaning. Inevitably,there is some anchoring of meaning. To put this in Wittgensteinian terms,

636 S. Ramaekers


there simply is the normativity of the language we use, notwithstandingthe fact that this does not imply that future uses of our concepts aredetermined. In Derridean vein, Usher and Edwards say that language‘both ‘‘holds down’’ or closes meaning and at the same time opens it bysubjecting it to the endless play of dissemination’ (ibid., p. 128). Becomingaware of this allows one to grasp the fact that continually re-reading theworld is not a sceptical or relativistic assault on (what are considered tobe) established forms of knowledge, but is a process that ‘comes aboutthrough the very ‘nature’ of language’ (ibid., p. 129).

This kind of reflexivity is needed in educational theory in general and ineducational research in particular, Usher and Edwards argue. Attentioncan usefully be drawn to the issue of what is constituted as the object ofresearch (see Usher, Bryant and Johnston, 1997, pp. 33–51). In the lightof those elements implicated in the making of knowledge-claims men-tioned above, the question is what researchers are researching: ‘the world,or [themselves] as makers of knowledge-claims’? (Usher and Edwards,1994, p. 148). In the 1994 volume Usher and Edwards point to threefeatures that can be critical resources ‘for interrogating textuality andforegrounding reflexivity in the production (writing) and consumption(reading) of research texts’ (Ibid., p. 153): sub-text, con-text and pre-textof research. Elsewhere (1997), Usher does not mention pre-text anymore,but adds inter-text, which simply refers to the trace-structure of texts.

The sub-text refers to what Usher and Edwards call epistemicreflexivity (Usher and Edwards, 1994, p. 149), which directs attention tothe ‘ ‘‘identity’’ of the research’, asking questions such as ‘what is goingon in this research? What kind of world or ‘‘reality’’ is being constructedby the questions asked and the methods used?’ (ibid., p. 148). Its aim is toraise awareness of the ‘place of research communities and the power ofexclusion and closure of such communities’ (ibid., p. 149). The con-textrefers to the situatedness of the researcher, her embodiedness andembeddedness. What is reflected upon here is ‘that the self thatresearches has an autobiography marked by the significations of gender,sexuality, ethnicity, class, race, etc.’ (ibid.). The pre-text refers to thevarious textual strategies and devices that can be deployed throughlanguage and that in relevant respects construct the reality about whichknowledge is sought. One such example is ‘the textual strategy ofnarrative realism’, which ‘emphasises certain and singular meaning andthe reporting of an already existing ready-made reality’ (ibid., p. 150).Moreover, ‘the text constructed from narrative realism does not drawattention to itself as a text’ (ibid.). Reflexivity then means herebecoming aware of the ‘writerliness’ (ibid., p. 151) of research texts, andthus becoming aware of ‘the workings and effects of power throughtexts’ (ibid.).

Researchers need to show reflexivity on all these ‘levels’ to becomeaware of their implications in the research conducted. ‘Reflexivity andcritique, critique through reflexivity, are skills that educational practi-tioners and researchers need to develop’, write Usher and Edwards (ibid.,p. 153). Again, this should not be understood as just another link in



the quest for certainty — the concept ‘skills’ could seduce one to suchreading. There is no escaping the dually dynamic nature of language,of the process of textuality in educational research. Researchers shouldbe aware that what they are doing takes place somewhere betweenanchoring and provisionality.

In sum, a reconceptualisation of educational practices and theory onthe basis of postmodern doubt is not one concerned with or preoccupiedby the quest for ever more certainty. Or, to take up my initial question,‘What is involved in the suggestion that the scepticism postmodernismdisplays should be an essential ingredient of good educational theory?’,one can answer at this point that postmodernist ‘scepticism’ cannot bereduced to the status of the search for foundational certainty, to a(concealed) attempt to regain certainty in educational theory. If so, thiswould only reify the modernist project and keep untouched its pre-suppositions while understanding the elements postmodern doubt bringsto the fore merely as interesting issues to be put into the one big puzzleof The Self and The World. A ‘dismay at lost certainties’ (Standish,1994, p. 153), as well as a desire for ever more certainty are foreign topostmodernist scepticism. This uncertainty is not, as Burbules puts it, ‘atransient state of puzzlement’, but should be understood as ‘anacceptance of the provisional and contingent in much that we believeand do’ (Burbules, 1996, p. 46).

In this sense, I want to argue, it surpasses both foundationalism andabsolutism, on the one hand, and philosophical scepticism and relativism,on the other. In the next section I elaborate this particular point from aWittgensteinian understanding of what is involved in theoretical scrutiny,as can be derived mainly from his On Certainty. Wittgenstein’s insightsare helpful here since they show the limits of epistemological justifica-tion. Both foundationalist and sceptical accounts in all kinds of investi-gation are special kinds of activity, underpinned by an embeddednessbeyond epistemological doubt. Wittgenstein’s conception of the relation-ship between this bedrock and the area in which the game of doubtingand justifying can be meaningfully played opens up the possibility ofshedding light on postmodernist ‘scepticism’ in educational theory interms of (what can be called) an aesthetic distance towards what isreflected upon. That will be the concern of the final section of this paper.

WITTGENSTEIN ON FOUNDATIONS

With respect specifically to understanding the practice of research, section105 of On Certainty (Wittgenstein, 1969, henceforth OC and paragraphnumber) is of interest:

All testing, all confirmation and disconfirmation of a hypothesis takes placealready within a system. And this system is not a more or less arbitraryand doubtful point of departure for all our arguments: no, it belongs tothe essence of what we call an argument. The system is not so much thepoint of departure, as the element in which arguments have their life.

638 S. Ramaekers


This is connected usually with sections such as OC 115: ‘If you tried todoubt everything you would not get as far as doubting anything. Thegame of doubting itself presupposes certainty’; or OC 94, whereWittgenstein speaks of ‘the inherited background against which Idistinguish between true and false’; or OC 342: ‘It belongs to the logic ofour scientific investigations that certain things are in deed not doubted’.What Wittgenstein is saying here is that some things are not subject todoubt, they are the ‘hinges’ on which our research turns: ‘the questionsthat we raise and our doubts depend on the fact that some propositionsare exempt from doubt, are as it were like hinges on which those turn’(OC 341). Crucially, this being exempt from doubt is not a matter ofempirical fact (see Stroll, 1994; Moyal-Sharrock, 2000). The certainty orindubitable nature of a system Wittgenstein has in mind is not a matterof empirical evidence, or of the correct representation of the world. Orrather, Wittgenstein does for sure tell ‘an unquestionably foundationalstory’ about our system of beliefs (Moyal-Sharrock, 2000, p. 62), but the‘foundations’ Wittgenstein appeals to cannot be accounted for in episte-mological terms; they do not belong to the collection of propositions wenormally call knowledge. Accordingly, they are invulnerable to traditionalphilosophical scepticism, since the latter presumes that foundationalcertainty is in the end an empirical conclusion (see Moyal-Sharrock,2001; Stueber, 1994).

This actually means that Wittgenstein drives a grammatical and logicalwedge between the concepts of knowledge and certainty (cf. Stroll, 1994;Moyal-Sharrock, 2000). Daniele Moyal-Sharrock refers to OC 308,where Wittgenstein says that ‘‘‘Knowledge’’ and ‘‘certainty’’ belong todifferent categories.’ The relevant distinction to be made here then is theone between empirical propositions, on the one hand, and logical orgrammatical propositions, on the other, between propositions that(somehow) can be tested and propositions that are rules or norms oftesting. Our foundational certainties belong to the latter category; theyare the ‘logic’ of our language game (see OC 56). That is, they are con-stitutive of a language game; their function is a regulatory or normativeone; they determine what counts as evidence; they constitute the systemwithin which confirmation and disconfirmation of empirical proposi-tions take place. But they are not themselves empirical propositions;‘they condition our making of sense’ (Moyal-Sharrock, 2001).

One of the difficulties here is that such foundational propositions,or ‘hinges’, sometimes seem to be empirical propositions (cf. Moyal-Sharrock, 2000). Or rather, they sometimes have ‘the form of empiricalpropositions’ (OC 308, 401), even though they are not, in fact, empiricalpropositions. This is typically the case, Wittgenstein comes to argue inOn Certainty, with the propositions the indubitable certainty of whichMoore thought he had proved.4 For instance, ‘Here is a hand’, ‘Thereexists at present a living human body, which is my body’, etc. (Moore’sexamples). These propositions seem to be empirical and thereforehypothetical — that is, propositions that can be tested. But, Wittgensteinremarks, they are the very propositions human beings in normal



circumstances accept without further questioning: ‘When Moore sayshe knows such and such, he is really enumerating a lot of empiricalpropositions which we affirm without special testing; propositions, thatis, which have a peculiar logical role in the system of our empiricalpropositions’ (OC 136, last emphasis added; see also OC 84, 100). Thecrucial difference between Moore and Wittgenstein in their treatmentof these propositions is, as Moyal-Sharrock aptly puts it, between thesense of the indubitable as that which is ‘proved beyond the shadow of adoubt’ and the sense of the indubitable as that which is ‘not subject todoubt at all’ (2000, p. 65). According to Wittgenstein, ‘about certainempirical propositions no doubt can exist if making judgments is to bepossible at all. Or again: I am inclined to believe that not everythingthat has the form of an empirical proposition is one’ (OC 308). Oneshould recognise then that, according to Wittgenstein, our founda-tional certainties or hinges consist not only of propositions of logic butalso of propositions of the form of empirical propositions (cf. OC 401).

Importantly, for Wittgenstein these hinges are ungrounded, which isillustrated, for instance, in his reflection on Moore saying that he(Moore) knows the earth existed long before his birth. This is, saysWittgenstein, ‘precisely a case in which we all seem to know the same ashe, and without being able to say how’ (OC 84, emphasis added). Wecannot give reasons or grounds for such utterances; rather, they are theground. Moore’s propositions are of such a kind that it is ‘difficult toimagine why anyone should believe the contrary’ (OC 93). In fact, givingthem up would be tantamount to losing the ground beneath one’s feet(cf. OC 492).

That certain propositions function as hinges does not, however, makethem fixed for all eternity; it does not, as Moyal-Sharrock puts this,‘make them forever immune to revision’ (2000, p. 60; see also VanBrakel, 1996). Wittgenstein’s river-bed analogy subtly illustrates this.Having said, in OC 95, that the propositions describing our world-picture could be understood as ‘part of a kind of mythology’, he sketchesthe following image in OC 97: ‘The mythology may change back into astate of flux, the river-bed of thoughts may shift. But I distinguishbetween the movement of the waters on the river-bed and the shift ofthe bed itself; though there is not a sharp division of the one from theother’. Two things should be pointed out. First, as Wittgenstein clearlysays in OC 99, part of the river bed is ‘hard rock, subject to no alterationor only to an imperceptible one’. What he is saying here is that somefoundational beliefs simply cannot be questioned, for doing so wouldtopple our whole system of belief (see Stroll, 1994; Moyal-Sharrock,2000). Wittgenstein’s example is that ‘My body has never disappearedand reappeared again after an interval’ (OC 101). Second, the divisionbetween the waters and the shift of the river bed is not sharp. In OC 99Wittgenstein speaks of the ‘sand’ of the river bank, ‘which now in oneplace now in another gets washed away, or deposited’ to grasp the partof the river bed that is subject to alteration. Some foundational beliefsdo not, Wittgenstein suggests, stand absolutely fast but only relatively so

640 S. Ramaekers


(see Stroll, 1994). Wittgenstein considers possible the transition from theone class (foundational beliefs, propositions of logic, rules of testing) tothe other (empirical propositions), and vice versa. As Moyal-Sharrockputs this, ‘migration is possible’; the boundary between the two classes is‘porous’ (2000, p. 57). OC 96 is telling here: ‘It might be imagined thatsome propositions, of the form of empirical propositions, were hardenedand functioned as channels for such empirical propositions as werenot hardened but fluid; and that this relation altered with time, in thatfluid propositions hardened, and hard ones became fluid’. The pro-position that ‘no man has ever walked on the moon’ was once part of thehard rock; denying it would be folly. But at some point it became ahypothesis, such that now the denial of ‘man has walked on the moon’would be folly.

Crucially, Wittgenstein does not provide us with a criterion or a prin-ciple ‘by which we could distinguish revisable from nonrevisable hingebeliefs’ (Moyal-Sharrock, 2000, p. 60). Wittgenstein merely hints at adifference between the two cases that somehow can be grasped. (Thinkof what he says in OC 30: ‘Certainty is as it were a tone of voice in whichone declares how things are’ Conclusive grounds cannot be provided.See also OC 613.)

A possible source of misunderstanding lies in the very phrasing of thetwo categories in terms of propositions. The concept of ‘proposition’inevitably evokes the idea of testability. It suggests, moreover, that thetwo categories can somehow be neatly distinguished and presented, orworse, that just as empirical propositions can be conceived as productsof rational activity, so too can these hinge propositions. And followingfrom this, that even (what Moyal-Sharrock has called) the migrationbetween the two classes of propositions could eventually then be con-ceived as standing under the control of the very same rational activity.Wittgenstein seems to have noticed this danger, that, as Avrum Strollhas put it, a phrasing in terms of grammatical rules or hinge proposi-tions could ‘over-intellectualise’ the issue (1994, p. 155). According toStroll (1994), Wittgenstein in On Certainty therefore gradually movestowards a non-propositional account of certitude. OC 359 is paradig-matic here: ‘I just want to conceive it as something that lies beyondbeing justified or unjustified, as it were, as something animal’. It is notsome kind of intellectual activity, but ‘our acting, which lies at thebottom of the language-game’ (OC 204). This implies that we cannothave a clear view of our foundational beliefs. The possibility of migra-tion between the two classes should not blur the fact that we cannothave a clear view of our hinges. Wittgenstein holds that these cannot bedescribed precisely, let alone exhaustively, they are ‘perhaps not evenformulated’ (OC 87, cf. also OC 88). This is reminiscent of section 415of his Philosophical investigations (1953), where he says that he onlysupplies ‘remarks on the natural history of human beings’. Ourfoundational beliefs are such that no person, in normal circumstances,doubts them. Most of the time they escape our attention ‘because theyare always before our eyes’.



POSTMODERNIST ‘SCEPTICISM’: AN AESTHETIC DISTANCE

Where does this leave our understanding of postmodernist scepticism,and of educational theory under the flag of such postmodern doubt?Let us first recall what postmodernist scepticism is not. As has beenshown, it cannot be reduced to a scepticism-against-the-background-of-certainty, be it as a sceptical challenge toward claims to knowledgeor as a methodological tool in the search for real knowledge. On theWittgensteinian account of what is involved in theoretical scrutiny, itbecomes clear that both aspirations, the sceptical as well as the founda-tionalist, are examples of what can be called ‘epistemological fanaticism’5:they focus on the epistemological constitution of a claim purporting tobe knowledge; they cling on to the necessity for justification. Both are inthe grip of a conceptual model that holds that any knowledge claimshould satisfy particular criteria, the difference being that the founda-tionalist is led to think these criteria can be met (or approximated),whereas the sceptic is led to consistent denial of the possibility (seeStroll, 1994). The mistake being made here in both cases is to think thatthis justificatory struggle can and should be applied to all our establishedbeliefs, even to those that, on a Wittgensteinian account, cannot begrounded, since they are themselves to be understood as the ground ofthe very practice of grounding. In other words, both the foundationalistand the sceptical attitude towards our most fundamental beliefs is mis-conceived. On a foundationalist account it is believed that these hingesneed (more or less conclusive) grounding, whereas on a sceptical accountany grounding whatsoever is doubted to be sufficiently convincing (‘Weare not yet sure enough.’). Or rather, in not accepting the groundlessnessof these beliefs by trying to justify them, one shows oneself to be afoundationalist, whereas in not accepting the groundlessness of thesebeliefs by constantly questioning them, one reveals oneself as a sceptic.Foundationalism and scepticism on this view manifest first and foremostproblems of acceptance — that is, non-acceptance of what human beingssay and do.

What is needed here is an account of theoretical inquiry, and of doingresearch more particularly, that does not fall prey to the dialectics of thecorrect representation, of sufficient grounding. Jaap Van Brakel sees thisin terms of a certain ‘aesthetic distance that needs to be maintained’(1998, p. 47; author’s translation), an interesting way of phrasing theissue (but one that, unfortunately, he does not develop any further).What is not intended here, I think, or at least what should not be emphas-ised, is aesthetic distance in terms of a kind of ‘investigative technique’.Such an understanding would suggest that one could assume a distancethat is ‘essentially aesthetic’, that there is something like an ‘aestheticallymotivated position’ from which one could overview things as they are.Translating this into the terms of postmodern doubt would over-emphasise the aspect of distance, perhaps even suggesting a kind of non-commitment or something of the sort. However, as indicated above, the‘scepticism’ postmodernism displays is existentially, or rather, ethically,

642 S. Ramaekers


embedded. This being embedded is the very sort of thing that theconcept of aesthetic distance, rightly understood, elucidates. The conceptof the aesthetic primarily involves being in the grip of or touched bysomething in a way one does not fully grasp; a particular painting, forinstance, grabs one’s attention, without one being able to gain a clearview of why it does (or does not) appeal. This does not preclude, it isrelevant to point out, the possibility of reflecting on this being touchedor moved by this particular painting. But the distance involved in thisreflection is not a distance one can assume from outside (as if it weresomething given a priori, for instance, in some neo-Kantian way) butonly from within: it can only be elicited or evoked by particularcircumstances (for instance by being confronted with another painting,or by having one’s attention drawn to this or that aspect of the painting).In this sense, the distance involved is a distance towards the aesthetic —that is, towards this being in the grip of something.

Understanding aesthetic distance this way can shed light on howpostmodernist ‘scepticism’ can lead to an understanding of educationaltheory in terms other than the search for foundations. Postmodern doubtacknowledges the aspect of being submerged in something one cannotfully get a grip on. Meaning (the river bed) can and does shift beyondthe subject’s control. On the other hand, it is precisely in acknowledgingthis shifting of meaning that a certain kind of reflexive distance isachieved — not in the sense that one gains a clear and final view onthings, but in the sense that one comes to reflect on the very fact of one’sbeing thus submerged. In this sense, postmodernist ‘scepticism’ is perhapsbest characterised as a continuing vigilance or alertness towards whatcannot be understood in terms of ever more certainty.

One might take some forms of biographical research in education asexemplifying this form of ‘scepticism’. Geert Kelchtermans describesthe biographical researcher’s attitude as one of ‘alert open-mindedness’(1999, p. 145). The open-mindedness refers to, among other things, theopenness to the different kinds of insight that the unstructured nature ofthe research makes possible; it is an openness to the different ways inwhich the respondents give personal meaning to their situations. ‘Alertness’refers to the way the researcher is (cautioned to be) aware of her ownsubjectivity playing a role in the process of gathering data, and in theinterpretation of what respondents tell them. It is an alertness to whatmay, for example, be aspects of power in the relation between researcherand respondent(s) — aspects that cannot be overcome by objectifyingthem. Alertness is all one can ask for here.

It is here that Stronach’s and MacLure’s account of postmodernisteducational research seems to go astray. Their conception of post-modernist educational research implies something more than vigilanceor alertness. It is conceived, despite their explicit denial (1997, p. 2), as amethodological tool set against everything even remotely reminiscent ofthe conceptual field of research on modernist premises (unity, clarity,singularity, certainty, etc.). Educational research should adopt what theycall ‘an erratic epistemology’, which ‘rests on the shifting and agonistic



remainders left over by the failures of philosophy and method to solve theproblem of representation’ (ibid., p. 150). What this erratic epistemologyentails can be illustrated by Stronach’s and MacLure’s analyses ofrespondents’ textual interventions in returned report-and-respond (R&R)forms (which they themselves created) in the course of evaluativeresearch.6 This R&R questionnaire did not only provide feedback ofpreliminary interview and data analysis, it also enclosed ‘an invitation toagree or disagree with the feedback, as well as add to it’ (ibid., p. 104),allowing perhaps other stories to emerge than the one that can be expectedfrom the form of the research. This is important, Stronach and MacLureclaim, for it prevents the research’s validity from being pinned down by asingular conception of warranted knowledge. On the contrary, preciselyby inviting the respondents ‘to quarrel with the forms as well as thesubstance of the feedback and the inquiry’, it is ‘committed to reflexivityabout the limits and overlaps between different sorts of knowledgewarrants’ (ibid., p. 109). These different claims to knowledge, taking theform of ‘qualifications, additions, scorings out, discrepant commentary,criticism of the form of the instrument and so on’ (ibid., p. 110) areunderstood in terms of ‘breaches’ (ibid.). But Stronach and MacLure donot wish to stop there. ‘Real’ postmodernist research pushes this anotherstep further: since R&R merely invites, rather than insists upon, thebreaking of the rubrics of the research approach, as they put it, theinstances on which respondents offer only formal and closed responsesshould themselves be understood as transgressions of the transgressivepossibility offered by R&R itself (ibid., p. 109).

It is hard not to think here of Nietzsche’s exposure of the modernistsearch for certainty and truth as a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy: ‘Whensomeone hides something behind a bush and looks for it again in thesame place and finds it there as well, there is not much to praise in suchseeking and finding. Yet this is how matters stand regarding seekingand finding ‘truth’ within the realm of reason’ (Nietzsche, 1979, p. 85).Nietzsche’s critique here can easily be translated into a criticism ofeducational research. A traditional problem in educational research isthe inclination to model one’s research along the lines of the modernsciences — which is exemplified in, for instance, the desire for law-likeexplanations and generalisations. This is a problem, for, at times, theresearcher seems not so much to be inspired by a genuine investigativeinterest as by a motivation to gain ‘scientific status’ by complying withstandards of approved research designs. Moreover, the classical problemNietzsche criticises is replicated here: in setting out to achieve explana-tory unity in an otherwise cluttered and confusing world, the researcher(unwittingly) forces a particular model onto the social world. But it is nouse to do the very opposite, as Stronach and Maclure do, with respect touncertainty, difference, and so on. It is as if they are so struck by a certainfeature of the concept of meaning — that is, that it continually shifts —that they foreground this aspect in their way of doing research, and, notunsurprisingly, find such shifting of meanings. To be sure, what liesbehind this is an intention that is laudable enough: that those instances

644 S. Ramaekers


in which the respondents write (reply, respond, . . .) in unforeseen ways,or ways unintended by the research instrument, should not be treatedmerely as irksome interfering data — interfering, that is, with the instru-ment’s purposes. However, Stronach and MacLure seem to tilt the scalesto the opposite side, stripping the instrument of its potential to gatherknowledge (even if only provisionally). It seems that the only thing thatmatters, the only thing of importance with respect to what is researched,is what is unforeseen, what disrupts, what breaches, etc. Here, I want tosay, interpretation is adrift, and the engine is idling, in Wittgenstein’sphrase (Wittgenstein, 1953, I, #132).

In this sense, their understanding of postmodern doubt falls short.Against the certainty of what they have been taught, they conjecture thatnothing is certain. By doing so, however, they show their commitmentto, and the perverse attraction of, the matter of certainty; they re-installpostmodernism in the justificatory yes-and-no that is not its primaryinterest. Moreover, by intentionally setting out to see uncertainty, theyassume a distance towards what is researched that is logically comparableto the epistemological distance involved in the search for certainty, andthat is at odds with the aesthetic distancing of postmodern doubt.

That the engine is idling here has considerable practical consequences.What is jeopardised in their conception of doing research is the possi-bility, through the gathering of knowledge (or even provisional belief),of at least trying to provide feedback to practitioners such that they cansomehow improve what they do. I take my lead here from Wittgenstein’sconception of the foundations of our language games. What this canteach us is that there is a danger in closing our investigative gaze toosoon, but also in closing it too late. Scott and Usher put into words whatthe danger is in closing it too soon: ‘Research must always, of necessity,seek the truth, or perhaps, more accurately a truth (out of many possibletruths), but to place all the stress on this leads to a failure to consider theworkings of power within the research process’ (1996, p. 29). Researchersinspired by such postmodernist scepticism as sketched above rightlydraw attention, I think, to the danger of shutting one’s eyes to what isnot sought by one’s investigative procedures. One runs the risk, forinstance, of providing advice or giving feedback that fits the researchparadigm rather than the subject of the research. In an age focused oneffectiveness this is far from unthinkable.7

But there is an equal risk in closing one’s investigative gaze too late(which is something Scott and Usher do not seem to be concerned with).As is exemplified by Stronach and MacLure, it is tempting to shift thefocus solely to the workings of power in the research, to give the finalword, not to the practice of education, but to some theoretical feature, forinstance the (in their view necessarily oppressive) workings of language.One of the things Wittgenstein’s conception of the foundations of ourlanguage games teaches us is that practitioners are not (necessarily)affected by such (uncertainty-inducing) features as Stronach and MacLureemphasise; rather, in the end, they simply (cannot but) act. This is not tosay that practitioners do not experience uncertainty (or, on the contrary,



act dogmatically). It is merely to caution against the exaggeration of theuncertainties experienced under postmodern conditions. Undeniablyparents are confronted with a diverse range of values and norms in a waythat affects their own identity as primary educators — and this perhapsmore so than before; undeniably schools are asked to meet the demandsof multicultural influences in society, something that is very likely toaffect a teacher’s perception of her educational task. The examplesmultiply. This increasing diversity, and, correspondingly, the increasinguncertainty regarding what is wrong or right, do however, neitherrequire nor legitimate a purely questioning stance. And neither shouldthe researcher feel tempted to assume such a stance. What is insufficientlyappreciated by Stronach and MacLure is the human fact of embeddedness(and its normativity). When the researcher’s interpretation is adrift, thereis a risk of making the mistake one is likely to make when one looks forgeneralisations and law-like explanations: one risks accounting insuffi-ciently for the particular embeddedness of the practitioner. But whereasone loses sight of the subtle particularities of the practitioner whenlooking for generalisable features, what is lost above all in educationalresearch conducted along the lines advocated by Stronach and MacLureis the constitutive normativity of this embeddedness with respect, forinstance, to the practitioner’s identity.

This does not merely pertain to such (fairly simple) examples as ‘Hereis a hand’ — which, admittedly, are not very interesting from the point ofview of education — but to matters of far more obvious import, such as‘This is history’, ‘This is a religious attitude’. It is the case that at somepoint parents and teachers simply do judge and act in a certain way; atsome point they must; and in their judging and acting they show orexemplify what they stand for. Educational research must come toacknowledge this; it must overcome the idea that this acknowledgementof what people do must either indicate some deficiency in the researchinstrument or else authorise an all-pervasive scepticism. Wittgensteindispels the illusion that not to question everything must involve somekind of lack:

‘We could doubt every single one of these facts, but we could not doubtthem all.’Wouldn’t it be more correct to say: ‘we do not doubt them all’.Our not doubting them is simply our manner of judging, and therefore ofacting (OC, #232).

This is not to say that our judging and acting cannot change. It is merelyto say that to question everything would involve transgressing theboundaries of the human.

Practitioners do something: they give particular meanings (and not justany meanings) to what they do. This is a feature that seems to be lostunder a single-tracked conception of postmodernist scepticism in educa-tional research that Stronach and MacLure present.

646 S. Ramaekers


As an illustration, consider the way that Stronach and MacLuredescribe their research into the identity of a primary school headteacher(Stronach and MacLure, 1997, pp. 34 ff.). There is much to value in theircritique of what they call ‘easy realism’ in educational research (ibid.,p. 57). Their view can be understood as being that simple realist accountsin educational research misunderstand the nature of language: languagedoes not just represent or report reality, but gives shape to it. But theiralternative account focuses almost exclusively on the textual forms inwhich teachers are portrayed, on the textual devices with which identityis established in research representations. For them, a text, hence anyresearch report, is always a kind of tyranny — in the sense that a text(supposedly) fixes the subject of research against her will, so to speak, orunconsciously, in this or that meaning or interpretation, a meaning orinterpretation that always, in the interests of achieving a sense ofcompleteness, conceals something. These textual devices need, therefore,to be exposed in such a way that the existence of a plurality of voices canbe reasserted. At first sight, this seems to have something going for itperhaps, but Stronach and MacLure push the matter to extremes: ‘if ourargument about identity is right, it has to be wrong’ (ibid., p. 75). Theyquestion their own emphasis on plurality as perhaps glossing overambivalence and uncertainty. On their account, identity is always notwhat it is reported to be.

It is my contention, however, that this conception of research itselfrests on a misunderstanding of language. Stronach and MacLure seemto take the significations through which one’s identity is constituted asmere conventions, which are forced upon respondents, but which, becausethey are mere conventions, can be changed at will, according to taste ormomentary whim. This completely misses not only the deep sense of thenormativity in what we say and do but also the sometimes equivocalrelationship between empirical and hinge propositions that are at theheart of Wittgenstein’s thought. The richer account of postmodernistthought in education that I have tried to delineate is to be understood tobe in accord with that thought.

In connecting the concept of aesthetic distance to postmodernistscepticism as sketched above, I want, then, to put the emphasis on theresearcher’s attitude, and on changing that attitude. The task for theresearcher is neither to grasp the raw data of educational practice andsubmit it to law-like explanation nor to engage in a (neurotic) searchfor the hyper-personal (‘Are these really the teacher’s feelings or am Icorrupting them?’). Rather, I take her task to be one of balancing inthe space between closing one’s research too soon and closing it toolate. The concept of aesthetic distance entails ‘being in the grip ofsomething’ but also ‘being incited or called upon to express one’sappreciation’. So too the researcher finds herself caught in the dualprocess of accepting the seemingly inchoate and inarticulable back-ground that conditions our embeddedness as well as assumingresponsibility for offering what understanding she can achieve backto practitioners. If this cannot be done, educational research is idling:



the very process of calling into question loses all sense, losing itself inits own reflectiveness.

In conclusion, and against the pessimism that the above might imply,let me venture two examples that perhaps show in some degree theaesthetic distancing I have argued for and also draw attention to thesometimes unsettled relation between hinge and empirical propositions.The first concerns research into child care (day care) for young children.Typically, there is a tendency for the study of day care to focus on theeffects it has on children. The researcher is alert especially to negativeeffects — for instance, disturbing patterns in the child’s behaviour orchanges in her attachment to her natural parents. Educational researchof this kind can lead to conclusions of findings that range from argu-ments against day-care policy to more specific advice for child-careworkers (see Pedagogisch Tijdschrift, 1993, special issue on Child Care).

Marianne Riksen-Walraven, who recently has been appointed to theChair for Developmental Psychology (Nijmegen, 2002), works withinthis kind of empirical–analytical research programme.8 In her inaugurallecture she warned of the potential risks of child care for young children:irrespective of the quality or type of child care, there appears to be acorrelation between the amount of time spent by children in day care andthe occurrence of behavioural problems. Her lecture met with severalcriticisms, from other academics, disputing the results of her researchand the research she drew on, but also from the side of parents. Someparents took offence at what she said, one accusing her of making gender-political statements based on a conservative morality (see Schuengel,2002, p. 50). One way of responding to such reactions would be toprovide more evidence regarding the same (supposedly) problematicphenomenon, and hence trying to persuade the parents. But Riksen-Walraven opened the door to another way of approaching the issue. Sheinterpreted the higher incidence of behavioural problems with childrenstaying in child care as a sign that parents, most likely under pressurefrom societal expectations (say, to be available for work withoutinterruption), make choices that are not for the children’s good (seeSchuengel, 2002, p. 52; Levering, 2002, p. 12). Riksen-Walraven fruit-fully diverted the discussion from what might have been a quibblingabout results to the suggestion that academics and parents collectivelyshould demand measures from the government that would alleviate suchpressures (such as, for instance, extended maternity leave, stimulatingand secure part-time jobs, sufficient and qualitative high-standard childcare) (Schuengel, 2002, p. 51).

Far from this being an evasion of the rigorous criticism of her ownresearch, I take this as an instance of the very attitude I have tried tosketch above. What Riksen-Walraven is in fact doing in her response toparents’ reactions is distancing herself from her own research programmeand methodology in such a way as to open up the possibility of shiftingthe very parameters of the problem and the manner in which this practiceis understood. This is tantamount to a shifting of empirical and hingepropositions. In such ways, educational intervention can come to be

648 S. Ramaekers


based less on, and limited less by, effect studies, and guided more by abroadened perspective with emancipatory possibilities. Emancipationhere is very much a matter of gaining distance on our practice in such away as to enable us to see it in a new light. Manifestly this is a move awayfrom a concern with ‘effectiveness’ that helps to reveal and to address theethical presuppositions in which practice is inevitably embedded.

The second example relates more directly to scepticism. An interestingexample of postmodernist ‘scepticism’ as I have come to understand it isto be found in some feminist writings about the workings and effects ofgender. Feminists can be understood as having drawn attention to,Helen Longino argues, ‘the use of elements of gender and social relationsas metaphors for natural processes and relations’ (Longino, 1993, p. 114).They bring to light assumptions concerning gender that are generallyonly implicit in scientific research, assumptions, that is, that informresearch questions and imperceptibly guide scientific claims. Feministcritique in science can be understood as ‘one among many ways ofuncovering bias’ (Schiebinger, 1999, p. 146). For instance, feministcritique in cell biology has pointed out that the sperm and the egg havebeen understood in terms of characteristics traditionally considered to berespectively male and female (the active sperm versus the passive egg),and that, furthermore, this very understanding has prevented researchersfrom discovering important aspects of the process of fertilisation (inparticular, the growth of microvilli that ‘capture’ and ‘tether’ the sperm)(Schiebinger’s example, 1999, pp. 145–146). Importantly, this raisedawareness of gender does not imply that investigative procedureshenceforth can be considered to be ‘de-gendered’. The objects underscrutiny (for example, the egg and the sperm) are still gendered, but in adifferent way. The relevant insight here is that awareness of gender inresearch is placing all persons and elements involved ‘in pre-existing andcomplex sets of cultural meanings’ (Schiebinger, 1999, p. 147) thatcannot be simply controlled by the researcher.

In terms of the Wittgensteinian lack of sharpness of the boundarybetween hinge propositions and propositions that can be meaningfullyquestioned and doubted, postmodern doubt can be understood asoperating on the very point of migration, as Moyal-Sharrock puts this,between the two categories. Accepting the challenge of postmodern‘scepticism’ in educational theory is not about the epistemologicalcertainty of empirical propositions, nor is it concerned with entirelyundercutting our system of foundational beliefs, the hinges upon whichthe inquiry turns. Rather, to extend the metaphor, it is about muddlingin the sand of the river bank, thereby sometimes building sandy deposits,at other times eroding the bank, with the gradually altering river’scourse.9

Correspondence: Stefan Ramaekers, Centre for Philosophy of Education,Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Leuven,Tiensestraat 102, 3000 Leuven, Belgium.Email: [email protected]



NOTES

1. See Hankinson (1995) for an exegetical study on ancient scepticism.

2. I owe this particular conception to Jaap Van Brakel, who replied to an earlier version of this

paper (see the final note below).

3. The (by now) classical example is both Lyotard’s and Bauman’s conception of the holocaust as

the bankruptcy of modernity’s humanising mission.

4. Wittgenstein’s On Certainty in large part constitutes a discussion with Moore’s Proof of an

external world and A defence of common sense.

5. I owe this concept to Umberto Eco, 1990, p. 24.

6. It concerns more particularly two evaluative studies: an evaluation of the management of

innovation in the Technical and Vocational Education Initiative; and an evaluation of special

educational needs training for Strathclyde Regional Council.

7. A (beautifully) ironic passage from Blake et al. (2000) illustrates this danger: ‘The question of

educational research. What use is educational research unless it tells us what to do (what is

effective, what works)? We expect it to be relevant to the classroom. Classroom teachers should

therefore in the future maximise learning by use of the interactive whiteboard, or whatever. We can

see the point of that kind of research. The philosophers will not be excluded, for we do not want

to seem lacking in moral values, and who knows when an ethical or spiritual (yes, we are sure there

is a difference, but no time for that now) audit will not inform the league-tables?’ (2000, p. 178).

8. For the presentation of this example I draw on the critical survey article of Carlo Schuengel,

2002, in the Pedagogisch Tijdschrift.

9. This paper is an amended version of a paper presented at the Research Community on

Philosophy and history of the discipline of education, in Leuven, October 2001. I am grateful to

all those who have commented on my presentation, especially to Jaap Van Brakel.

REFERENCES

Blake, N., Smeyers, P., Smith, R., and Standish, P. (2000) Education in an age of nihilism (London,

Routledge/Falmer).

Burbules, N. (1996) Postmodern doubt and philosophy of education, in: A. Neiman (ed.) Philosophy

of education 1995 (Urbana, Philosophy of Education Society), pp. 39–48.

Carr, D. (1994) Knowledge and truth in religious education, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 28,

pp. 221–238.

Carr, D. (ed) (1998) Education, knowledge and truth. Beyond the postmodern impasse (London,

Routledge).

Carr, D. (1999) Toward a re-evaluation of the role of educational epistemology in the professional

education of teachers, in: S. Tozer (ed.) Philosophy of education 1998 (Urbana, Philosophy of

Education Society), pp. 439–447.

Carr, D. (2001) Educational philosophy, theory and research: a psychiatric autobiography, Journal

of Philosophy of Education, 35, pp. 461–476.

Descartes, R. (1960) Discourse on method and Meditations (trans. L. F. Lafleur) (Indianapolis, The

Bobb-Merill Company).

De Martelaere, P. (1987) Hume’s ‘gematigd’ scepticisme: futiel of fataal? [Humes ‘moderate’

scepticism: futile or fatal?], Verhandelingen voor de Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen,

Letteren en Schone Kunsten van Belgie, 49, 123.

Eco, U. (1990) The limits of interpretation (Indiana, University Press Bloomington).

Hankinson, R. J. (1995) The sceptics (London, Routledge).

Hume, D. (1969) A treatise on human nature (London, Penguin Books).

Hume, D. (1975) Enquiries concerning human understanding and concerning the principles of morals

(Oxford, Clarendon Press).

Kelchtermans, G. (1999) De biografische methode [The biographical method], in: B. Levering, and

P. Smeyers (eds) Opvoeding en onderwijs leren zien. Een inleiding in interpretatief onderzoek

[Getting to see child-rearing and education. An introduction in interpretative research]

(Amsterdam, Boom), pp. 132–153.

Kurtz, P. (1992) The new skepticism. Inquiry and reliable knowledge (New York, Prometheus Books).

650 S. Ramaekers


Levering, B. (2002) Interview met Marianne Riksen-Walraven, Pedagogiek in Praktijk [Educational

theory in practice], 7, pp. 12–15.

Longino, H. (1993) Subjects, power, and knowledge: description and prescription in feminist

philosophies of science, in: L. Alcoff and E. Potter (eds) Feminist epistemologies (London,

Routledge), pp. 101–120.

Mackenzie, J. (1998) Science Education after Postmodernism, in: D. Carr (ed.) Education,

Knowledge and Truth: Beyond the Postmodern Impasse (London, Routledge), pp. 53–67.

Moyal-Sharrock, D. (2000) Wittgenstein distinguished: a response to Pieranna Garavaso,

Philosophical Investigations, 23, pp. 54–69.

Moyal-Sharrock, D. (2001) The third Wittgenstein and the category mistake of philosophical

scepticism. Paper presented at the 24th International Wittgenstein Symposium, Kirchberg am

Wechsel.

Nietzsche, F. (1979) On thruth and lies in an nonmoral sense, in: D. Breazeale (ed.) Philosophy and

truth. Selections from Nietzsche’s notebooks of the early 1870s (trans. D. Breazeale) (New Jersey,

Humanities Press).

Pedagogisch Tijdschrift [Educational Journal] (1993), Special Issue on Child Care (Leuven,

Ceuterick).

Schiebinger, L. (1999) Has feminism changed science? (Cambridge, Harvard University Press).

Schuengel, C. (2002) Steen in de vijver. De bijdrage van Riksen-Walraven aan het debat over

kinderopvang nader onderzocht [Reconsidering Riksen-Walraven’s contribution to the debate

concerning child care], Pedagogisch Tijdschrift [Educational Journal], 27, pp. 43–56.

Scott, D., and Usher, R. (1996) Understanding educational research (London, Routledge).

Siegel, H. (1998) Knowledge, truth and education, in: D. Carr (ed.) Education, knowledge and truth.

Beyond the postmodern impasse (London, Routledge), pp. 19–36.

Standish, P. (1994) Pre-texts for research: a response to Robin Usher on theory and writing, Studies

in Continuing Education, 16, pp. 143–159.

Stronach, I. and MacLure, M. (1997) Educational research undone. The postmodern embrace.

(Buckingham, Open University Press).

Stroll, A. (1994) Moore and Wittgenstein on certainty (New York, Oxford University Press).

Stueber, K. (1994) Practice, indeterminacy and private language: Wittgenstein’s dissolution of

scepticism, Philosophical Investigations, 17, pp. 14–36.

Usher, R. and Edwards, R. (1994) Postmodernism and education (London, Routledge).

Usher, R., Bryant, I., & Johnston, R. (1997) Adult education and the postmodern challenge: learning

beyond the limits (London, Routledge).

Van Brakel, J. (1996) Interdiscourse or supervenience relations: the primacy of the manifest image,

Synthese, 106, pp. 253–268.

Van Brakel, J. (1998) De wetenschappen. Filosofische kanttekeningen [The sciences. Philosophical

comments] (Leuven, Universitaire Pers Leuven).

Yiamouyiannis, Z. (1999) A teacher’s right to know: epistemological controversy and the

preparation of educational professionals, in: S. Tozer (ed.) (1999) Philosophy of education 1998

(Urbana, Philosophy of Education Society), pp. 448–451.

Wittgenstein, L. (1953) Philosophische Untersuchungen/Philosophical investigations (trans. G. E. M.

Anscombe) (Oxford, Basil Blackwell).

Wittgenstein, L. (1969) Uber Gewissheit/On Certainty (trans. G. E. M. Anscombe) (Oxford, Basil

Blackwell).



Postmodernism: a 'Sceptical' Challenge in Educational Theory

Documents

Transcript of Postmodernism: a 'Sceptical' Challenge in Educational Theory