A Philosophy of Teaching

To my mind, the most important aspect of the professional genre we call a "philosophy of teaching" is that it retain a dual sense of the word philosophy: (1) a set of guiding principles that (2) is not fixed but remains open to inquiry. Thus, I regard my teaching philosophy as a set of principles that function as "topics" in the sense of places of further thinking.

• Critical and Reflective Inquiry
  First is the belief that at the core of our intellectual and moral development is not merely the process of inquiry but the ability to refine and adapt inquiry through judgment--a reflective inquiry, or an ability to inquire about inquiry. My emphasis on inquiry has been influenced, of course, by the naturalistic epistemology of Dewey but also by Gadamer's understanding of Bildung (as a developing ability of inquiry) and more recent explorations of this concept's potential role in conditions of postmodernity and globalization. Hence, much of my teaching focuses on modes of written inquiry, especially the interpretation and formulation of problems as the foundation of inquiry (i.e., problematology or zetetics).
• Reading and Writing as Inquiry
  Second is a belief common to teachers of writing: that reading and writing comprise our primary mode of inquiry. I like the way Flannery O'Connor captures the central role of writing in our attempts to think clearly: "I write because I don't know what I think until I read what I have to say." But our ability to read ourselves depends on our skill in reading the work of others. Thus, I encourage students to view class readings not merely as content or, even, as arguments but as the inquiries of researchers, scholars, or intellectuals. My goal is to have students learn how to apprentice themselves to written inquiry and, thus, begin to formulate their own rhetoric of inquiry.
• Inquiry as Community
  A third principle is that any serious inquiry involves a developing sense of intellectual community, more specifically, becoming familiar with the ways in which a community of inquiry formulates problems and questions. Georges Bataille has written, "The foundation of one's thought is the thought of another; thought is like a brick cemented in a wall. . . . The work of the mason, who assembles, is the work that matters. Thus the adjoining bricks, in a book should not be less visible than the new brick, which is the book." I believe this communitarian view of inquiry needs to be stressed since our students come to us, more and more, with tightly circumscribed notions of community, having been raised in a culture of polarization.
• The Humanities as a Tradition of Inquiry
  The final principle is a commitment to the humanities as a distinct set of perspectives on the human condition. As Susan Stewart has observed recently, the humanities have become the "third world" of the intellectual and fiscal economies of our schools; and, in response, humanistic studies "have taken up reactive postures of professionalism, scientism, and novelty." I believe these postures undermine the humanities' unique focus on the intellectual drama of a keen mind wrestling with significant questions and problems. It is time, I believe, to revisit the tradition of liberal arts education, especially the attention this tradition gives to the central role of language in human relations, including our understanding of identity. The history of liberal studies, after all, is inseparable from the history of rhetorical education.

Notes

1. For John Dewey's naturalistic epistemology, see his How We Think (1910; Mineola, NY: Dover, 1997).
2. For Hans–Georg Gadamer's account of Bildung, see his Wahrheit und Methode (1960), revised and expanded 5th German ed., Gesammelte Werke, vol. 1 (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1986); translated as Truth and Method, 2nd rev. ed., trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (New York: Crossroad, 1989). For Gadamer's more recent thinking on the central role of Bildung in a philosophy of education, see “Education Is Self-Education,” ed. and trans. John Cleary and Pádraig Hogan, Journal of Philosophy of Education 35.4 (2001): 529-38.
3. I'm still looking for the source of Flannery O'Connor's frequently quoted statement on the relationship of writing and thinking.
4. Georges Bataille's comments on the masonry of thought come from the opening paragraphs of his Théorie de la religion (Paris: Gallimard, 1973). The quotation comes from Robert Hurley's English translation, Theory of Religion (New York: Zone-MIT Press, 1988).
5. For Susan Stewart's diagnosis of the current state of the humanities, see "Thoughts on the Role of the Humanities in Contemporary Life," New Literary History 36.1 (2005) 97-103.

Last update: 28-Aug-06

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James Comas (jcomas@mtsu.edu)
Department of English
Middle Tennessee State University
Murfreesboro, TN 37132
605-494-7951

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