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This volume makes a philosophical contribution to the application of neuroscience in education. It frames neuroscience research in novel ways around
educational conceptualizing and practices, while also taking a critical look
at conceptual problems in neuroeducation and at the economic reasons driving the M ind-Brain Education movement. It offers alternative approaches
for situating neuroscience in educational research and practice, including
non-reductionist models drawing from Dewey and phenomenological philosophers, such as M artin H eidegger and M erleau-Ponty.
The volume gathers together an international bevy of leading philosophers of education who are in a unique position to contribute conceptually
rich and theoretically framed insight on these new developments. The essays
form an emerging dialogue to be used within the philosophy of education
as well as neuroeducation, educational psychology, teacher education, and
curriculum studies.
C
ence W. J
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12 Philosophical Discussion in
Mor al Education
The Community of Ethical Inquiry
Tim Sprod
21 Philosophy of Education in
the Er a of Globalization
Edited by Yvonne Raley and
Gerhard Preyer
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C n en
Foreword
Preface
1
xi
xiii
Wh C n Phi
phe
f E c i n C n ib e
he
C nve
i n h C nnec E c i n n N e
cience?
Cl a r EN CE W. Jo l d Er s m a
Pa r t I
a C i iq e f N e
cience in E
r e e ch n P c ice
2
o
Ne
fo
m in
cience
: H cke
c i n
n H ei e
e c n
15
Em m a WIl l Ia m s a N d Pa u l s t a N d Is H
t he a
c i n n r he ic f N e
E c i n n E c i n r e e ch
cience f
34
Pa u l s m Ey Er s
t w C e in N e
Beh vi
E hic
e c i n Kn w e e t
n r e p n ive P en in
n fe :
53
Br u CE m a x WEl l a N d Er IC r a CIN E
Ne
cience, N e
, n C
e ci i
72
d Er o N Bo y l Es
N e ibe
n Ne
i
n he N e
n
cience a pp ic i n
s e f: a C i ic
E c i n
Pe pec ive
91
Cl a r EN CE W. Jo l d Er s m a
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Contents
Pa r t II
t hinkin Phi
n E c i n
7
phic
iv in m
wi h N e
V
cience
e in n a e f N e
cience
111
d Er EK s a N KEy a N d m IN Ka N g KIm
N
g b
i in a e he ic : m
E c i n
eF
n
128
Pr a d EEP a . d H Il l o N
E p in B in : Be n
f B in-B e l e nin
he s p n ne
Phi
ph
144
t y s o N E. l EWIs
10
Be n
r ep e en
Ne
cience: B i
i n m e f m in in E c i n
s bjec ivi
n d n ic C ni i n
157
Cl a r EN CE W. Jo l d Er s m a
11
En c ive H e
ene ic
n N
Pe
176
s H a u N g a l l a g H Er
12
eP be
wi h he N e
cience r e e ch P
194
N ICH o l a s C. Bu r Bu l Es
Contributors
Index
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209
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F ew
This is an important book for all educators. N euroscience has made impressive progress over the past two decades, and it may in time make signi cant
contributions to our understanding of such illnesses as Alzheimers, autism,
depression, and Parkinsons. But educators should be aware that many
claims for its relevance to education are, at this time, exaggerations if not
outright untruths.
N euroscientists are doing fascinating work on the connections between
perception and cognition, between environmental rhythms and brain
rhythms, and between feeling and thinking. H owever, they face a tangle of
problems not the least of which is figuring out whether the activity of specific neurons causes thinking or thinking causes the neuronal activity. If it is
the latter, then what does cause thinking?
We are still far from an understanding of the human mind and its marvelous complexity. Is autism caused by a deficit in reactive capacity or by
hyper-reactivity? Will an understanding of our minds emerge from a collection of knowledge about distinct parts of the brain, or will it turn out that,
just as a smoothly functioning society depends on adequate communication
among its groups and individuals, a smoothly operating mind depends on
the well-ordered communication of its brain-parts provided by integrally
working circuits?
Warning us about the overuse of mirror neutrons in past theorizing,
Gregory H ickok, in The Myth of Mirror N eurons, writes: Placed in the
context of a more balanced and complex structure, mirror neutrons will no
doubt have a role to play in our models of the neural basis of communication and cognition ; but neither they nor any other single structure is likely
to tell the whole story. As the authors of this book suggest, you should read
material on neuroscience and education with caution!
N el N oddings
Stanford University
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P ef ce
This book started with a chance conversation I had a few years ago with
Francis Schrag at a presidential reception at a Philosophy of Education conference. As one does at such receptions, he asked me what I was working on,
and I replied that in my reading at last I had been returning to my dissertation
research in philosophy of mind, but I was interested in the minds embodiment in living beings. H e enthusiastically encouraged me to write something
for PES on the subject, saying that philosophers of education were strangely
silent on these matters. H e related that he had just nished a book review
in neuroscience and education, nding that this area really needed attention
by people with philosophical expertise. I took his suggestion as a personal
challenge. When I presented my rst paper on neuroscience and education at
the next PES conference, I was heartened by all the encouragement I received
about the importance of this topic and thought I should continue.
A few months later, I received an e-mail out of the blue from a Routledge
editor noting that I had just presented on neuroscience and education and
asking whether I happened to have any book manuscripts hanging around
on this topic. I replied that I didnt. H owever, I put to her an idea, suggesting that what was needed was an edited volume by leading philosophers of
education using their existing expertise to think about the intersection of
neuroscience and education. Within hours she replied, suggesting I gather
together such a group. That summer, I developed the idea and contacted
scholars around the world, some of whom I knew personally but others
whom I knew only by their scholarship. I was struck by the positive and
enthusiastic response I received from the scholars I e-mailed. It was clear
to me that it was time for a book such as this. Although not everyone I
asked was able to say yes, I was very pleased at how quickly I could gather
an impressive set of chapter proposals for a book. The proposals clearly
gave evidence of deep insights by philosophers about this intersection. Im
pleased to have been able to gather together leading scholars from around
the world to begin this important conversation in philosophy of education.
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Wh C n Phi
phe
f
E c i n C n ib e
he
C nve
i n h C nnec
E c i n n Ne
cience?
Clarence W. Joldersma
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Clarence W. Joldersma
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thus uniquely situated, where leading philosophers of education do important philosophical analysis at this intersection. The book is premised on
the idea that philosophy of education, a traditional field of research and
teaching associated with most schools of education around the world, needs
to address the philosophical implications of the topic of neuroscience and
education. As educational research and the practices of teaching keep up
with developments in neuroscience, education, and teacher training, it is
important for philosophers of education to give philosophical appraisals of
this emerging application of neuroscience to education. The book draws on
the skills and expertise of philosophers of education to give a conceptual
appraisal of neuroscience in education and the possibilities that it might
offer to the philosophy of education. The present volume is one of the first
forays into that conversation. There are currently no books, either edited
volumes or monographs, in which philosophers of education focus on the
interconnections between neuroscience and education.
N euroscience and Education: A Philosophical Appraisal is a philosophical commentary on the interconnections between neuroscience and
education. There are two main themes in the book. The first engages in a
critique of aspects of neuroscience in educational research as well as problematic connections between neuroscience and educational practices. The
second involves thinking creatively with neuroscience research to frame
educational conceptualizing and educational practices in novel ways. Both
of these themes run through all the essays. H owever, some focus more on
critique and others more on possibilities. The book is therefore divided into
two parts: Critique and Possibilities. I will give a brief synopsis of each
chapter in the two sections.
The essays in the first section of the book focus primarily on developing
specific criticisms of neuroscience in its relation to education. These include
a critical look at the economic reasons driving the M ind-Brain Education
movement, albeit disguised as the science of cognitive psychology; a critique
of educators offering simple solutions connecting neuroscience to education
when the relation is actually complex; and an analysis of the interpretive pitfalls of reading neuroscience research for education, including its pervasive
educational neuromyths. In addressing these concerns, the chapters are not
merely critical but also offer creative alternative approaches for situating
neuroscience in educational research and practice, including non-reductionist
models drawing from Dewey and phenomenology. Further, two extended
models developed in the section are based on the analyses of human experiences offered by phenomenological philosophers such as M artin H eidegger
and M erleau-Ponty, as well as on the radical embodiment perspective of
recent phenomenologists and cognitive theorists.
E
Wi i
n P
s n i h chapter opens the first section. They
begin by pointing out that one of the major challenges facing those working
in the field of educational neuroscience today is to bridge the gap between
knowledge about neuronal activity in the brain (or specific brain regions)
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Clarence W. Joldersma
and our everyday cognitive human activities, such as learning. Their point
is that there seems to be a category mistake, where scholars talk about what
the brain does, when it ought to be about what a person does. What remains
to be developed in their view is an educational neuroscience today with a
different model of the relation between mind and brain. They acknowledge
that their concern is not new and that the relation has been a key concern
within the field of neuroscience more broadly for some time. A number
of neuroscientists have looked to philosophy to address this issue, including particularly the philosophical understanding of consciousness. In that
context, Williams and Standish draw on Peter H ackers arguments in his
challenge to what he terms the consciousness community and their adherence to a mutant form of Cartesianism. Williams and Standish outline
H ackers critique of the current predominant conception of consciousness
and suggest it is persuasive in its criticism of the consciousness communitys
commitment to a faulty (yet long-standing) metaphysic. The authors then
build on H ackers challenge to neuroscientific accounts of consciousness and
the mind. In particular, they show that H ackers challenge can be extended
and developed in certain positive ways that he himself overlooks. Drawing
upon the analyses of human experiences offered by M artin H eidegger and
Ludwig Wittgenstein, they work to develop an account of the mind that
goes beyond the predominant conception of consciousness in both its reductionist and non-reductivist forms. Through this, the authors open the way
to a re-consideration of the relation between mind and brain. They argue
that their account not only has significant implications for the project of
educational neuroscience as a whole but also for pointing toward a better
understanding of teaching and learning.
In the next chapter, P
s e e focuses on the rhetoric of neuroscience
in its attractiveness for educational research and practice. H e acknowledges
that neuroscience is hot, that there are a growing number of academic
positions, research projects, and fields with high expectations about neurosciences application to education. To situate his argument, he briefly
surveys a variety of reflections by leading scholars on the nature of this
sub-discipline and approach, together with insights on how the findings are
relevant for various educational contexts. Smeyers develops a meta-analysis
of these findings and highlights criticisms by several philosophers of education of this move in education. H e argues that the tempting rhetoric of what
he calls the believers reveals more about what neuroscience possibly could
offer than what it actually has to offer. Drawing numerous examples from
the themed issue of Educational Philosophy and Theory edited by Patten
and Campbell (discussed in the beginning of this chapter), he relates that
despite warnings from leading colleagues in the field of neuroscience and
from some psychologists, educational researchers continue to believe in its
potential for the educational context. Smeyers thus is interested in exposing this blind faith by identifying the flaws in the so-called arguments and
by interpreting more generally the position the believers embrace. As an
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alternative, he argues that a more balanced approach, one that invokes the
particularities of the situation as well as a broader concept of practical rationality, is required for the study of education. This means, he believes, that
educational researchers should reclaim their territory and thereby do justice
to their responsibility in this area. This could be done in part by highlighting the importance of understanding social practices in terms of reasons and
intentions. Smeyers suggests that although researchers and practitioners rely
upon various sorts of knowledge, one of which he draws from Wittgenstein
in particular is important, something he calls knowing how to go on. H e
acknowledges that this invokes something that is different from what one
normally understands by knowledge but that, nevertheless, it is strategically crucial in reclaiming the territory for education. H is overall concern is
that because education is complex, the scholarly discipline addressing this
field should resist the many simple solutions connecting neuroscience and
education, however tempting they may be.
B ce m we n E ic r cine chapter is next. Their interest is the
interpretive pitfalls involved in reading neuroscience research, in particular
for its application to social practices, such as teaching or parenting. M axwell and Racine offer two examples of transferring neuroscience knowledge
to social practices. Their goal is to uncover ways of tempering the general
over-enthusiasm for, and unexamined acceptance of, neurosciences applications to everyday educational practices. Their first case, which at first glance
isnt as explicitly neuroscientific as one might expect, concerns what they
call behavioral ethics, namely, moral reasoning. H ere they draw on cognitive
science research in the area of moral behavior, arguing that this research challenges the commonsense idea that ethical behavior is, and should be, based
in conscious moral reasoning. Rather, this approach suggests that unethical
behavior is largely from influences outside of the moral agents conscious
control, situated rather in cognitive biases and situatedness that operates
more at a subconscious level, concluding that teaching moral reasoning is
not effective nor desirable as part of education. This example, broadly speaking, draws on research in neuropsychology. M axwell and Racine develop a
critique of this approach, arguing that its emphasis on instruction in ethical
blind spots of moral behavior comes up short, and that more deliberate
moral reasoning still has a crucial place in education. Their second case
study draws more explicitly on neuroscience research. In it they examine
the potential for neuroscientific evidence to change the way parents might
raise their children. They do so by looking at a set of evidence-based practices called responsive parenting. The critique emerging from this example
includes the idea that we need to distinguish levels of knowledge, understand
the nature of neuroscientific evidence, recognize that some applications of
neuroscience to parenting can have negative consequences, and that we
need to question the uncritical public trust in neuroscience and its quick
translation into social practices. With this example, they want to establish
respect for levels of empirical evidence, the appropriateness of applying such
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evidence in educational settings, possible negative effects of improper applications, and the role of public trust in such applications. Their overall aim
is not to dismiss neuroscience research in education. Rather, when the limits
of neuroscience research are appreciated, and especially when brain-level
research is conducted in close consultation with research in other social
sciences, they suggest the potential is great for neuroscience to contribute
in meaningful ways to a better understanding of teaching and learning processes and to improving practice and policy in education. But their caution
is that, as educational neurosciences record shows, when these conditions
are not met, the marriage of education and neuroscience can lead to shortsighted approaches and direct harm to children, youth, and their families.
d e n B e chapter continues the critique section of the book, with
a chapter that focuses particularly on the interplay between neurosciences
reductionism and its commercialization. H e begins with an exploration of
the recent fascination with neuroscience. H is argument is that neuroscience,
including particularly its application to education, is separated from history and philosophy but is cast in technological, biological, and cognitive
terms. H is goal is to resituate neuroscience within Deweyan pragmatism.
The first part of the chapter sketches out this approach, including overviews
of pragmatism, neopragmatism, and the recent neuropragmatism. In the
second part of the chapter, he sketches out neuroscience, neuropsychology,
and the M ind-Brain Education movement (M BE). H is (somewhat controversial) claim is that M BE has a commercial subtext, including particularly
the idea that following evidence-based practices will enhance educations
administrative controla domestication or taming function. H is point is
that neuroscience evidence used in schooling is a political act. H e states
that they do so by reducing what teaching and learning mean to physical
and behavioral phenomena in laboratory settingshis reductionism thesis.
Boyles response to such reductive moves is to argue for a revised understanding of classical pragmatism and neopragmatism, developing something
he calls neuropragmatism. H e concludes that this is the most defensible way
to situate neuroscience in the realm of authentic and generative education.
The sections concluding chapter, written by C ence J e
, continues Boyless theme by connecting the application of recent developments in
neuroscience to education and the ideology of neoliberalism. H is argument
is that especially popular understandings of neuroscience can easily be coopted by the political ideology of neoliberalism. The chapter begins with a
short sketch of neoliberalism and its connection to education. Joldersma
characterizes neoliberalism as, at first glance, a vision of reducing the size
of government through market-based approaches. H owever, he argues, as a
vision, it is also an ethics to guide human behavior, one of functioning as a
rationally self-interested subject obligated to accept the risks of participating
in market exchanges. Following M ichael Peters, he calls this responsibilizing the self, something he connects to Foucaults idea of governmentality.
As an ideology, he outlines, this appears in education in the ideology of
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and developing a more dynamic idea of mind and cognition to address problems with representationalism.
The first chapter of the books second section, written by d e ek s nke n m ink n Ki , is in the educational area of moral education. The
authors argue that neuroscience can both inform and misinform the educational task of cultivating moral values, contending that educators should
view neuroscience with critical eyes. The authors begin with a caution
against proliferating neuromyths in education and the use of neuroscience
to support pet theories in ways that can appear highly contrived. They also
criticize neuroscience in its adherence to hard determinism and ontological
reductionism. H owever, the main focus of the chapter is their use of neuroscience for uncovering the biological origins of moral values and exploring
the nature of moral intuition. Educationally, the authors emphasis is on cultivating moral values, rather than instilling moral norms, teaching children
to be good, or with relativistic values clarification. They define moral values
in terms of guiding principles, beliefs, and sensitivities, and it is these they
say need to be cultivated in education, both consciously and subconsciously,
involving both reason and intuition. Further, they have conceived the educational task as enhancing moral connoisseurship. Their conclusion is that
moral judgment is always a form of connoisseurship, whether it involves
reasoned deliberation and/or intuition, and whether it occurs consciously
or subconsciously. Biology ensures that living creatures are born with the
necessary equipment to care for and cooperate with others. H umans develop
a set of guiding principles and beliefs that form a remembered backdrop for
our thoughts and actions. H owever, what humans think and do in any given
situation results from a sense of what is best and what is not so good, what
is right and not right. These are acts of tacit discernment that can be refined
and cultivated through constant practice and rehearsal. In that sense, the
authors argue, moral development is emergent and self-organizing; that it
is highly dynamic, variable, context-sensitive, and somewhat unpredictable.
This does not make the educational task of cultivating moral values easy.
Instead, the authors provide a model of moral development that is complex
and always in flux, developmental but often not predictable, and thats the
educational challenge.
The next chapter, by P eep d hi n, focuses on aesthetics and language,
exploring the neuroscientific basis of music and language learning. She
begins with an exploration of John Deweys central place for rhythm in his
aesthetic theory. She argues that he refuses the idea of rhythm being unique
to the temporal artssuch as musicas opposed to the spatial arts, such
as painting and sculpture. In contrast to theorists such as Susanne Langer,
she argues that Dewey insists that our aesthetic practice is tied intimately
to our materiality. She then moves beyond Deweys larger claims to explore
research within neuroscience on rhythm, in what are considered the separate
but related domains of language and music. This research, she says, goes
some ways toward supporting Dewey. While neuroscience cannot yet tell us
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Clarence W. Joldersma
nature of the brain and its functioning. Lewis argues that contemporary
neuroscience on the whole supports Deweys philosophy of mind, emphasizing the brains plastic nature and its malleability. For another, if we move
beyond the flexibility model inherited from Dewey and now given scientific
legitimacy by neuroscientific research, new possibilities emerge for education. If the brain can undergo transformations as M alabou suggests, this
suggests that education might act as a catalyst for events. And, Lewis asks, if
it can, should it? H e ends by addressing what it might mean if radical education is, on the level of the brain, a traumatic experience and if so, what are
the ethics of an education that provokes such trauma.
The next chapter in this section, by C ence J e
, develops an alternative philosophical model of mind, one that he suggests is more adequate
for understanding possible contributions of neuroscience to education. H e
begins with a critique of the philosophical model of mind that typically
frames our understanding of cognitive science, neuroscience, and the application of neuroscience to education. Joldersma argues that in the emerging
field of neuroeducation, there is an implicit set of philosophical assumptions about the relation between mind and brain, one that in traditional
cognitive science is termed a representational theory of mind. H e enters
the discussion through John Bruers recent neuroscientific construal of
learning in terms of neural correlates to mental representations. Joldersma
spends the first part of the chapter developing an argument that a representationalist approach is inadequate to the task and then introduces another
philosophical perspective, that of radical embodiment. Radical embodiment involves the idea that we cannot understand the brain and mind in
isolation from the body and its environment. The chapter develops this
perspective by interpreting brain states as fundamentally involving dynamic
sensorimotor coupling of the lived body and its surroundings, rather than
being construed as rule-based computations over abstract symbols (mental representations). Drawing especially on philosopher Evan Thompsons
groundbreaking book, Mind in Life, the chapter describes an enactive
approach to cognition based in a radical embodiment approach. Rather
than the computational manipulation of mental representations, enactive
cognition involves something brought forth in the deliberate, intentional
interaction between a bodily subject and its world. M oreover, the chapter
draws on the phenomenological traditionincluding particularly M erleauPontyto construe such sensorimotor dynamics in terms of a lived body,
i.e., as a bodily subject that responds to situations in the world. The chapter briefly turns to dynamic systems theory as well as to J. J. Gibsons idea
of affordances to model how the bodily subject generates and maintains
coherent patterns of activities in its interaction with the world. Learning is
subtended by the neural dynamics of sensorimotor coupling. Thus, on the
enactive approach, learning is fundamentally something humans do by an
extended process of skillful probing, one in which the world makes itself
available to the reach of the learner.
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N o t Es
1. Examples include H arvard, Stanford, M IT, Yale in the US; Cambridge, University College London, O xford in the UK; Dusseldorf, Z urich, Bonn, Gottingen,
Amsterdam, M ilan, Kaorlinska in continental Europe.
2. For example, the Society of Applied N euroscience and the Applied N euroscience
Society of Australasia.
3. This is evidenced by, if nothing else, the increasing number of educational
research centers: M ind, Brains and Education at H arvard; the N euro Education Initiative at Johns H opkins; Stanford Education N euroscience Program
at Stanford; the Centre for N euroscience in Education at the University of
Cambridge; Centre for Educational N euroscience at the Institute of Education, University College, London; the N eurocognitive Development Unit at
the University of Western Australia; N umerical Cognition Laboratory at the
University of Western O ntario (Canada); Center for N euroscience and Learning at the University of Ulm (Germany).
4. These include Vanderbilt University; Teachers College, Columbia; H arvard;
Stanford; Cambridge; O xford; VU University Amsterdam.
r EFEr EN CEs
Cozolino, Louis. 2013. The Social N euroscience of Education: O ptimizing Attachment and Learning in the Classroom. N ew York: W.W. N orton & Company.
Della Sala, Sergio, and M ike Anderson. 2012. N euroscience in Education: The
G ood, the Bad, and the Ugly. O xford: O xford University Press.
H oward-Jones, Paul A. 2010. Introducing N euroeducational Research: N euroscience, Education and the Brain from Contexts to Practice. London and N ew York:
Routledge.
H oward-Jones, Paul A. 2012. Education and N euroscience: Evidence, Theory and
Practical Application. reprint. London: Routledge.
Patten, Kathryn E., and Stephen R. Campbell, eds. 2011. Educational N euroscience:
Initiatives and Emerging Issues. H oboken, N J: Wiley.
Sousa, David A., ed. 2011. Educational N euroscience. Thousand O aks, CA: Corwin.
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