Our journey into epistemology moves forward to the eighteenth century philosophers, Immanuel Kant and Jean Jacques Rousseau, who began to bring closer together the opposing ideas of the rationalists and empiricists. To explore these philosophers I considered the question of what are the pros and cons of having knowledge without experience? Interestingly, through this exploration, we’ll begin to see the roots of what modern theorists have been saying related to systems thinking, experiential learning, and the need to trigger the learner’s meta-cognition skills in order for knowledge to be retained.
The philosophers of the eighteenth century continued the debate about the nature of knowledge. Is it “a priori” and innate? Or is it “a posteriori” and gained through experience? If we look to two of the leading eighteenth century philosophers, Kant and Rousseau, we’ll see that they both lean toward the need for experiential acquisition of knowledge.
Rousseau argues that the learner should be a very active participant who learns driven by his own needs/interests and finding the answers for himself—NOT a receptacle for others’ learning, beliefs, and opinions. “It is for him to want to learn, to seek and to find it. You should put it within his reach, you should skillfully awaken the desire and supply within him the means for its satisfaction” (Rousseau, p142). The process Rousseau recommends by which the learner should acquire knowledge is very experiential. First, the learner should gain knowledge through the senses, observation, and experience. Then the learner should gradually gain the ability to focus on one thing for a long time (as driven by the learners’ interest—not an external mandate). Then the learner needs to apply these to “an honest trade” (and ensuring that he not acquire prejudices of his social or economic position). Then and only then, would the learner then proceed onto judgment and reasoning. As such, Rousseau lays out a process of knowledge acquisition that is very reliant upon experience.
In a similar vein, Kant argued for the physical training of both the mind and body. Kant recommends that body and senses should be trained through active doing (combining skill and senses), to develop a photographic memory (to be used in nature as well as in books and music), and to use childhood games to prepare children for the future and condition them to remain busy and work toward an end goal. Kant recommends that the mind also be trained, but receive both physical and moral training. Kant recommends that training of the mind should be done with consideration of the end goal—for work (scholastic culture) or play (free culture). Furthermore, Kant recommends to also train the memory early to cultivate understanding and to train rules (and their classes) alongside application/examples.
When considering these eighteenth century philosophers plus those who came before them, we can better weigh the pros and cons of having knowledge without experience. For example, to have knowledge not based upon experience may be desirable for (per Descartes) if your senses were deceived, then your knowledge would be compromised by that flawed experience. On the other hand, Rousseau teaches that not having knowledge based in experience will lack context and can be meaningless to the learner. And while Kant took a more moderate approach marrying the schools of empiricism and rationalism, he also believed that experience was a necessary component of knowledge. Kant asserts that experience (or training of the body) provides self-sufficiency, strength, skill, quickness, discipline, individuality, confidence, and the creation of a contributing/working member of society; these then provide a foundation for the training of the mind which provides understanding, judgment, reason, and morality.
Interestingly, in studying these eighteenth century philosophers we can begin to see the roots of what modern theorists have been saying related to systems thinking, experiential learning, and the need to trigger the learner’s meta-cognition skills in order for knowledge to be retained. Indeed, much can be learned from those who came before us—and I look forward to continuing this exploration and making further connections applicable to how today’s knowledge manager can maximize the acquisition of knowledge.
-Robin
References:
Descartes, R. (1644). Principles of philosophy. Retrieved September 3, 2007 from http://www.classicallibrary.org/descartes/principles/index.htm
Kant, I. (1960). Chapter 3: Instruction. In Education (pp. 58-65). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. (Original work published 1803)
Kant, I. (1960). Chapter 4: Cultivation of the mind. In Education (pp. 66-82). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. (Original work published 1803)
Rousseau, J.J. (1957). Book III. In B. Foxley (Translator), Emile (pp. ii-v,128-171). London: JM Dent and Sons. (Original work published 1762)
Copyright Robin Donnan 2007. All Rights Reserved.
Performance Associates, Inc.
