This paper utilises selective writings by John Dewey and Maurice Merleau-Ponty as the conceptual basis for considering how an enhanced synergistic focus on habit and embodiment could support practice gains in schools. The paper focuses on Dewey’s belief that established habits can help students to incorporate experiences into evaluations of educational progress and Merleau-Ponty’s spotlight on the body-subject, and how it provides a holistic way of conceiving relations that avoid over privileging abstraction and cognition and under-representing the centrality of the (...) body in human experience. We then evaluate the role of language and reflection in relation to habit, embodiment, and education before discussing some of the general educational practice considerations which might improve the quality of students learning experiences. In conclusion, we consider the possibilities for Dewey’s pragmatism to function as a theoretical bridge to Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception and the nature of experience. We argue that while it is important to recognise points of difference, in relation to philosophical treatments of habit and embodiment, it is also important to consider the overlap and new connections between Merleau-Ponty and Dewey which are valuable to take forward in contemporary education. (shrink)

In this review essay, Jeanne Connell examines the influence of pragmatic philosophy on the scholarly works of twentieth‐century literary theorist and English educator Louise Rosenblatt through the lens of a recent collection of her essays originally published between 1936 and 1999. Rosenblatt grounded her transactional theory of literature in pragmatic philosophy, particularly the epistemological constructs of John Dewey. While influential as a pioneer in the early development of reader‐response theory, Rosenblatt’s theory has only recently been given attention by philosophers of (...) education. Making Meaning with Texts: Selected Essays is an important collection of articles and book chapters that highlights the evolution of her thinking in literary theory, pedagogy, and literary criticism. Rosenblatt positioned the construction of meaning in the personal lived‐through quality of the literary experience, making central the generative relation between the text and the reader. Connell argues that the educational relevance of Rosenblatt’s theory for contemporary education is that it provides a powerful critique of classroom approaches that promote shallow readings with little opportunity for critical reflection. (shrink)

in his recent text Sustainable Knowledge, Robert Frodeman argues that the unchecked proliferation of academic knowledge is unsustainable. While his account provides a basis for more sustainable disciplinary practices, it fails to show how the knowledge produced by such practices is ultimately superior to traditional academic knowledge. This essay provides an epistemic justification for sustainable knowledge. It begins by introducing the maker’s knowledge tradition as an alternative to traditional academic knowledge. It then expands and advances this tradition through Dewey’s naturalized (...) epistemology. Ultimately, it develops an account of knowledge that is not only of a higher quality than traditional knowledge but... (shrink)

Ontological perspectives in higher education and particularly in professional education and development have focused attention on the question of the learner’s being and becoming rather than on the epistemological concern of what and how they know. This study considers the formation of the professional self in the light of the requirements for professional practice. It raises the question of agency in relation to this formational process and considers the implications of the autonomy paradox which arises from the simultaneous influence of (...) the sovereign self and the external authority of the profession on the formation of the professional self. This study considers a structural perspective on both of these matters and concludes with implications for professional education and development derived from constructive developmental theory and the notion of subject–object transformation. (shrink)

In this paper I shift the center of utopian debates away from questions of ideology towards the question of power. As a new point of departure, I analyze Foucault's notion of biopower as well as Hardt and Negri's theory of biopolitics. Arguing for a new hermeneutic of biopolitics in education, I then apply this lens to evaluate the educational philosophy of John Dewey. In conclusion, the paper suggests that while Hardt and Negri are missing an educational theory, John Dewey is (...) missing a concept of democracy adequate to the biopolitical struggles of the multitude. Thus, I call for a synthesis of Dewey and Hardt and Negri in order to generate a biopedagogical practice beyond both traditional models of education as well as current standardization. (shrink)

The debate around ethical consumption is often characterised by discussion of its numerous failures arising from complexity in perceived trade-offs. In response, this paper advances a pragmatist understanding of the role and nature of trade-offs in ethical consumption. In doing so, it draws on the central roles of values and value in consumption and pragmatist philosophical thought, and proposes a critique of the ethical consumer as rational maximiser and the cognitive and utilitarian discourse of individual trade-offs to understand how sustainable (...) consumption practices are established and maintained. An in-depth qualitative study is conducted employing phenomenological interviews and hermeneutic analysis to explore the consumption stories of a group of ethically minded consumers. The research uncovers the location of value within a fluid, yet habitual, plurality of patterns, preferences, morals, identities and relationships. Its contribution is to propose that consumer perception of value in moral judgements is represented by an overall form of aggregate personal advantage, which lacks conscious reflection and delivers a phenomenological form of value rooted in habits, reflecting a pragmatist representation of value unified as a ‘consummatory experience’. (shrink)