A Condensed Argument from My Recent Series I have long thought that Analytic Philosophy (eg. Wittgenstein, Margolis, Bernstein, Rorty) has been moving toward forms of pragmatism that has implications for Ed Reform. (Many ed theorists incorporate elements that seem pragmatic (Vygotsky/Rogoff, Bruner, Samuel Messick for example). What stumped me was the last mile of pedagogy and teacher…

The problems of science have been known for some time. Are we ready now to address them? — The dogma of reductionism survives in the supposition that each statement, taken in isolation from its fellows, can admit of confirmation or infirmation at all. My countersuggestion, . . . statements about the external world face the tribunal of sense experience not individually but only as a corporate body. …

Time for a Wholistic Reconception or Why Science Needs Philosophy — Let’s start with a short list of disappointments: The Replication Crisis in Psychology, Little Progress in Evidence-based Social Science, Problems in Ed Reform and Ed Policy, The Failure of Standardized Testing the Scaling Back of AI Expectations; It’s time to get real about the human sciences! Clear progress is not…

This Morning NYTimes columnist David Brooks said: The core drama (in Myth) is external: fighting the forces of evil, enduring the harsh journey, developing the skills that make you the best. . . America’s Fourth Great Spiritual Awakening has come in the form of this mythic revival. Brooks contrast the…

Conclusion: Higher Ed, Business and Society in a Codependent Knowledge and Problem-solving Based Future — I would return to Hoxby’s underlying idea: education is an investment that yields value. All education models need to address their value proposition. We don’t have to focus simply on monetary value or business needs. A better model is Dewey’s idea of students as participants in communities of inquiry. …

Differing Models in US Higher Education: Following the Clues — A. Stanford Universtiy’s Economic Model: Spend the Money! Stanford spends $100,000 per student per year according to Caroline Hoxby. Even students with no financial support only pay 50% of that cost. So how does that work? It’s the Endowment. According to Hoxby, students are an investment. Stanford depends on students doing well and contributing to that endowment (which…

Higher Ed, Knowledge and Problem Solving at the Center of the Knowledge Society — What is knowledge? John Dewey famously critiqued Western Phylosophy as having a “spectator view of knowledge” This is the idea that knowledge is a mind’s passive representation of an object in the world (Matthew Festenstein, Dewey’s Political Philosophy). It’s similar to the idea of knowledge for knowledge’s sake. …

Functional Critique: Is Higher Ed of Real Value: Economic Value in Tertiary Education. — This article by Bryan Caplan (Economic Professor at George Mason U) can be summarized like this: Other than a signaling effect, Caplan thinks university education has little functional economic value for many individuals and he thinks we should stop wasting our tax and personal dollars on education. His sentiment was…

The Big Question — Daniel Little (philosopher of social science) compares the collapse of Kodak, and US steel companies to universities. These companies developed severe problems when they inexplicably ignored clear competitive risks and Daniel wonders, is higher education going the same way? He asks: This is an interesting question in the abstract. But…