Can the system idea helppromote critical thinking and

intellectual autonomy inpedagogy?

D. Andres MejaDepto. de Ingeniera Industrial, Universidad de Los Andes, Bogota,

Colombia

Keywords Cybernetics, System design

Abstract Some problems have been pointed out in the literature, regarding how the variouscritical approaches to pedagogy have failed to properly promote autonomy of thinking and toprevent the imposition of knowledge. The criticisms include the incapacity of some approaches tohighlight and question subtle or tacit forms of knowledge, and the implicit active imposition ofknowledge by some others. With the possible use of critical systems thinking in pedagogy in mind,here we examine how the forms of critique used by three different approaches within this strandcan deal with these criticisms. We will argue that, as presently conceived, the critical use of thesystem idea is susceptible of being criticised in the same way.

1. IntroductionBeyond the mere acquisition of information and skills, the development ofautonomy of thought and action has been repeatedly declared as one of themain objectives of education. Its importance is normally associated with thefact that it is a requirement for central purposes in our societies, likedemocracy, individuality, and participation.

The notion of autonomy of thought is intimately connected with that ofCriticality[1]. Criticality is invoked to prevent the imposition of knowledge,thus allowing the students to construct their own. We start here from the ideathat autonomy of thought cannot be obtained with a libertarian policy ofleaving students alone, but by means of a critical engagement with others.That is, by leaving someone alone, by not interacting with her/him, we cannotdirectly impose our knowledge on her/him. But this does not guarantee thats/he will construct her/his own and not have it imposed from other sources.

Several critical approaches in education explicitly seek to promote criticalthinking, or to use criticality, and with this to help students develop theirthought autonomously and/or to prevent the imposition of knowledge on them.They include various forms of critical pedagogy (Freire, 1972; Giroux, 1997),post-radical pedagogy (Buckingham, 1998), the critical thinking movement(Paul, 1993; Siegel, 1988), feminist pedagogy (Luke and Gore, 1992), and critical

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theory in education (Young, 1992). Nevertheless, various concerns have beenvoiced regarding either their failure to prevent knowledge imposition andpromote autonomy of thinking, or the actual imposition of their views on thestudents. To name a few, Ellsworth (1989) and Gur-Zeev (1998) have arguedthat critical pedagogy imposes its own particular view of society. DuhanKaplan (1989) has pointed at the inability of the tools developed by the criticalthinking movement to actually identify and question concrete but subtle formsof knowledge which are present, even if tacitly, in the actual lives of students.Maddock (1999) has remarked something similar about Youngs and otherauthors applications of critical theory in education. Salman (1998) has also saidsomething in a similar vein, in respect of Ellsworths post-radical pedagogyand her emphasis on the purely textual, failing to acknowledge the material.Duhan Kaplan (1989) and Paul (1992) have criticised the proneness of thecritical thinking movements critical tools to the use by students of a fancyterminology just to advance their own positions and get them accepted orimposed.

None of these critical approaches explicitly makes use of systems ideas.Actually, not many reflections and/or applications in pedagogy from acritical systems thinking perspective have appeared in the literature (forsome instances see Gregory, 1993; and, with some critical aspects but notexplicitly using critical systems thinking, see Banathy, 1992; Espinosa,2000; and the special issue of Systems Research and Behavioural Science,Vol. 18 No. 4, 2001 Designing Educational Systems for the 21st Century). Itseems then worth examining the potential of various critical uses ofsystems ideas. The main questions to be addressed in this paper will be thefollowing ones:

. What potential does the system idea have in helping achieve the criticalpurpose of developing autonomy in students and preventing knowledgeimposition on them?

. What forms of knowledge imposition can [and cannot] the system ideahelp prevent?

. Can the system idea help avoid the imposition of knowledge in the name ofcritique?

We will examine here three more or less generic strands of systems thinkingthat present critical elements. One is what can be called a systemically criticalapproach; that is, one that takes critique to be basically systemic by means ofthe questioning of systemic boundaries. The second one emphasises somethingsimilar to what Jackson has called a discursive rationality (2000), we will callit, however, organisation of interactions, as it concentrates on defining the formof the conversations in which knowledge is produced. The third one is a criticalpluralist approach, and it attempts to be critical about the various systemicparadigms while promoting the development of all of them.

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2. Systemic or boundary critiqueIts main characteristic consists in the fact that critique is taken to be basicallysystemic, and the central element of criticality the system boundary (Midgley,2000; Ulrich, 1983, 1987). Critique here is essentially boundary critique, and thecore proposal can be summarised with the idea that forms of knowledge are inprinciple incomplete or partial; that given the finitude of human beings,everything that should be taken into account for determining true knowledgecannot be taken[2]. Therefore, humans would draw boundaries that delimitwhat they will focus on, leaving some elements or aspects inside andtherefore taking them into account and the rest outside and thereforesomehow excluding them.

As concerns pedagogy, tools to disclose the boundaries of any form ofknowledge and with those boundaries the elements that have been includedor excluded could be given to the students so that they could then questionthe partiality of any form of knowledge. In fact, this is what we take to beUlrich (1996) proposal of educating the citizens, so that they can become criticaland able to participate in debates of issues of public concern.

Boundary critique is about detecting boundaries drawn by forms ofknowledge over a space of aspects or elements. This demands from the criticalperson to be able to identify aspects or elements on the one hand, and on theother to independently recognise how forms of knowledge draw boundariesaround them. But importantly, the theory of boundary critique does notdescribe the space of aspects of elements, and therefore it needs the criticalperson to be able to know it in advance. If this knowledge is not self-evident, orgiven, then the critical person might fail in the application of boundary critique.

Now, does boundary critique impose some form of knowledge itself?The systemic theory that constitutes the proposed basis for critique does notadvocate any particular form of knowledge. Instead, it simply suggests thatone should be critical of any such forms, and the means to do it is theemployment of the system idea. Of course, the very proposal of being criticalabout forms of knowledge is a form of knowledge in its own right, that coulditself be imposed[3]. However, what I am interested here is the question ofwhether by applying boundary critique one is imposing a particular ideologythat is alternative to, and replaces, the form of knowledge about which one isbeing critical. And in this respect the theory underlying boundary critique canbe said to not entail an ideology.

Nevertheless, let us pay attention to the kind of knowledge that is requiredfrom the critical person in order to determine in a particular case whatboundaries a form of knowledge is drawing. That required knowledge must beindependent from her/his own beliefs about whatever that form of knowledgeis about, for otherwise, critique would itself be ideological. For instance, if theform of knowledge under critical scrutiny is a proposal for a health system in acommunity, the theory of boundary critique does not advocate any particular

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view of health care. However, what is not clear but is required if boundarycritique will not be a vehicle for knowledge imposition, is that someonescritical appraisal of that proposal will be independent from her/his own viewsabout health care.

If the results of any practical application of boundary critique areideological, then there is a risk that the critical person will impose her/his viewsin the name of critique. This can be seen in that the results of her/hisapplication of boundary critique may be legitimised by the fact that they arecritical. But given that they would be tainted with the critical persons ownideological views, if someone else accepts those results then s/he would be atthe same time accepting [part of] the critical persons ideological views.

3. The organisation of interactionsThe idea here is to organise the interactions between persons in thepedagogical case between teacher and students in such a way that no singleperson or group can make her/his voice dominate the conversation, and that allvoices are given the chance to be heard. One particular systemic methoddeveloped along these lines is Syntegration (Beer, 1995), and it has been used toorganise pedagogical interactions (as reported in Espinosa, 2000). It isimportant to note that these methods do not say anything about the contents ofthe conversation, because they focus on the form of the interactions. Instead,they attempt to simply make sure that all the participants are given the samechance to talk, advance claims, formulate questions, etc.

The application of such methods in pedagogy tries to remove the obstaclesthat do not let students talk. However, by not dealing with contents, it does notmention the kinds of questions that the participants should formulate in orderto identify and question forms of knowledge that may not be so obvious. If itdoes not provide those tools, it is not making sure that those forms ofknowledge will not be imposed, and therefore, it must rely on the studentsalready having those abilities. If that imposition occurs or has occurred in thepast then under the guise of an apparent genuine dialogue those forms ofknowledge will be legitimised or pass undetected.

4. Critical systemic pluralismBy acknowledging the potential validity, even if limited, of the variousparadigms that have appeared in systems thinking, critical pluralism seeks toencourage the development of all of them while critiquing their limitations andpotentialities to aid in the use of their methodologies, methods, and tools(Jackson, 2000). Gregorys paper on educational systems can to some extent besaid to go along these lines.

We will examine here the relation between knowledge imposition andthe type of critique provided by this form of critical pluralism, rather than

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the potential application of its methodologies. The contribution of itsapplication depends largely on the possibilities of the systems paradigmswhose use it seeks to inform. Two strands within the systemic paradigms havealready been discussed in Sections 2 and 3.

In this case, it is perhaps not the system idea which is the basis for critique,but rather an independent analysis of basic assumptions, limitations, andpossible consequences of the acceptance of each of the various paradigms. Thisanalysis is provided by the theory, and the critical person is expected to usethese insights to examine particular situations as well as the possibility ofapplying in them the various systems methodologies, methods or tools.

Just like boundary critique, critical pluralism does not advocate anyparticular form of knowledge in this case, any particular systemic paradigm and therefore, it cannot be accused of imposing one. It only seeks to providemore information critical information so that their use is better informed.However, it is important to more closely look at what this means. Can someknowledge imposition occur by means of the acceptance of the criticalknowledge provided by the critical pluralist theory? we might say thatsomeone could disagree with the critical knowledge of assumptions, strengths,weaknesses, constitutive rules, etc. provided by the theory, and in that sense itcould of course be imposed[4]. But the issue I want to examine is whether byaccepting this critical knowledge one would be at the same time committing toparticular views that might compete with, or be alternative to, those systemicparadigms the theory is critical about. In this respect, for not imposing aparticular systemic view the critical pluralist theory would require its criticalknowledge to be independent from the forms of knowledge it is critical about,or from any alternative to them.

To put it more clearly, the various systemic paradigms are constituted byknowledge about the world, society, knowledge, and so on. Critical pluralistauthors have produced some critical knowledge about those systemicparadigms, and specifically about their assumptions, limitations, etc. If thiscritical knowledge depends on those authors views about the world, society,knowledge, etc. then its uncritical acceptance would entail the imposition of[part of] those views.

5. GivennessWe want to argue now that what the approaches described above require sothat knowledge imposition is prevented, can be described in terms of twoelements, which I will call givenness and interpretation independence. Thissection will be devoted to the givenness requirement, while in the next one wewill talk about interpretation independence.

The choice of the term givenness intends to acknowledge Wilfrid Sellars(1956) work, and particularly his discussion of the Myth of the Given. Inparticular, he argued against them in vogue versions of empiricism which

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suggested that secure knowledge ultimately rests on some kind of elementswhich are given to the mind (e.g. sense data). As such, knowledge of theseelements would be inescapable and incorrigible; that is, the mind cannot fail toknow them, and it cannot be wrong about them. Sellars effectively showed thatany knowledge about anything, as represented in beliefs or propositions,necessarily belongs to the logical space of reasons. In that space it is otherbeliefs or propositions playing the role of reasons which participate in thepractical activity of justification. No belief or proposition can be, then, given.

Now, even though Sellars essay attempted to be Kantian through andthrough, the Kantian distinctions between the synthetic and the analytic, andbetween the a priori and the a posteriori, are to some extent also susceptible toSellars criticism. As Rorty (1979) has argued, the Kantian idea that themanifold of experience is organised by the human categories of understandingin an act of synthesis, makes sense only if somehow the human mind couldhave some access to that manifold. For otherwise how can it be known

that the mind is presented with a diversity? Why should we think that sensibility in itsoriginal receptivity presents us with a manifold, a manifold which, however, cannot bepresented as a manifold until the understanding has used concepts to synthesise it? (. . ..) Ifwe are going to argue that we can only be conscious of synthesised intuitions, how do we getinformation about intuitions prior to synthesis? (Rorty, 1979, pp. 153-154)

Actually, arguably Quines (1953) argument against the analytic-syntheticdistinction, and more specially Davidson (1974) against the scheme-contentdistinction, can be said to more clearly articulate the rejection of the separationbetween concepts and intuitions. There is no space here to present the wholeargument (see for instance Rorty, 1979). However, the important point is thatthe space of possible elements or aspects of knowledge is not immediatelyknowable to an inquirer. These elements are not there, in some way given,waiting to be organised, to be chosen from, or to be connected with others.The identification of those very elements is in itself knowledge, and as such itcan be changed by reasons. The elements themselves, if one wants to still speakthat way, are not incorrigible or inescapable.

Now, let us recall from Section 2 that to effectively prevent knowledgeimposition, boundary critique required from students, or more generally fromthe critical person, to be able to identify aspects or elements on the one hand,and on the other to independently recognise how forms of knowledge drawboundaries around them. If one accepts the rejection of the Myth of the Given,then the identification of aspects or elements cannot be taken as a basis forcritique. That is, the critical knowledge of the elements excluded or included byany form of knowledge, is itself a form of knowledge whose justification has notbeen secured epistemologically, and can only be justified by reasons, just likeany other ideological form of knowledge. If forms of knowledge are problematic,then critical knowledge is problematic in the same way and for the same reasons.

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Similarly, in Section 3, I argued that approaches based on the organisation ofinteractions must rely on the students already having the ability to identify andquestion forms of knowledge. In this case, the requirement of givennessappears in a stronger way. If the questioning of a form of knowledge dependson the questioning of the various aspects that it has or has not taken intoaccount, as well as of the manner in which it took them into account, then againthe fact that these aspects are not given to the critical persons mind impliesthat relevant questions may never be formulated. Therefore, the correspondingknowledge that passed unquestioned may be imposed. Ultimately, this issueboils down to a matter of the questioning competence of teacher and students:Although, they must of course have some competence, it may not be enough forthe formulation of certain relevant questions.

6. Interpretation independenceThe expression interpretation independence refers to the idea that one canproduce an interpretation of some form of knowledge in some domain,independently from ones beliefs about that same domain. Or, in other words,that an interpreters knowledge of the meaning of a speakers words isindependent from her/his knowledge of reality in the domain in question.The issue of interpretation independence is important for the discussion aboutcriticality and knowledge imposition, in so far as a critical analysis of anyparticular form of knowledge is an interpretation of it.

One philosopher who has extensively worked on the problem of interpretationis Donald Davidson (1973, 1974). In his work, interpretation refers to theproduction, by an interpreter, of a sentence or set of them that s/he knows how touse, that translates or keeps the meaning of a sentence or set of them utteredby a speaker. The first point is derived from Quines rejection of the analytic-synthetic distinction, and the derived rejection of a distinction betweenquestions of meaning and questions of truth (Quine, 1953). To know the meaningof some sentence it does not mean that one will know something like itsdefinition, or a set of [analytic] sentences that in some sense give its meaning. It is,rather, to know how to use it. This in turn is knowing many other sentences thatwould be true if that one were true [or false], knowing when to use it if it is anoccasional sentence , knowing how to produce new sentences and their truthvalue that relate to the translated sentence, and so on.

Davidson has shown that an interpreter makes an active use of her/hisown beliefs when interpreting a speakers sentences. There is no space hereto present the argument; but one of its central ideas consists in theinevitability of the application of the charity principle in interpretation(Davidson, 1973). According to this principle, an interpreter will try tomaximise the rightness of what the speaker says as far as it is plausible.And being right, of course, means being right according to the interpretersbeliefs what else? An interpretation in which the speaker is mostly

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wrong is more likely to be a bad interpretation. Davidson (2000, page 70)expresses this relation between truth and meaning saying that translationsucceeds only if it preserves truth, and the traditional aim of translation isto preserve meaning. But let us notice now that in order to determinewhat beliefs the speaker might be wrong or right about, the interpreterneeds to use her/his own beliefs. Moreover, they are beliefs about the samedomain or objects that the speakers beliefs are about.

This idea of charity, which is essentially holistic, further suggests that theattribution of a belief to a speaker entails that the interpreter is prepared toattribute her/him many more beliefs, expressed in sentences that relate to theoriginally translated ones. These related sentences would effectively be onesthat the interpreter her/himself takes to be entailed by the translated ones, andthat therefore s/he thinks the speaker will or should agree with. In fact,given that according to Quines rejection of the analytic-synthetic distinctionthere cannot be a clear separation between questions of meaning and questionsof truth, the line that separates translated from related sentences is a fuzzy one.That is, there is no clear way of separating an interpreters description of themeaning of a speakers utterances from her/his believed implications of theviews represented by those utterances.

The critical knowledge produced by the theory underlying a criticalapproach, or by its use in a particular situation, is constituted by sentences thatthe critical person takes to be entailed by, and in a sense also to describe, theform of knowledge that s/he is being critical of. And, as argued above, thisknowledge is necessarily constructed out of her/his beliefs about the samedomain or objects that the form of knowledge being critiqued is about. There is,then, no interpretation independence for critical knowledge.

But that was exactly what we argued in Sections 2 and 4 was required byboth boundary critique and critical systemic pluralism so that they would notactively promote the imposition of knowledge. In boundary critique, the user ofthe tools provided by the approach will also have to use her own views to becritical about someone elses or her/his own ; and in doing this s/he maypass (part of) those views as valid, without a proper critical conversation,because s/he is presumably being critical. In critical systemic pluralism, the sameapplies to the views of the proponents of the approach.

7. Summary and concluding remarks: systems, holism,and criticalityBased on the discussions in the literature on critical thinking in pedagogy, wehave tried in this short paper to show some problems that present conceptionsof critical systems thinking face, in terms of the problem of knowledgeimposition. We examined three strands of systems thinking which propose touse the system idea in a critical way, and which in one way or another are

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concerned with the problem of knowledge imposition: boundary critique,organisation of interactions, and critical systemic pluralism.

Kinds of approaches trying to provide tools for either boundary critique ororganisation of interactions, were found to require givenness; that is, that theaspects that the students are to pay attention to, that the questions that s/heshould ask, so that the imposition of knowledge from external sources isprevented, are given, and require no additional knowledge to that alreadypossessed by them. Approaches within critical systemic pluralism andboundary critique were argued to require interpretation independence; that is,that someones critical views about any particular form of knowledge beindependent from her/his own beliefs about whatever that form of knowledgeis about.

Unfortunately, there was no space to appropriately present the argumentsfor the conclusions that neither givenness nor interpretation independence arepossible. The implications are very important, however, because not meetingthe givenness requirement would mean that boundary-critique andorganisation-of-interactions approaches are unable to guarantee that forms ofknowledge that might potentially be imposed will be identified and questioned.In turn, not meeting the interpretation independence requirement would implythat boundary-critique and critical systemic approaches may be vehicles for theactive imposition of the critical persons views, in the name of critique.

We take it that the impossibility to obtain givenness and interpretationindependence are both consequences of the radically holistic view of languagethat has been constructed by a number of philosophers, among which Sellars,Quine, and Davidson, are particularly important (Rorty, 1979, 1991). The criticaluse to which the system idea has been put relies, paradoxically, on a ratherreductionistic understanding of meaning and interpretation. The system ideashould not then be used to provide ontological descriptions ofweltanschauungen, belief systems, theories, designs of social systems,or whatever is the case. What it can only do is help us those engaged inconversation enhance the scope of our beliefs and the inclusiveness of ourconversations, where neither scope nor inclusiveness should be regarded asabsolute terms.

Notes

1. Let me clarify that we do not claim that the only or main purpose of critical approaches is thedevelopment of autonomy of thought and the prevention of knowledge imposition. It is animportant one, though, for most of them.

2. Ulrich only makes this claim in relation to the realm of the practical; that is, of what ought tobe, as represented in designs of social systems. Midgley does not seem to take thisrestriction.

3. One aspect of the well-known Habermas-Gadamer debate can be said to be about this.

4. This issue would be similar to that mentioned in Section 2, and for which the Habermas-Gadamer debate is relevant.

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