Research output per year
Research output per year
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
This essay reflects upon certain aspects of Wittgenstein's own practices as a teacher. Doing philosophy always took priority for Wittgenstein, whether this was in oral or written form: it was important to show the deep puzzles in our language (and our culture and thinking) as a step toward dissolving them. In this respect, one can teach only as a guide; it is a matter of showing more than saying. Wittgenstein's approach suggests a model that I will call tacit teaching. Tacit teaching refers to the many forms of informal instruction - some intentional, some unintentional, and some difficult to categorize simply as one or the other - by which skills, capacities, and dispositions are passed along within a domain of practice. Wittgenstein repeatedly uses the language of signposts, of wandering through a city, of being lost and finding one's way, of needing a guide, of learning how to go on by one's self, to refer to the complex web of knowledge and understanding that allows successful autonomous practice in some discipline: most pertinently, in the context of Wittgenstein's own teaching and writing, the discipline of doing philosophy, but with clear reference to teaching and learning in other complex and ill-structured domains as well.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 666-677 |
Number of pages | 12 |
Journal | Educational Philosophy and Theory |
Volume | 40 |
Issue number | 5 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2008 |
Research output: Contribution to journal › Special issue › peer-review