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Education or Pedagogy?

Article in Journal of Philosophy of Education · February 2000

DOI: 10.1111/1467-9752.00208

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Journal of Philosophy of Education, Vol. 35, No. 1, 2001

Education or Pedagogy?

GEOFFREY HINCHLIFFE

This paper explores the meaning of education in contrast with

`pedagogy'. Whereas education can be defined as `learning
for its own sake', pedagogy can be defined as learning
oriented towards social goals. An attempt to find an adequate
conceptualisation is first of all sought in Aristotle, but
his concept of education is found to depend on too narrow
a concept of rational activity. A more adequate
conceptualisation is found in Michael Oakeshott's contrast
between morality and enterprise associations. However
Oakeshott's definition of education needs modifying if it is to
take account of the idea of critical knowing, which is seen as
crucial to any definition of education.

INTRODUCTION
Ever since antiquity, there have always been two traditions in teaching
and learning. The firstÐinstrumental learning, or, in a sense to be
explained, pedagogyÐplaces learning at the service of government,
political power and the economy. The secondÐeducationÐrepresents
that more disinterested endeavour in which teacher and pupil engage in
a form of enquiry. Whereas the former has specific objectives, the
latterÐthough it indeed must provide certain skills and knowledgeÐis
underpinned by the idea that the outcome of education is essentially
open. Just as we cannot predict the outcome of good conversation, this
inability being one of the prime reasons for engaging in the pursuit,
so the outcome of an educative experience must be left, in part, to
the interaction between learners and teacher. Construed as education,
the results of learning can never be measured according to a common
standard. But construed as a pedagogy, those results must be measur-
able because the whole point of learning is to equip people for specified
social, political and economic requirements. The implication is clear:
those interested in education have always had to fight their corner
against the proponents of pedagogy. Free spirits usually have a hard
time of it: but now, more than ever, is the time to recover and re-state
those ideals associated with the tradition of education against the time-
servers of pedagogy.

& The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 2001. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108
Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
32 G. Hinchli€e

This view was proposed by the classicist, Oswyn Murray in a recent

Times Literary Supplement review (Murray, 1999). The review is of a
book entitled Pedagogy and Power (Too and Livingstone, 1998) which
contains a number of essays on the ways in which classical learning and
teaching have been used and deployed in a number of social and political
contexts since the times of antiquity. Murray uses the review to advance
the case (a case, it should be noted, not advanced anywhere in Pedagogy
and Power itself) that there are two traditions in education: the
pedagogic and the educative. And the tradition of pedagogy can be
traced back to Isocrates, who taught rhetoric and other arts to young
Greek aristocrats in order to equip them properly for a career in public
life. On the other hand, the tradition of education can be traced squarely
back to Plato, who (according to Murray) advocated that learning and
the pursuit of knowledge be unsullied by the pursuit of worldly
affairs.
It is difficult not to find Murray's view attractive. For who wants to
find themselves ranged against `the freedom of the human spirit' apart
from those so mired in a world of assessment strategies and quality
reviews that they cannot see beyond it? And it is a good, anti-Popperian
move to enlist Plato on the side of free spirits in opposition to Isocrates
and his tracts on rhetoric. After all, who today reads the latter apart
from a few scholars? Of course, some might try to argue that the
Republic also serves political ends; but this seems unfair. Its arguments
cannot be construed as a set of guides and prescriptions for future rulers
since the Guardians are only entitled to rule because of the knowledge
and wisdom they possess. Those who posses real knowledge take up the
reins of power reluctantly because they know that although their gaze is
directed towards the sources of wisdom, they are still of this world and
cannot avoids its imperatives.
Murray also urges certain etymological considerations: the Latin
educare means to lead out, to raise up, whereas the Greek paidagogia
means the leading of a slave or child. Thus the term `pedagogy' seems to
be connected with ideas of training and discipline with the purpose of
developing the well-formed person. We are accustomed, perhaps, to
thinking of the aims of pedagogy as directed to certain `micro-ends',
relating to individual discipline, comportment and norms of presenta-
tion. Nevertheless, what we are being invited to consider is an extended
meaning to `pedagogy' so that the term incorporates the idea of training
for political, social and economic ends.
It is all too easy to see how the distinction has a reverberation today:
we need only examine the methods used to raise education standards to
realise very swiftly that what is involved is an exercise in pedagogy, with
specific means employed to hit identifiable targets. The importance for
the teacher of producing evidence of learning so that assessment criteria
can be appliedÐlearning which has been deliberately structured pre-
cisely so that it can be assessed and monitoredÐshows us why so many
teachers are unhappy. They are no longer teachers or lecturers but mere
pedagogues. The introduction of the National Curriculum in England

& The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 2001.
 Education or Pedagogy 33

and Wales has reduced considerably the scope of teachers to engender

creative and critical learning. Teachers at all levelsÐbut especially those
subject to the greatest scrutiny of all, namely primary-level teachersÐ
may well feel that the pupil or student who attains a level of critical
awareness will not even have this recognised, just because it is not
something that is currently measured. In other words, the very things
that education is supposed to produceÐcritical awareness, creativity, an
imaginative responseÐsimply do not count for anything very much
from the standpoint of pedagogical considerations and, indeed, may
very well count against the student.
Yet the view just sketched could be seen as merely a response to recent
events, and one which relies on a number of well-worn contrasts:
creativity/regimentation, freedom/discipline, critical/conformist. If the
pedagogy/education contrast simply amounts to yet another contrast of
the same order then it must be doubted that it could ever advance our
understanding even though it may be welcome as another weapon in the
embattled teacher's armoury of counter-offensive rhetoric.
And indeed, the distinction could be questioned on a number of
counts. In the first place, it must be fairly clear that historically a great
deal of what has been termed `education' has had little to do with
`leading out' children or students and everything to do with training and
discipline. Must we now accept that we have been misusing the term and
start to get into the habit of calling the bulk of what goes on in our
schools and colleges pedagogy rather than education? If not, is anyone
seriously going to maintain that prior, say, to the introduction of the
National Curriculum there was a regime of education and freedom until
the government came along and squashed everything with its pedagogy?
But perhaps the distinction may turn on a more traditional contrast
between academic and vocational instruction so that the term `pedagogy'
cleaves to the vocational. If this is accepted then are we supposed to
admit that critical awareness and creativity can be achieved by philo-
sophers and scientists but not by chefs, engineers or doctors? For if this
is all the distinction amounts too then it turns out to be rather
uninteresting. We are all familiar with the claims of those who wish to
protect liberal learning and its accompanying venerable humanism from
the depredations of `training'. In any case, it seems perfectly reasonable
to say that one needs to be trained in the right way if one wants to
become a philosopher or a historian, implying a pedagogy right at the
heart of liberal learning itself. And to confuse matters still further, was it
not Michael Oakeshott, passionate defender of liberal learning, who
eloquently spoke of his army instructor teaching him that gymnastics
could be an `intellectual art'?

And if you were to ask me the circumstances in which patience, accuracy,

elegance and style ®rst dawned upon me, I would have to say that I did
not come to recognise them in literature, in argument or in geometrical
proof until I had ®rst recognised them elsewhere; and that I owed this
recognition to a Sergeant gymnastics instructor who lived long before the

& The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 2001.
34 G. Hinchli€e

days of `physical education' and for whom gymnastics was an intellectual

artÐand I owed it to him, not on account of anything he ever said, but
because he was a man of patience, accuracy, economy, elegance and style.
(Oakeshott, 1967, p. 176)

Does the distinction between education and pedagogy make any sense
from a political perspective? This may seem promising for it might be
that the distinction, if embedded in wider concepts, may both give those
concepts an extra content and take on a wider meaning as a result. Take,
for example, Louis Althusser's idea of the ISAÐ`Ideological State
Apparatus'Ðwhich he introduced in order to specify the `relative
autonomy' of the Marxian concept of the superstructure (Althusser,
1971, pp. 151±152). Undoubtedly, pedagogy fits squarely into an ISA,
but where does this leave education? Are we to conclude that education
is that form of politics, in the Althusserian scheme of things, which
conducts revolutionary struggle against the ruling class? Or do we
conclude that education exists in a misty world over and beyond the
reality of the ISAÐnot to mention the RSA (Repressive State
Apparatus)? Althusser might have replied that `education' is merely
pedagogy trying to convince itself that it is free from all those
determinants which produce pedagogy; a delusional pedagogy which
thinks of itself as soaring in the sky whilst only succeeding in affirming
the very power of ideology.
But could we, nevertheless, view pedagogy's relation to truth as
essentially strategic? Consider, for example, Oswyn Murray's statement
that `Isocratean pedagogy is incompatible with freedom, whereas
Platonic philosophy, with its emphasis on truth wherever it may lead,
is indeed the path to freedom'. Leaving aside the questionable relation
between truth and freedom in Plato (for whom, surely more than
for any other philosopher, the path to truth had its own imperatives
and requirements compared to which the demands of freedom were
irrelevant) could we say, then, that education (but not pedagogy) enables
us to pursue truth wherever it may lead? But such truths can only be
recognised and acknowledged in terms of the practices governing
activity in the classroom or seminar room: and this amounts to subject-
ing truth to a pedagogic interrogation. It is difficult, that is, to see how
such practices are likely to generate `truths' which somehow surmount
the very conditions in which they arise. On this argument, therefore, the
distinction amounts to very little, perhaps little more than one of style.
Perhaps, then, the distinction could be defended along the following
lines. Pedagogy relates to those social, economic and political require-
ments which a state requires from its education system; pedagogy
addresses those skills which society needs. But an element of education is
needed to complement all this; and what education does is to focus on
the needs and development of the individual. Education, then, is
`person-centred', and focuses on the personal development of the
individual, whilst pedagogy sees to the social and economic role which
that individual might play. (I have in mind the ideas of Carl Rogers (see

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 Education or Pedagogy 35

Rogers, 1983, pp. 283±296) though, of course, Rogers himself would

have had nothing to do with pedagogy at all in any form, believing that
education, in the way he understood it, could achieve all learning goals.)
Education and pedagogy are not exclusive but complementary. But
this approach really seems to be just wishful thinking; for if pedagogy is
dominant then the kind of individual qualities to be developed and
encouraged are precisely those suitable for a social and economic role.
On the other hand, if an education is genuinely person-centred then it is
difficult to see how pedagogic demands can be met properly without
making very big assumptions about the fit between personal well-being
and social efficiency (it is just this sort of assumption that Rogers seems
to make). In any case, one could just as easily reverse the application of
the terms, so that pedagogy becomes the training and disciplining of the
person (with a suitable element of self-training and self-discipline to
satisfy liberal claims for autonomy) whilst education concerns itself with
the macro-issue of knowledge.
It seems, then, that there is no easy, consistent way to apply the
distinction between education and pedagogy. I propose, therefore, to put
on one side how the two terms are actually used or might be used in
order to examine possible conceptual contrasts. One that immediately
suggests itself is this: pedagogy views learning instrumentally whereas
education views learning for its own sake.

THE ARISTOTELIAN ARGUMENT

This kind of contrast appears in Aristotle's Politics (see Aristotle, 1948),
where learning which is needed to produce the necessities of life is
compared to the kind of learning needed for a life of leisure. Aristotle
contrasts leisure (schole) with war and action: `It is true that citizens
must be able to lead a life of action and war; but they must be even more
able to lead a life of leisure and peace' (Politics, p. 373). Leisure implies
self-directed, reflective activity. He contrasts leisure with work, saying
that `the growth of goodness and the pursuit of political activities' is
bound to be inhibited by any mechanical (banausos) occupation which
`keeps men's minds too much and too meanly occupied' (Politics,
p. 393). Aristotle also states that leisure is the end to which occupation is
directed, but nowhere does he suggest that work is the kind of pursuit
which is both worthy in itself and worthy as a means to an end. He is
disinclined to give work or occupation any independent value at all.
Consequently, the kind of learning which a citizen should undertake is
of the kind which brings about the cultivation of the mind (Politics,
p. 395). For only then will persons be able to develop the virtues,
including the crucial virtue of practical wisdom ( phronesis)  which will
enable them to lead a full life as a citizen.
I do not wish to pursue at length Aristotle's view that mechanical or
menial occupations make one unfit to be a citizen. For one thing, of
course, this view was contradicted by the experience of Athenian
democracy itself when citizenship was extended to all Athenian-born

& The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 2001.
36 G. Hinchli€e

males. Moreover, Aristotle himself concedes that not all menial work
makes a person's character menial and even grants that such work is
permissible when it is for a `fine end', for example, when one performs a
service for a friend (see Politics, pp. 371, 393). There seems no reason
why this could not be generalised to include any kind of `menial' task
which provides for the comforts of citizens. Nor is it clear that the
performer of such tasks could not be included within the ambit of
citizenship providing he or she had enough time to devote to leisure
(Irwin, 1988, pp. 414±416).
The key point is that, once we make allowance for all these local
historical features it looks as though there is a real argument here for
a distinction between the kind of education which is for its own sake
and the kind of education which is not. And the argument is that
educationÐ`cultivation of the mind'Ðis the kind of activity which
brings about and sustains rational activity and which, indeed, can be
considered as one facet of rational activity. The argument takes on depth
once we are aware of the connotations of `rational activity' in the
Aristotelian scheme of things. For it is the kind of activity which needs
other rational agents in order to complete it, which needs the political
space afforded by the polis for it to exhibit its public dimension and
which requires a shared acknowledgement of those values which sustain
the common good of a shared life. By contrast with this, then, we get an
educationÐor rather pedagogyÐgoverned by narrow ends and driven
by a conception of humankind as precisely not destined to a live a
public, shared life amongst equals. This kind of contrast is, of course,
the kernel of the version of Aristotelianism which was developed by
Hannah Arendt, amongst others.
One possible objection to this viewpoint is that it does not give
enough weight to those occupation-related activities of which Aristotle
was so dismissive. It might be urged that working with modern
technology, for example, transforms lives and yields the kind of satis-
factions, both personal and social, of which Aristotle could not have
possibly known. But this objection cannot, I think, be sustained. For the
Aristotelian argument precisely puts all this into question by asking
what kind of worth these satisfactions could possibly have. If they are
the kind of satisfactions associated with work or privacy then they
cannot possibly be accorded a high valuation, because they are not
expressions of full rational activity in the Aristotelian sense. On this line
of reasoning, then, the knowledge associated with technology belongs to
the public domain (in exactly the same way as scientific knowledge) but
technology-related occupations are still essentially instrumental in
nature. Therefore the mere assertion of the value of occupations does
nothing to alter their secondary status with regard to the public realm.
Another objection is more serious and addresses the way in which
rational activity is seen by Aristotle in terms of its finality as far as
human ends are concerned. Rational activity is seen as a natural feature
of human kind. This emerges clearly in the Nicomachean Ethics
(Aristotle, 1980, 1097b22±1098a18) when Aristotle asks what the

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 Education or Pedagogy 37

`function' of man is, declaring that there must be one in just the same
way that the eye's function is that of seeing. His conclusion that man's
function is that of rational activity implies that it is a natural, non-
negotiable end of human kind. We discover what our ends and purposes
are as human beings and through this discovery we can then realise our
own true natures. Those whose powers of discovery are deficient are not
complete human beings. This is why slaves deserved their fate, a fate of
enslavement being fitting for humans lacking self-mastery.
The point to these observations lies in the suspicion that all learning,
including the learning of citizens, may end up being pedagogic rather
than educative. Is this simply because the kind of learning Aristotle has
in mind is simply a means to an end, the end here being citizenship? This
thought, I believe, accounts for part of the suspicion. For though it is
true that the life of a citizen involves wider and more varied concerns
than a life solely concerned with business occupations, one still needs to
be trained and fashioned for citizenship. The fact that one's horizon's
are much wider qua citizen need not, of itself, prevent the kind of
learning at issue being pedagogic in character. We observed earlier on
that pedagogy can be seen as learning which serves political ends. On
this definition, it does not matter if those ends are of an impeccably
democratic kind: what we have is still pedagogy rather than education.
But there are further considerations which strengthen the suspicion
that what we are dealing with here is, after all, a species of pedagogy.
These arise from the observations made with respect to the way in which
rational activity is made a natural, functional quality of human kind.
For what is striking about Aristotle is the way in which he advocates the
development of rational powers but not really a critique of those powers.
There is lacking in Aristotle the element of reflexivity, of reason's
awareness of itself and of its willingness to put itself into question. And
maybe it is just this that differentiates pedagogy from education.
Pedagogy is always sure of itself, it always knows where it is going and it
takes for granted that what it takes to be knowledge really is knowledge.
Pedagogy, by its very nature, can never be self-critical. Of course,
pedagogy willÐespecially these daysÐemphasise the need for students
and learners to develop critical powers. But these powers of critique are
ultimately concerned with developing the learner in a certain direction so
as to develop the appropriate personal qualities of creativity, adapt-
ability and flexibility. What pedagogy can never do is develop a radical
critique of itself and its aims.
I want to suggest that what can be said of pedagogy can be said in the
same way of an Aristotelian concept of education. It too does not carry
within itself a critique of its own aims. It too is oriented towards the
production of a certain type of individual whose character and comport-
ment serve ends of a socio-political nature. Of course, we might well
prefer the ends that such an education serves, compared with those of
pedagogy. For example, it seems indubitable that education is more
likely to produce a type of character with a broader range of concerns
and sensibilities than pedagogy ever could. If one accepts the

& The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 2001.
38 G. Hinchli€e

Aristotelian concept of rational activity then this apparently gives one

good reason to suppose that education is indeed different from and
ultimately superior to, pedagogy. My suggestion, however, is that
because the Aristotelian notion of rational activity lacks the element of
self-critical knowing, the contrast between pedagogy and education
cannot be drawn strongly enough.
By contrast with the Aristotelian conception, could there be a different
concept of education which flows from the idea that rational activity
itself could be self-critical? This would imply that what is distinctive
about education is that it is willing to put itself into question. It is willing
to ask whether the knowledge it is concerned with really is knowledge
and what it presumes to be of value really is of value. But how could
education do this? If we construe all the activities related to the concept
of education as a form of practice, then my question is: How can a
practice call itself into question and still remain a practice? Before I go
on to consider this question, we need first of all to consider the nature of
a practice.

OAKESHOTT'S CONCEPT OF A PRACTICE

The concept of a practice lies at the heart of Michael Oakeshott's On
Human Conduct and helps us to make a decisive contrast between
education and pedagogy. Moreover, correctly understood, Oakeshott's
concept of a practice takes us beyond the Aristotelian notion of rational
activity. It therefore helps us to understand the idea of education as a
practice which questions its own foundations and which, indeed, holds
out the possibility of doing without foundations altogether.
Any conduct which amounts to a form of transaction between human
beings may be considered as a form of practice: `A practice may be
identified as a set of considerations, manner, uses, observances, customs,
standards, canons, maxims, principles, rules and offices specifying useful
procedures or denoting obligations or duties which relate to human
actions and utterances' (Oakeshott, 1975, p. 55). A practice, then,
consists of those meanings which agents acknowledge in acting. These
meanings may be formally codified in terms of prescribed procedures or
they may amount to unwritten understandings. For example, the con-
dition of `neighbourliness' denotes the kind of understandings accepted
by agents insofar as they are related to each other in the capacity of
neighbours. As such, in recognising themselves as `neighbours', agents
subscribe to certain conditions which govern the character of relations
which holds between neighbours. These conditions pertain to respect for
privacy, sensibilities concerning the acceptable boundaries of intrusion,
appropriate concern for the other's welfare and security, and so on.
A vital aspect of Oakeshott's theory is that the conditions or terms of
a practice have to be learned. This need not imply formal conditions of
learning; rather it denotes that the terms of a practice, encapsulated as
they are in a series of meanings, must be understood. Whether this
understanding is reflective, deliberate or intuitive; whether it takes a

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 Education or Pedagogy 39

lifetime or a few seconds to achieve; and whether this understanding is

imperfect or incompleteÐall these considerations merely reflect the fact
that learning can take many different forms. But whatever form this
learning takes, it is exhibited by a recognised capacity to deploy these
meanings insofar as and whenever one agent relates to another. There is,
for Oakeshott, no such thing as social conditioning if by this term is
meant that agents reach certain understandings without ever learning
them. Thus crime-related behaviour associated with the life of some
juveniles on run-down housing estates has to be learned just as much as
do the very different protocols of conduct at an old-fashioned finishing
school for young ladies.
Another feature of a practice is that it imposes upon an agent no
demands that he or she should think certain thoughts or adopt certain
sentiments. And although Oakeshott does not anywhere discuss at
length the idea of a degenerate practice, it would appear that a practice
becomes degenerate at the moment when the agency of persons is denied
or diminished. Regimes which impose on their unfortunate victims
requirements that they should have certain beliefs do not, in this respect,
amount to a practice. For Oakeshott, a practice `is an instrument to be
played upon, not a tune to be played . . . the requirements of a practice
are not obeyed or disobeyed; they are subscribed to or not subscribed to'
(ibid., p. 58). But it should be noted that agency for Oakeshott, is not to
be seen as the expression of `choice' emanating from a sovereign free
will. Rather, agency can only be manifested and expressed within the
terms of a practice.
No logical priority or privileged status attaches to the concept of a
subject. Subjects do not `support' practices. Rather, the condition of
being a `subject' (supposing we take concept of a subject in the liberal
sense of a rational, autonomous person) is itself something which arises
through and is constituted by the terms of a practice. To acknowledge
oneself as rational and autonomous, and as the self-directed author of
one's actions, is indeed a recognisable feature of certain discourses since
the Enlightenment. But such a conception goes well beyond Oakeshott's
idea of agency. For agents may well subscribe to a practice which is
disinclined to recognise the claims of individual autonomy (such as
certain collectivist experimental communities which insist that the claims
of community come before any individual claims) whilst still retaining
their agency.
Now, Oakeshott claims that there are two types of practice. There is
the kind of practice which amounts to `a prudential art concerned with
the success of the enterprises of agents'; but there is also the kind of
practice which has no extrinsic purpose as far as the satisfaction of wants
is concerned and which amounts to `the practice of agency without
further specification' (ibid., p. 60).
A prudential art may, of course, take on a number of different forms.
Perhaps the self-help texts written by Dale Carnegie on how to make
one's life a success now belong to a different era; but in any event they
have only been replaced by a host of prescriptions, texts and courses

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40 G. Hinchli€e

designed to achieve for their users a range of benefits from undreamed-

of physical pleasures on the one hand to advice on how to balance the
competing claims from home and work on the other. A self-help manual
teaches a prudential art, and an individual may read it in privacy; but if
he or she joins up with other individuals in order to advance some
mutually-sought satisfactions then they will have brought into existence
what Oakeshott terms an `enterprise association'. He describes this as
follows:

Agents thus related may be believers in a common faith and concerned or

not concerned to propagate it, or they may be partners in a productive
undertaking (a bassoon factory); they may be comrades or allies in the
promotion of a `cause'; they may be joined in belonging to the same
profession or in having the same trade; . . . they may comprise an army, a
`village community', a sect, a fellowship, a party, a fraternity, a sodality, a
collegium or a guild'. (ibid., p. 114)

But whatever form the enterprise association takes, agents are related in
terms of a common substantive purpose. However, we must not suppose
that the decisions and actions of particular persons in an enterprise
association are anything more than only contingently connected with the
common purpose of the association. Oakeshott does not suppose that
each individual has permanently within his or her sights the common
purpose of the association. Hence there is a need for some kind of
managerial engagement which attempts, either well or badly, to relate
individual decisions to the overall purpose and well-being of the
association. It need scarcely be added that the precise character of this
management is not dictated by the concept of the enterprise association
itself, and therefore the managerial role can take many different forms,
including a democratic one.
But the type of practice which most interests Oakeshott (though he
freely conceded the importance of enterprise associations) is the kind
where there is not an extrinsic substantial purpose to the practice. This
type of practice is typified above all by what is termed as ars artium,
namely a morality. Because a morality is not governed by a substantive
purpose, it cannot prescribe performances. Nevertheless, it is by means
of a practice that agents can undertake certain performances in certain
circumstances, and can devise for themselves rules of conduct. Oakeshott
says that a practice must be understood as a series of adverbial quali-
fications of conduct; and action may be said to be done considerately,
kindly, gracefully or charmlessly. And he defines a moral relationship as
one `solely in respect of conditions to be subscribed to in seeking the
satisfaction of any want' (ibid., p. 62). These conditions could be
thought of as meanings and interpretations which may be shared or
contested but which are nonetheless understood. For Oakeshott, it is
precisely the lack of a common substantive purpose which enables a
practice to be used and explored by persons. It is through a practice that
we become agents.

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 Education or Pedagogy 41

For ease of terminology, let me refer to the practices associated with

enterprise associations as `instrumental practices' and the kind of
practice construed along the lines of a morality as an `open practice'.
For Oakeshott, the distinction has ramifications which go well beyond
its conceptual origins. Briefly, there is a tendency for open practices to
be converted into instrumental practices. This tendency is a permanent
feature of modernityÐthat is to say the `long' concept of modernity as a
period with us since the seventeenth century. For example, Oakeshott
identifies Francis Bacon as one of the early villains, since it was he who
advocated the usefulness of learning and its role in `the relief of man's
estate' (see Fuller, 1989, p. 75). For Oakeshott, by contrast, education
belongs very firmly in the realm of an open practice, since it is an
endeavour which has no extrinsic purposes or goals but is an activity of
understanding pursued for its own sake. The understanding that is
yielded is one which refers to those meanings and interpretations which
constitute not just the world of culture and knowledge but the human
world itself. Education is an engagement in learning how to live, how to
be human. In particular, education and learning initiate the student or
pupil into an understanding of the terms which must be subscribed to if
one is to articulate choices and decisions and to reveal one's self-identity
(Fuller, 1989, pp. 63±73).
The relevance of Oakeshott's distinction between the two kinds of
practice to thinking about education and pedagogy should now start to
become clear. If learning is construed as a pedagogy then it takes on the
characteristics of an instrumental practice. This seems to fit in with the
term as it is used customarily, that is to denote a range of techniques and
styles designed to achieve some desirable outcome. Indeed, it may seem
perfectly proper to talk of pedagogic techniques when considering how a
particular piece of learning is to be achieved. However, the suggestion is
that the term `pedagogy' can be used to refer to the whole of teaching
and learning where this is construed along the lines of an instrumental
practice. In accordance with Oakeshott's ideas, this would mean not
only according education an `extrinsic goal' (to achieve better employ-
ability, to raise the economic performance of the nation, to produce
well-disciplined and trained citizens, and so on) but also the `manage-
ment' of that goal: namely a range of procedures, rules and prescriptions
which are all designed to ensure that individual actions of both teacher
and learner tend to contribute to those external goals.

A SELF-CRITICAL PRACTICE
Oakeshott's account of a practice helps us to get to a position where we
can understand the pedagogy/education contrast rather more deeply.
It seems superior to the account of the contrast provided by the
Aristotelian interpretation because it is less dependent on local historical
factors (such as the structure of the Greek polis, the position of the
aristocracy, the cultural status of skilled work). But how does the idea of
an open practice help us to go beyond the Aristotelian idea of rational

& The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 2001.
42 G. Hinchli€e

activity? For it is easyÐtoo easyÐto see Oakeshott's concept of an open

practice as nothing more than a deepening and refinement of the
Aristotelian idea. But as long as this is thought to be the case then the
pedagogy/education contrast will be conceived in a conservative way.
Oakeshott used the distinction between instrumental and open practices
to mount (amongst many of his concerns) a sophisticated defence of
liberal learning. The problem for us, today, is that liberal learning is too
closely linked with elitist institutions and practices which have the luxury
of being able to keep the world at bay, a luxury increasingly denied to
most. Now, if we can push the idea of an open practice a bit further to
include the idea of a practice which contains its own self-questioning at
its very heart we shall be able to furnish a concept of education for
which the pedagogy/education contrast is still pertinent but which
recasts the concept of education in a radical direction, thus escaping the
position of being an easy target of criticism that liberal learning has
turned out to be.
It will be recalled that the specification of an open practice is that
agents subscribe to the terms of the practice. A practice is the condi-
tions of human engagement, without prescribing beliefs and actions.
Oakeshott's prime concern was to identify the conditions under which
agency could flourish and to show how education could be considered as
an initiation into an understanding of those terms. But to what extent
can the terms themselves be subject to questioning and critique? When
directed to the open practice that is education, this question addresses
the terms of educational engagement. We are therefore led to an enquiry
into the nature of a practice which is not merely content to use its terms
in differing ways but also seeks to interrogate those terms themselves.
What kind of practice would education be if it interrogated its own
terms? In part, it would be one in which current meanings and inter-
pretations are discussed and evaluated and where some are to be
considered as more salient than others. It is also a practice in which the
term `knowledge' is scrutinised: for example, the distinction between
`new' and `traditionally accepted' knowledge would be expected to shift.
And we might also expect shifts in emphasis in how the relation `student±
teacher' is perceived and performed. But over and above all this there is
another dimension to education considered as an open practice: in the
questioning of the very terms that constitute it, this is a practice which
self-consciously re-constitutes itself as a practice. Consequently, the
terms of this practice are authoritative only provisionally. In this sense,
the practice of education is closer to aesthetic pursuits than to a
morality, for in the latter the authority of its terms is taken to be
enduring, and questioned only in extremis.
In thinking through the idea of a practice which interrogates its own
terms it may be tempting to cite the well-known metaphor of rebuilding
a ship at sea, but this can be misleading on two counts. First, the terms
of a practice do not amount to anything like as cohesive and interlocking
as the fabric of a ship; and second, the critique of terms need not be
undertaken with a view to constructing a fresh set of terms. Agents in an

& The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 2001.
 Education or Pedagogy 43

open practice are not like architects and they do not have a blueprint of
a new building in front of them as they set about demolishing the old
one. It would be better to think of a practice as having no internal
structure and no centre. Thus the questioning of terms should not imply
that agents are unduly motivated to build up an entirely new set of
terms. They are not inspired to build an even bigger and better practice.
Since the `end' of this practice is nothing more than the critique of its
terms, such a `new' or `superior' practice would itself be immediately
subject to the most searching interrogation.
Since we are dealing here with the recycling of interpretations and the
creation of new meanings, it must not be thought that proposed under-
standings must submit immediately to the full rigour of evidential
requirements. For whilst, in the course of certain activities, evidence is
required in order to help us decide what it is that counts as knowledge,
this requirement must be handled with care lest interesting and (who
knows) fruitful lines of enquiry are suppressed at birth. The use of
evidence can also have a controlling and even policing function which
though entirely appropriate in the sphere of pedagogy (because of the
way in which learning must be demonstrated to be fit or adequate to
some purpose) may easily have an inhibiting effect when misapplied in
the context of an open practice.
Oakeshott also draws our attention to the emancipatory possibilities
of an open practice in the following way:

An educational engagement is at once a discipline and a release; and it

is one by virtue of being the other. It is a dicult engagement of
learning by study in a continuous and exacting re-direction of attention
and re®nement of understanding which calls for humility, patience and
courage. Its reward is an emancipation from the mere `fact of living', from
the immediate contingencies of place and time of birth, from the tyranny
of the moment and from the servitude of the merely current condition.
(Fuller, 1989, p. 93)

But it should be noted that these emancipatory possibilities do not

espouse notions like `self-empowerment' or `self-development', both of
which can be perfectly catered for by pedagogy. The possibility of a
release from the `servitude of the merely current condition' is precisely a
release from the kind of self which pedagogy constructs in its own image.
This is a self which is nothing unless equipped with plans and goals in its
search for opportunities and challenges. It is the kind of self which
mistakes the purposelessness of an open practice for confusion and
indolence calling for a strategy of rectification.

CONCLUSION
Oakeshott's emphasis tended to be placed on the opening up and
recovery of existing or past understandings. Yet if an open practice is to
have within itself that element of self-criticism, as I have suggested, then

& The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 2001.
44 G. Hinchli€e

it also needs to create and invent different kinds of learning. The idea of
the bricoleur evokes something of what is meant here. It will be recalled
that Claude LeÂvi-Strauss explained how myths were formed through the
bricolage metaphor, in which the mythmaker gathers up elements of
existing myths, combining them in new and different ways. Of course,
the bricoleur is constrained by the signs which lie to hand, and LeÂvi-
Strauss makes it clear that the activities of the mythmaker are not to be
confused with that of the `engineer' who, by dint of the concepts he uses,
`is always trying to go beyond the constraints imposed by a particular
state of civilisation' (LeÂvi-Strauss, 1972, p. 19). But, says LeÂvi-Strauss
(ibid., p. 22), there are some advantages to the bricoleur approach:

Mythical thought for its part is imprisoned in the events and experiences
which it never tires of ordering and re-ordering in its search to ®nd them a
meaning. But it also acts as a liberator by its protest against the idea that
anything can be meaningless with which science at ®rst resigned itself to a
compromise.

In this spirit, in which both the engineer and the bricoleur have a role, I
propose the following:

. The continued questioning of the division of knowledge into

traditional subject areas (bearing in mind that interdisciplinary
subject areas can take on the guise of a traditional subject after a
few years).
. Reflection on how the creation of new skills, and the redeployment
of old skills, can help open up new areas of knowledge (e.g. the way
that computer-based and televisual graphics have helped to open
up the new knowledge-domain of the `virtual').
. The deliberate `recovery' of historically out-moded practices in
order to provide fresh perspectives (e.g. the way in which Foucault,
e.g. 1988, pp. 39±68, tried to suggest an `ethics of care' by going
back to accounts from antiquity of a fashioning and stylistics of the
self).
. A deliberate undermining of the `education/vocational' distinction,
especially by introducing theoretical components into vocational
training (e.g. modules in chef training courses on the History of
Taste, French/Italian language, Food as Signifier in Poetry and the
Novel, etc.)

Oakeshott thought that the corruption of education by instrumental

practices was an historic disaster which during the course of the twentieth
century gathered increasing pace. We need not trouble ourselves with his
explanation of how this came to pass, because, I think, he was mistaken
to think that education ever was in an unsullied state. The imperatives of
pedagogy, it could be said, have always been a part of education, though
what may count as such an imperative in one period may be viewed as
an untrammelled luxury in another (e.g. compare the role played by the

& The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 2001.
 Education or Pedagogy 45

classics one hundred years ago with that played today). What Oakeshott
never seemed to countenance was that instrumental and open practices
could both be embedded within certain institutional settings. He was
unable to see this since he held that education, considered as an open
practice, must be pursued in its own locationÐ`School'Ðset apart from
the pressures and cares of economic life. Whether this was ever
historically the case is a difficult question which I cannot pursue here.
But the suggestion that instrumental and open practices can be pursued
together in the same institutionalÐeven departmental settingÐdoes not
seem far-fetched.
Moreover, it seems inevitable that the profile of pedagogy will be
raised in proportion as the number of students in higher education
increases. The way to deal with this, I have suggested, is not to defend a
retrenched position of liberal learning but to adopt an openly self-critical
position as to what counts as knowledge and learning. In this way,
attempts to formulate sets of expectations and outcomes in the pedagogic
endeavour of ensuring a `fitness for purpose' will never be complete. If
education is to survive, it must keep ahead of the game.

Correspondence: Geoffrey Hinchliffe, Department of Continuing

Education, University of East Anglia, NR4 7TJ, UK. E-mail:
G.Hinchliffe@uea.ac.uk

REFERENCES
Althusser, L. (1971) Lenin and Philosophy, trans. Ben Brewster (London, New Left Books)
Aristotle (1948) Politics, trans. Sir Ernest Barker (Oxford, Clarendon Press)
Aristotle (1980) Nicomachean Ethics, trans. D. Ross (Oxford, Oxford University Press)
Foucault, M. (1988) Care of the Self (Harmondsworth, Penguin)
Fuller, T. (ed.) (1989) The Voice of Liberal Learning: Michael Oakeshott on Education (Princeton,
NJ, Yale University Press)
Irwin, T. H. (1988) Aristotle's First Principles (Oxford, Clarendon Press)
LeÂvi-Strauss, Claude (1972) The Savage Mind (London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
Murray, O. (1999) The voice of Isocrates, Times Literary Supplement, August 6th, pp. 3±4
Oakeshott, M. (1967) Learning and teaching, in: R. S. Peters (ed.) The Concept of Education
(London, Routledge & Kegan Paul)
Oakeshott, M. (1975) On Human Conduct (Oxford, Clarendon Press)
Rogers, Carl (1983) Freedom to Learn (Columbus, OH, Merrill)
Too, Yun Lee and Livingston, N. (1998) Pedagogy and Power (Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press)

& The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 2001.

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