Paper presented to the Philosophy of Education Society Conference, 24-27 November 2005, Hong Kong.
Robert Shaw
The Open Polytechnic of
New Zealand
Keywords: truth, Heidegger, ontology, Newton, pedagogy
Heideggerian theories of truth could one day radically alter teaching praxis. This paper steps us towards that day. The first task is to interpret Heidegger’s concept of truth with an eye to its application in schools. The elements of the concept that are most relevant to teaching and learning are identified. The most critical element is the concept of horizon. The implications of this concept are considered in relation to the hermeneutic experience of students, textbooks, and learning. The paper focuses on scientific truth, which for Heidegger is exemplified in Newton’s Laws. It considers issues about horizons when Newton’s Laws are taught, drawing upon Heidegger and Husserl (particularly intelligibility frames and lit areas). From this discussion emerges a definition of Heideggerian pedagogy. Finally, the paper suggests why truth as correspondence undermines schooling.
This paper sets out a Heideggerian theory of truth and moves us towards the implications of this theory for teachers. It uses as its prime example the theoretical propositions that are taught as Newton’s Laws of Motion. Heidegger also used Newton’s Laws as an example. I take up and use notions developed by Heidegger without confining myself to an interpretation of his words. Accordingly, the paper:
Before Heidegger, the debate about “truth” focused on potential meanings for the noun. In his discussion “of why do we call different things by the same name”, Austin sets out instances where there are reasons to distinguish between things called by the same name:
“But suppose we take the noun ‘truth’: here is a case where the disagreements between different theorists have largely turned on whether they interpreted this as a name of a substance, of a quality, or of a relation” (Austin, Urmson, & Warnock, 1979, p.73)
Heidegger’s established an ontological theory of truth that overcame the difficulties to which Austin alludes by conflating truth and the human being, Dasein: “Truth, in the most primordial sense belongs to the basic constitution of Dasein” (Heidegger, 1962, p.269).
Any correspondence theory of truth locates truth primarily in mental or linguistic entities such as judgments, propositions, statements, assertions, or sentences. Accordingly, truths can be true or false. Heidegger calls such theories the “usual concept of truth” (Heidegger, 1993, p.116). The idea that “the genuine ‘locus’ of truth is the judgment” is known as the “logical prejudice”, and it entails “pervasive presuppositions” about logic and thought (Dahlstrom, 2001, p.xvii).
Heidegger’s ontological theory provides a place for correspondence theories of truth, however he asks us to consider what must be present if such truths are to operate – what is the “inner possibility of accordance” (Heidegger, 1993, p.120). Proceeding this way, he explains the basis of correspondence theories and by implication their limitations (section 44 in Heidegger, 1962).
This model is based upon interpretations of Heidegger by Young, Suvák, and Philipse, and it is constructed as:
The structure that produces truth:
Truth involves a constellation of five elements:
The levels of truth within the structure:
The five structural elements interact in a manner that produces three entities that may carry the name “truth”, because they are sufficiently (but not all of them, absolutely) reliable, timeless, consistent, and not altered by circumstances. Suvák calls the levels a “hierarchy” and relates them to Aristotle:
“1. The lowest level of truth is propositional truth. Here truth is taken to be the correspondence (adequatio) or agreement between a proposition, and thus the intellect, and a thing ….
2. The next highest level of truth is the ontic. Propositional truth itself presupposes that beings show themselves to us. ‘How something shows itself’ is a more primordial characteristic of truth than the simple criterion of correspondence. In other words, the being-true of the assertion is a derivative mode of the primordial happening of truth on which it is grounded. This is also the first level of unconcealedness. Dasein first finds beings as unconcealed before the question of correspondence can emerge....The human psuche (Dasein) can be uncovering in the five ways being-in-truth: techne, episteme, phronesis, sophia, and nous.
3. The last level of truth is the ontological. This refers not to the unconcealedness of particular beings, but rather the Being of these beings. It refers to the event of openness itself which makes possible Da-sein’s own openness to beings and the openness of beings themselves.”(Suvák, 2000, p.10).
The levels of truth all refer to the structural component 5. There are no truths that appear outside of horizons, and the Being of the truths within horizons is addressed by level 3. This is a consequence of truth being a way of being only for Dasein.
The dynamics of Truths within the Model:
All the structural elements and the three levels of truth are inextricably bound together, because they function together. The result is that “human beings are inextricably involved with things and people” and “meaning depends ultimately on the inseparability of practices, things, and mental contents” (Dreyfus, 2000, p.152).
This functioning is shown when Heidegger uses Newton Laws as examples of truths. He asserts the relationship between one structural element (the second, Man) and a truth in the ontic (second above) sense: “Newton's laws, the principle of contradiction, any truth whatever —these are true only as long as Dasein is. Before there was any Dasein, there was no truth; nor will there be any after Dasein is no more. For in such a case truth as disclosedness, uncovering, and uncoveredness, cannot be.” (Heidegger, 1962, p.269).
He repeats his point with emphasis on the objects uncovered (the Laws themselves): “To say that before Newton his laws were neither true nor false, cannot signify that before him there were no such entities as have been uncovered and pointed out by those laws. Through Newton the laws became true and with them, entities became accessible in themselves to Dasein. (Heidegger, 1962, p.269). This brings together two of the structural parts of the model and two notions of truth, but it does not say anything about the mechanism by which this occurs.
Newton’s Laws can only emerge as truths if Dasein has the appropriate horizon that enables these specific truths to appear – this is the “mechanism”. Newton’s Law’s may be “added” to what is already there but they cannot appear in the structure without the horizon of science being present. I will return to this when the nature of horizons is considered later.
How do we get to see the precipitation of truths within Dasein? Heidegger says human beings “comport” themselves to the world in different ways. We can reframe this question and keep our focus on the acquisition of the truths of Newton’s Laws: what new comportment appears when Dasein comes to be with the truths of Newton’s Laws? “Comportment” is a word that appears in Heidegger to hold two notions “behaviour” and “practical/theoretical orientation”. Heidegger explains:
“The question of the genesis of theoretical behaviour is one which we have left hanging. What can a temporal characterization of circumspective deliberation and its schemata contribute to the answering of it? Only that this elucidates the Situation in which circumspective concern changes over into theoretical discovering—a Situation of the kind which belongs to Dasein. We may then try to analyse this change-over itself by taking as our clue an elementary assertion which is circumspectively deliberative in character and the modifications which are possible for it” (Heidegger, 1962, p.412). This labels the critical event as the “Situation”, makes it uniquely characteristic of Man, and most importantly says that for Newton’s Laws to appear the student must move from the form of being that is everydayness (circumspective concern) to the form of being that is deliberative.
We may ask, what do teachers do to manage the “Situation” (in Heidegger’s sense) when they teach Newton’s Laws?
What is done to enable students to comport themselves to the levels of truth inherent in Newton’s Laws? I will give a broad description, and then mention the notion of building on what the students know, and alternative accounts of what is taught.
Typically, a science teacher will present Newton’s laws using a practical demonstration, a brief history lesson, a textbook, and examples. The text “College Physics” is typical of most that are used in first year physics courses. The chapter “The Laws of Motion” sets out what I have just described (Serway & Faughn, 1999, pp.79-113). The laws are introduced by reference to students’ common experiences: pushing a book over a table, and driving in a nail.
Some say the students understand Newton’s Laws in a way that we can observe in their practical actions long before they come to school. Children expect toy boats in water to move where pushed; boys kick rugby balls expecting them to fly in a consistent way; larger children generally prevail over smaller children; and according to Piaget when children play marbles they discover the laws of moving objects and then expect those laws be reliable (Chapter 1 in Piaget, 1948). Piaget drew parallels between the historical development of early physics, before physics became mathematicalised, and his own studies of conceptual development (Mays, 2002, p.177).
A physicist finds the relationship between such behaviours and Newton’s Laws problematic: “The problem is that the abstract concepts found necessary for the consistent description of phenomena are in conflict with ordinary non-scientific interpretation of commonplace experience” (Warren, 1979, p.8). He suggests this difficulty is because human beings first encounter force and motion as bodily sensations: “We know that we must make an effort to keep moving with respect to our immediate surroundings and therefore, deep down in our minds, we are convinced that force is needed to cause motion” (Warren, 1979, p.2). “Physicists make the quite different assumption that forces are needed only to change motion – an idea that is repugnant to ‘common sense’” (Warren, 1979, p.8). There is much that could be said about Warren’s conjecture, and also important is the statement by Boudri (2002, p.1): “there are some questions that physics since the days of Newton simply cannot answer … (including) ‘questions of ultimate meaning’”. It is sufficient to note that there are two fundamentally different accounts that purportedly are of the same phenomena – and teachers consider it desirable to move students from the common sense view to the scientific view (teaching from the known to the unknown).
Warren’s book, “Understanding Force” enables us to observe another matter when teachers present Newton’s Laws: they need not cite Newton. Newton is not in Warren’s reference list and he warrants scant mention in the text. What Newton wrote is mentioned in a discussion about terminology – whether his Laws are “natural laws, axioms or definitions” (Warren, 1979, p.9). There is also a reference to what Newton actually wrote in the third Law because his words cause confusion (Warren, 1979, p.11).
As stated in “College Physics”, Newton’s first law is “An object at rest, and an object in motion continues in motion with constant velocity (that is, constant speed in a straight line), unless it experiences a net external force” (sic) (Serway & Faughn, 1999, p.82). The second law is “The acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the net force acting on it and inversely proportional to its mass” (Serway & Faughn, 1999, p.84). And, the third “If two objects interact, the force exerted on object 1 by object 2 is equal in magnitude but opposite in direction to the force exerted on object 2 by object 1” (Serway & Faughn, 1999, p.86).
Newton did not use these words when he wrote his “Axioms”. He wrote in Latin and a translation reads: “I: Every body continues in its state of rest or uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it…. II: The change of motion is proportional to the motive force impressed and is made in the direction of the right line in which that force is impressed …. III: To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction: or, the mutual actions of two bodies upon other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts” (Newton, 1952, p.14).
Heidegger quotes the law of “inertia” or that “Law of Motion which Newton set at the apex of his work”: “Every body continues in its state of rest, or uniform motion in a straight line, unless it is compelled to change that state by force impressed upon it” (Heidegger's translator says this is from page 13 of the 1946 edition of Newton's work, Heidegger, 1993, pp.279-280).
So we already have three versions of Newton’s Laws, and teachers will tell you that when they teach they use different words but say the same thing. We must ask how the teachers’ claims and the texts are to be interpreted. Do they mean that there is one truth that is Newton’s Laws and that all the written versions correspond (are sufficiently similar) to it? If so where does that single truth reside? It cannot be in any of the particular written statements, for they all are different. Nor can it be in the mind of Newton for he is dead. Perhaps it is communally a part of human beings - we all somehow share in keeping the truth. Perhaps, it is the manuscript that Newton wrote in ink; or the ideas he had in his mind when he wrote.
I can now consider the acquisition of the horizonal-scientific-truth, Newton’s Laws, keeping in mind how physics is taught. In other words, I investigate Heidegger’s Situation, or the relationship between my structures 3, 4 and 5, and ontic truth (level 2).
What is being described is for Dasein a movement or progression from having truths in one horizon to having truths in a different, particular horizon. In his leading example Heidegger sets out the shift from the horizon of everydayness to what he calls the “scientific attitude” (Heidegger, 1962, p.412).
Heidegger illustrates the “Situation” in which a person moves from considering a hammer as a tool (“circumspectively”) to considering a hammer as an object in science. He uses the German word Umsicht which is translated as “circumspectively”. Dreyfus says Heidegger is not consistent in his use of the word (Dreyfus, 1991, p.346). I adopt the most specific use, which is that in Being and Time, and thus “circumspection” means direct transparent coping which is how Dasein proceeds in everydayness: we proceed about our business, doing things but without consciously reflecting on what we are doing or how we are doing it. This continues until something takes our attention: “When we are using a tool circumspectively, we can say, for instance, that the hammer is too heavy or too light” (Heidegger, 1962, p.412).
Then, something as simple as saying the hammer is too heavy demonstrates that everydayness may give way to contemplation. “Even the proposition that the hammer is heavy can give expression to a concernful deliberation, and signify that the hammer is not an easy one—in other words, that it takes force to handle it, or that it will be hard to manipulate. But this proposition can also mean that the entity before us … has a weight—that is to say, it has the 'property' of heaviness …” (Heidegger, 1962, p.412).
It is understood that there is a new horizon, but is that the same horizon that we require of our physics students when the truths of Newton’s Laws are deposited in them, or is it a different horizon?
“What is said has been drawn from looking at what is suitable for an entity with 'mass'. We have now sighted something that is suitable for the hammer, not as a tool, but as a corporeal Thing subject to the law of gravity” (Heidegger, 1962, p.412).
Heidegger uses the Newtonian words, “mass”, “law”, “gravity”. However, the carpenter himself need not have the Newtonian vocabulary and is most unlikely to have the Newtonian perspective (according to Warren as cited above). If he does not, what does he have?
Is this just a convenient way for Heidegger to make a point, or are we to understand that the carpenter really does, with this small movement in thought, take himself into the “scientific attitude”, and thus he becomes open to scientific understanding, and actually begins to think in the manner of a modern, qualified scientist. In other words, is the real horizon of science that is required for Newton’s truths established?
Heidegger says it is. To be a scientist one must look at beings in a particular way - as something present-at-hand - and as he says the “scientific attitude thus constituted itself” (Heidegger, 1962, p.412). Again, I ask is that all it takes.
Heidegger’s use of the word “scientific” is the broader Continental use (that would for example, include mathematics). This does not however, I argue, take us past the difficulty being raised here. The scientific attitude that Heidegger refers to is one that he specifically relates to Newtonian concepts, “mass”, “gravity” and so on.
I question whether or not Heidegger’s new horizon is the same horizon that pertains in the teaching of Newton’s Laws. I ask, what are horizons, and how do they relate one to the other.
The rest of this paper before the closing remarks on education indicates possible ways to address the problematic just developed.
Does Heidegger assist us with our understanding of the horizon when he considers the advance of science itself? How do the truths of Newton’s Laws differ from the truths of Aristotelian and Einsteinian physics? Are they within different horizons?
“Scientific research accomplishes, roughly and naïvely, the demarcation and initial fixing of the areas of subject-matter. The basic structures of any such area have already been worked out after a fashion in our pre-scientific ways of experiencing and interpreting that domain of Being in which the area of subject-matter is itself confined”(Heidegger, 1962, p.29). This I take to be all within the one horizon-domain, even including the “pre-scientific” items. There pertains only one “domain of Being”. The image is spatial: the “subject-matter” (content) is “confined” within an “area”. In the model, truths (level 2) are the subject-matter and the only possible “areas” are structures 3 and 4 because they are Dasein’s only “areas”.
Heidegger’s account of the advancement of science in the Spring of 1927 rang ahead of Kuhn and Toulmin (T. S. Kuhn, 1962; S. E. Toulmin, 1972). With reference to research he says: “The real 'movement' of the sciences takes place when their basic concepts undergo a more or less radical revision which is transparent to itself. The level which a science has reached is determined by how far it is capable of a crisis in its basic concepts. In such immanent crises the very relationship between positively investigative inquiry and those things themselves that are under interrogation comes to a point where it begins to totter” (Heidegger, 1962, p.29).
He described the move beyond Newtonian physics: “The relativity theory of physics arises from the tendency to exhibit the interconnectedness of Nature as it is 'in itself'. As a theory of the conditions under which we have access to Nature itself, it seeks to preserve the changelessness of the laws of motion by ascertaining all relativities, and thus comes up against the question of the structure of its own given area of study—the problem of matter” (Heidegger, 1962, p.30).
Many will dispute Heidegger’s account of relativity. That aside, what is important now is that the movement from Newtonian science to Einsteinian science is an alternation in the “conditions” under which we access nature. Do substantially altered conditions amount to a movement from one horizon to another?
Consider this contrast: The meaning of “alternative viewpoints/standpoints” is considered by Toulmin who seeks to support hermeneutics in the philosophy of science. The attempt to limit hermeneutics “to history and the human sciences had its origins in a reading of Immanuel Kant’s Critiques” which for settles a singular hermeneutic standpoint for geometry and physics (S. Toulmin, 2002, p.29). In terms of our model of truth, what is the standing of “alternative viewpoints”? My conjecture is that they may represent different horizons and phenomenological research might advance our view on this. However, so far as I know Heidegger never says this – for him horizons are rather sweeping in their scope. Toulmin, in the article cited does not tell us how the “standpoints” are altered, but presumably this is by the operation of his variation-selection-retention model for the advance of humankind’s concepts (Chapter 3, "Intellectual Disciplines: Their Historical Development" in S. E. Toulmin, 1972, pp.200-260). Accordingly, Toulmin and Heidegger have the problem of saying how standpoints come to stand. Wittgenstein may also have this problem regarding humor that is “a way of looking at the world” (Maruyama, 2000, p.41; Wittgenstein, 1980, p.78). Particular concepts in physics are not a “standpoint”.
The horizonal model of truth, in contrast, does not have this particular
problem.
Do horizontic truths themselves tell us anything about their horizons? Is there something distinctive about Newton’s Laws that exposes to us their horizon? Perhaps the intelligibility of Newton’s Laws can help us to make intelligible truths about the horizon itself. One way to investigate this is to compare different categories of truth. This method may require that we identify which truths belong within which categories in advance of our investigation. How do we know that particular truths group or belong together?
Heidegger appropriates some categories from Book 6 of Nicomachean Ethics: “The states by virtue of which the soul possesses truth by way of affirmation or denial are five in number, i.e. art (techne), scientific knowledge (episteme), practical wisdom (phronesis), philosophic wisdom (sophia), intuitive reason (nous); we do not include judgement and opinion because in these we may be mistaken” (Greek added to Aristotle, 1990, 1139b15). Heidegger tells us Dasein has “five ways (of) being-in-truth: techne, episteme, phronesis, sophia, and nous” (Suvák, 2000, p.10).
Heidegger also introduces other categories for entities: “The totality of entities can, in accordance with its various domains, become a field for laying bare and delimiting certain definite areas of subject-matter. These areas, on their part (for instance, history, Nature, space, life, Dasein, language, and the like), can serve as objects which corresponding scientific investigations may take as their respective themes” (Heidegger, 1962, p.29). Accordingly, they may refine episteme.
His use of the word “field” suggests a link to “domains” or horizons. His use of “can” twice, and “may”, indicates that the categories and their truth contents for individual Dasein can be other than what they are.
The quotations raise questions about the origin of the categories for both lists. Heidegger subscribed to Husserl’s concept of logic as the “theory of theories, a doctrine of science” and was concerned with “fundamental concepts (categories) and the connections among them” (Dahlstrom, 2001, p.3).
The fundamental categories considered here are not the fundamental categories that are foundational for Dasein. Heidegger in Being and Time moves towards time consciousness as the foundational horizon for Dasein. In his discussion of spirit in Hegel: “For 'time’ is the concept … which represents itself to the consciousness as an empty intuition” (Heidegger, 1962, p.485). “So far as anything essential has been achieved in to-day's analyses which will take us beyond Aristotle and Kant, it pertains more to the way time is grasped and to our 'consciousness of time'” (footnote xxx, Heidegger, 1962, p.501). By focusing on Newton’s Laws, I intend to addresses the origin of the horizon that pertains for those truths, and not other truths with other horizons, such as the primordial horizons including time consciousness.
My examples have been well explored: “In the history of science perhaps the most influential Aristotelian division was that between mathematics and physics” (Cleary, 2002, p.163). The existence of fundamental categories was debated by Husserl. Mathematics for him was “an independently developed branch of general logic” which “has its whole home-ground in the general field of logic” (Logik, §18, p. 34 and §112, p. 138, in Husserl, 2001, p.56). Husserl says of the objects of arithmetic: “That they require sensuous supports makes no difference, since this is true of any and every act of thinking. … For the heterogeneity of the two sciences cannot be denied” (Husserl, 2001, p.56).
Considered horizontically, the options for Newton’s truths are:
There is an argument and an authority (Julian Young) for the view that we may identify a narrow horizon for Newton’s truths.
A teacher says there are students who remember what to do (which might be based on one horizon) and those who have insight (which might be based on the horizon of physics). “It is astonishing to find how many people believe that pupils ‘understand’ analyses which are, in fact, incoherent nonsense, simply because they can reproduce them on demand” (Warren, 1979, p.41). Warren provides us with a clue to the how we identify the presence of the required horizon when he entreats: “It is doubtful whether any meaning can be given to the understanding of a scientific concept other than the mastery of its applications. If one can solve the relevant problems then one understands the concept” (Warren, 1979, p.39). If the student indeed solves problems in the manner that Warren requires (and accordingly uses Newton’s truths qua truths) and not in some other way (using surrogate truths), then the student holds Newton’s horizon. Not all our physics students/graduates share Newton’s horizon. This argument makes Newton’s truths communal.
Young (2002, pp.7-9) sets out his approach to horizons which he sees as “optional”,
and contrasts these with Heidegger’s “ultimate” horizons.
How do we come to identify the entities within the horizon? Two options are:
If horizontic structures are organic how does physics relate to mathematics? Famously, Newtonian science involves mathematics. It is not possible to contemplate Newton’s Laws without involving arithmetic (F=m.a is physical science dependent upon arithmetic).
I now ask, does the Dasein - at the same time - contemplate science and arithmetic? If so, why can Dasein not at the same time maintain its pre-deliberative, ready-to-hand, tool using, mode of being and the contemplative mode of being precipitated when the hammer becomes problematic? Or, another way: what is the relationship between horizons (the forth part of our structure of truth)?
One possible answer is that Dasein maintains many fields simultaneously. If this is the case, the Situation is not exactly as Heidegger described it. The whole point of the example with the hammer was to move from one mode of being to another: now we see that the move is not a “from/to” Situation but rather a “with/and also with”. We could examine our own experience of the objects of consciousness to see what we think is the better description. We must also decide whether or not we admit that two objects of consciousness can be present at the same time, and that several horizons can be present at the same time, and that several modes of being can be present at the same time. Here, I use the Husserlian “objects of consciousness” because they are easier to access than Heideggerian entities. However, what about other distinctions, such as Wittgenstein’s (6.22, 1922) distinction between logical and mathematical propositions (the former are tautologies and the latter equations) – are these entities within different horizons?
Heidegger’s theory of Significance is a critical “development out of Husserl's thesis that all meaning is essentially perspectival and horizonal …” (Keller, 1999, p.11). According to Kuhn, the concept of horizon first appeared in Husserl’s Ideen, in 1913 and then advanced to be described by Husserl as assuming an “all-commanding role” in his phenomenology (H. Kuhn, 1940, p.106).
The incontrovertible part of the horizon concept is that it is a boundary and thus encloses things on the inside and has things on the outside (even if the things are no-things). The inside may be described as the “sphere” or “field”, or realm, or “plane”. Horizon is: “The boundary or limit of any ‘circle’ or ‘sphere’ of view, thought, action, etc. …; that which bounds one's mental vision or perception; limit or range of one's knowledge, experience, or interest; formerly, sometimes = the region so bounded” (Oxford English Dictionary, 2000-). In 1387 the word was used by John de Trevisa, to describe the frontier or dividing line between two regions of being (ibid). It origin appears to be Greek and there relates directly to the boundary of a circle. In Heidegger, Horizont, horizon, means “the realm bounded by a horizon or the vantage point from which we can survey such a realm” (Inwood, 1997, p.124).
On the inside in any Heideggerian model there are truths (structural feature 4) of which there are three kinds, and on the outside there is the ontological world (structural feature 1). On the inside in a Husserlian model there are “objects of consciousness”, or “experiences” in a wide sense. Heidegger adumbrates a small number of horizons. Husserl apparently admitted a very large number of horizons into his thinking (pun).
There are four dimensions of the concept of horizon to consider - three developed by Husserl, and one by Heidegger:
First dimension: “Horizon is the ultimate circumference within which all things, real and imaginable, are bound to appear. To explore the horizon means to move away from the ordinary foci of attention with a view to integrating the things at hand in a broader and ever broader context” (H. Kuhn, 1940, p.107).
The important idea here is that it is by considering the objects within the horizon that we come to identify the horizon. As one considers objects that are closer to the boundary the clearer the boundary becomes. How do we know that an object is close to the boundary? Is this about the difference between research at the edges of humanity’s understanding and the learning of things communally known? There is also the notion that the boundary is made apparent ever more clearly by our frequently moving over it, into “non-sense”, and then moving back.
A useful part of the first dimension is that it points us at the human desire to discover, to be restless, to seek novelty; as Kuhn (1940, p.107) says “The idea of horizon stands for the progressive drive inherent in experience”. This is not a strong feature of other analogies.
Second dimension: “While limiting the totality of given things, the horizon also frames it. The frame of a picture, though forming no part of it, helps to constitute its wholeness. Similarly, the horizon determines that which it frames. The fact that the object is framed by a horizon is relevant to its mode of appearance. Its way of being is essentially a ‘being within’. Hence horizon as a guiding notion enables us to reveal shades of meaning cast on the object by its environment. It stands for the striving after intensification and concreteness” (H. Kuhn, 1940, pp.107-108).
This powerful analogy is about the contribution of the horizon to intelligibility, and it raises four considerations:
Third dimension: “By its very nature every horizon is ‘open’. As we move from the centre toward the circumference fresh horizons open up. We are constantly invited to transcend the boundary of our field of vision. The process is either infinite or limited. In the first case, no truth would be attainable. We could make no statements but provisional ones. In the second case, the limitation would have to be provided by something outside all imaginable horizons, that is, by some non-empirical factor (analogous to the shape of the globe, which limits the shifting from one ‘horizon’, in the original sense of the word, to another). Thus the notion of horizon points to a basis of experience outside of experience” (H. Kuhn, 1940, p.108).
We must distinguish between this the advance of human kind’s horizons and the horizons of the individual Dasein. There is a paradigm case to illustrate the former – the advance from Newtonian to Einsteinian physics. The present paper is, however, concerned about the student and this dimension sets up one of the challenges of ontological pedagogy.
Fourth dimension: An area of the undisclosed earth is lit up, as a clear area in a forest may be lit up by a shaft of light. This establishes a field in which truths may appear, and there is a boundary between the light and dark. Truths within the field may be of any number and they are not necessarily near the boundary (meaning that they are not themselves useful in saying where the boundary is). This is Heidegger’s account of the horizon as “the free space in which they (beings-truths) can remain and must move” ("The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking" in Heidegger, 1993, p.443); and as a “background of understanding” similar to Nietzsche’s “perspective” (Young, 2002, p.7).
In some regards, the first and third dimensions do not easily relate to this dimension. All objects in a shaft of light have equal standing – there is no distinction (from the horizon itself) between objects in the middle of the field and at the edge of the field. Heidegger said “Art lets truth originate” (Heidegger, 1993, p.202). He could have said “Physics lets the truths of Newton’s Laws originate”. The background of understanding must, as it were, be equally applicable anywhere within the cone of light. Heidegger also said: “Basic concepts determine the way in which we get an understanding beforehand of the area of subject-matter underlying all the objects a science takes as its theme… (Heidegger, 1962, p.30). This statement needs to be clarified against the concept of the lit area. We are reminded of Husserl’s notion that there is something different about concepts in the middle - as opposed to the edges - of the field.
Critical for the development of pedagogy is our understanding of how particular truths are established within the horizon. What can we discover about this that can be applied to the physics classroom?
Heidegger sets takes us far away from an scientist’s account of learning: “Scholar: As you state it, the relation of that-which-regions to releasement is neither a connection of cause to effect, nor the transcendental-horizonal relation. To state it still more briefly and more generally: the relation between that-which-regions and releasement, if it can still be considered a relation, can be thought of neither as ontic nor as ontological … Teacher: … but only as regioning” ("Conversation on a Country Path", in Heidegger, 1966, p.76).
Newton’s Laws cross a boundary – they move from an ontological world to become ontic truth (structural elements 1 and 4, truths levels 2 and 3). Newton’s truths must “region”. That is, they must appear though releasement and Heidegger says little about this, apart from what it is not. That it is not an example of “cause and effect” brings to mind what can happen when teachers teach. Newton’s Laws are demonstrated and problems solved with them. The student works through the examples. The teacher explains the context and related things. However, the student does not comprehend the significance and profundity of the truths. There is no gestalt moment when the student’s face lights up with insight. The student may be able to solve similar problems and answer questions fully - but Newton’s Laws are really surrounded by fog for the student who cannot see why they are celebrated by humanity, or partake in the celebration. The student has an ill-defined feeling of unsettlement and discomfort regarding the Laws because they have not achieved releasement. The teacher teaches on in the belief that by using methods that involve cause and effect they are going to develop the student’s understanding. The matter is resolved when the time for teaching expires and the student does well in her examinations, but the student never celebrates Newton’s Laws because they were never released in themselves. As Heidegger might say on “each and every occasion a presencing” must occur for our students, meaning that the actual beings that are the truths of Newton’s Laws must appear (within the appropriate horizon) and not some other beings that can only emulate Newton’s Laws because they are precipitated within the wrong horizon (adapted from "On the question of being", in Heidegger, 1998, p.308) .
I said, “the teacher teaches on in the belief that by using methods that involve cause and effect they are going to develop the student’s understanding”. This warrants further attention. The precipitation of the truths (movement of truths from structural region 1 to 3) does not involve cause and effect, but this does not mean that at some level, and in practicality, the teaching does not involve cause and effect. There are necessary circumstances that pertain to Releasement (the movement of Releasement) that can be deliberately facilitated by the teacher. Students cannot learn Newton’s Laws without those Laws being made available to them in some way – a teacher or a book. So there is a role for the teacher. However, the role is limited and in a real sense students are alone when they enter the ecstatic-gestalt moment of Releasement.
In the same way that the student is alone in releasement, they are also alone in the Situation. Again, features of the environment are a necessary part of the movement that establishes an horizon, but we may conjecture that “cause and effect” are not operative. The self confidence that comes from the mastery in an area of human activity may be the evidence that an horizon is established. The senior rugby player has a mix of attitude, insight, skill, and instinct that brings about success. We can see in this an echo of the notion of commitment to a discipline that appears in some concepts of education (for example, Richard Stanley Peters, 1965; R. S. Peters, 1970). The establishment of a derived horizon itself (structural element 4) produces a breadth of opportunity and a casting ahead into that opportunity, and this we can see as a confidence and commitment. Peters might have dwelt more on the light in the students’ eyes and less on institutionalism.
Pedagogical challenge:
The arguments in this paper suggest that I define Heideggerian pedagogy as the teaching of students in accordance with a model of truth, to:
I argued that Newton’s Laws and the truths of arithmetic are within different horizons. For convenience, I shall call the former the Newtonian Horizon, although the term suggests inappropriate narrowness. The Newtonian Horizon is a derived horizon that can only emerge if the Horizon of Arithmetic/Mathematics is present, and if certain identifiable truths are present within that Horizon. There is no non-mathematical version of Newton’s Laws.
When physics teachers step into the classroom their challenge is to bring their students into the Situation. The students’ practical every-day involvement with beings of all kinds must largely give way to a circumspective deliberation about beings. The teacher might say “are you ready for work” or “settle down”. This important transition allows the student to lock into required horizon for the truths of the moment. The truths of the student’s social life and Newton’s truths are within different horizons and Dasein is unable to cope with such complexity.
One of the implications of a model of truth that has derived horizons is that the concept of the Situation becomes more complex that it was in the 1920s. Events occur in classrooms that bring the students to new and undesired Situations. The “interruption” takes the students attention and the horizon of everydayness or the horizon that holds the truths of social planning appears. Notice that it is not particular truths (those about this Saturday’s party) that come to occupy the student and are the teacher’s concern, but the student’s openness to truths of a particular kind. Students often day-dream and they drift from truths to truths within an horizon that the teacher may not condone. Even the move from one desired horizon to another requires a Situation. For example: when the teacher must take the students from the Newtonian horizon to that which pertains to the practical details about homework. Or: the diversion into mathematics, for those who need support in that area in the middle of a physics lesson. There is much to discover about Situations.
Wider prospects:
Everywhere you look in Western schools you see examples of the correspondence theory of truth hard at work. Most of the learning is based on textbooks and things that are said to students. Accordingly, learning is based on propositions contained in sentences and these propositions and their sentences are said to be true. “True” statements uttered by students are rewarded - and those not thought to correspond to an appropriate standard are deemed “wrong”. Equally, where the conduct of the student is concerned, there are expected standards, some of which are written school rules. Students perform according to the rules - when there is sufficient correspondence between their behaviour and the rules the teacher deems the students successful.
Students can find it difficult to distinguish between the teachers’ role as disciplinary/subject authority and the teachers’ role as the authority on the rules, because both roles involve correspondence. That the teacher must be both believed and obeyed is largely a consequence of schools being dominated by tedious “correspondence”. Perhaps the students’ expression “Get real Man” is their instinctive appeal to ontological truth
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