language: definition and metaphor

issue: 01601/2 mssnr: SPED 16s-9 pipsnr: 111665

Language: Definition and Metaphor

ROBIN BARROW

Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada

ABSTRACT: This paper argues that there is an urgent need for philosophers to convince education-alists of the practical value and the necessity of the philosophical task, particularly analysis. Thenature of philosophical analysis is outlined in terms of the criteria of clarity, coherence, complete-ness and compatibility, which, it is argued, in turn lead to a degree of commonality. The tendency tosubstitute metaphor or analogy for analysis in argument is then considered, with illustrative refer-ence to the idea of teaching as a craft. In the final section, it is suggested that resort to analogy ismerely one example of a more general tendency to distance ourselves from the task of coming togrips with what is actually our field of interest, namely education.

I. INTRODUCTION

In this paper I want to pursue a line of argument on the broad and importanttheme of talking sense about education, with a focus on the use of metaphor. Iwant to suggest, in outline, that we often don’t talk sense about education,because we avoid talking about education directly at all, protecting ourselves bya whole variety of distancing strategies, including resort to metaphor, metathe-ory, and mere opacity.

But first, I should like to say how pleasant it is to have this opportunity toexpress my respect for so distinguished a scholar as Israel Scheffler. Thedifficulty in such a case as this usually lies in finding either something that theindividual one is honoring manifestly got wrong and against which one feelsimpelled to argue, or something that he clearly got right but which one couldprofitably take further. In this paper, I want to suggest that in his otherwise lucidand elegant book The Language of Education – who else these days appreciatesthat one should write “sorts of reason” rather than “sort of reasons” or “sorts ofreasons”? – Professor Scheffler is altogether too sanguine and accommodating tometaphor, slogan, and analogy.1

It is important to stress that I do not take issue with what Scheffler says onthis topic. My concern is that more should be said, though I dare say the impor-tance of this has become more marked since The Language of Education wasfirst published, since the use of metaphor and analogy, particularly in the inap-propriate context of the learned journal or scholarly article, has become morepronounced and is taken more seriously than it perhaps was in 1960.2

It is also important to note that in fact Scheffler himself has said more on thistopic, notably in Beyond the Letter.3 But in that book, Scheffler’s concern is toanalyse the notion and function of metaphor rather than to assess its utility in thespecific context of rational argument, as I wish to do. In carrying out his task he

Studies in Philosophy and Education 16: 113–124, 1997.© 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

does of course speak to the question of what metaphor can and cannot do (itsrepertoire, one might say), and the respects in which it is more or less telling.But, again, his interest is in the issue of metaphor generally, whereas I am con-cerned only about rational arguments within the domain of educational theory.In fact, therefore, his account, which is predicated on the complexity and ambi-guity of metaphor (indeed, the section on metaphor arises out of a discussion onthe other two concepts), potentially lends support to my contention here that weshould eschew the use of metaphor in this particular context, although he makesno such suggestion. He does make the point, in respect of “the uses of metaphorin . . . investigative or theoretical spirit”, that “what is often involved is theexploratory or heuristic function of comparison”, and he suggests that a meta-phor may serve as an “invitation” or “challenge” “to find or invent a significantdescription”.4 This, I think, is true and should certainly be accounted as one ofthe potential values of the use of metaphor. However, the dangers of metaphor interms of giving rise to misunderstanding and confusion, many of which arerecognised, implicitly or explicitly, in Scheffler’s study, remain. More to theimmediate point, my contention is a more specific one that, as it happens,Scheffler did not directly address.

II. THE NATURE OF PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS

Scheffler’s opening chapter on definitions is a model of its kind, not only in theclear distinctions drawn between different kinds of definition, but also and moreimportantly in its sure touch in relation to the perennially vexing issue of theextent to which what he terms a “programmatic” definition on the one hand isbound by unavoidable constraints and, on the other, is a matter of stipulation.His discussion goes to the heart of the question “what is philosophical analy-sis?”, and offers a succinct and persuasive answer.5 Yet the sad truth appears tobe that the commonsense contained in this chapter – more considerate to thereader and more straightforward than his equally illustrious contemporaryRichard Peters’ remarks on the topic – has not become a commonplace of edu-cational theory.6 Indeed, to some extent, the undeniable decline in the practicalinfluence of philosophy of education over the intervening thirty years may beattributed to the fact that outsiders still almost invariably misunderstand thenature, and hence the point, of such analysis. (Not a few philosophers also seemeither to misunderstand it or, for some reason best known to themselves, to wishto play some other game such as sociology or neo-Marxism. Not that there’smuch new about neo-Marxism these days.) What, to some of us at least, seemsthe self-evident and crucial importance of analysis (or, in Scheffler’s terms, aproperly articulated and understood “programmatic definition”) is naturallygoing to be missed by those who variously think that philosophers aim to revealthe eternal given meaning of terms, that they define ideas by reference to a tax-onomy of the words used to refer to them, that all meanings are personal, subjec-tive and idiosyncratic in the manner of Lewis Carroll’s Humpty Dumpty, or anynumber of other misconceived assumptions. Had those who think in any of these

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ways (whether they explicitly assert the fact or, as is more common, act, writeand research in ways that only make sense on such an assumption) read ChapterOne of The Language of Education with care and understanding, we would allhave been saved a lot of trouble and a lot of unnecessary research and theorising.

So important is the matter, that, notwithstanding the fact that in one form oranother it has been said before, in recent years I have returned repeatedly to theissue, taking the view that the two most important things that need to be done ineducation are to give all teachers, researchers, and scholars in the field an ade-quate understanding of the nature and purpose of analysis, and to then ensure thatthat understanding informs their theorizing, research, and practical judgment.7

In brief I have argued for: i) The need to distinguish between words and concepts. ii) The need to recognise that the philosopher’s task (or, if one prefers to avoid

prescription and stipulation here, an important task) is to come to grips withconcepts. Studying language, ordinary or otherwise (whatever the term“ordinary” may be supposed to mean), may be a most useful means to thatend, but that is all it is – a means, not an end, so far as analysing conceptsgoes.8

iii) The need to recognise that the question of the truth or falsity of a conceptdoes not arise. If I hold a certain conception of education, I hold it and thatis that. I may, perhaps, be accused of using the word wrongly – if, forexample, I equate “education” with what others call “indoctrination”; buthere we are in the realm of what Scheffler calls descriptive definitions. Myconception may be incoherent in various ways (see below), it may be a con-ception of something that others do not value (it may receive a negativeanswer to what Scheffler calls “the practical question”), and there may be allmanner of other objections to it. But what I have not yet found successfullyargued, and what I frankly cannot conceive, is that it could be meaningful toquestion not whether the word “education” means what others characteriseas “indoctrination” (a verbal question), but whether education truly is orisn’t indoctrination (a conceptual question). The history of thought and prac-tice is of course littered with concepts which we may say have beenrejected, but that is not because they were false. It is because in some way oranother they did not answer to our purpose.9

iv) The need to recognise, however, that the previous point does not entail thefurther point that you can entertain any concept or that there are no rules togovern the forming of concepts. It does not follow from the observation thatit is meaningless to ask whether a concept is true or false, that one’s concep-tual armoury is entirely arbitrary.10

v) The need to recognise, in positive terms, that one may talk of good or badconceptions (in the sense of being more or less well conceived) or, perhapsmore naturally, of subtle, acute, reasonable, commanding, persuasive, orthorough conceptions (and their opposites). In short the issue of the qualityof a concept arises, even though the issue of its truth does not. I have arguedthat the criteria that govern the quality of a concept may conveniently besummarised as the 4 c’s: clarity, completeness, coherence, and compatibil-

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ity. Nobody, I think, will dispute that, if my conception of education (oranything else) is to be respected, it must be clearly articulated, in the sensethat it must be couched in terms that avoid ambiguity, ambivalence, opaque-ness, etc. Equally, it is fairly obvious that an adequate account of a conceptmust also involve adequate elucidation of any further terms introduced toexplain the first. Thus, if an educated person is defined partly in terms ofknowledge, some comprehensible account of knowledge is further needed.That is an example of what I mean by striving for completeness. Coherencerefers to the sorts of logical consideration that we ideally expect in anyaccount of anything: the articulation of the concept must not involve, forexample, contradiction. I use the term coherence to refer to the inherentconsistency and orderliness of the conception. The final c, compatibility,refers to external coherence or the consistency of one’s conception withone’s wider world of understanding. Thus, if, for example, one is known tovalue education, one’s conception must turn out to be something that onedoes in fact value. If one’s conception of something concrete, such as gun-powder, is to be acceptable it must be compatible with the facts of thematter (e.g., gunpowder is highly flammable). (I may say in passing that Ithink a very useful exercise that somebody might undertake would be toclassify concepts according to some schema that brings out the varyingimportance of different c’s in different cases, and the different form thatthey may take. Clearly, for example, the question of the compatibility of anabstract idea such as justice leads to a different kind of response than onewould expect in respect of a notion such as rock. But a natural substancesuch as rock may yield a different kind of analysis, in terms of relativeweighting, than a construct such as cement.)11

vi) The need to see that, if it is accepted that philosophical analysis is essen-tially a matter of the individual articulating the ideas or concepts that he orshe in fact entertains, as clearly, completely, coherently, and compatibly aspossible, it follows that most (if not all) of the objections to the activity dis-appear and its practical value becomes manifest. One major and tediouslylong-lived set of twin objections certainly disappears: we are not caughtbetween, on the one hand, a Scylla that suggests we are mistakenly claimingto tell the world what justice, education, and so forth are, in some absolutesense transcending time, place, and particularity, and, on the other, the evenmore terrible Charybdis that suggests that everything is as you see it, andthat there is no way of judging between your idiosyncratic and my equallyidiosyncratic but quite different conception. The fact is that concern for the4 c’s is in itself sufficient to steer us through: for, on the one hand there isno eternally correct answer to the genuinely conceptual question “What iseducation?”, but, on the other the criteria of clarity, completeness, coherenceand compatibility will ensure a 5th c–a degree of commonality, becauseboth logic and contingency will prevent any of us going down some roads,steer all of us down others, and generally ensure that we end up with similarperceptions of our world.

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We ask ourselves “what is it to be educated?” or “what is education?” Certainly,it is possible that some people will answer the question in terms that indicatethat by the word “education” they are referring to some quite different idea thanwe are. But if we are all broadly referring to the same idea (perhaps, the notionof the mental and moral development of the individual), then we can share whatScheffler calls a descriptive definition (roughly, a statement of the history of thisword and an account of its current usage). Such a description will no doubt helpus to clarify and articulate our conception, but it cannot be allowed to dictate it.What must dictate are the 4 c’s, and once we have articulated a clear, complete,coherent account of our view of the ideal manner of ensuring the mental andmoral development of the individual that is as a whole compatible with what weotherwise believe and value, we have a conception that is to be defended assuch. It is to be defended because it is, by definition, valued in our world.

The value of such an exercise is surely self-evident, and one can only assumethat those who sneer at the value of analysis (whether avowedly philosophers,such as McIntyre, or not, such as Egan)12 simply don’t understand what it is (or,in alternative parlance, are attacking something else, which is fine, except thatthat something else is not being defended by anyone, so far as I know). For, if ananalysis of education is an articulation of the idea that is thus elaborated, it mustbe of practical importance as the driving engine in our practice and research.Conversely, the reason that we can say that much current “educational” practiceand research is literally beside the point is that it does not fit with such a concep-tion of education.

In this section I have summarised my own view of the nature of philosophicalanalysis, a view which is more detailed than that articulated in The Language ofEducation but entirely compatible with it. I have done so on the grounds thateducationalists generally seem remarkably ignorant of what exactly is involvedin analysis, which may account in part for the widespread failure to recognise itsvital practical importance. Surely, the single most important reason for thefailure to talk sensibly about education (to conduct relevant research, to proceedappropriately in the classroom) remains the failure to carry out the conceptualwork adequately. That is to say, the opacity to which I referred in my openingparagraph, not to mention the muddle, the wrong headedness, the falsity, and thesheer irrelevance of much educational research is a direct consequence of afailure to come to grips with the field directly, the “distancing” being the resultof an inability to clarify the central concepts. In the next section I want to focuson one specific way of inadvertently distancing ourselves from the very businesswe are trying to understand: resorting to metaphor.

III. METAPHOR

It will be noted that in the previous section I have more than once usedmetaphorical language (e.g., “driving engine”, “going down roads”). Yet I nowwant to suggest that, while Scheffler’s account of educational slogans and



metaphors is an unexceptionable piece of analysis, it is potentially dangerous inrespect of educational language (hence thought, hence practice) in that it doesnot sufficiently alert us to the undesirability of engaging in such language use atall in the context of serious thought and debate.

Of course good things can be, and have been, said about such language, so Ihad better acknowledge some of them straight away.13 Metaphor can illuminate,can seize the imagination, and provoke the mind. In general terms, I would denyneither the intrinsic attractiveness of such language nor its possible utility as akick-start (note again the metaphor) to one’s thought. In any case, I should stressagain that I am talking about a specific and limited context (intellectual debateor argument), and add that, as my frequent use of brief metaphorical languageindicates, I am not seeking to purge language of metaphor, even in this context. Idoubt if that would be practicable, and it is not my concern. I am taking issuewith the practice of using metaphor and analogy as major planks in argument. Itis, for example, the suggestion that we view teaching as a craft that concerns me,not the incidental use of an image taken from the potter; it is the suggestion thatwe should view human intelligence on the model of a computer that is worrying,not the occasional references to “input and output” (ugly as that may be).

In a sense, even here, I am more in agreement with Scheffler than mightappear. He, after all, drew attention to the distinction between the literal andpractical import of slogans, and concluded that if a slogan such as “we teachchildren, not subjects” is meant to be a rallying cry to remind us all of the cen-trality of the student, that is one thing, but if it is taken literally it is preposterousand quite unhelpful. (Sure we teach children, but what do we teach them?). Butit seems to me that (quite apart from the fact that such a message still needs tobe got across), for whatever reasons, slogans are less common today, whereasmetaphor and analogy, which Scheffler seemed less concerned about, are nowmuch more prevalent and are doing damage (or at any rate do have practicalconsequences). In any case, the slogan is often only the battle-cry for a view thatis equally well represented by analogy or metaphor. Thus, the child-centeredmovement that rallied behind the cry “we teach children, not subjects,” was (is)also committed to a view of education that insists it is analogous to cultivating agarden (often contrasted in the past with filling a bucket.)

Let me attempt to articulate my main concerns about the use of simile,metaphor and analogy in the context of rational theorising about education.

We are trying to talk about something – let us say, education – which weacknowledge we imperfectly understand. That imperfect understanding refershere not to a lack of complete knowledge on how most effectively to achieveends, but to a lack of a clear and agreed notion of what it is we are referring to,what it is we want to achieve. One of the prime functions of metaphor, simile,and analogy, however, is to illuminate in a fresh light what is alreadyunderstood. The Assyrian is not said to come down “like the wolf on the fold” inorder to make clearer to us the imperfectly understood idea of an attack. On thecontrary the precise force lies in the (then) fresh image being used of a familiaridea: to say the warrior attacked is perfectly comprehensible, but to liken him to

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a wolf attacking the sheep adds vividness and particularity (though it would beinteresting to know how many readers take the sheep reference to heart whenreading this passage). When the epic poets talk of wine-dark sea, when wholepassages of narrative are presented in such a way as to suggest sexual activity,and so forth, what is happening is that a familiar or readily comprehended situa-tion is being given particular form, shape, or colour, for one or more of manydifferent reasons, by the use of a particular analogy, metaphor, or simile.

At the heart of this contingent point surely lies a logical point: a metaphor oran analogy can only do its work, can only function, if both sides of the equation,so to speak, are understood. Any reader who did not know what an equation wascould not understand my previous sentence, but equally any reader who knewabout equations, but had no idea what a metaphor or analogy was, couldn’teither. If on the other hand both sides of the equation are understood, it is notclear what can be gained in terms of clarity of understanding by introducing themetaphor.14

As an example, let us focus on the tolerably well-known idea that teachingshould be viewed as a craft.15 The first problem with this kind of talk (and Idon’t think it makes any difference to my concern how precisely it is phrased) isthat it is ambiguous as between being metaphorical or literal. Is the claim thatteaching should be viewed as (on the model of) a craft (i.e. that the teacher isanalogous to the potter), or that it is, in a straightforward literal descriptivemanner, a species of craft? The distinction is vitally important, as has recentlybeen argued by Val Overgaard.16 In the first place, the claim that it is a species ofcraft can be assessed as true or false, whereas the suggestion that it is like a craftcannot in the same way, and metaphorical allusions to the teacher as craftsmancannot very easily be assessed at all in terms of truth. In the second place, if it isclaimed that it is a species of craft, then we are clearly being told somethinggeneral about it (it is of the genus craft), but equally clearly we are not beingtold anything specific (what species of craft? what kind of craft?) It may, or maynot, be like plumbing, or weaving, or pottery, or what have you. If on the otherhand it is an analogy or metaphor, we are being told that it is like some aspect ofpottery or whatever. This brings us to the third problem: obviously it isn’t like,say, weaving in all respects or it would be weaving. So what craft(s) is it likeand in what respects? Fourthly, how does one assess the plausibility of themetaphor except by getting a thorough understanding of teaching in and ofitself?

It may be said in answer to all of the above that it is a matter of degree. Toliken teaching to something else can be useful, if one has a partial understandingof both, and thereby one can improve one’s perception of both. The idea is toshake people out of seeing teaching as, say, a matter of feeding information intomachines by suggesting that it is more like a craft, which, whether one thinks ofpottery, weaving, or whatever, will lead one to think in terms of knowledge thatcannot necessarily be articulated but that can be seen to be innate, in that thepotter acts consciously in certain ways rather than others and consequently pro-duces pots of quality.



Up to a point this is comprehensible. But only up to a point. The need to havereverted to a metaphor seems here to have been occasioned by the need toescape another one. But what in either case are we learning? What are wegaining? Teaching is not ultimately like anything. It is what it is. When we havefully understood precisely what it actually is, it may be amusing, enlivening,aesthetically pleasing, or whatever, to compare it with the act of weaving, butprior to that there seem to be no criteria for determining in what respects theanalogy holds. The point to emphasise, perhaps, is that education, being so con-tested a concept, is a very poor place to resort to metaphor, since it is the uncer-tainty of one part of the equation that makes the interpretation and evaluation ofthe metaphor difficult.

A claim that a certain practice is harmful to our thinking is obviously notsomething that can be satisfactorily substantiated by simple and unequivocalempirical (or, in this case, any other) means. I must hope to impress upon thereader the implausibility of the idea of any increase in our precise understandingof a complex human activity such as teaching being afforded by resorting tocomparison with other imprecisely and imperfectly understood complex activi-ties, when the putative points of comparison are not even clear. I repeat that I amnot advocating an end to metaphor even in the context of education. But I amsuggesting that to seek to arrive at some thorough understanding of the nature ofteaching by suggesting that it is like something else is perverse in the extreme.And this remains so whether we say that teaching is analogous to X, is like X, orsimply is X, and whether X itself is easy to comprehend (in which case it ishighly unlikely to be an adequate metaphor) or difficult. If the point of seeingteaching as a craft is, for example, to draw attention to the idea that both pottersand teachers often, perhaps generally, proceed without articulating, perhapswithout being able to articulate, their reasons for proceeding thus, then it wouldbe far better to make that point explicitly about teaching. In that way, we canthen proceed immediately to the crucially important questions of in what senseand in what respects it is true, and what it signifies, without being mesmerisedby the analogy into thinking that anything useful or important has yet been said.We can also avoid the time-consuming task of inquiring in what sense teachingis a craft, since in a variety of ways it plainly isn’t. (There is something paradox-ical, for example, about Tom’s efforts to establish the craft metaphor, whilehaving to laboriously acknowledge and set aside the common notion of a craft,which would see the ends of the activity as fairly uncontentious, since teachingis clearly an activity defined largely in terms of ends that are as a matter of facthotly disputed. Notwithstanding the care with which Tom writes, I am surely notalone in being tempted to exclaim as I read him: but then teaching isn’t like acraft, so what on earth is this all about?)17

A further disquieting feature of metaphorical and suchlike language is that itcan actively mislead (as in fact I have already implied is the case with thinkingof teaching as a craft). Take, for example, the cliché “No smoke without a fire.”This, though it is not in fact literally the case that you cannot have smokewithout a fire, has at least a general plausibility as a claim in the physical realm

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where it belongs. That is to say, if you see a certain kind of smoke billowingfrom the windows of your house, you would be wise to assume that the place ison fire and act accordingly. But when transposed figuratively, as it so often is, tothe realm of rumour, the notion that there is no smoke without a fire is positivelydistortive: it is simply not the case that wherever ugly rumour arises there isalways some nasty truth behind it. By thinking in terms of the cant phrase “nosmoke without a fire”, with its plausibility in the literal context, we actually con-tribute to the belief that there is no rumour without substance, which is non-sense, and we know it as soon as we think of it in these terms.

What we have to face up to, as John Wilson has also argued in his recent bookReflection and Practice, is that teachers are as unlike doctors, engineers, orlawyers, on the one hand, as they are unlike horse-riders, sailors, potters orothers with some kind of practical knowledge on the other.18 We have to get togrips with education as a sui generis activity. For instance, the question ofwhether teaching is a profession (which is important because we want to be seenas, and gain the advantages of being seen as, professionals), depends not upondrawing parallels (dubious or otherwise) between ourselves and other groupsthat are seen as professional, but upon determining in the abstract what a profes-sion is (what constitutes being a professional) and then matching our conduct tothe criteria.

Despite my argument, I would not, I think, go to the trouble of making thiscriticism of the extensive use of metaphor, simile, and analogy in supposedlyserious educational discourse, if I did not see it as merely one particular form ofdistancing. What worries me ultimately is how much time we spend not talkingdirectly about education or talking misleadingly about it. One way of avoidingthe challenge of a full and adequate analysis of the concept is to spend timedrawing imperfect analogies.

IV. CONCLUSION

What links the above comments is a firm belief that precision in language andthought is vital. An age in which, in something like ten years, a term of approba-tion such as “elite” can become a term of opprobriousness is one in which it isnecessary to take care.19 An age in which people have forgotten or never learntthe difference between “inferring” and “implying” is one that is losing some ofits ability to make distinct points succinctly and making the business of commu-nication more difficult. An age in which people truly find it instructive to dwellupon the similarity of the potter and the teacher is quite likely to end up with amedieval approach to education.

Not only are we often reluctant to confront concepts directly, we also, moregenerally, seem anxious to distance ourselves from educational questions by dintof retreating from theory to metatheory and by diverting our attention from edu-cational to social questions. Nobody would dispute a relevance to such activi-ties, but it may be thought disturbing nonetheless that educationalists spend so



much time thinking and arguing about how they should think and argue ratherthan in thinking and arguing about education. (As Marjorie Theobald recentlyremarked in the particular context of feminist scholarship: “it is symptomatic ofthe times that we are reading more and more about the process of writing femi-nist biography (and attending more and more conferences on the subject) andless and less about the lives of the women themselves.”)20 Similarly, arguingabout social ills such as poverty, racism, and violence, rather than focussing onproducing a clear vision of education and how to achieve it seems a worryingtrend in educational research.

It may seem ironic that I should be writing this at a time when there are thosewho argue explicitly for policing language, to whose position I am resolutelyopposed. But although I am arguing that we should increase our command oflanguage, and a fortiori respect various rules, I have no desire to impose theobligation to use language precisely on anyone. Besides, those who favour polit-ical correctness not only wish a) to impose rules of speech on others, they alsob) want to formulate the rules by reference to standards of moral acceptability,that are c) determined by them. Quite apart from my rejection of most of theirstandards, I would argue that there should be no legislation or other form ofmandating of language, that standards of morality should have no bearing onarguments about language form and that self-appointed minority groups shouldnot be the agency. I would further add that in a liberal-democracy the more weare allowed to say, the better, whatever it is that we want to say.21

But, while urging that view, I also urge that we educate people (most espe-cially educational researchers and theorists) to speak more plainly, and that thequality of rational debate be assessed by standards of clarity and logic. While itis presumably true that much of what we say about education today will becomeoutdated, because we didn’t know things or got facts wrong, there is nothingshameful in that. Where there is something shameful is in the fact that much ofwhat we say is ridiculous because it is conceptually confused or inadequate.

What I sometimes think of as the first generation of philosophers of education(although we might as reasonably go back to Plato) – e.g., Israel Scheffler,Richard Peters, and Paul Hirst – in fact did a far greater job than they are cur-rently credited for. They really did bring some sense into mush and nonsense,and they did articulate some very sound procedural principles for thinking.

Israel Scheffler’s The Language of Education was a book that embodied anapproach to educational thinking that is quite simply necessary, now as then.What, one might ask, went wrong? If this and similar works were so importantand well executed, why do we still suffer from poor educational theory? Perhapsit is the familiar story that “a little learning is a dang’rous thing . . . shallowdraughts intoxicate the brain”; perhaps, that is to say, all that people have reallytaken from this and other similar books are phrases and confusion – slogans, onemight say. To take but one central example: before 1960, few educational theo-rists even used the word “concept”. Today, of course, it is on everyone’s lips.But it is the word “concept”, not the concept of a concept, that has been grasped.It is as if readers had taken from Scheffler the message that defining your terms

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is important, but barely taken in a word of his discussion of the complex andvaried nature of definitions. Many researchers who refer firmly to the impor-tance of the conceptual issues clearly have a very imperfect idea of what a con-ceptual issue is, and no idea at all of how to deal with it.

The challenge for our time remains much the same as it was in 1960 althoughits form and context have changed. That challenge is for philosophers to per-suade others of the practical value and necessity of the philosophical task, par-ticularly analysis.22 The ability to philosophise in this sense is a necessarypreliminary to any serious handling of abstruse complex issues, even if they beempirical in nature. We need to teach people to discourse in a rational manner,and to that end we need once again to patiently articulate the nature of analysis,argue the vital role it has to play, and lay about us with the sword of reason tocut down the swathes of metaphor and analogy that infest our garden. Metaphor,like poetry, is something the enjoyment of which comes when we relax, andenjoyment of which has to be earned.

NOTES

1 Scheffler, I.: 1960 The language of education (Springfield, Illinois: Charles C. Thomas).2 Perhaps I should say “in the context of rational argument”, since that is really my point; I assumethat learned journals and scholarly articles are concerned with rational argument rather than othermodes of communication.3 Scheffler, I.: 1979 Beyond the letter: A philosophical inquiry into ambiguity, vagueness andmetaphor in language (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul).4 Ibid. p. 129.5 Something of what that answer is will become apparent as we proceed.6 E.g. Peters, R.S.: 1966 Ethics and education (London: Allen and Unwin).7 See, for example, Barrow, R., The philosophy of schooling, 1981 (Brighton, Sussex: Wheatsheaf);“Five commandments for the eighties”, in Barrow, R. (ed.) ‘Philosophy and education’, EducationalAnalysis Vol. 4, No. 1, 1982 (Sussex: Falmer Press); Giving teaching back to teachers, 1984(Brighton, Sussex: Wheatsheaf); “Analysis”, “Concept”, etc. in Barrow, R. and Milburn, G., A criti-cal dictionary of educational concepts, 1986, 2nd Ed. 1990 (Herts: Harvester Wheatsheaf);Language, intelligence and thought, 1993 (Hants: Edward Elgar), and “Philosophy of education: theanalytic tradition” in Husen T. and Postlethwaite, N. (eds.), The international encyclopedia of educa-tion, 2nd Ed., 1994 (Oxford: Pergamon).8 On this issue, see further Barrow, R., The philosophy of schooling, op. cit., and Graham, K.: 1977J.L. Austin: A critique of ordinary language philosophy (Hassocks, Sussex: Harvester).9 See further, Barrow, R.: 1993 Utilitarianism: a contemporary statement (Hants: Edward Elgar),and Language, intelligence, and thought, op. cit.10 Ibid. See also “Analysis”, op. cit. and “Philosophy of education: the analytic tradition”, op. cit.11 Ibid. See also “Does the question ‘What is education?’ make sense?” in Educational theory, 33,Nos. 3–4, 191–5 (1983) and “Misdescribing a cow: the question of conceptual correctness” inEducational Theory, 35, No. 2, 205–219, (1985) and rejoinders by Nordberg, R. and Wilson, J. inthe same volume.12 See, e.g. McIntyre, A., After virtue, 1981 (London: Duckworth), and my response in Utili-tarianism, op. cit. For Egan, K., on this topic, see, Education and psychology: Plato, Piaget, andscientific psychology, 1983 (New York: Teachers College Press).13 On metaphor, see, e.g. Black M., Models and metaphors: studies in language and philosophy,1962 (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press); Brown, R.H.: 1977 A poetic for sociology



(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); Egan, K. “Metaphors in Collision: objectives, assemblylines and stories” in Curriculum inquiry, 18; Rico, G., “Metaphor and knowing: analysis, synthesis,rationale”, unpublished doctoral dissertation, Stanford University. See also, of course, Scheffler’sBeyond the letter, op. cit. and the works referred to therein.14 It is perhaps worth stressing again that in my view most if not all the claims I make here would beacknowledged by Scheffler (and all the theorists whose positions he considers) and, indeed, manyother more detailed similar points could be culled from their work. My point is to draw a particularconclusion that they happened not to draw, for whatever reasons.15 See, e.g., Tom, A.R.: 1982 Teaching as a moral craft (New York: Longman).16 Overgaard, V., “Teaching conceived as a social practice”, unpublished doctoral dissertation,Simon Fraser University.17 Tom, A. R. op. cit.18 Wilson, J.: 1993 Reflection and practice: teacher education and the teaching profession (London,Ontario: Althouse Press).19 See Levin, B.: 1992 If you want my opinion (London: Jonathan Cape).20 Theobald, M.: 1992 “Writing women teachers’ lives”, ANZHES Conference Proceedings, 1991.21 See further, Barrow, R.: 1991 “Censorship and schooling” in Spiecker, B., and Straughan, R.(eds.), Freedom and indoctrination in education (London: Cassell).22 See further, Barrow, R.: 1994 “Philosophy of education: the analytic tradition” in Husen, T. andPostlethwaite, N., (eds.) The international encyclopedia of education; 2nd ed., Vol. 8 (Oxford:Pergamon).

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language: definition and metaphor

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