LEARNING

Learning is fundamental to education. Much thinking about it has, in recent years, come from a psychological perspective. Philosophical reflection about learning has, to a large extent, marched in step with one of the most influential accounts of the human mind, cognitivism, but there have been exceptions, the most noteworthy of these being Hamlyn (1978) and, more recently, C. Winch (1998) and Beckett and Hager (2002). Following Ryle (1949), one can distinguish between two senses of

a concept like learning. The first is the task sense; when I say that I am learning German, I mean that I do not yet grasp the language, but the grasping of German is what I am undertaking. When, on the other hand, I say that I have learned German, I am speaking in the achievement sense; I have succeeded in learning German. Usually context and the use of tense, present for task and past for achievement, mark the difference between these two senses. Educators are interested in learning in both these senses, they want to know what makes a successful process and they want to know when an outcome is achieved. There is a conceptual connection between learning and teaching

in the sense that if I have successfully taught something (achievement), then someone has been learning something (task). It does not follow that if I have taught in the task sense then someone has learned either in the task or the achievement sense. It is, for example, possible for a vigorous and successful teacher to have an incorrigible daydreamer in her class. Learning can also take place without any teaching. Those who are self-taught, for example, have not needed any other person than themselves to enable them to learn. This may, however, be too simple. So far it has been taken for granted that teaching is an intentional process. While this is mostly true, one can also teach unintentionally by, for example, writing a book and accidentally leaving it open for someone to read. More broadly, even the self-taught have to make use of materials provided by others in order to acquire the skills and knowledge they seek. Even if these materials were provided intentionally, the provider, if he is deceased, could not intentionally be teaching that person, although there is a sense in which he is teaching. These points should make us cautious about the idea that learning can be completely divorced from teaching and that it can take place outside the medium of society, even when it is self-directed. If learning has taken place in the achievement sense, then some-

thing has been learned. But how does one establish this? The most

common approach is through a form of assessment in which the learner is asked to demonstrate her skill or knowledge. Given that, it seems to follow from the fact that X has learned (achievement) that p, that X can in some way demonstrate the knowledge that p. If there are no conceivable circumstances in which this could be shown, then one has no way of assessing the truth of the claim. It seems, therefore, that just as teaching and learning are closely related concepts, so are learning and assessment. If one could establish general principles as to how people learned

then it should be possible to generate pedagogical approaches which would facilitate successful learning. The twentieth century has seen a flowering of such theories ranging from behaviourism to cognitivism. While some of these are partially complementary, they are very often incompatible, even before the truth of any of them has been established. In other words, it is quite likely that most learning theories are contraries – they may be jointly false but not jointly true (cf. Fodor 2000 for some scepticism about the cognitivist project and Davis 2004 about the idea that brains, not people, learn). This poses a large dilemma for educators, including self-educators. On the one hand they may adopt a learning theory as a basis for pedagogy and take the risk that it is partially or wholly false, or they may dispense with theory altogether and take the risk that any gains that might be achieved by a systematic approach will be lost. It is no wonder that learning theories have enjoyed such popularity, because, whatever the risks, their purveyors have always been clear and often eloquent about their truth. Their popularity has also been due to the prestige of scientific explanations, particularly those that aim for a high degree of generality. It is at least conceivable, however, that the search for a high degree of generality in the explanation of how humans learn is misplaced (Hager 2005; C. Winch 1998). One criticism of the scientific approach is that it systematically undervalues social and affective aspects of learning (Alexander 1984). Despite their popularity and the influence which they have given to psychology, it may be that the claims of learning theories are due for a radical reassessment. The dilemma mentioned above may be a false one. While com-

prehensive theories about learning may be of dubious value, it does not follow that more modest theories, that take into account particular circumstances, and which are cautious about generalising, are of no value. If our knowledge about human learning is necessarily bound by human circumstance and history, then accounts of how people learn will have to follow those contours. But educators are bound by human circumstance and history, and they have to work

within particular situations. If they can be reliably informed about approaches that are likely to be successful in their historical and social contexts, then they will be much better off than remaining either in ignorance or in error. Beyond this, can any general points be made about human learn-

ing? Those who argue that it is social, affective and dependent on circumstance are themselves making a kind of generalisation. But even they, it could be argued, might be missing something easily missed in the scientific temper of our times, namely the possibility that there is an element that is utterly mysterious about our ability to learn, something that is hinted at in our everyday understanding of the power of love to transform both the lover and the object that is loved. If we fail to grasp this, it might be argued, we fail to understand how learning is also concerned with the pursuit of excellence or perfection. One needs to go back to Plato for such an insight.