Robert Drury King

Teaching Philosophy, Robert Drury King Surely John Erskine was right that higher education is improved by returning it to the multidisciplinary ideals of the western liberal arts tradition. Among these ideals, I believe that the most important element of any education is the capacity to think. Just what thinking is, and just how thinking is accomplished, is by no means clear. But in the liberal arts tradition I teach in, nothing is more essential than teaching students how to think. In a sense, all of the disciplines in the humanities are about thought and each one demonstrates a particular form of thinking. If a student has any hope of refusing the more tightly controlled, less imaginative and less colorful life encouraged by any too narrow academic specialization, she must learn how to think. But what is thinking? Martin Heidegger wrote a lovely little text entitled in its English translation, What is Called Thinking. Careful examination of this text, however, leaves one with the impression that its title should have been, What Calls For Thinking, as it is an inquiry into the conditions of thought. Heidegger does not lay down a definition of thought; for him, thinking cannot take the form of an exposition. Rather, thought is an extended questioning about the problems associated with learning how to think (and these problems change along with the times). Heidegger inquires into the conditions of thought by asking, what makes thinking possible? This is a crucial question for me, and a big part of my pedagogy involves getting students to constantly meditate on it. My pedagogy continues my research developments in systems theory by teaching students how to think in a critical and systematic fashion. The final chapter of my dissertation was an explicit meditation on what thinking is (and how it operates) when it is looked at systematically. I argue that thinking is a unique and special system among other systems in the world (such as ecosystems, political systems, linguistic systems etc.), that it operates according to its own laws, and that it interacts with other systems (such as the cellular biology of the brain) only according to its own laws. This is a philosophical thesis on the nature of thought. As such, it belongs very centrally to the western liberal arts tradition, forming part of its basis. In my teaching I aim to share and enrich this tradition with my students. How so? Through asystems theoretical pedagogy, I aim to have students realize how important it is to determine the conditions of their various communications (in speaking and in writing). I believe that determination of the conditions of our communications is the form through which we think, most relevantly and carefully, today. Although I do not address these points explicitly in my lectures, I feel that the current understanding of communication in the humanities and related disciplines must be criticized since it is based on questionable presuppositions. For example, it is assumed that the laws and forms of communication are shared among sender and receiver and that these laws and forms are transparent to us. Yet empirical research in systems theory suggests that psychological and social systems can no longer be integrated. In most humanistic disciplines concepts of communication are far too normative. They are used with reference to a subject, presupposed as author, designated as individual, and to whom action or communication can be attributed. Yet the world is composed of many, competing systems. For example, biological organisms use organs and cellular structures to communicate, while humans use natural and artificial languages. When we realize that we have become ill and consult the physician, it cannot be said that our cells communicate the message directly to her our cells do not speak to the physician. Cells communicate directly only with other cells (as when neurons receive neuronal messages across their cell membranes), and language forms a system proper with its own means of communication (grammar, phonemes). Because different systems communicate in different ways, I hold that students must first determine the systemic bases defining their communications. Such proper recognition of systems is the precondition of students most successful attempts at

Robert Drury King

communicating, regardless of the type of communication students may wish to pursue (whether as scholars, lawyers or economists). So, in class discussion I always make sure to ask students what first makes effective communication possible. I demand that students identify what systems they belong to when they communicate with others, with friends, in their professions, and as social beings. Are they communicating from their own point of view, as members of the fields they belong to as professionals, do they speak of the economy, of physics? Each of these points of view represents a different system with its own laws and forms of communicating. The trick of course is to get students to rightly identify the systemic basis of any communication, for it is not immediately apparent. To facilitate students acceptance of the importance of this approach to writing, I find that it works best to use familiar examples from their everyday social interactions. I encourage students to reflect on the following sorts of questions: Who am I addressing when I communicate? Not what do I make of them, but how do they communicatewhat distinctions define their communications? How do they distinguish themselves from the others they communicate with? What sorts of distinctions do I make when I address others? My belief is that possessing firmer answers to these questions offers students insight into a general theoretical strategy for recognizing the conditions making all of their communications possiblea strategy synonymous with the act of thinking itself. Recognition of these conditions helps students to effectively isolate the contexts in which they communicate as well as those of the audiences they address. Furthermore, recognition of these conditions is essential because students bring to instances of communication their own perceptions, as well as interpretations of the situation that are bound up with them. When students imagine that these perceptions belong to their interlocutors, communication goes harmfully astray. Hundreds of years of disciplinary researches in the humanities have, albeit indirectly, reinforced this habit; it is based on the assumption that the human subject lies at the base of communication and action. I give students the tools to undermine this belief. For me, the system concept replaces the concept of the subject (i.e., the humanist subject). Research in systems shows that humans are themselves composed of three separate systems (biological, linguistic, mental), each of which communicates according to specific laws and forms. Each of these systems has autonomous laws and uses separate operations to communicate. Getting a feel for this complexity, students are far less likely to assume that their interpretations of the world characterize the interpretations of others. In my years of teaching I have built my pedagogy around a vision of getting students to think critically rather than via any insupportable contemporary ideology (such as might be attached to a particular political regime with unscrupulous economic interests). Basically, I encourage students to distinguish between thought and the many external environments in which thought takes place (e.g., culture, media) in order to get students to understand that thinking is systematicsubject to specific lawsand as such, must be studied in its own right. The point, for me, is to get students to think critically about what thought entails and requires so that they can become more effective thinkers. I believe that the most important element of any education is the capacity to think, and my main goal as an educator is to effect this capacity in my students.

Robert Drury King