The Dilemma of Enquiry and Learning

2011·1.6 MB·

by  Hugh G. Petrie

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Hugh G. Petrie
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From the cover of the original 1981 edition:
The dilemma named in Hugh G. Petrie’s title was stated by Meno in
Plato’s dialogue of that name: “A man cannot enquire about that which
he knows or about that which he does not know; for if he knows, he
has no need to enquire; and if not, he cannot; for he does not know the
very subject about which he is to enquire.” Petrie argues that Meno’s
dilemma poses the fundamental epistemological question for educa-
tion, “How is learning possible?” He examines a variety of familiar
approaches to learning, from the open classroom to back-to-basics,
and finds that each of these approaches attempts to grasp one horn of
the dilemma to the exclusion of the other.
The examination of previous attempts to resolve the dilemma of
enquiry and learning prepares the way for Petrie’s proposed solution.
He defines learning as an adaptation of thought and action to the
demands of the natural and social world. This process has two major
components, assimilation and accommodation, corresponding to
the two traditional ways of attacking the dilemma. Assimilation is
explained using the insights of [control] systems theory, while results
in evolutionary epistemology are brought to bear on the question
of accommodation. Petrie shows that only a reflective equilibrium
between assimilation and accommodation will allow for a resolution
of the Meno dilemma.
In the course of his presentation the author challenges a number of
educational dogmas, including the beliefs that clear and unambiguous
goals can be stated for learning; that theory can be “applied” to practice;
that “subjective” tests are inferior to “objective” tests; and that the intel-
ligence of a child makes a difference to educational policy. The book
outlines new approaches to commonplace educational phenomena such
as testing and to radical phenomena such as conversion experiences.
It makes novel practical suggestions for the use of activity, perceptual
training, and metaphor in a variety of learning situations.
This book
The Dilemma of Enquiry and Learning
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PCT, will be available to students for many decades to come.
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Minor updates and this note added in 2020.
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Hugh G. Petrie
Living Control Systems Publishing
Menlo Park, CA
First published in 1981 by The University of Chicago Press,
Chicago and London.
Second edition, revised and updated.
Copyright © 1981, 2011 by Hugh G. Petrie
All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2011928672
Publishers Cataloging in Publication
Petrie, Hugh G. 1937 –
The dilemma of enquiry and learning.
x, 242 p. : illustrated : bibliography: index; 24 cm.
978-0-9740155-3-8 (softcover, perfect binding)
978-1-938090-04-2 (hardcover, case binding)
1. Learning. 2. Schooling.
3. Education. 4. Evolutionary epistemology
5. Perceptual control theory. 6. Philosophy of Science
I. Title.
LB1060.P 370.15’23
∞
The paper used in this book meets all ANSI
standards for archival quality paper.
On the back cover: Picture of Hugh Petrie taken in 2011.
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Preface to the Second Edition ix
1. Meno’s Dilemma 1
2. Grasping the
Old-Knowledge Horn 12
3. Grasping the
New-Knowledge Horn 29
4. Conceptual Change 43
5. Assimilation 73
6. Accommodation 117
7. Learning 154
8. Education 192
Addendum 223
References 229
Index 239
To Carol
Acknowledgements
The ideas for this book have come from a variety of sources. It would
be impossible to acknowledge my debt to everyone who has in one
way or another stimulated my thought, challenged an idea of mine,
or given me encouragement when I needed it. Nevertheless, there are
a few people whom I would like to single out for special thanks.
I would first like to mention Donald T. Campbell, who, when I was a
newly minted assistant professor at Northwestern University, took me
under his wing and gave me perhaps the finest postdoctoral experience
anyone could have. I began by sitting in on Don’s course in knowledge
processes and arguing vehemently with him. I ended by coteaching
the course with him and fully accepting his emphasis on evolutionary
epistemology and the processes of knowing as opposed to the stress on
static knowledge structures with which I had begun.
Several years later I met William T. Powers at an informal luncheon
group and found his ideas on control system theory both intriguing
and perplexing. I invited Bill to be the sole lecturer at a seminar I held
the next year, and that experience provided the insights I needed to
begin bridging the gaps I had long deplored between philosophy and
psychology.
During my time at Northwestern I also met Stephen Toulmin. After
I moved to the University of Illinois, I had several long and fruitful
discussions with him. In addition, several of his works formed the basis
for a series of important graduate seminars I held at Illinois during the
early seventies. My intellectual debt to Toulmin will be obvious in the
pages which follow.
The final intellectual stimulus came, however, from a group of gradu-
ate students the likes of which come along once in a lifetime. During
the early and mid-seventies we read and talked and wrote and argued,
and most of the ideas in this book had their genesis in those encoun-
ters. I particularly want to mention Robert Halstead, Bruce Haynes,
Felicity Haynes, Graham Oliver, Ralph Page, Martin Schiaralli, Ron
Szoke, and Eric Weir. Without the yeasty intellectual ferment of those
days, this book would likely not have been written.
For all the ideas bubbling around in my head, however, I also needed
the calm emotional encouragement provided by my wife, Carol Hodges.
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viii Acknowledgements
She listened patiently as I tried out first one, then another formulation.
She understood and accepted all the days and weeks and months of
revising and rewriting. She kept me at the task, and she took me away
from it when I needed the respite.
In the end, of course, the book is my responsibility. Its successes
and failures are my successes and failures. My hope, however, is that it
will stimulate others to take a fresh look at some of the epistemological
problems of education. I sense a resurgent interest across the country in
the epistemological foundations of a variety of fields, from sociology of
knowledge, to cognitive science, to organizational behavior. If this book
can contribute to these new directions I will be more than satisfied.
Preface to the Second Edition
I wrote the first edition of The Dilemma of Enquiry and Learning in
1981, thirty years ago. If I were to totally rewrite the book now, several
things would change. Obviously much additional literature has been
developed since then that would need to be referenced and some of the
then current literature in philosophy of education would no longer be
as relevant. In particular, in the original Dilemma, Section 7 of Chapter
7 (p. 187) deals at length with D.W. Hamlyn’s 1978 book, Experience
and the Growth of Understanding. Although I have left that section in
the second edition for historical reasons, it is much less relevant today.
Also, having been thoroughly trained as an analytic philosopher I
wrote the book thirty years ago in a dense, sometimes nearly unread-
able, logical style. If I were to rewrite it today, I would surely try to
make it more accessible to a wider audience. The first several chapters
are, in places, particularly hard going. Finally, thirty year old examples
are sometimes irrelevant and out of date.
Nevertheless, in rereading the book, I believe that its main themes
are still as valid and important today as they were thirty years ago. In-
deed, the arguments about conceptual diversity and rational conceptual
change are incredibly germane to our current polarized societies here in
the United States and across the world. The first three chapters about
Meno’s dilemma should still be interesting to Platonic philosophers
even if other readers find them less helpful in providing a framework
for the rest of the book. Non-philosophers can skim these first chapters
and concentrate on the arguments in chapters four through eight about
conceptual change, conceptual diversity, assimilation, accommodation,
learning, and reaching a reflective equilibrium among the various forms
of enquiry and learning. These later chapters are more accessible to
the general reader, and, I believe, still of major significance. It seems
to me that the central lesson of the book continues to be that we must
shift our focus from a preoccupation with knowledge structures to a
concern with knowledge processes for both enquiry in general and for
an individual’s learning in particular.
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