This blog is currently
reviewing an instructional approach that is congruent with (not necessary to) a
civics education course of study founded on federation theory. Philip Selznick[1]
provides a useful list of qualities upon which reasoned arguments are
based. He calls them the five pillars of
reason. The qualities are order,
principle, experience, prudence, and dialogue.
Each will be explained, but first one is well served by seeing the
significance of these qualities. They
are the disciplines of reason.
When
confronted with an argument, one can use these qualities to judge the viability
of the argument. Arguments are the
product of performed skills. For these
skills, one can utilize the elements identified in the model developed by
Stephen Toulmin.[2] They are developing and devising the
following: evidence, warrant, support
for warrant, qualifiers, reservations, and conclusion. Each of these elements presupposes a person
to perform a task – to activate a skill – to accomplish the element.
More
on this later, but, for now, the topic is Selznick’s qualities. Each can be referred to as a discipline. The definitions of these disciplines are:
·
Order:
This discipline calls on a person to be able to functionally objectify
the information relevant to the essence of an argument. In turn, this discipline calls on the person
to keep in check any emotions, rhetoric, prejudices, or inclinations that
hamper an objective-based analysis and determination as to the value of the
information.
·
Principle:
This discipline calls on a person to keep in focus ultimate goals of the
argument-formation process. “Reason is
end-centered: the fate of comprehensive
or long-term objectives is always to be kept in mind, always open to
intelligent assessment.”[3] This discipline needs further elucidation as
hinted at below under the definition for prudence.
·
Experience: This discipline is the willingness to subject
formed hypothesis to experience – empirical information. This experience comes in varies forms but is
most explicit when derived from
experimentation. Having said that, most
citizens will not conduct experiments, but can review historical information
from reputable historians, journalists, and other researchers who enjoy
positive reputations among legitimate reviewers of such material. It should be remembered by the reader; all
knowledge is historical in nature.
·
Prudence:
This discipline calls on a person to demand a critical review of any
derived theories or models against ongoing experience. It is what Selznick calls “practical wisdom”
and while reason is end-centered, it favors the continuum of means and ends as
when one looks beyond rules to the reasons for those rules.
·
Dialogue:
This discipline calls for a person to honor diversity of ends in terms
of both goals and understandings held by others. This honor is acted upon by engaging with
others in mutual efforts by honest agents toward seeking truth and/or prudent
policy.
Hopefully, the reader
can deem, after reflecting on these qualities or disciplines why the
instructional approach favored here can be named historical-based dialogue.
Below, each of these disciplines will
be further explained, but first a word of context is offered. As indicated above, this review will dedicate
some concern over the structure of good arguments. Why?
When one considers the study of government and civic affairs, much of it
is involved with making and judging arguments.
Most of that is about what constitutes good policy; should the
government do this or that?
So,
something a civics teacher should try to instill in students, regardless of the
instructional approach he/she utilizes, is the wherewithal to determine whether
an argument is sound and reasonable. As
Philip Selznick[4]
points out, this does not mean that arguments should follow the tenets of
rationalism in which all but reason is used to construct and accept an
argument.
There
is room for emotions in good arguments but, as the following will indicate, one
needs to be disciplined in the use of reason and emotions as well as relying on
religious or other philosophic beliefs. All
behaviors or the formulation of any beliefs begin with an emotion that
motivates the person to act or think in a given way.
Relevant
to these concerns is the legitimization of a certain type of argument. It has been mentioned earlier that some
argument or position is a radicalization of some theory or ideology; that is,
that the particular belief or claim of knowledge is held to be true and should
trump all other considerations. The
problem with such arguments is that they assume perfect knowledge, something at
which humans have proven to be quite deficient.
“Ain’t nobody perfect.”
This account will, over the following descriptions,
delve into each of these disciplines and then meld them with the skills – ala Toulmin – of reasoned argumentation. This posting will address the first of these
disciplines, order, and follow up in the next posting(s) with the rest.
Order
– Good arguments do rely on reason – the quality in which one attempts to
consider evidence in a dispassionate way.
What that basically means is that one should exercise a considered
restraint on emotions, the rhetoric of others – and of oneself – and any
preconceived biases or inclinations.
This
denotes a slowing down or allowing enough time to reflect, to put things –
ideas or objects – in logical order.
Selznick quite rightly points out that this discipline needs to be
extended not only to the consideration of means toward some ends embedded in
some argument, but to the ends themselves.
One
of the problems of ideologies is that they tend to proffer their vision or
belief of the right/correct life and yet, under such a posture, ideologies fall
short of reflecting life or other aspects of realities in what one could deem as
totally true. There is always some
mistake as to what is claimed to be reality.
This
is not only the case of some belief based on religion or some philosophy (such
as Marxism), but also on a belief based on science. One simply doesn’t know it all. So, the discipline of order must account for
this: a structural imbedding of doubt and of thinking and having to decide in
terms of probabilities, not certainties.
And even when the knowledge proves to be sound, it offers a view of what
is less than totally consistent and dependable or totally free of
obstacles. Selznick writes:
People
are “reasonable” and show “good sense” when they accommodate their goals to
what the world is like. They seek change
within a framework of limited alternatives and necessary trade-offs. This ambient order, properly understood, is
not an alien system of domination. It is
the world to which we belong, on which we depend, of which we are integral
parts.[5]
Order
leads us to think in terms of frameworks, not technical manifestos or social
architecture. It also avoids discrete
values or goals, such as profits or payloads, as be-all aims of any
effort. One sees this type of offense
when considering the modern corporate structure in which the goal of maximizing
profits for shareholders becomes the trumping goal for just about any business
decision a corporation makes – such as providing sub-living wages to
workers. This reflects the type of
thinking in which rationality is divorced from reason.
In
federation theory, it has been argued here that the trump value of that
normative theory is societal wellbeing.
Is this not another case in which rationality outstrips reason? The claim here is that it is not. For one thing, societal wellbeing is not a
discrete value; it is a general value subject to interpretation.
The
argument allows for diverse options and part of this theory in guiding civics
curricular choices is not to indoctrinate students, but to facilitate those
inquiries that might lead to the benefits of our common welfare. The student so led, though, must be
encouraged to practice and gain proficiency in the exercise of order in attempting
such endeavors.
The
next posting will pick up on these descriptions and begin with the discipline,
principles.
[1] Philip Selznick,
The Moral Commonwealth: Social Theory and the Promise of Community
(Berkeley, CA: University of California
Press, 1992).
[2] Stephen Toulmin,
The Uses of Argument (London, England: Cambridge University Press, 1969).
[3] Philip Selznick,
The Moral Commonwealth: Social Theory and the Promise of Community,
59.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid., p. 58.
