Freire, Wittgenstein and Criticality

Abstract

How do the ideas and methods of Paulo Freire and Ludwig Wittgenstein inform the concept of criticality? Freire shows us how to teach well. Wittgenstein’s remarks are directed at the teaching and learning process itself. I explore their lived experiences as pedagogues. I highlight similarities and differences in their respective methods. I underline how both thinkers approach philosophical problems from a pedagogical perspective. I argue that Freire advocates a utopian dream of a democratic world free of oppression, domination and inequalities, and that his vision is underpinned by a critical pedagogy that involves people naming the world and the word. I also draw on the scholarly literature to restate other important features of his thinking. Regarding Wittgenstein, I argue that his work should be given a pedagogic reading, that such an interpretation is reconcilable with his notion of philosophy as therapy, and that his philosophy as pedagogy is consistent with our obtaining an Übersicht of language.

However, it is possible to conclude that there are good reasons why, in pedagogy today, we can stay with Freire or against Freire, but not without Freire.

(Torres 1993: 140)

A teacher may get good, even astounding, results from his pupils while he is teaching them and yet not be a good teacher; because it may be that, while his pupils are directly under his influence, he raises them to a height which is not natural to them, without fostering their own capacities for work at this level, so that they immediately decline again as soon as the teacher leaves the classroom. Perhaps this is how it is with me.

(CV 38)

Introduction

The opening passages are intended to remind us, as educationalists, to reflect on the successes and failures that we experience in our daily lives. The challenges we face are increasingly difficult. But we persist. We underline the value of education.

This chapter discusses the mutually enriching ideas and methods of Paulo Freire and Ludwig Wittgenstein as they concern the concept of criticality. Freire is a leading pedagogue in his own right and provides ample illustrations of how to teach well. Wittgenstein’s remarks, on the other hand, relate more to how the teaching and learning process works. Taken together both have much to offer all stakeholders involved in planning, delivering and reflecting upon a critical education in the twenty-first century.

My aim is to witness, from a pedagogical standpoint, the lived experiences of Freire and Wittgenstein. Freire is presented as a humanist, radical educator ambitious to liberate oppressed, dominated and marginalised people. I reflect on Wittgenstein’s life as an Austrian schoolteacher and Cambridge professor and his use of examples taken from teaching and learning. I highlight similarities and differences in their respective approaches. What transpires is that both thinkers approach philosophical problems from a pedagogical perspective.

Looking at Freire and Wittgenstein’s Lived Experiences Through Pedagogic Windows

I am exploring, as I have suggested, the pedagogic experiences of Freire and Wittgenstein and reflecting on how they influence their lives as critical beings and also the way they approach philosophical problems—many of which fall within the sphere of educational philosophy. The success of his literacy programmes in Brazil and Chile greatly reflects Freire’s philosophy and concern for human emancipation. His empathy for marginalised persons results in students naming the world and the word and imagining alternative realities free from oppression and domination. Wittgenstein’s way of doing philosophy and his sincere concern for conceptual and aesthetic questions are connected with his life as a teacher in Austria and Cambridge. He is driven to show his students and readers how they can enhance their own criticality (and I expand on this in the next chapter).

In respect of Freire, I argue, first, that he is determined to find ways to help liberate marginalised people. His initial concerns are directed towards illiterate adults in Brazil and economically deprived peasants in Chile, but he advocates a utopian dream of a democratic world for all free of oppression, domination and inequalities. Of course, this vision of Freirean utopia binds the concept of criticality with the ropes of human emancipation and I accept its dogmatic character (Biesta 1998: 476).¹

In Chapter 1, I said that I am interested in exploring criticality in a wide philosophical sense and, in respect of criticality scholarship, I underscored the notion of human flourishing. This new perspectival space is not bounded in any other sense. Part III of this book changed tack connecting criticality with democracy and social justice, but this was in furtherance of my own political and philosophical aspirations.² Scholars, reflecting on the concept within criticality scholarship, are free to take different paths.

Secondly, I argue that Freire supports his mission for collective emancipatory action with a critical pedagogy that involves people naming the world and the word. Through genuine dialogue, conscientização, praxis and love, notions I discussed in Chapter 5, Freire teaches students to problematise their worlds and tear apart the existential conditions that form their bonds of subjugation.³ He is approaching their problems from a pedagogical perspective. This is his style of engaging with philosophy.

Turning to the scholarly literature, I then restate Freire’s position that, as a progressive educator, he deplores the traditional banking model of education and promotes, in its stead, a problem-posing theory and practice. Also, I acknowledge the point that Freirean critical pedagogy should not be viewed as a mere method. Nor should it be at risk of being domesticated or employed solely in the classroom. Rather, a critical education demonstrates a variety of methods and is connected with ways of living. It intertwines educational theory and practice empowering students to think for themselves, reinvent themselves, and serves as a praxis where critical or emancipatory action can be taken. In my view the aims, ideas and methods espoused by Freire shed a different light on the concept of criticality.

In relation to Wittgenstein, I argue that his work should be given a pedagogic reading since he addresses philosophical problems from a pedagogical perspective. The numerous illustrations drawn from his life as a teacher concerning literacy, poetry, numeracy, mathematics, mechanics, geography and music all speak to this. Also, I argue briefly, that a pedagogic interpretation is consistent with Wittgenstein’s idea of philosophy as therapy and with his desire to help us obtain an Übersicht of language. Indeed, by taking Wittgenstein’s cue and surveying our network of conceptual relations we soon realise that the grammatical edifice is always open to new horizons, and this includes the connections we make now and can make in the future to criticality itself. This anticipates Miranda Fricker’s thesis that we should be mindful of the generative capacity of our conceptual resources. She writes:

Conceptual resources are resources for generating indefinitely many new meanings, whether as new applications of old concepts or coinings of new concepts. Such resources for meaning are generative and dynamic, never exhausted by the set of meanings actually realized in practical use at any given historical moment. (Fricker 2007: 104)

Freire: The Humanist, Radical Educator

I opened this chapter with Carlos Torres’ surmise that ‘there are good reasons why, in pedagogy today, we can stay with Freire or against Freire, but not without Freire’ (Torres 1993: 140). Cornel West describes Freire as the ‘exemplary organic intellectual’ of our time and who adds new meaning to Karl Marx’s eleventh thesis on Ludwig Feuerbach by refocusing philosophical reflection among subalterns in their everyday lives and of ‘reconceiving change as the creation of collective identities and social possibilities in history over against vicious forces of dehumanization’ (West 1993: xiii–xiv). Freire, West continues:

dares to tread where even Marx refused to walk—on the terrain where the revolutionary love of struggling human beings sustains their faith in each other and keeps hope alive within themselves and in history. (Id. xiv)

Freire is, to be sure, a radical, critical educator. His humanist philosophy is devoted to answering the central problem he poses in the Pedagogy of the Oppressed; namely, ‘How can the oppressed, as divided, unauthentic beings, participate in developing the pedagogy of their liberation?’ (Freire 2017: 22). The experiences of oppression, marginalisation and domination concern contradictions and asymmetries of power and meet head-on the borders of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, ableness, age, and class. Such emancipatory pedagogy is driven, Freire confesses, by ‘my trust in the people, and my faith in men and women, and in the creation of a world in which it will be easier to love’ (Id. 14).

‘We need critical hope,’ Freire insists, no less than the ‘way a fish needs unpolluted water’ (Freire 2014: 2). Thus the ethical struggle for the annunciation of a freer and more inclusive, democratic society is underpinned by hope—an ontological need, he says, that is anchored in practice (ibid.). And progressive educators are duly tasked ‘to unveil opportunities for hope, no matter what the obstacles may be’ (Id. 3). Our struggle for hope is, he contends, permanent and which intensifies the moment we realise it is not a solitary endeavour (Freire 2016: 59).

Integral to Freire’s teaching style is his use, in culture circles, of concrete existential situations to create generative words, illustrative discovery cards and themes intended to provoke students’ modes of criticality. Examples, by means of drawings, are provided in Education for Critical Consciousness (at pages 55 to 78). To help demonstrate their significance I will discuss several of them briefly.

The first of the ten drawings (Freire 2005a: 57) depicts a man in and with the world, nature and culture. This situation shows how a farmer interacts with nature and, through necessity and work, alters reality, transforms the world, to create clothes, tools, a water well and a house. This highlights the distinction between nature and culture—the latter of which draws out the notion of subsistence. Also the relations shown here are those among subjects and not those of domination. The second drawing (Id. 59) depicts a man and a woman engaged in dialogue mediated by nature. This awakens their consciousness. The third drawing (Id. 61) is of an unlettered hunter aiming his arrows at birds. Freire says the discussions usually involve distinguishing culture from nature (the transformation of feathers taken from a bird which the Indian wears and the creation of the bow and arrow with which to hunt) as well as the idea of creating education (to pass on this knowledge and the technical skills to the next generation). Freire’s students appreciate that the illiterate belong to the unlettered culture. They also acknowledge the importance of developing the techniques of reading and writing. The sixth drawing (Id. 67) shows two men working with clay to make vases, jugs and pots which the students discern as objects of culture. The materials of nature have been transformed by their work. Our final illustration is the tenth drawing (Id. 75) which shows a culture circle in action, a live literacy class, in which they revisit the seventh drawing—which depicted a vase being used as an ornament (a cultural object) to host a flowering plant (a natural object). This final drawing, Freire recalls, creates discussions relating to culture as the ‘systematic acquisition of knowledge’; the ‘democratization of culture’; the functioning and significance of a culture circle; the ‘creative power of dialogue’; and the ‘clarification of consciousness’.

Relating to these ten situations in a critical way, Freire says, students reflect on their own lived experiences and their power to transform the world (Freire 2005a: 75). They reconstruct their praxis (Freire 2000: 25; 2017: 79). Learning to read and write requires them to reflect on the world they are in and with, take ownership of it, and accept that their work is a way of loving and of helping make the world a better place (Freire 2005a: 76). As he later explains:

Literacy, in this sense, is grounded in a critical reflection on the cultural capital of the oppressed. It becomes a vehicle by which the oppressed are equipped with the necessary tools to reappropriate their history, culture, and language practices. It is, thus, a way to enable the oppressed to reclaim ‘those historical and existential experiences that are devalued in everyday life by the dominant culture in order to be both validated and critically understood.’ (Freire and Macedo 1987: 109)

The adult literacy (or critical literacy) process as ‘cultural action for freedom’ is, for Freire, an act of knowing in which the student assumes the ‘role of a knowing subject’ in authentic dialogue with the teacher (Freire 2000: 20) and problematises the hegemonic constraints of his or her world, unveiling its hidden ‘limit situations’ (Freire 2014: 24 and 96; 2017: 72–73, 77, 82 and 141). ‘Everything,’ he assures us, ‘can be presented problematically’ (Freire 2005a: 112). Moreover, this continually evolving process, this transformative action, involves a denunciation of the dehumanising, oppressive and unjust structures of reality and an annunciation of a more tolerable future in which our dreams can be forged (Freire 2014: 81–82).⁴

Conscientização is thus ‘an unfolding process that awakens critical awareness’, the critical being’s criticality, and a requirement in becoming more fully human (Kirylo 2011: 149; Cf. Apple et al. 2001: 130). We view ourselves as ‘beings in the process of becoming—as unfinished, uncompleted beings in and with a likewise unfinished reality’ (Freire 2017: 57). We are, Freire reminds us, ‘in a permanent process of searching’ (Horton and Freire 1990: 11) and our utopian thinking remains provisional, not categorical since we are always seeking out alternative visions of reality (McLaren and da Silva 1993: 68–69). Indeed it is precisely this Freirean notion of human consciousness, as unfinished, that ‘beckons us toward emancipatory futures’ (Darder 2015: 81; Cf. Kirylo 2011: 120 and 144).

Freire’s emancipatory philosophy is, I would suggest, applicable to all forms of domination and oppression and occupies a space in all historical, social, cultural and political contexts. In contemporary settings, for example, his thinking is used as a basis for reinventing non-formal adult education in Nordic countries including Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden (Suoranta et al. 2021). Freire’s critical pedagogy is likewise continuing to attract attention in East Asia, most notably in China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan (Ho and Tseng 2022).

We are glimpsing at Freire’s utopian thinking and gently gaining an appreciation of the critical pedagogy that supports the possibilities of its realisation. Societal contradictions and inequalities are denunciated in his culture circles. Students’ limit situations are exposed and dreams are made for annunciating just and better realities. Freire is approaching these problems from a pedagogical perspective. This is why he suggests it is imperative that a biology teacher connect the teaching of biology with our historical, social, cultural and political framework (Freire 2014: 68; Horton and Freire 1990: 104). The same reflection applies to teaching literacy since:

the reading and writing of words comes by way of the reading of the world. Reading the world is an antecedent act vis-à-vis the reading of the word. The teaching of the reading and writing of the word to a person missing the critical exercise of reading and rereading the world is, scientifically, politically, and pedagogically crippled. (Freire 2014: 68)

I agree. Also education, according to Freire, can never be neutral. Neutrality is a ‘code word for the existing system’—which is often oppressive; it ‘is just following the crowd’ (Horton and Freire 1990: 102).⁵ He appreciates the political landscape in which education operates and sees himself as both an ‘educator’ and a ‘political agent’ desirous of improving our democracy (Freire 2005b: 75).⁶ Teachers, in philosophy, theology, mathematics and in all disciplines, should therefore not only be competent in their subject knowledge but develop the political clarity to expose underlying contradictions and inequalities and tease out different emotions and perspectives concerning their reality and possible transformation (Horton and Freire 1990: 104). Progressive educators must take sides and justify their choices. For Freire, then, the activity of teaching is political (Apple et al. 2001: 129; Shor 1993: 27) and the practice of reading and writing becomes, in any subject domain, ‘an inherent part of reading and writing the world itself’ (Lankshear 1993: 115).⁷

I now turn to two other matters arising in the scholarly literature. First, Freire is viewed as a progressive educator who deplores the traditional banking model of education and promotes a problem-posing pedagogy in the manner I am recounting. Since this feature of his work is well documented I will not rehearse all that the commentators say.⁸

Banking pedagogy preserves the status quo and involves the bank-clerk educator depositing static pieces of knowledge into the hands of docile learner-recipient-objects—as if their minds were tabula rasae (Locke 1996: II.i.2)—who are estopped from reflection or action; and it maintains a dehumanising dichotomy between humans and the world in which individuals are mere spectators and not recreators of knowledge but are themselves filed away aimlessly (Freire 2017: 45–52). Freirean critical pedagogy, on the other hand, seeks to deconstruct the teacher-student contradiction by making them critical co-learners and co-creators of knowledge; they become subjects in and with the world and with others; and they develop a critical consciousness with which to challenge existing hegemonies and, in solidarity, transform the world (Id. 53–59). Education in the traditional system is oppressive, but in a problem-posing pedagogy it is a ‘humanist and liberating praxis’ (Id. 59) directed towards individuals becoming finished and authentic beings and creating a more humane world. The crucial point is, as Freire rightly makes later, a critical education is only possible ‘when the educator’s thinking, critical and concerned though it may be, nevertheless refuses to “apply the brakes” to the educand’s ability to think’ (Freire 2014: 108).⁹

Second, the scholarly literature also makes the point that Freire’s critical pedagogy, his way of philosophising, cannot be reduced to a mere method or limited to use in the classroom, but is more akin to a dialogical and critical process intimately connected with our ways of thinking, our concrete experiences, our emotions and our emancipatory dreams that each of us may pursue in the world and with others.¹⁰

In Chapter 10, I suggested that we can choose to position otherness within the scope of criticality scholarship. And, in this context, Freire’s conception of ‘unity within diversity’, and the virtues of tolerance and respect, serve to open our hearts and minds to the perspectives and interests of others and invokes a common desire to drive transformative action.¹¹ Engrained in Freirean educational theory and practice is the firm belief that unity is always possible even though it may be difficult to work in unity given differences between individuals, groups and ethnicities (Freire 2016: 43). ‘Equality of and in objectives,’ Freire argues, ‘may make unity possible within difference’ (ibid.). Discriminatory and dehumanising ideology, and not human nature per se, is what is at issue (Id. 44). No matter what category of difference is being discriminated against, black, gay, female, working class, Jewish or Indigenous, we have an ethical imperative to fight, he insists, against all forms of discrimination and against the ‘negation of our being’ (Id. 45). I agree. Also it is important to reject any essentialist claim to a ‘unitary experience of oppression’ since there are multiple forms of discrimination, oppression and marginalisation and to remember that human suffering is not a ‘seamless web always cut from the same cloth’ (Freire 1993: x).

Feminist critiques of his work¹²—and not forgetting Elizabeth Ellsworth’s powerful attack on critical pedagogues (including Freire)¹³—and Freire’s rejoinders¹⁴ do not, in my view, undermine the significance that unity within diversity holds for criticality scholarship and for enhancing one’s own criticality. In Chapter 4, I referred to Nancy Fraser’s critique of Jürgen Habermas’ social theory in relation to the struggles and wishes of contemporary women. ‘Habermas says virtually nothing about gender in The Theory of Communicative Action,’ she notes, and yet she is willing to read that work from the ‘standpoint of an absence’, extrapolate from things he does say to things he does not and ‘reconstruct how various matters of concern to feminists would appear from his perspective had those matters been thematized’ (Fraser 1989: 114).

Similarly, bell hooks is able to read Freire from the standpoint of an absence. The ‘phallocentric paradigm of liberation’, evident in his early work, is charitably described by her as a ‘blind spot’ in the vision of a man who has a profound insight but which, nevertheless, ought not to overshadow anyone’s capacity to learn from that insight (hooks 1993: 148). With its promotion of human liberation, Freire’s work is, she argues, a powerful gift and though it may be flawed by sexist language, it can be cleansed and sustain us in much the same way that dirty water once purified, nourishes us (Id. 149). ‘Paulo’s work,’ hooks confesses, ‘has been a living water for me’ (ibid.). Whatever shortcomings may befall his work, Freire is a ‘foundational education thinker’ (McLaren 2000: 168).

Wittgenstein: The Austrian Schoolteacher and Cambridge Professor

Wittgenstein was neither a successful school teacher nor a good university lecturer. Ray Monk documents how Wittgenstein, shortly after his arrival in Trattenbach, became the ‘subject of rumour and scandal’ (Monk 1991: 193–194). He discriminated among his pupils by favouring the more gifted boys and was perceived by others as a ‘tyrant’ (Id. 195). He pulled at the hair of some children, boxed others around the ears, and simply ostracised parents and colleagues alike (Id. 212 and 228). The final incident with Josef Haidbauer led to his inevitable resignation.¹⁵ Wittgenstein’s teaching practice was not well received in Cambridge either and his provocative performances at the Moral Science Club were frowned upon by other philosophers and visiting lecturers—the most notorious of which was the poker incident with Karl Popper.¹⁶ Iris Murdoch reflects on Wittgenstein’s ‘extraordinary directness of approach’ and confrontational manner and describes how she ‘always thought of him, as a person, with awe and alarm’ (Id. 498). One exception to the rule was of course Wittgenstein’s ‘honorary male’, Elizabeth Anscombe (ibid.)

Putting these negative observations to one side (and while not excusing them), I believe that Wittgenstein nevertheless tells us a great deal about the teaching and learning process itself. Anscombe considers that her former professor is, like Plato, a ‘philosopher’s philosopher’—that is to say, someone ‘who sees problems, interest in which is the mark of a philosopher, and whose principal thoughts can be derived from his discussion of those problems’ (Anscombe 1991: 1–2). Understanding, thinking and meaning are apt topics for philosophy but Wittgenstein’s choice of reading demonstrates his clear ‘philosophic bent’ (Id. 4 and 8). How we use our words is certainly part of the story about meaning. For a large class of cases dealing with meaning, we can say that the ‘meaning of a word is its use in the language’ (PI §43).¹⁷ And although I may grasp the meaning of a word in a flash, I cannot see its whole use in that instant (PI §§138–139, 191 and 197). By inviting the reader to investigate the educational notion of reading (PI §§156–171), Wittgenstein sharpens our appreciation of the related concept of understanding. We discuss the possibility of psychological inner experiences, the practice of rule following and certain circumstances which justify my saying ‘I can go on’ or ‘I understand the principle’. Moreover, we associate a variety of experiences with reading and yet ‘reading’ is not one of them. Nor is ‘understanding’ a name, Anscombe continues, that we can attribute to any of the experiences accompanying understanding (Anscombe 1991: 7).¹⁸ Wittgenstein, as we shall see, has not only a philosophical bent but an intimately connected pedagogical outlook as well.

My principal argument, here, is that Wittgenstein’s life and works should be given a pedagogic reading. Like Freire, Wittgenstein approaches the problems that concern him from a pedagogical perspective. This feature is manifest in both thinkers’ styles of performing philosophy. Wittgenstein genuinely believes that a critical educator does not select food for a pupil to flatter his or her taste, but with the edifying aim of ‘changing it’ (CV 17). Being successful in raising the criticality of his students (and readers) is evidently something that troubles him throughout his teaching life. And the opening passage taken from page 38 of Culture and Value certainly speaks to this.

It is no surprise, then, that his lectures, conversations and manuscripts are filled with an extensive array of educational ideas all of which connect with his lived experiences as an elementary schoolteacher in the Austrian countryside and as a Cambridge don. Wittgenstein’s pedagogical methods for tackling philosophical questions generally employ educational terms and may involve a discussion of games, rule following, language acquisition, the roles played by pupils and teachers in the context of teaching and learning, and instruction in literacy, poetry, geography, music, numeracy, mathematics and mechanics.¹⁹ His approach sharpens our understanding of criticality. Wittgenstein shows us how to adjust our own critical thinking so that we can resolve or dissolve the problems that puzzle us.

His investigations are grammatical in the sense that they are designed to shed light on our philosophical problems ‘by clearing misunderstandings away’ (PI §90). But, as Gordon Baker and Peter Hacker rightly point out, the ‘subject matter of philosophy,’ for Wittgenstein, ‘is philosophical questions’ (Baker and Hacker 1985: 52; and see Glock 1996: 295). And some philosophical problems will survive from one generation to the next while others will be replaced with new ones (CV 25). My own view is that even though some of us may no longer be concerned to discover the existence or nature of an ultimate being or seek to extrapolate the foundation of all knowledge, our curiosities in these respects are still very much alive and so we continue to reformulate new questions to satisfy them. Further, Wittgenstein wants to teach us a certain way of thinking about philosophical questions and to unlearn any ‘bad philosophical habits’ we may have picked up (Burbules and Peters 2001: 16).

A clear portrayal of his pedagogical style is provided in the opening sections of the Philosophical Investigations in which he approaches the nature of language and the question of meaning by discussing how a child learns a language. Wittgenstein challenges some aspects of the Augustinian picture of language²⁰ and reveals how it generates philosophical confusion.²¹

The picture of language in Saint Augustine’s Confessions represents, for Wittgenstein, an oversimplification of how language works. He attributes to Augustine, among other things, too heavy a reliance on ostensive definition (by pointing and gesturing). Many words do name objects and sentences do include combinations of such words. But this is only a part of the story. Think about the meaning of the word ‘five’ in the request, ‘May I have five red apples?’ We can correlate the meaning of the word ‘apple’ with the object apple. An apple stands for that naming word. Colour words, though, play different roles. We can look up the colour word ‘Red’ by looking up a colour chart, if necessary, but presumably we have undergone some training in learning how to use colour words. But the word ‘five’ cannot be taught ostensively. Nor, for that matter, can the words ‘there’ or ‘that’. (Think about the requests, ‘May I have those oranges over there?’ or ‘Can you pass me that please?’) To understand the meaning of a number word, such as ‘five’, we need to look at the language-games in which it is used. Pointing or gesturing may be involved in showing how we use number words but training is paramount. We need to know how to follow rules implicit in our language-games and be able to demonstrate a mastery of the use of words.

Connected with the Augustinian picture of language, we appear concerned to communicate the thoughts and wishes housed in our ‘private sphere’ and are perplexed by the relations between words and objects, different kinds of words, words and sentences, explanations and descriptions and between meaning and criteria. Moreover, Wittgenstein introduces his notions of imagination, use as meaning, language-games, training, the function of words (like tools in a tool-box), forms of life and our natural history all for the purpose of helping the reader on her quest for an Übersicht of language (PI §§1–27).

Similarly, in relation to the problem of doubt, Wittgenstein teaches us to approach it from a pedagogical standpoint. In On Certainty, he invites us to imagine how a pupil learns to play the game of doubt. He gives examples of pupils whose doubts are rebuked harshly by a teacher:

The pupil will not let anything be explained to him, for he continually interrupts with doubts, for instance as to existence of things, the meaning of words, etc. The teacher says ‘Stop interrupting me and do as I tell you. So far your doubts don’t make sense at all’.

Or imagine that the boy questioned the truth of history (and everything that connects up with that)—and even whether the earth had existed at all a hundred years before.

Here it strikes me as if this doubt were hollow. But in that case—isn’t belief in history hollow too? No; there is so much that this connects up with. (OC §§310–312)²²

If a pupil is sceptical of a table remaining in the classroom when he or she turns around or persistently raises doubts about the uniformity of nature or the earth’s existence, we can say that this pupil ‘has not learned how to ask questions’ and ‘has not learned the game’ we are teaching (OC §§314–315).²³ And, further, ‘if the pupil refused to believe that this mountain had been there beyond human memory,’ Wittgenstein retorts, ‘We would say that the pupil had no grounds for this suspicion’ (OC§322). Wittgenstein is challenging us to think about how we learn to doubt and to acknowledge that this process presupposes a degree of certainty. The pupils, in Wittgenstein’s examples, lack this prior commitment. They are simply ill-equipped to grasp the skills the teacher is trying to teach them.

A review of the educational philosophy literature reveals an emerging consensus for giving Wittgenstein’s work a pedagogic reading and accepting his philosophical style as a form of pedagogy in which he invites the audience to practise approaching philosophical problems from a pedagogical perspective.²⁴

Désirée Weber makes a strong case for giving a pedagogic reading of Wittgenstein’s life and later works relying on his frequent references to teaching and learning (Weber 2019: 688–689 and 695–698). Monk reminds us how Wittgenstein impresses on students the ‘value of intellectual attainment for its own sake’, encouraging each one ‘to think through problems for itself’ and that the Philosophical Investigations ‘makes demands, not just on the reader’s intelligence but on his involvement’ (Monk 1991: 192, 195 and 366, respectively). Indeed, referring to his ‘dialogic style’ in the latter work, the ‘closed questions, the play of different voices,’ Georgina Edwards argues, ‘means the reader has a personal responsibility to engage with the text’ (Edwards 2019: 674–676). His pedagogical intent means the ‘reader must work through the assigned exercises’, Emma McClure contends, for Wittgenstein ‘has left behind a textbook that enables us to teach ourselves’ (McClure 2017: 158). ‘Like children in Wittgenstein’s classroom,’ she says, ‘we must do our own work’ (Id. 154).

Wittgenstein’s lesson is that we learn by ‘doing’ (Bowell 2017: 652). Even his metaphors ‘often have a pedagogical component, they ask us to reflect on how we learn something, or learn to do something’ (Burbules 2017: 128). Wittgenstein ‘approaches philosophical questions,’ Michael Peters rightly concludes, ‘from a pedagogical point of view’ (Peters 2017a: 38). He writes:

Perhaps most importantly, his styles are essentially pedagogical: he provides a variety of rhetorical strategies as a means to shift our thinking, to help us escape the picture that holds us captive. (ibid.)

We can also say that Wittgenstein’s pedagogical way of ‘doing philosophy’ is not only aporetic and dialogical, but that it breaks with the confines of traditional philosophical thinking (Burbules and Peters 2001: 19).²⁵ What is more, by conceiving philosophy as pedagogy he is asking his students and readers to engage critically with his investigations and alter their ways of thinking. Wittgenstein’s investigations, his ‘mode of inquiry forces one to think pedagogically’ (Yu 2013: 374).

Naturally, there are criticisms that pertain to Wittgenstein’s way of engaging with philosophy especially since he purports to reject many of its tenets and methods of inquiry (including some of those inscribed in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus where, in the traditional spirit of pursuing truth, the final solution to the problems of philosophy are cast in stone). Renford Bambrough, for instance, challenges the later Wittgenstein’s claim not to be doing traditional philosophy—searching for the foundations of knowledge and advancing theses and opinions—as distinct from settling for clarity and showing us the way out of the fly-bottle (Bambrough 1974: 119–129). Contra Bambrough, Wittgenstein is very much concerned with ‘traditional questions or doctrines’ (Id. 120–121) but his mode of engagement differs variably and greatly.²⁶ Bambrough does concede, however, that Wittgenstein ‘never claims that his studies of methods of exorcism had made him immune from the bewitchment of his own intelligence by means of language’ (Id. 131). Quite right. Wittgenstein’s pedagogical approach and strategies demand that the critical being continues to see philosophical problems afresh and devise new ways of dealing with their resolution or extinguishment.

A Wittgensteinian Übersicht of language, with its multiplicity of language-games and countless forms of life, is the antithesis of a formal, unifying theory of language. And though I agree with Anthony Grayling that a systematic account of language is nonetheless logically possible (Grayling 1998: 98–99) that is not our endeavour. Grayling does suggest, however, that ‘Wittgenstein’s later philosophy is not as it stands persuasive’ (Id. 111).

I am more inclined to argue that his life and work are relevant to educational philosophy. Indeed we can say that Wittgenstein’s legacy and his philosophical pedagogy are having a significant impact.²⁷ After all Wittgenstein’s work bears directly on, first, educational concepts and teaching methods especially in the context of scientism and evidence-based teaching practices and learning outcomes; second, on the personal engagement by teachers and learners in developing their criticality; third, on how we may expose and overcome the linguistic confusions that cloak our philosophical questions; and, fourth, on how we may survive, indeed prosper, without any theories of education to (mis-)guide us. Giving up on trying to discover the hidden nature of ‘educatedness’ means we are free to focus on the family of language-games that are home to educational and related terms. His conception of criticality challenges the traditional storehouses of knowledge and modes of inquiry and, as David Bakhurst remarks, reading Wittgenstein properly is itself an education in thinking (Bakhurst 2017: vi–xii).

We are immersed in an ‘immense landscape’ and Wittgenstein’s philosophy as pedagogy shows us the way to think through fundamental problems for ourselves (CV 56). Further, Wittgenstein aspires to be the poet or musician whose philosophical compositions place the human condition at the centre of teaching and learning (CV 24 and 39). He rightly reminds us that poets, musicians and the like also have something important to teach us (CV 36).²⁸

My second argument is that a pedagogic reading of Wittgenstein’s work is reconcilable with his notion of philosophy as therapy. There is some support for this in the scholarly literature. Jeff Stickney maintains that it is sage advice ‘not to look for educational theory in Wittgenstein’s writing but to see his later philosophy as pedagogical or as therapeutic’ (Stickney 2017: 44). Weber argues that while both a therapeutic reading and a pedagogic reading align on certain points, the former interpretation is dependent on psychological frameworks which can lead scholars to make connections to Freud and psychoanalysis (Weber 2019: 695). Her preference is for a pedagogic reading in which the reader performs Wittgenstein’s method of investigating language and meaning ‘precisely by taking up the position of a pupil learning new (or unlearning old) meanings and concepts without recourse to certainty or ultimate foundations at each step’ and that this avoids treating the reader as a patient ready for psychoanalysis and having to shake off suppositions about the subconscious and the interiority of meaning (Id. 696). Her objection to psychoanalysis is well made given the baggage it carries. If pushed, I would be content to limit Wittgenstein’s medical similes to patients with more outwardly physical ailments like his discussion, in The Blue Book, of doctors presented with a case of an angina (BB 25). The reality is, however, that philosophy as therapy is important for Wittgenstein hence trying to reconcile it with philosophy as pedagogy.

Aiming for ‘complete clarity’, Wittgenstein’s methodology employs examples to solve problems and eliminate difficulties but there ‘is not a philosophical method, though there are indeed methods, like different therapies’ (PI §133). We are battling ‘against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of our language’ (PI §109). Yet our diseases of thought, our conceptual confusions and puzzles, our failures to grasp the ordinary workings of language, must run their ‘natural course, and slow cure,’ Wittgenstein insists, ‘is all important’ (Z §382). As philosophers, we have to cure ourselves of ‘many sicknesses of the understanding’ (RFM IV: §53) and ‘many intellectual diseases’ (CV 44).

‘The philosopher’s treatment of a question,’ Wittgenstein continues, ‘is like the treatment of an illness’ (PI §255). And while success in treating an illness lies in making it disappear and the patient being restored to good health, achievement in philosophical therapy lies in making problems disappear and the philosopher obtaining ‘an understanding of grammatical articulations which will prevent those problems from arising’ (Hacker 1990: 90).

Philosophy as therapy enables us to untie the ‘knots in our thinking’ (Z §452). This leads me to my third argument that a pedagogic reading of Wittgenstein’s work is consistent with his intention to help provide us with an Übersicht of language—a survey, a special kind of understanding of our existing network of conceptual relations. Throughout this book I have discussed the importance of resisting the craving for generality or contempt for the particular case, resting content with family resemblance concepts including criticality, seeing connections, finding and inventing intermediate cases and escaping (or not getting trapped in) the fly-bottle of philosophical bafflement. A pedagogic reading of Wittgenstein’s work lends itself towards the reader ascertaining a ‘perspicuous representation’ of language in use by surveying the multitude of our non-static, discursive and interconnecting conceptual relations, cultural practices and contextual backgrounds (PI §122).

Wittgenstein, like Friedrich Nietzsche before him, sees how the philosopher is caught in the net of language (Heller 1967: 100–101). And like Nietzsche, Wittgenstein laments that an ‘entire mythology is stored within our language’ (GB 133; Cf. Nietzsche 2008: II: The Wanderer and his Shadow §11). This mythology lies in our forms of representation including the mind as entity, the body we possess, knowledge we acquire, memory as a storehouse and understanding as activity (Hacker 2010: 233).²⁹ Such powerful mythologies, left unchecked, ‘obscure conceptual connections’ (Glock 1996: 280). Hence Wittgenstein’s insistence on obtaining a perspicuous view of the grammatical edifice when we investigate philosophical problems (PI §122).

Points of Commonality and Difference

Having opened our pedagogic windows and peered into the lived experiences of Freire and Wittgenstein what lessons can we draw? Clearly, they share some features in common but there are also notable disjunctions.

The first point to make is that our enriched conception of criticality is underscored by a call to approach philosophical problems from a pedagogical perspective. Freire and Wittgenstein are at pains to show students and readers the importance of thinking for one’s self and for assuming individual responsibility for developing one’s own criticality. For Freire, critical awareness is rooted in problematising the bonds of subjugation and finding ways to be free of them. While, for Wittgenstein, criticality involves removing linguistic confusions that hamper traditional ways of philosophical thinking and nurturing critical modes of inquiry. Wittgenstein also expresses a preference for framing conceptual and aesthetic questions (CV 79) and underscores the importance of being true to one’s self.³⁰

Second, Freire’s critical pedagogy is a dialogical and critical process through which critical beings are involved in naming the world and the word. It is not a mere method or limited to use in the classroom. Similarly, the later Wittgenstein’s way of engaging with philosophy is aporetic and dialogical and cannot be reduced to a single method. Rather, it is reminiscent of a variety of methods, like different therapies, which the critical being adapts for resolving or eliminating philosophical problems. And even though, as a point of contradistinction, Wittgenstein does not share Freire’s wider social concerns to liberate oppressed, dominated and marginalised people there is no logical reason why the critical being should not employ his ideas and methods for democratic and social justice purposes (if they should so choose). And, as I have argued in Chapter 6 and elsewhere,³¹ we can read Wittgenstein through a Marxist lens and make a strong case for bringing about social and political change.

Third, the feminist critiques of Freire’s work do not detract from the overall significance it holds for educational philosophy. Similar attacks may be directed at Wittgenstein’s use of language though they would not, in my view, reduce the impact of his ideas on a critical education. We can take Fraser’s cue and read the works of both thinkers from the standpoint of an absence.³²

Fourth, having made the connection between Freire’s conception of ‘unity within diversity’ and the possibility of criticality scholarship accommodating the notion of otherness, I must admit that the idea of difference does not sit easily within Wittgenstein’s intellectual landscape.

Fifth, I have approached both thinkers from different perspectives. We may criticise aspects of Freire’s work but, in my view, his teaching style and dedication to advancing the social and political causes of his pupils remains admirable. We see Wittgenstein in a very different light and yet his contributions about how teaching and learning work are invaluable. His choice of reading, how a child learns a language, doubt and of thinking (which I discuss in the next chapter) all speak to this.

Finally, in addressing their respective worldviews, both philosophers are open to different ways of knowing. They are concerned with what Budd Hall and Rajesh Tandon call ‘knowledge democracy’ (Hall and Tandon 2017: 13). The critical, aesthetic and moral are important for Freire and Wittgenstein. Both are willing to leave reason and the Cartesian method in abeyance. I develop these matters in Chapter 14.

Conclusion

This chapter has brought together two distinguished and very different thinkers to discuss the idea of criticality. My travels explored the lived experiences of Freire and Wittgenstein demonstrating that they approach philosophical problems from a pedagogical perspective.

Regarding Freire, I argued, first, that he advocates a utopian dream of a democratic world free of oppression, domination and inequalities. I accepted that human emancipation is operating dogmatically taking Gert Biesta’s point (Biesta 1998: 476). And second, I argued that a Freirean vision of utopia is underpinned by a critical pedagogy that involves people naming the world and the word. Freire wants his students to problematise their worlds and tear apart the existential conditions that form their bonds of subjugation. I claimed that he is approaching their problems of oppression, domination and marginalisation from a pedagogical perspective.

I drew on the scholarly literature to restate Freire’s position in which he encourages progressive educators to abandon the traditional banking model of education and engage in a problem-posing theory and practice, and that his critical pedagogy demands we create methods that serve as a praxis for collective emancipatory action.

The aims, ideas and methods developed by Freire, I contend, add further meaning to the concept of criticality. The importance of his work emphasises how criticality empowers critical beings to gain traction in the world. Take, for example, the use, in culture circles, of the concrete existential situations designed to create generative words, illustrative discovery cards and themes. Freire’s students reflect on their own lived experiences and their power to transform the world (Freire 2005a: 75); and they reconstruct their praxis (Freire 2000: 25; 2017: 79). Learning to read and write, he insists, requires them to reflect on the world they are in and with, take ownership of it, and accept that their work is a way of loving and of helping make the world a better place (Freire 2005a: 76).

In relation to Wittgenstein, I suggested that his reflections on the teaching and learning process are most insightful. I took, as examples, his choice of reading, how a child learns a language and the problem of doubt. I commended his overall approach since I believe it sharpens our understanding of criticality. He helps us adjust our own critical thinking so that we can remove the problems that puzzle us. And I said that if we place ourselves in one of Wittgenstein’s classrooms, we must knuckle down and get on with doing our own work (McClure 2017: 154) since this ‘doing’ is actually how we learn (Bowell 2017: 652).

I argued, first, that Wittgenstein’s work should be given a pedagogic reading. Second, I argued that a pedagogic interpretation is reconcilable with his notion of philosophy as therapy. And finally, I argued that Wittgenstein’s philosophy as pedagogy is consistent with our obtaining an Übersicht of language, a survey of our existing network of conceptual relations. I made the point that our grammatical landscape is embedded with, what Fricker describes, as conceptual resources for ‘generating indefinitely many new meanings, whether as new applications of old concepts or coinings of new concepts’ (Fricker 2007: 104) and that this extends to new applications of criticality.

Further, my exploration reveals points of commonality and of difference. In particular, our conception of criticality, fuelled by Freirean and Wittgensteinian thinking, approaches problems from a pedagogical perspective. It also recognises that education is not neutral and therefore the tenets of the established order are always open to question. And while Wittgenstein does not explicitly share Freire’s wider ethical concerns to bring about a better world, the critical being is not estopped from applying Wittgenstein’s ideas and methods to democratic and social justice issues (if she should choose to walk down this path). I noted how criticality scholarship can utilise Freire’s conception of ‘unity within diversity’ to accommodate otherness, but I had to concede that the idea of difference is not recognised in Wittgenstein’s thinking. Finally, I distinguished between Freire’s teaching practices and Wittgenstein’s remarks on the teaching and learning process itself.

In the next chapter I consider the works of Freire and Wittgenstein as they relate to developing criticality in the critical being.