An Introduction

My general intellectual concerns are as follows and these concerns will form the general topic of this blog:

Pragmatic Practice: Hermeneutic, Scientific and Relationally Responsive

Scientific Method in Practice

Measurement Validity

Distributed Cognition

Education as the Building of Capabilities

Pragmatic Practice: Hermeneutic, Scientific and Relationally Responsive

We all live in William James’ world of buzzing blooming confusion.  Lets call it practice.  We all want to be able to do practice better however, and that leads to two issues: a science of practice and education.  

Science often has sought progress by studying the natural world; what’s behind the vale of James’ confusion.  But, the better we can isolate processes in the laboratory, the harder it is to return those insights to practice.  I believe a science of practice is needed to study practice in its own right, to understand how the insights of laboratory science can be incorporated into practice.

I also believe that all education is about practice even if it is just about the practice of being a student.  Knowledge is also about practice.  We don’t acquire knowledge (although acquire may not be the best metaphor) just to be the smartest person.  It is so that we may participate in some practice.  So, education and a science of practice go hand-in-hand.

Hermeneutics is of prime importance to education and to a science of practice.  What is important in education and what scientific frameworks and questions can lend insight in a confusing world of practice are matters that can best begin with interpretation?  While studies in hermeneutics and the sociology of science indicate that interpretation is important in all scientific inquiry, it becomes of critical importance in the context of socially imbedded practice.

Finally, practices cannot live by science alone, no matter how hermeneutic.  Practice must also be dialogical.  Science helps where standardization is appropriate, but practice also consists of one time occurrences that are relational and are formed by people seeking to know each other and forms aspects of practice jointly.  Part of James’ world is not only confusion, but the buzzing blooming of life and people responding jointly to the circumstance of everyday life

Other topics to follow.  Also some book reviews; the location of many of my ideas.