Review of “Dewey, Peirce, and the Learning Paradox”

Abstract

First, let me note what I see as the strengths of this manuscript. Too often education scholarship is seen as a subset of psychological scholarship. While this has its value, it all too often leads to a reductiveness that is unfortunate. It does not sufficiently recognize the fundamentally social quality of educational acts, and it all too often assumes that theories developed within psychology are sufficient to have us think creatively about educational phenomena. As has been demonstrated many times, there is no necessary one-to-one correspondence between psychological theory and educational theories, decisions, and realities. While the author starts within psychology, he or she clearly recognizes the underlying social quality of education (e.g., the paper's discussion of the role of discourse communities and intersubjective learning communities). Of even more import, he or she situates what has been called the learning paradox back within the epistemological traditions and debates that have arisen to expressly deal with these kinds of issues. A good deal of psychological talk and research both in psychology and education occurs in the absence of such philosophical work. Even when it is technically quite sophisticated, a significant portion of psychologically based research in education is often relatively naive about the weaknesses in its underlying conceptual apparatuses and categories. Thus, the author's attempt to resolve the apparent paradox by turning to the historical discussions within philosophy about the development of new perspectives is not only wise, but productive. Such a philosophical turn is to be commended. Would that more research not only in psychology but in