Teaching and Learning > DOCUMENTS
Text-based Teaching and Learning: A Report
Keith Crome
1. Introduction: the Aims and Scope of the Study.
The aim of this study is to contribute towards the articulation of the role of text based teaching and learning in philosophy. Such a method of teaching philosophy forms an important element of the teaching on the Single Honours Philosophy Degree (BAPHIL) at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU). This importance is reflected in the Philosophy Department's statement of Aims and Objectives as set out in the Subject Review Report for Philosophy at MMU, and received favourable comment by the reviewers in the report 1. This study was initially conceived to clarify the distinctive and significant features of this approach to teaching philosophy as it is practised at MMU, and to address the more important pedagogical issues arising from it. However, we believe that the issues that this study raises are relevant to all those involved in the teaching of philosophy, and it is hoped that it will serve to stimulate debate concerning this topic 2.
Text based teaching and learning can be defined as teaching and learning in which the reading of a text with students is the focus of pedagogical activity, and not an ancillary element to teaching and learning. Within such a focus, the pedagogical objectives of the course are primarily related to, and fulfilled through, the reading of a text, or series of texts. As will be made clearer in subsequent sections of this study, such an emphasis differs from pedagogical practices in which lecture/idea based teaching and learning predominate (see Section 4). It is perhaps worth remarking here, however, that the motivation behind the practice of text-based teaching and learning is not simply that of encouraging or compelling students to read, either as something valuable in itself, or as something contingently valuable to acquiring philosophical knowledge, but as intrinsic to the very activity of philosophy as such (see Section 5)
In addition to both explicating the role of text-based teaching and learning in philosophy, and bringing out the distinctive features of such an approach in contrast to lecture/idea based teaching and learning, this study will also consider how a primarily text-based teaching and learning practice informs current assessment practices within philosophy provision at MMU (Section 8), and whether such assessment criteria and practices as are currently in place should be revised. As part of this, it will be necessary to show how current Philosophy Benchmark Criteria are applicable to text-based teaching and learning in philosophy (Section 7).
2. Reading
Given the interest of this study in text-based teaching and learning practices in philosophy, a practice that necessarily revolves around the actual reading of a text in seminars, it will initially be helpful to make some general remarks about the activity of reading itself.
Reports on, and assessments of, teaching practices frequently state that even those students that have attained the pre-requisite standards for admission to Higher Education lack many of the reading skills demanded by the course of study they are to follow. As the authors of one such study remark, "the term 'reading for a degree' has been around for a long time, yet reading is a skill that relatively few learners have developed as systematically as they could" 3. According to such reports and assessments, it is important to explicitly acknowledge that the activity of reading involves numerous skills, and that the development and continued exercise of such skills should form an integral element of the education of students in Higher Education.
However, beyond the general recognition of a deficit of reading skills, and the proposal of remedial action, the best insights of studies in this area point towards a more fundamental difficulty. It is far from being the case that students can simply be taught a series of reading skills, which form a fixed acquisition that can then be deployed in the act of reading. In the first instance, as many educationalists have come to realise, at the root of the problem is the fact that it is always possible to read without any genuine insight or understanding of what is said: the act of reading itself does not absolutely require either the intuition or imaginative apprehension of what is at issue in order for the words on the page to have meaning 4. Such a failure of comprehension is frequently referred to in studies on the subject as 'passive' - as opposed to 'active' - reading. Secondly, it is also necessary to acknowledge that in an active comprehension the act of reading is inherently reflexive: we learn to read by reading. In other words, the activity of reading is not reducible to the simple act of deciphering characters on a page, and in all but the most straightforward of texts, the text itself defines its own terms, and thus defines how it is to be read.
The Subject Benchmark Statement for Philosophy, which describes the nature and characteristics of programmes in philosophy, and represents the general expectations about standards of assessment, and hence also the attributes and characteristics to be demonstrated by those submitting to such assessments, stresses that "learning in philosophy has to be an active process", and that this requirement necessitates that "provision in any module should include a substantial element of learning through the student's own thoughtful reading" 5. It follows from the observations above that where such an objective of active learning, starting with active and thoughtful reading, forms an integral requirement of a particular course of study, that tutors cannot rely on students possessing a set of reading skills in the sense of a fixed acquisition that enables them to simply pick up and read a particular philosophical text. In this sense an integral element of teaching philosophy will be teaching and learning that involves the act of reading itself. The strongest ways for tutors to encourage and facilitate the development of a flexible and independent capacity to read on the part of students is to develop a pedagogical practice of text-based teaching and learning in the classroom. Because of the nature of the activity of reading it cannot be assumed that it can be taught as a skill or competence within a single Study Skills type-unit, in abstraction from a continuous engagement with a single, or series of, philosophical texts.
3. Text-Based Teaching and Learning Practices in Philosophy
The central importance of reading, and the intrinsic difficulty that the act of reading a philosophical text poses for the student, leads one to expect that the relationship between the act of reading and the teaching of philosophy, and thus the role of reading texts in seminars should have featured as a subject of explicit pedagogical and philosophical reflection. Yet in a comprehensive review of the American journal Teaching Philosophy for Discourse, J. Sellars found that of the 129 articles he reviewed the range of themes was limited to: personal reflections on being a philosophy teacher; teaching applied ethics to students from other disciplines; technical problems in teaching logic; gender and race issues; teaching introductory philosophy courses to non-philosophy students; improving the quality of student writing 6. The question of text-based teaching and learning does not appear at all as a theme. Perhaps more surprising is that whilst Sellars considers that "philosophy is a subject primarily devoted to the analysis of complex arguments", he only goes on to consider the issue of "teaching students how to write well" 7. The question of reading, and of text-based teaching and learning does not emerge as a pedagogically relevant issue, despite its implicit importance to the issues he raises concerning the teaching of philosophy.
A further point indicating the relative lack of importance attributed to the role of text based teaching and learning within philosophy provision is the striking absence of any studies concerning this issue. We were unable to find any directly relevant studies on the issue, and the PRS Subject Centre were only able to locate two indirectly relevant sources. This is particularly significant as the PRS Subject Centre is one of 24 subject-based centres funded by the UK Higher Education Funding council for the philosophy subject area. The Subject Centres have the express aim of promoting "high quality learning and teaching through development and transfer of successful practice in all subject disciplines" 8. That the PRS Subject Centre neither knew of, nor possessed, any information of text-based teaching and learning practices in philosophy is a strong indication that this issue has, until now, not been considered relevant within the subject area itself to the teaching of philosophy. However, as has already been remarked, subsequent to our enquiries, the PRS Subject Centre invited both K. Crome and M. Garfield to lead a session on the issue of text-based teaching and learning, at their Day School Teaching the Reading of Primary Texts (Leeds University, 8th January 2003). This indicates that the PRS Subject Centre does recognise the intrinsic pedagogical importance of the issue.
What are the reasons for this lack of explicit theoretical reflection on the role of reading in the teaching of philosophy? In his article Sellars acknowledges the general lack of theoretical reflection concerning the teaching of philosophy 9. Yet despite this acknowledgment, his own reflections do not correct this lack of theoretical reflection with regard to the relation between teaching philosophy and reading philosophical texts. Is it that the lack of theoretical reflection on text-based teaching and learning is one part of a general lack of reflection by philosophers on their pedagogical practices? Or is it that this lack of reflection itself reflects a practical pedagogical neglect of reading?
At first glance it appears as if the lack of theoretical reflection on text-based teaching and learning results from a general pedagogic neglect of this practice. In this regard it should be noted that whilst text-based teaching and learning practices commonly form a core element of literary-based disciplines, such practice is less frequently a core element in the teaching of philosophy. This is indicated by the remarks of the authors of the Subject Review Report for Philosophy at MMU who, as noted above, commented on the 'distinctive' approach to teaching philosophy at this institution.
However, it should also be acknowledged that the distinction between the teaching practice in philosophy at MMU and other institutions as implied in the Subject Review Report is not absolute. Rather it is a matter of emphasis and priority. In a comparison of the 36 Subject Review Reports so far published for Philosophy, it is relatively uncommon for any department to make no reference in its statement of Aims and Objectives to providing students with training in the reading of primary philosophical texts. What is striking, however, is the differences in weight that particular departments place upon the role of text-based teaching and learning within the portfolio of their overall aims and objectives. It should perhaps be acknowledged that even if such statements do not reflect the entire range of teaching methods utilised by any given department, they do clearly evidence that department's understanding of its own priorities and goals. Whilst the great majority of departments reviewed include some reference to the ability of students to engage with primary texts in their list of objectives as described in the respective Subject Review Reports, a substantial proportion of that majority subordinate such an objective to those of the acquisition of analytic and argumentative skills, and the development of an understanding of canonical philosophical problems. Furthermore, in only one other instance does the Subject Review specifically commend the practice of text-based teaching 10.
Conclusion
Text-based teaching and learning is distinguished from other teaching practices and methods in that the reading of a text with students is the core of pedagogical activity, and does not form an ancillary element to teaching and learning. Many, if not all, philosophy departments list the ability to critically read a philosophical text as a desirable or even essential skill in the statement of their Aims and Objectives in the Subject Review Reports. Moreover, the Subject Benchmark Statement for Philosophy states that student learning in philosophy should take place through the individual's own active reading. Yet it is striking that so few departments actually practice, or acknowledge that they utilise, text-based teaching and learning practices. And whilst it is also striking that there is so little theoretical reflection on text-based teaching and learning by philosophers, it is perhaps not surprising given the scarcity of its practice. In his reflections on recent philosophy teaching scholarship J. Sellars has suggested that one of the most pressing pedagogical issues for philosophy is teaching students to write well. But, it would also seem, given the acknowledged desirability of students reading philosophical texts independently and actively, it should as well be the case that teaching students to read well is as pressing an issue, and one that is just as much, if not more, neglected. A simple justification emerges, then, for the practice of text-based teaching and learning: encouraging and developing the capacity of students to read primary philosophical texts well.
4. Text-Based Teaching and Learning and the Definition of Philosophy
The tension between the admission of the necessity that philosophy students read primary texts critically and well, and the overlooking of practices that would serve to develop this ability is caught nicely in a statement by K. Hawley in an article concerned with evaluating different formats for philosophy teaching. She writes:
We cannot teach philosophy through lectures alone. Lectures can play an important role in introducing issues and literature, but reading, writing and discussion are also required. So lectures are usually supplemented by tutorials or seminars - these provide a forum for discussion, an incentive for reading, and preparation for writing 11.
Whilst teaching philosophy requires reading, reading itself is not to be taught, and seminars and tutorials act only as an incentive for the student to read. Before we go on to look at the role and function of text-based teaching in the provision of philosophy at MMU, we will first of all attempt to discover if this tension can be traced to any specific presuppositions about what philosophy itself is. By doing this we will hope to show that specific conceptions of philosophy may inflect teaching practice towards certain formats, and discuss the significant pedagogical differences between these formats.
Clearly, how philosophy is taught, and how it is supposed best taught, is consequent upon what philosophy is thought to be. Thus, in order to arrive at a positive understanding of the potential role of text-based teaching and learning as a distinctive pedagogical practice within the provision of philosophy it will be necessary to say something about the nature of philosophy itself as an academic discipline. For this purpose we will use the definition proposed by the authors of the Subject Benchmark Statement for Philosophy issued by the Quality Assurance Agency: "the heart of Philosophy is a set of modes of thinking acquired through rigorous training" 12. Elaborating upon this the authors continue that "no one method suits all philosophical problems", but that nevertheless the core means by which philosophy is characteristically done are such means as:
asking questions, trying out and critically engaging with ideas, making and sharpening distinctions, inventing new vocabularies, criticising and reinterpreting major texts, examining issues that arise in the history of philosophy, using the techniques of formal logic, constructing and assessing reasoned arguments, conducting thought experiments, or marshalling evidence from relevant sources 13.
Given their core value, these means necessarily either form or inform the basic skills or competences that are to be taught to students in the delivery of the philosophy syllabus, and which provide the formal basis for their assessments. Among the range of General Philosophical Skills identified in the Report are "articulacy in identifying underlying issues in all kinds of debate"; "precision of thought and expression in the analysis and formulation of complex and controversial problems"; "sensitivity in interpretation of texts drawn from a variety of ages and/or traditions"; "ability to use and criticise specialised philosophical terminology" 14. Corresponding to this, assessment of student's skills must test both "knowledge and understanding of corpus material and ability to reason rigorously, critically, creatively and autonomously" 15. But pre-eminence is accorded to the acquisition of competencies in the teaching and assessment of philosophy, and is necessarily accompanied by a reduction in the importance of any teaching of doctrinal content. Invoking Socrates and Wittgenstein - the alpha and omega of the canonical philosophical tradition - to support their point, the Report's authors note that philosophy is not "simply a body of knowledge to be taught" 16. In short, according to the Report, philosophy is not a positivistic, fact-based discipline, but is primarily distinguished by being concerned with critical and interrogative practices of thought.
What role do texts hold within such a conception of philosophy? If it is accepted that teaching philosophy primarily involves imparting skills of argumentation and reasoning, and seeks to encourage independence of thought and not the acquisition of facts, then it might seem the case that such a conception reduces the importance of philosophical texts themselves. At its most extreme such a reduction of the importance of philosophical texts in general would effectively consider any such text simply as the convenient and economical repository of issues and ideas, and the more or less adequate way in which they have been approached by canonical figures 17.
On this view of things one might suppose, as K. Hawley, for example, does 18, that the traditional lecture, seminar and tutorial format of university teaching has the following function: lectures introduce issues and literature, seminars provide a forum for discussion, and tutorials allow tutor and individual student to discuss the latter's own independent ideas about certain issues. Thus, in the lecture, the lecturer expounds a particular philosophical issue, and refers to certain canonical texts concerning this issue, and to secondary literature that provides the student with relevant background material or a synoptic overview, whilst in the seminar the students themselves approach the subject of the lecture and critically discuss it. This way of conceiving of the traditional format of university teaching has acquired a wide theoretical acceptance 19 and a perhaps yet wider implementation in practice. Undeniably the lecture, seminar, tutorial format has a definite validity, and even where it is recognised as desirable to practise text-based teaching and learning, it would not be necessary to abandon this format; the point here is to recognise that a certain idea of philosophy predisposes teachers to use this format in a particular way. It would not be necessary to reject this format in order to practise text-based teaching and learning; nor does the articulation of the value of text-based teaching and learning necessarily preclude a recognition of the pedagogical value of the other methods of teaching associated with this format described above.
It is perhaps important to recall that, as the authors of the Benchmark document state, in its academic acceptation philosophy is conceived of as a rigorous discipline that is traditional in its nature. It is therefore almost impossible to imagine that philosophy could ever be taught without reference to canonical texts. Nevertheless if the pedagogical significance of text-based teaching and learning is underemphasized or not recognised at all, it is because a certain understanding of philosophy conceives the discipline as essentially ahistorical, that is to say, as primarily concerned with abstract and supposedly ahistorical and universal skills of critical reasoning and argumentation. On the basis of this understanding, and in relation to the skills of formal reasoning, logical analysis and argumentation, hermeneutics - or the art of textual interpretation - may be considered to be important, but they will nevertheless nearly always form a subordinate or secondary element of philosophical education. Depending on its provenance a canonical text will contain a more or less clear, and more or less adequate, expression of a single or series of philosophical issues and ideas, that are susceptible to further clarification and greater adequacy of expression. Where taught, or encouraged, hermeneutical skills would simply enable a student to recognise necessary obscurities within canonical formulations of ideas and provide them with the precondition for overcoming these obscurities.
In opposition to the idea of philosophy as a discipline concerned with a set of essentially ahistorical problems such as the nature of causality, the existence of God, and so-on, the emphasis at MMU is of a distinctly historical nature. Whereas for the former conception of philosophy the necessity of reading texts is simply to see how various philosophers have approached a particular problem, discover what is good about the way they have done that, and what is bad or mistaken or erroneous, for the latter approach it is not a matter of discovering what is right or wrong with a particular philosopher's conception of causality, but of distinguishing the constitution of markedly different realities. Thus, what is at issue is not so much the adequacy of approach evinced by particular philosophers towards a particular problem, idea or issue, but an appreciation of the power and creativity of philosophical discourses that have effectively constituted our experiences of our world and ourselves since the times of the Ancient Greeks. Given such a conception of philosophy there can be no question of abstracting ideas from their embodiment in a text. The appreciation of philosophy in its historical significance inherently demands a hermeneutical approach, an interpretative sensitivity, to the philosophical text. For students to acquire such hermeneutical skills, it is necessary that teaching and learning is structured around the close reading of texts, in the process of which there is a progressive development of critical and evaluative skills.
Conclusion
It is no doubt necessary to give some consideration to the conceptions of philosophy that dispose both theoretical reflection and practical implementation towards or away from a recognition of the potential importance of text-based teaching and learning for the teaching of philosophy. Beyond a general lack of reflection upon the pedagogical importance of teaching reading skills, which finds parallels with other pedagogical issues such as the teaching of writing skills to philosophy students, our concern with the conceptual roots of the disposition towards or against text-based teaching and learning has led us to recognise a division between a primarily ahistorical and analytic idea of philosophy, and one that understands philosophy as essentially historical. In order to prevent any misunderstanding, we should perhaps remark that this approach does not reduce philosophy to a historical discipline, but rather aims to make apparent the dynamics of philosophical thought itself.
However, we should be careful to avoid being too schematic, or for that matter, to schismatic, and not reduce one approach to necessarily excluding text-based teaching and learning, and the other as privileging it. What we find in examining practice is something a good deal more complex and open than such a stark opposition might lead us to assume, and it is difficult to imagine a situation in which any philosophy tutor would not help students in reading a text. However, what is at issue is the institutional disposition and not that of individuals, and thus of resources, course design, assessment formats, support and the encouragement of reflection upon pedagogical practice. In this respect the contrast we have drawn is more pertinent, but still always a matter of emphasis, rather than absolutes.
5. The Practice of Text-Based Teaching and Learning
We concluded the previous section as we began it, by noting that text-based teaching and learning has received scant attention as a valid form of pedagogical practice within the provision of philosophy. Although evidence is difficult to obtain, there are good reasons for supposing that whilst the practice of close textual reading with students in the teaching of philosophy does take place in most philosophy departments at some time or other, it is itself neither institutionally recognised, nor a systematic and wide-spread practice. However our reviews of both the small amount of literature devoted to pedagogical issues, and the Subject Benchmark Statement for Philosophy, indicate that there is a clear justification for such a practice. With regard to the latter document this is significant, as the function of the benchmark statement is to provide "an external point of reference for institutions when designing or approving programmes of study", and "a means for external examiners and reviewers to verify and compare standards" 20. In this respect the significance of the benchmark document is likely to become all the more pressing inasmuch as any new cycle of subject reviews that does take place will most likely abandon a method of evaluating a department's provision on the basis of its ability to meet self-set objectives, but on the basis of a judgment about the appropriateness of the standards it has set itself 21. In view of the justification for the practice of text-based teaching and learning that can be found in the benchmark document it is clear that such a method should receive greater departmental and institutional recognition than in most cases it hitherto has. In this respect one might cautiously suggest that the department of philosophy at MMU are at the forefront of a pedagogical practice that will demand more attention for itself. Thus, in this next section of this report we will consider in detail what text-based teaching and learning involves, its distinctive features and particular instances of its practice by members of the philosophy department at MMU.
We have already said that it is possible to define text based teaching and learning as teaching and learning in which the reading of a text with students is the focus of pedagogical activity, and not an ancillary element. It is an approach in which the text itself has a unique, irreplaceable value for the teaching and learning of philosophy. Such an approach must be distinguished from one that simply acknowledges the desirability that students undertake the reading of primary philosophical texts insofar as doing this enables them to develop and demonstrate the capacity for independent analysis and critical engagement with philosophical ideas. It should also be distinguished from an approach that simply stresses that where it is an objective of a degree course, or a unit, that students should read primary texts, students should be taught how to do so: such an approach does not necessarily have any specific philosophical justification for requiring students to read, but simply the pedagogical justification of showing students what they are supposed to do when they read. In contrast, underpinning a text-based teaching and learning approach to philosophy, is the understanding that there is an intimate and unique bond between an appropriately engaged or active reading of a philosophical text and the act of doing philosophy itself.
A clear and positive justification has emerged for teaching philosophy through a text-based approach: text-based teaching and learning should not be considered a remedial method, intended to make good a deficiency in student's reading skills, but rather as an approach that is intrinsically linked to what must be the aim of all philosophy teaching, getting students to do philosophy itself. However, a more particular motivation for following the practice of text-based teaching and learning can be added to this positive justification. In research for this report more than one lecturer expressed a concern that, increasingly, students have acquired writing skills (or more generally skills of argumentation) that are good enough for them to reach a typical level of attainment without that they develop any genuine philosophical engagement with the issue that they are concerned with. Some have ascribed this to recent trends in secondary education, where students are encouraged to master skills that will secure them good marks in exams at the expense of other skills. However, it is probably worth remarking that this concern goes back as far as the problematic posed to the first philosophers of distinguishing philosophy from sophistry, that is to say, the need to distinguish a genuine philosophical understanding from an empty, but skilful use of words. In the end, no matter whether one attributes this particular problem to recent causes or a perennial difficulty, text-based teaching and learning offers one way of dealing with it, forcing students towards a philosophical engagement with a particular issue or problem. What should be noted, however, and it is worth underlining this, is that this particular rationale for text-based teaching and learning, derives not only from a concern that students lack certain skills, but also that they have mastered certain skills all too well.
In the arguments we have put forward in this section we have moved beyond our initial considerations concerning the act of reading, and the justification of teaching students how to read through teaching that is text focused. We have started to articulate a bond between doing philosophy and reading a text. If students are to be taught philosophy, where that means not being taught about philosophy but being brought to do philosophy, and if there is an intimate link between doing philosophy and the ability to read a philosophical text in an appropriate way, then it is this ability that must be brought out in students, not merely by issuing them with a set of instructions about how to read, but by reading a philosophical text philosophically with them. In order to make explicit this connection it will be appropriate to consider here the text-based teaching and learning strategies practised by members of staff in the Philosophy Department at MMU.
Staff Text-Based Teaching and Learning Practices.
The philosophy courses currently available to students at MMU are of both topic and author based types. All courses are taught through a mixture of lectures and seminars, and students are able to see tutors for individual tutorials by arrangement. Year One units do not include any single-author courses; all units are introductory, and with the exception of Ethics and Social Philosophy and Study Skills, all are primarily related to the study of particular texts rather than issues alone. Exemplary in this respect is the course entitled Problems of Philosophy, which does not directly address particular and canonical philosophical problems or issues, but concentrates on the detailed study of four canonical texts: Plato's Phaedo, Descartes' Meditations, Hume's Enquiry, and Kant's Prolegomena, and encourages students to develop from this study a knowledge and understanding of historically and philosophically different modes of argumentation. Students are encouraged to make comparisons and draw distinctions between these differing modes, styles and concerns, not with the aim of assessing the adequacy or inadequacy of such approaches, but of beginning to appreciate their creative potential and limitations. Second and Third Year courses are a mixture of single author, joint-author and subject area units. Second and Third Year units that are subject-area oriented are still predominantly directed towards consideration of authors and texts. Thus one can conclude that text-based teaching and learning does not preclude issue-based units; it does however inflect teaching towards consideration of texts and authors rather an abstract consideration of problems and issues.
All those members of the Philosophy Section who were interviewed or responded to a questionnaire on the subject of text-based teaching and learning affirmed the intrinsic importance of the practice to their teaching. Mr. Mike Garfield, Head of Section, delivers both lectures and seminars across all three years of the degree course, and on a variety of author and subject area courses. Across all years, and on all types of course, Mr. Garfield uses a method of text-based teaching and learning along with standard lecture and seminar discussion formats. Professor Joanna Hodge, who similarly lectures and gives seminars on all three years of the degree course, uses text-based teaching and learning in all her classes and her continuous practice of such a pedagogical method indicates the intrinsic importance she places on it for the teaching of philosophy. Dr. Ullrich Haase, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, teaching seminars and lecturers on all three years of the undergraduate degree, regards text-based teaching and learning as the core of his teaching practice. The actual activity of textual interpretation within a class forms approximately a third of the total content of seminars. However, all seminars, even those that are not directly concerned with directly reading a text, derive their shape and structure from out of a relation to a particular text. Even lectures, for Dr. Haase, have their content animated through direct engagement with a text within seminars themselves. Dr. Keith Crome, Teaching Fellow in Philosophy, teaches lectures and seminars to both first and third year students, although the majority of his teaching is with first year students. Dr Crome uses text-based teaching and learning in all the courses he teaches, alongside lecturing and discussion formats, and views text-based teaching and learning as indispensable to philosophy tuition.
All members of staff understood text-based teaching and learning to be primarily an activity in which students were given a part of a text and taught through textual interpretation in seminar sessions. Some members of staff suggested that their own practice was primarily based on students reading on their own in advance of seminars in order to discuss the text, others that it specifically referred to in class text-based reading. However, even the former method does not exclude the act of reading and interpreting texts in class. In interview, Mr. Garfield has described his practice of text-based teaching and learning as selecting passages from the texts being studied for students to read in seminar sessions. By using such a method he seeks for the student to be able to understand, re-articulate and discuss the particular philosophical point at issue in the selected part of the text. However, such objectives are not concerned with simply abstracting an argument from the text, but are related to an ability to engage with the particular philosophical point being raised in the particular section of text under consideration. Dr. Crome provides students with copied sections of a particular text relating to a particular philosophical issue. Dr. Crome then generally proceeds in one of two ways. Where the seminar group is small enough he will either himself read the passage aloud, or ask a student to do so. Or where seminar groups are of fifteen or more students, he divides the seminar group into sub-groups of three or four students, and asks them to read the text among themselves, and then discusses the text with each group. In both instances his aim is for students themselves to identify issues and problems albeit under his guidance.
For Mr Garfield the advantage of text-based teaching and learning is that the text is addressed in such a way that the student is brought to see the philosophical issue - the matter at hand - for themselves by way of reading. As Mr. Garfield sees it, of primary importance in this respect is the ability for the text to offer to a group of students a common material focus, which dislocates or displaces the lecturer as the centre of student attention, and as an individual who is able to offer to them an account or summary of an argument or issue. Under the guidance and directive of the tutor, but with the text as their focus, students are brought themselves to engage with an issue in its philosophical significance.
In a similar vein Professor Hodge sees the advantage of text-based teaching and learning both in its provision of a focus to pedagogical activity, and in its forcing students into a direct engagement with the philosophical issues at stake in a particular text. For both Mr. Garfield and Professor Hodge alike, such a method also has the advantage of bringing the student to recognise that writing or doing philosophy is not easy, which far from being a negative point makes the student realise that philosophical ideas are not pre-formed and simply clothed in written language, but that articulating an idea for itself is an activity which is itself philosophical, that ideas need to be worked out and worked through 22. As a consequence, thinking for oneself, as a process of considering, working out, articulating and re-articulating an argument becomes the central point of the activity of teaching philosophy.
For Dr. Haase, the method of text-based teaching can be contrasted with the practice of providing students with introductions and summaries of philosophical arguments, texts and positions. In opposition to such a practice, text-based teaching and learning, whilst apparently restricting the student's focus to a text, and eschewing critical assessments of that text, in fact provides students with the opportunity to discover for themselves both the questions that underpin any given concept or text, and the significance of philosophical thought as such. Dr. Haase has suggested that the main difficulty with text-based teaching and learning is inseparable from its strength, and in this sense should not be regarded as a disadvantage as such, but one of the intrinsic challenges of teaching philosophy. In asking a student to engage directly with a text, the student often feels that they are not engaging critically with it, but philologically. The primary role of the tutor is, then, to bring the student to an independence of approach from out of this engagement, rather than an abstractly imposed critical separation from the text and its argument, that is only apparently philosophical in its approach. Only through a direct approach, which runs the risk of being simply philological, can the student develop an articulation between themselves and the text, and find their own "right" distance from the text, which neither simply repeats the text without engaging with it, or express arguments that are only, and at best, "occasioned by the text".
One of the advantages of text-based teaching and learning for Dr. Crome is that it allows students meaningfully to encounter the difficulty of philosophical texts, neither passing over such difficulties as may be present in the text, ignoring them, nor becoming discouraged by them. Reading texts in seminars with students does not inculcate a set of skills that once acquired would solve all difficulties of reading philosophy, but enable the student to recognise that such difficulty is germane to philosophy and not become discouraged by it. Moreover Dr. Crome expresses the view that if philosophy is approached simply as a set of abstract and simply theoretical problems, then it is reduced to a form of logical or rational examination, and the creative and historical dimension to philosophy is overlooked. Stressing a point already made in this report, Dr. Crome argues that text-based teaching and learning is also important because it shows to the student that a concrete engagement with the actual articulation of an argument by a philosopher is integral to a philosophical understanding, correcting the impression that a philosophical term, issue, or argument can be understood in abstraction from its articulation in a text, which determines its very meaning.
Conclusion
In this section of the report we have sought to outline the actual practice of text-based teaching and learning by members of the Department of Philosophy at MMU. It is clear from the department's own appreciation of its approach to the provision of philosophy that text-based teaching and learning is integrally related to what it takes philosophy to be, and thus to what it takes the successful teaching of philosophy to undergraduates taking units in philosophy to be. It is because it encourages students to engage philosophically with philosophical issues and texts that text-based teaching and learning is held to be important. In relation to the reading of a text, students are found to be able articulate for themselves, and from themselves, a philosophical issue, and thus discover a voice of their own in relation to a philosophical text and, more generally, the philosophical tradition. Indeed, as Dr. Haase has argued, such a method of teaching might rightfully be regarded as the touch-stone of a properly philosophical pedagogy: without that students are brought and taught to engage with, understand, and re-articulate primary philosophical texts, they will never understand philosophy itself and will thus always remain insecure in their own philosophical judgement.
Thus text-based teaching and learning is centrally important to the teaching of philosophy, and while it is always possible for the teacher to end up repeating an argument to students and discouraging students from philosophising for themselves, reading in seminars with students is one way of reducing the risk of this happening. It should thus be noted that within the circumspection of the method of text-based teaching and learning, which engages the student in the act of a close textual reading, the text itself is not treated as a repository of issues or arguments more or less well expressed, but as the place of a genuine and unique philosophical experience, which, when treated with sensitivity, can be brought to life by the student. As Mr. Garfield has pointed out, the text can fulfil this role because, when the student is directed towards a close engagement with it, he or she is required to repeatedly hypothesise and interrogate it in order to understand it. At its most successful this kind of engagement with the text transforms the words on the page into a living force that asks questions of the students themselves, and forces them to reflect on their own assumptions and experiences.
6. Writing and Text-based Teaching and Learning
As we have already noted J. Sellars, in his wide-ranging review of the journal Teaching Philosophy, suggests, "teaching students how to write well should be every philosophy teacher's highest priority" 23. Sellars prefaces his recommendations concerning teaching writing skills by observing that philosophers have tended to view with suspicion a concern with 'style' rather than 'content'. Locating this suspicion in a Platonic disdain for rhetoric, oratory, and indeed, writing, Sellars suggest that such an attitude is perhaps unhelpful. Taking as an alternative the views of John of Salisbury and Cicero, he invokes the idea, common to both, of the "eloquent philosopher". To modify a well-known Kantian saying, for Sellars words without wisdom are empty, whilst without words wisdom is mute. Sellars is cautiously insistent upon the reciprocal envelopment of the two skills of thinking and articulating; he argues that it is not just that one without the other is of little value, but that "thinking clearly and writing clearly cannot really be divorced from one another" 24. Sellars makes the point that, given that students are primarily assessed by means of written examinations and essays, their ability to write should be scrutinised and nurtured. But for Sellars such modes of assessment are not contingent to doing philosophy; rather they reflect the very nature of philosophy itself. Drawing out the implication of his claim that thinking and writing are inseparable he remarks that philosophical arguments do not "exist in ether, so to speak; they are expressed in language" 25. Dismissing the importance of videos, multimedia presentations and other pedagogical 'innovations', Sellars insists that the real issue for teaching philosophy is not whether to teach students writing skills, but how best to do it. The question that we want to address in this section is how the method of text-based teaching and learning answers to the issue of teaching writing skills.
Sellars' claims concerning the essential reciprocity between philosophical thinking and writing are substantiated both by the arguments we have made in this report, and by the reflections on teaching and teaching practice made by members of the philosophy department at MMU. However, as we have already remarked, while Sellars clearly identified a number of weaknesses and omissions in the scholarship on philosophical pedagogy, and while he stressed the importance of teaching students how to write well, he nevertheless failed to even identify text-based teaching and learning as an issue. This, we suggested, was surprising given Sellars own characterisation of philosophy as a subject primarily devoted to the analysis of complex arguments. Such a view, would, one might suppose, dispose anyone who held it towards acknowledging the importance of teaching students not only how to present such arguments in written and oral form, but prior to that, or at least alongside it, how to read and respond to such arguments. This in itself would be sufficient to justify the method of text-based teaching and learning. However, not only is it the case that we contingently encounter such arguments in the form of written texts that must be read, but, as we have argued in this report, it is in the reading of a text that the student comes to encounter the full richness, complexity and difficulty of a properly philosophical articulation of a problem. This response to Sellars' argument, we should note, does not invalidate his point that "teaching students to write well is one of the most important pedagogical issues for philosophy", even though a recognition of the role of text-based teaching and learning in philosophy provision might recast some of his considerations, recommendations and conclusions. It is, therefore, necessary that we now consider how, if at all, the practice of text-based teaching and learning affects student writing.
Aside from any of the particular differences between the views expressed in this report and those expressed or implied in Sellars' review, and moreover, beyond any particular similarities, what is most evidently shared is a commitment to enabling students studying philosophy to do philosophy. The arguments that we have advanced in this report have gradually moved beyond the initial considerations we made concerning the act of reading, towards explicating the vital bond that links doing philosophy to the act of reading a philosophical text. The various reflections of the members of staff in the Philosophy Department have also helped to clarify what, in this context at least, "doing philosophy" is. Rather than simply being the externalisation, in either written or spoken words, of a philosophical idea already present and fully formed in the mind of the student, philosophising - the actual doing of philosophy - is essentially about the struggle to articulate an idea or problem. Again, and it is important to emphasise this, admitting that students do struggle to articulate a philosophical argument or problem should not be seen as also being an indication of an intellectual weakness on the part of students. The opposite is the case: such a struggle can be an indication that the student has genuinely encountered a philosophical problem as a philosophical problem, encountered it as what it is - something that intrinsically makes demands of the ability of anyone, and not just the 'student', to articulate, to bring it forth in clear and comprehensible language. As Mike Garfield has said, in relation to his own experience of teaching, showing students philosophers formulating and reformulating a problem in a text can help them to realise that their own struggle is not a peculiarly personal difficulty, nor even a difficulty specific to students as such, but intrinsic to the discipline of philosophy as such. What we understand by articulation should not be limited simply to the articulation of thought and voice, but also covers written articulation. Through text-based teaching and learning students are brought to develop not only their powers of philosophical comprehension and understanding, but as part of their ability to do philosophy, they are brought to develop their ability to write philosophically. Engaging with an argument, an idea, or a problem, from the 'inside' of its becoming articulated in reading a text, rather than from the 'outside' of its abstract re-presentation by a tutor or commentary, allows the student to gain a valuable perspective on what it means to articulate an idea, to open it out and explore it as a living philosophical issue in speech and in writing.
However, it is important to clarify two related matters concerning articulating an issue philosophically. As we have already argued it is important not to confuse an ability to articulate an issue philosophically, with the ability to write well. Text-based teaching and learning is not about teaching students to write elegantly, but to genuinely express and articulate - perhaps sometimes with difficulty - a philosophical issue philosophically, to engage and state a philosophical problem for themselves. Articulation is not just stating something, but the very process of linking together, of joining, words and sentences, so that the matter that is at issue makes itself properly apparent. It is the difficulty and demands of such a genuine articulation that lie behind Plato's disdain for superficial oratory and his valorisation of 'content': It is because Plato knew, as do all philosophers, that it is the struggle to allow the matter of philosophy to resonate in words, to become apparent, that is important, that he did not condemn speech, writing or articulation as such, but only the superficial preference for elegance of expression over a real and genuine attempt to say or write something. In view of this, it is worth re-emphasising a point already made in this report, and which J. Sellars also makes. Teaching students to write well in relation to doing philosophy should not be regarded as making good a lack, or deficiency of something students should already have: it is not remedial teaching in this sense at all. What, as much as anything, is to be remedied is the ability of students to write-well in a rhetorical sense, that is to say, to write well, without doing any philosophy.
Conclusion
Text-based teaching and learning aims to get students to engage in doing philosophy. We have argued in this section that doing philosophy is both a process of reading and writing, which are themselves inseparable from thinking. Both of these activities are related: they are both forms of articulation. Active reading demands more than just reading words on a page, it requires re-articulating the problem addressed in the text that is read, and thus draws upon expressing those ideas, orally or in writing. In this sense, the method of text-based teaching and learning must impact upon students' writing skills. However, it is important to recognise that such expression of ideas and arguments is not to be confused simply with writing elegantly; often it will involve a genuine struggle to make clear the matter at hand. In this sense teaching or guiding students in their articulation of an issue will be as much a matter of discouraging them from relying solely upon a basic ability to write well as it will be of remedying an inability to write well.
7. The Subject Benchmark Statement for Philosophy
As we have already noted the Subject Benchmark Statement is a significant document for the formulation and formalisation of teaching programmes in philosophy for the bachelors degree with honours. It makes explicit the general academic characteristics and standards of an honours degree in a particular subject. Thus the Benchmark Statement for Philosophy provides a set of standards for the provision of philosophy, the exposition of attributes and competencies that philosophy graduates can expect to have acquired, and benchmark standards for assessment. Along with an institution's own evaluation documents the Benchmark Statement provides a means for reviewers to assess provision when reviewing a particular programme.
We have already shown that the Benchmark Statement for Philosophy gives sufficient grounds to justify a programme of philosophy that embraces text-based teaching and learning. Where it is held to be desirable or even necessary that a student should be able to read philosophical texts philosophically, and do so independently of secondary literature and tutor-provided summaries, then it is also necessary that students be taught how to read. Given the nature of the texts they are required to read, and the very nature of reading itself, such teaching cannot be accomplished by precept, but by example 26.
Whilst the general remarks of the Benchmark Statement justify the practice of text-based teaching and learning, it is necessary to show how the Benchmark criteria are applicable to this practice. The document identifies nine General Philosophical Skills that should be acquired by students enrolled upon a degree programme in Philosophy. These skills in turn form the basis for assessment of a student's level of attainment, a typical level of attainment reflecting an adequate ability in most of these skills. These skills are:
- Articulacy in identifying underlying issues in all kinds of debates.
- Precision of thought and expression in the analysis and formulation of complex and controversial problems.
- Sensitivity to the interpretation of texts drawn from a variety of ages and/or traditions.
- Clarity and rigour in critical assessment of arguments presented in such texts.
- Ability to use and criticise specialised philosophical terminology.
- Ability to abstract, analyse and construct sound arguments and identify logical fallacies.
- Ability to recognise methodological errors, rhetorical devices, unexamined conventional wisdom, unnoticed assumptions, vagueness and superficiality.
- Ability to move between generalisation and appropriately detailed discussion, inventing or discovering examples to support or challenge a position, and distinguishing relevant and irrelevant considerations.
- Ability to consider unfamiliar ideas and ways of thinking, and to examine critically presuppositions and methods within the discipline itself.
It will be obvious that the method of text-based teaching and learning will directly answer to some of these criteria. The skills listed under 3 and 4 are explicitly hermeneutical in character. However, insofar as the method of text-based teaching and learning is premised on an intrinsic link between doing philosophy and reading, then a good number of the other skills listed will also be developed through this pedagogical practice. Insofar as the student is encouraged to engage with the philosophical point being raised in the piece of text that is being read, then he or she will necessarily be called upon to articulate the underlying point at issue (1); it should perhaps be noted that this articulacy should not be mistaken for straightforward clarity of expression, but an ability of the student to express for their own part the philosophical issue at stake philosophically. The skill listed in last place (9) - the ability to consider unfamiliar ideas and ways of thinking - will also be developed through an engagement with primary texts from throughout the philosophical tradition. The other skills and abilities listed will be progressively fostered from out of such an engagement and in relation to other tasks, teaching methods and modes of assessment; for example, a genuine ability to appreciate the nuances and range of use of philosophical terminology (5) is derivable from teaching that focuses upon close textual engagement.
Undoubtedly these are abilities that are necessary for graduates in philosophy to have acquired, and abilities that any competent philosopher must possess in some significant measure. However, it should perhaps be acknowledged that such abilities do not suffice of themselves to distinguish, nor to produce, a philosopher: on the one hand, students from many humanities disciplines would be required to have such skills; on the other hand, a student with all of these skills would not necessarily be a philosopher, nor would he or she necessarily make a good philosopher. When philosophy is taught it is not just a set of skills or abilities that are being nurtured in the student - although these are important acquisitions, and it is therefore desirable that the student does develop these, and one must also allow that close textual reading will encourage the development of such skills - it is rather a disposition or attitude. The Subject Benchmark Statement for Philosophy implicitly recognises that philosophy is primarily a certain disposition towards phenomena, in the definition it gives of philosophy. This definition can be seen as comprised of two aspects, one negative and one positive. In the negative sense it recognises that an education in philosophy cannot consist in the simple acquisition of facts and arguments by the student; in the positive sense it states "philosophy seeks to understand, and critically question, ideas concerning the nature of reality, value and experience that play a pervasive role in understanding the world and ourselves" 27. Taking both the negative delimitation and positive appreciation of what philosophy is into account leads us to recognise that being a philosopher or doing philosophy is not about what one knows, but a disposition towards knowing 28. In this sense, to teach philosophy is to awaken or intensify an attitude on the part of students towards the world and towards experience, an attitude of openness that allows the world, and their experience of phenomena, to ask questions of them.
Whilst it is necessary to acknowledge that it is not easy to say what this disposition or attitude is, and whilst any attempt to do so is sure to provoke disagreement, that in itself should not deter us from acknowledging that philosophy is primarily a disposition or attitude, and we should not forget that the Greek term 'philosophy' did originally name a disposition or attitude. Moreover, in this context at least, it is not important to say what this disposition or attitude is, certainly not if that were taken to imply the imposition of a definition unlikely in itself to ever excite unanimity among philosophers. What can be said is that teaching philosophy through text-based teaching and learning will help develop in students a sensitivity to this disposition or attitude as it is instanced in philosophers philosophising. It might be objected that such a disposition is a prerequisite of reading philosophically, and without assuming such a disposition it would be impossible to explain how anyone could be sensitive to any one else's philosophising. But such an objection only has a purchase if teaching is thought to be imposing something from the outside, rather than allowing something innate to develop and refine itself by being actualised. Just as one learns to swim by swimming, one learns to read by reading, and one learns to philosophise by doing philosophy. Indeed an attitude or disposition is disclosed, and in fact encounters itself, and thus can learn to recognise itself and refine itself, through being expressed, through its being actualised. It is in facilitating this that text-based teaching and learning is important to the teaching of philosophy.
8. Assessing Text-Based Teaching and Learning
One question that it is necessarily to raise in relation to the practice of text-based teaching and learning is whether traditional modes of assessment, such as essay writing, and formal end of year examinations, are appropriate to such a practice. Indeed it might be felt that where emphasis is placed on a student engaging with a difficult and demanding text for themselves the methods of assessments used should be such as to distinguish between students who do this, and students who instead rely on secondary texts, such that it is possible to reflect this in the marks students receive.
At MMU philosophy undergraduates are primarily assessed by means of essays (1,500 and 3,000 word), end of course examinations, and in the final year a dissertation of 12,000 words. The Department as a whole does not see that its practice of text-based teaching and learning demands dispensing with these methods of assessment, but rather that the philosophical and pedagogical abilities fostered by text-based teaching and learning are appropriately measured by essay, examination, and dissertation, and that given that such a method of teaching specifically encourages independence of thought and philosophical thinking, that those students that do engage directly with the primary text will be appropriately rewarded.
Faculty regulations require that Second Year degree students be able to develop analysis, explanation and evaluation of alternate theories and interpretations. At first glance such a requirement might seem incompatible wit [sic]
This page was originally on the website of The Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies. It was transfered here following the closure of the Subject Centre at the end of 2011.
