Philosophy for Teachers: Between Ignorance, Invention and Improvisation

Educational and philosophical practices are both rooted in the common form of dialogue and inquiry. This claim, widely discussed in pedagogical literature, is a core assumption in the Philosophy for/with Children community (cf. Kennedy, 1991; Kohan, 2014; Lipman 1988; 2003; Santi & Oliverio, 2012) and acts as the starting point for the analysis to follow, which tries to re-think teaching by situating dialogue and inquiry as its core. The main purpose of this chapter is to problematize the role of the teacher in a dialogical and philosophical inquiry through a philosophical and educational approach to the concepts of ignorance, invention and improvisation. The idea of an ignorant teacher for whom ignorance is a condition needed in order to really teach has been taken up by J. Rancière in The Ignorant Schoolmaster (1991). One of the key moves made by Rancière in this book, which retells the story of a Post-revolutionary French teacher Joseph Jacotot, is to split the “natural” connection between teaching and knowing. In Rodríguez’s writings one comes across an oft repeated phrase: “We invent or we err.” (Rodríguez 2001b: 185). For Rodríguez, invention is a criterion for truth. Epistemologically, educationally and politically, it sustains social life. Philosophizing within a community of inquiry is the context in which the dilemma between ignorance and invention might be taken as a pragmatic opportunity to dialogue. In other words, through a constant commitment to questioning, a community of inquiry reveals aporias and seeks to resolve them, while still being aware of their impossibility of resolution. In fact, dialogue is an exploratory practice that implies the ignorance of truth and others’ ideas, and which motivates participants to continuously seek the invention of shared forms of thinking and living. The relationship between thinking and dialogue is reversed: “The common assumption is that reflection generates dialogue, when, in fact, it is dialogue that generates reflection” (Lipman, Sharp & Oscanyan 1980: 22). Keeping with the notion of “invention” expressed above, dialogue, practiced in a certain way, opens up space for the arrival of “ignored” others: other thoughts, feelings, imagination, etc…, and it gives hospitality to whomever and whatever comes. The dialogical movement between ignorance and invention is bi-directional and produces their reciprocal determination and the emergence of new thoughts. In other words, if you ignore something you have to invent it; if you invent something, you have to ignore it. Improvising involves attitudes which contribute to clarify and add more suggestions to rethink the teaching activity and teacher role as mediation between ignorance and invention.