Articles and an Author's observations thereupon

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by Julian Stern

I am exercised by the use of the definite and indefinite articles.  (Perhaps I should exercise more, as this, and jumping to conclusions, is just about all I get.)  When I say ‘the use’, I mean ‘a use’.  I wrote a book, one with the title A Philosophy of Schooling: Care and Curiosity in Community.  ‘A’, not ‘the’, philosophy. 

When I was a student, I used to hitchhike a lot, and if the driver asked what I was studying I might answer ‘philosophy’.  The most common question following that was, ‘well, what’s your philosophy, then?’  At the time, I thought it a rather poor question, and said something like ‘philosophy’s really a method, a way of arguing about things’.  For 20 years, I probably gave that answer – since I stopped hitchhiking, usually to myself.  And my answer was also, increasingly, the reason philosophy didn’t appeal to me. 

Gradually over the following 20 years, another answer emerged.  It is worth answering the question ‘what is your philosophy?’  A Philosophy of Schooling was my answer.  I used the indefinite article (‘a’ philosophy) as an attempt to make the book more definite.  It is a specific position.  I was intentionally contrasting the title with that of a book by Robin Barrow: The Philosophy of Schooling, published in 1981.  Robin Barrow taught philosophy of education to me when I was training to be a teacher in 1979-80, so his book is based on the course he had been teaching.  I hadn’t read his book until 35 years after it was written, when I was writing my own book, but I recognised many of the ideas and the anecdotes.  By calling his book ‘the’ philosophy of schooling, the author was saying that his book addressed schooling in a general, universal, way.  Some parts I agree with, others I disagree with.  What I disagree with most is the idea that schooling is something that can be captured by the word ‘the’. 

The consequence of having a philosophy is precisely that it means something, it is normative (as philosophers are wont to say), it means something or answers a so what? question.  Philosophers spend a lot of time interpreting the world; the point (a point), however, is to change – to learn, to become more real.  That is part of my philosophy, and as a consequence of that, the end of the book is the start of the conversation.  After the last conventional chapter is a ‘manifesto’ for schooling, saying what I do and will do, what I try and will try to avoid doing, and what happens when I am less than perfect. 

Mine is an ‘immanent’ manifesto, a making manifest what is there, if sometimes hidden under the snow, not a ‘transcendent’ manifesto or distant ideal.  But of course, immanent as it is, a piece of writing like this is of the past, present and future.  The Polish poet Szymborska says in her poem The Three Oddest Words,

When I pronounce the word Future,

the first syllable already belongs to the past

I’ve been tweeting bits of the manifesto for a while now (@2018Care) and will continue to do so – and have a Facebook page in the name of the great Irish thinker, Phil O’Sophy.  If you agree with the manifesto, tell me; if you disagree, tell me. 

Writing ‘a’ philosophy is a personal matter.  Admitting that it is a, not the, philosophy admits to it being personal.  But as a personalist, this is hardly an admission.  I am ‘a’ person, I am not a representative of personhood or of humanity.  The irreducibility of the personal is what makes personalism so important.  Whether this comes from Kant’s account of persons as ends in themselves, not merely means to ends, or from other philosophical or religious sources, persons are irreducible.  And this means philosophy is personal, a philosophy is a personal, irreducible, statement.  Any attempt to write ‘the’ philosophy (of schooling or of anything else) is an attempt to rise above particularity to universality.  In the attempt, the particular, the personal, is either lost or disguised. 

I have written a philosophy, not the philosophy.  On this, I am definite.

Julian Stern, Professor of Education and Religion, joined York St John University in 2008 as Dean of the Faculty of Education & Theology. Born and brought up in Hull [which we at the BPF do not hold against him in any way], he qualified at the Royal Academy of Music, Oxford University, Leicester University School of Education, and the Institute of Education, London. He was a school teacher in the South of England for fourteen years and worked in universities for sixteen years prior to coming to York St John. He has worked at the Institute of Education, London, the Open University, Brunel University, and the University of Hull.

He is General Secretary of ISREV, the International Seminar on Religious Education and Values, working with 250 senior researchers across 36 countries) and on the editorial boards of the British Journal of Religious Education, the Religious Education Journal of Australia, the Journal for the Study of Spirituality, and Other Education: The Journal of Educational Alternatives. He is also the Deputy Chair of the Diocese of York Board of Education, and a Director and Trustee of the Centre for Global Education, York.