The Logical Priority of the Question: R. G. Collingwood, Philosophical Hermeneutics and Enquiry-Based Learning

Abstract

The thesis that all learning has the character of enquiry is advanced and its implications are explored. R. G. Collingwood's account of ‘the logical priority of the question’ is explained and Hans‐Georg Gadamer's hermeneutical justification and development, particularly the rejection of the re‐enactment thesis, is discussed. Educators are encouraged to consider the following implications of the character of the question implied in all learning: (i) that it is a question that is constituted in the event rather than prepared or given in advance, and that this leads to a necessary tension between learning and the curriculum or scheme, (ii) that it is a question that concerns some subject matter or issue that is at stake for both the student and the object of study, which draws our attention to the ‘intentionality’ of learning, and (iii) that it is a question that operates on the level of being—students are ‘called into question’, and thus transformed, by the object of study.

'Neath the Moth‐Eaten Rag: Do Artefacts Play a Special Role for Historical Knowledge?

“…Aldridge (, ) argues that education is transformative, that it engages with the student on the level of being. We learn and develop throughout life: we are in a perpetual state of what Heidegger calls ‘becoming’.…”

“…Evidence of Elizabeth I's temper can be used only as evidence of her thoughts and purposes, not as a particular case of a general theme about, for example, monarchy. Collingwood rejects realism about history, and argues that an historical truth exists only as an answer to a particular question or, as Aldridge () so neatly puts it, the understanding of truth in history is ‘as belonging to a complex of both question and answer’ (p. 74). In his autobiography, Collingwood employs the vivid example of archaeology to demonstrate this.…”

“…They had particular questions in mind, and we can only find the question they were trying to ask, by going back to the text, and looking at the answer given. Aldridge () notes that this means that question and answer are bound together, that assessing how successful a text is in answering a particular question is ‘inseparable from attempting to reconstruct the question to which a text is an answer’ (p. 76). As Aldridge ( ibid .)…”

“…Learning dates, orders of succession of monarchs, places of major battles, and so on, are but ‘dry bones’ ( ibid ., p. 305), compared with the imaginative, creative task that is the creation of historical knowledge. In the classroom, a student might well come to know lots of these ‘dry bones’, but as Aldridge () points out, this process of re‐enacting an historical thought is in tension with a pre‐ordained curriculum. Real history, as Collingwood conceives of it, comes when a student is herself creating a narrative, rather than learning something that has already been prescribed.…”

Video-Conference Interviews: Ethical and Methodological Concerns in the Context of Health Research

“…Yet its discourses reveal no commonly agreed definition (Stevenson, 2015;Aldridge, 2013;McLinden and Edwards, 2011). However, a series of key features are noted by several commentators who agree that EBL positions the learner in an environment where they are self-directed but importantly supported, they are actively engaged in learning and in which they collaborate with their peers (Cleaver, Lintern and McLinden, 2014;University of Birmingham, 2010;SpronkenSmith, 2008;Hutchings, 2007;Khan and O'Rourke, 2005;Price, 2003).…”