Learning by making

Theoria | Praxis |Poiesis

Matti Vesa Volanen Institute for Educational Research

University of Jyväskylä Finland Stockholm 14.11.2012

“HAPPY ARE those ages when the starry sky is the map of all possible paths — ages whose paths are illuminated by the light of the stars. Everything

in such ages is new and yet familiar, full of adventure and yet their own. The world is wide and

yet it is like a home, for the fire that burns in the soul is of the same essential nature as the stars; the world and the self, the light and the fire, are

sharply distinct, yet they never become permanent strangers to one another, for fire is the soul of all

light and all fire clothes itself in light.

Thus each action of the soul becomes meaningful and rounded in this duality: complete in meaning — in sense —

and complete for the senses; rounded because the soul rests within itself even while it acts; rounded because its action separates itself from it and, having become itself,

finds a centre of its own and draws a closed circumference round itself. ‘Philosophy is really homesickness,’ says

Novalis: ‘it is the urge to be at home everywhere.’

Georg Lukács 1914 The Theory of the Novel

The question then: What is the relationship between our

inside-world and the inside of the world?

Mediators? Touch, concept, language, tool, machine,

production process, production machinery ...

The unity of in activity realized concept and reality

conceptualized as activityDrüe, H. Psychologie aus dem Begriff 1976

Machines have learned to use languages, languages have learned to use machines,

languages are fundamental factors of production

Theorie/praxis/poiesis

Schole/polis/oikos

Nous theoritikos/praktikos/poetikos

Leisure/play/producing

Episthemis/Ethics/Aesthetic

Head/heart/hands

Being/Doing/Making

Philo-sophy Philo-techny

Craft vs. skill (Webster, 1913)

Craft strength, skill, art, cunning; akin to OS., G., Sw., & Dan. kraft strength, D. kracht, Icel. kraptr; perh. originally, a drawing together.

Skill \Skill\, n. [Icel. skil a distinction, discernment; akin to skilja to separate, divide, distinguish, Sw. skilja, skille to separate.

Potter - Learning by making

Making is to give a form to a piece of clay and to be in-formed by the clay the borders of possibilities of

the forms to express the content with a concept in the context at hand.

The potter ...

Potter does not learn only the results of work but the process to produce the product has a hand-mark of producer not only “inter-action” but “intra-action”, i.e constitution.

Imagenary in ironwork

Concepts without

language

Keller&Keller,1996

Craft, then ...

productive leisure experimental play making nicely self-management of work situation social prestige producer and product constitution

Craft ...

Leisure

TheoryBeing

Epistemology

PlayPraxis

DoingEthics

ProducingPoiesis

MakingAesthetic

In other words...

Leisure Play

Labour

Theory Praxis

Poiesis

EpistemelogyEthics

Aesthetics

...and again in other words

Praxis Poiesis

Theoryreference

representation present

Leisure

LabourPlayWork situation of craftsmen

Movements of craft workConcept

Context

Content

Master

Hand

Clay

concept

context

content

The Demiurge - the worker for the people - was the very starting point of

making philosophy ...

contextslaveryHand

ClayTool

MasterPotteryConcept

content2

The first modern solution

Craft

Content/Fine ArtConcept/ScienceContext/Policy

Labour Learning of skills

New constitution:labour with tools

owned by other persons

The situation of making

machines have learned to use languages,

languages have learned to use machines

languages are fundamental factors of production

In knowledge society

Economic Reality – a complex construction

Values in use Goods produced “family style”

Values in Exchange Goods and labor power as Commodities

Prices of production Uniform profit rates

Money as a commodity

Small Commodity Production

Physical basis

Stock market based economy Stocks as commodities

Credit based economy

Contemporary economic system Market prices

Competitive Production Fixed capital present

Peter Fleissner, 2002

Three basic questions are open and have to be solved at the same time and the

same place:

How are things?

How should they do to be good?

How to make them real, nicely?

The situation of making

The expert is able to produce the situation via which all the tree questions can be solved at the same time and the

same place.

Who is an expert?

Virtues of experts (Kirkeby, 2000)

Euboulia • Broadminded prudence

Euphoria • Enthuastic sense of reality

Hyponomé • Brave patience

Prolépsis • Competence for anticipatory visualisation

Epibolé •Practical intuition

Maieutike téchne • Craft of giving birth to Goodness, Faithfullness and Beauty

Moments of learning

On Two Metaphors for Learning and Dangers of

Choosing Just One Anna Sfard

Educational Researcher 1998, 27, 2, 4-13

Acquisition - Participation

On Three Metaphors for Learning and Dangers of

Choosing Just Two

Acquisition - Participation - Production

What is impresent?

Person - per - son

Fundamental is the immediated sensuous texture with three questions:

What is impresent?

What is represent in impresent?

What is refpresent in impresent?

Moments of learningMoments

RelationsContext Concept Content

Reference

Representation

Present

Learning by being

Learning the Being

Acquisition of a theory

Learning by doing

Learning the Doing

Partisipation in praxis

Learning by making

Learning the Making

Producing with poiesis

Movements of learningConcept

Context

Content

Learning and movement

Can I say at the same time:

I am building the house - I have built the house

I am living, I have lived

I see - I have seen

Learning and movement

I learn - I have learnt

learning process has a result,

something stop with the result

Objectives of learning

to learn a product of a process concept, image

to learn a process upkeeping learn to learn

to learn to produce a product

Movements in learning

to learn with inner-moving

to learn with moving oneself

to learn actualisation

Activity theory

Hegel and the development of subjective mind

Anthropology - anpassung/adaptation Phenomenology - aneignung/approriation - anerkennung/recognition Psychology - entwicklung/development

- anpassung/adaptation/tätigkeit - aneignung/approriation - object

activity/ gegenständliche tätigkeit/unrecognition

of the object before activity

- anerkennung/recognition: battle of life and death/mutual

recognition, learning behave oneself before activity

entwicklung/development: tätige verhalten

activity with behaving oneself

theory - praxis - poiesis concept - context - content

Being - Doing - Making

to constitute a content via a concept in a context

CON -quartet

Context

Content

Concept

Constitution: a constellation

between the three

other CONs

Juncture: texture of

con/disjunctures

Basic College?

Bildung

Bildung has the capacity, the will and the craft to set, to value and to solve the basic

problems of our era

THE MAIN INSTITUTIONAL STRUCTURE of upper secondary education comprises two sectors: general

education and vocational training. It also assigns young people to different social tracks in life.

Our understanding of social individualization is intrinsically related to the division between Bildung

and Beruf, education and vocation.

The basis of this division is at the very heart of the process of social individualization, within the division between theoria, being, praxis, doing, and poiesis,

making. The learning by making, not by doing, opens a new possibility to understand social

individualization.

General and vocational education

Philotechne – the love of craft – is an old idea, but has not been much cultivated by the lovers of

knowledge, by philosophers. Philosophers have forgotten what to do with their hands.

Craftwork binds the three basic questions of philotechne: What are things? How are things when they are in a good state? How can we produce them beautifully? In other words, epistemological, ethical and aesthetical questions are practical challenges

combined in the collaborative work of the head, heart and hands. Craftwork is, at its best, educative work.

We can use it as a methodological mirror to cross-enlighten modern industrial labour and its three

cousins: science, politics and fine arts.

In knowledge society

• machines have learned to use languages,

• languages have learned to use machines

• languages are fundamental factors of production

Modern craftspeople do not dip their hands into clay. They are producers who produce social situations in which all the three questions of philotechne are posed

and solved.

This is the new poetics of communities - poeta faber – which we need in the industries based on knowledge and

commons. It is then a negation of negation of traditional craft. A negation which "does not

re-establish private property for the producer, but gives him individual property", a property, "which is proper to the proper

subject" , i.e. the general intellect of producing commons.

J-L. Nancy 2010

To be an expert (i.e. a person wise through experience), knowing is not

enough. The questions of truth, goodness and beauty, abstracted from craftwork, as

a result of the first modern industrial production, have to be embedded back

into everyone's labour again.

Bildung has the capacity, the will and the craft to set, to value and to solve the

basic problems of our era

Matti Vesa VolanenDr. of psychologySenior researcher

Institute for Educational ResearchUniversity of Jyväskylä

mattivesavolanen@mac.com

http://mattivesavolanen.blogspot.fi/2012/05/theoria-praxis-poiesis.html

Thank you for your attention!