Geoffrey Squires is reader in education in the Institute for Learning, Universityof Hull, Hull HU6 7RX, UK. He leads the University's Educational Development Team. His early work focused on curriculum (The Curriculum Beyond School [London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1987], Pathways for Learning [Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 1989], and First Degree: The Undergraduate Curriculum [Buckingham, UK: Society for Research into Higher Education/Open University Press, 1990]), but he now writes mainly on the theorizing of teaching and other professions (e.g. Teaching as a Professional Discipline [London: Falmer, 1999]). Two further books on learning and teaching are forthcoming from RoutledgeFalmer and Kogan Page.

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There is now a substantial body of writing (much of it published in JCS) which contends that teaching can usefully be seen in terms of the concept of praxis as set out in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (NE) (Ross 1925) and related texts. The argument draws in the associated concepts of aisthesis (which can be rendered as situational perception or appreciation), bouleusis (deliberation), and phronesis (usually translated as practical wisdom or reasoning). Dating back at least to Schwab's (1971) writing on the 'practical' and further stimulated by Green's (1976) presidential address to the Philosophy of Education Society, the subsequent literature now includes contributions by Carr and Kemmis (1986), Schilling (1986), Fenstermacher (1987a, b), Grundy (1987), Dunne (1993), Fenstermacher and Richardson (1993),Pendlebury (1993), Carr (1995a, b), Kessels and Korthagen (1996), Orton (1997), Noel (1999a, b) and Hager (2000).

Within this body of literature, there have of course been differences of interpretation and emphasis. In his rigorous and thoughtful discussion, Dunne (1993) gives careful consideration to the claims of techne as well as phronesis though eventually coming down on the side of the latter. Orton (1997) saw elements of praxis, poiesis andtheoria in teaching and proposed a synthesis of all three, an approach he pursued in a subsequent posthumously published paper (Orton 1998). Noel (1999a) suggests that phronesis can be variously interpreted in terms of rationality, situational insight, and moral character. There have also been criticisms of this line of argument: for example, Buchmann (1987, 1988) finds Aristotle's template of practical reasoning (the so-called 'practical syllogism') far too schematic to be an adequate representation of the complexity of teachers' thinking, and Noel (1999b) maintains that the emphasis on phronesis could lead to rigidity and needs to be complemented with a concern for phantasia, which allows more scope for the imagination.

I want to suggest a much more basic criticism of this line of thinking, namely that it is not what Aristotle meant by praxis at all. I shall argue that however attractive these ideas may be to modern educationists, there is little in NE that warrants relating them to teaching, and a good deal that should dissuade educators from doing so. The issues will turn on the scope and application of the terms used in the text, to which I shall refer in some detail. The problem often seems to stem from a tendency to treat Book 6 in NE in isolation from the rest, which can lead to a rather abstract, epistemologically-inclined reading rather than one that grounds the discussion in the wider moral questions which are the concern of the whole. NE is basically about how people should live rather than a treatise on types of thinking or forms of knowledge. It should be noted in passing that, like the above authors, I am treating NE as an integrated text rather than the later compilation suggested by Kenny (1978).

The common translation of praxis as 'action' or 'doing' suggests that it would be natural to apply it to an activity such as teaching, which is after all something one does. However, as Lobkowicz (1967: 9--11) points out, Aristotle uses the term in two different ways. The first, broader sense, which corresponds to the ordinary language use in his day, covers virtually any kind of action or activity. Thus some of the examples of praxis he gives early on in NE he later classifies as poiesis, and towards the end he also describes theoria as a form of action in this broad sense. But, as Broadie (1991: 208) suggests, praxis as defined more narrowly in Book 6 is better understood as conduct in the sense of morally-dimensioned behaviour. Such conduct may relate to ourselves, our household, or to society (1141^b23--33)¹ and the latter emphasis is strong: '. . . man [sic] is born for citizenship' (1097^b12). Lobkowicz (1967: 3--46) argues that the distinction between theoria and praxis is essentially between two walks or at least dimensions of life---that of the philosopher and that of the politician---rather than two kinds of knowledge, and Joachim (1951: 214) thinks that the real scope of phronesis only becomes clear when Aristotle moves on to discuss its political context. Gauthier and Jolif (1959: 500) take a similar view and usefully map it onto the decision-making institutions of the polis. This is politics not in the sense of the professional politician but the active and responsible citizen who was required to play his part in communal institutions. One of the few concrete examples Aristotle gives of the phronimos (the man of practical wisdom) is the statesman, the wise political leader such as Pericles. And there are strong continuities between NE and the Politics (Jowett 1921): the end of the first forms the introduction to the second.

Praxis and phronesis thus have a broad human, social or political application; nowhere are they related to identifiable, specific activities or domains such as medicine or teaching. Moreover, the scope of phronesis is, as Broadie (1991: 232) explains, extremely general: 'Aristotle says that practical reason is concerned with living well in general (1140^a25--28); with what is good and bad for human beings as such (1140^b5--6; 20--21); with the end simpliciter (1142^b30); with what is good and useful to oneself (1140^a26, ^b9)'. Such generalities always manifest themselves in the 'ultimate particular', but the wisdom of the phronimos lies in the breadth and scope of considerations that he is able to bring to bear on each particular decision; it is closely related to common sense, though concerned with the virtues as a whole (Crisp 2000: xxv).

This is quite different from the specific or restricted set of considerations that operate within the field of a techne such as building, navigation, military strategy or medicine. Nothing less than life itself is an adequate frame of reference: phronesis is concerned with the 'typically human' (1178^a8--1178^b7). Indeed, it is this very generality which leads Bostock (2000: 93) to conclude that the idea is ultimately unsatisfactory, because the notion of eudaimonia (human happiness or flourishing or fulfilment) is never actually spelled out: 'It would seem that Aristotle both requires the practically wise man to have a suitably ìgrandî conception of his end, and yet denies him the means to attain it'.

But surely such general considerations, whatever they are, will also govern specific activities or domains? In one crucial passage, Aristotle explicitly rules this out:

Now it is thought to be the mark of a man of practical wisdom to be able to deliberate well about what is good and expedient for himself, not in some particular respect, e.g. about what sorts of thing conduce to health or to strength, but about what sorts of thing conduce to the good life in general. This is shown by the fact that we credit men with practical wisdom in some particular respect when they have calculated well with a view to some good end which is one of those that are not the object of any art. (1140^a25--30; emphases added)

Aristotle is presumably not saying that broad moral, human considerations must not enter into specific fields or activities, but that they do so through the humanity of the person rather than his or her expertise in that activity. The implication is that the teacher as teacher makes decisions on educational or pedagogical grounds, but these are subject to the wider judgements of the teacher as human being. Teaching as a techne exists in the broader context of human phronesis, but that does not mean that it ceases to be a techne.² Aristotle states categorically that praxis does not subsume poiesis or vice versa:

In the variable are included both things made and things done; making and acting are different (for their nature we treat even the discussions outside our school as reliable); so that the reasoned state of capacity to act is different from the reasoned state of capacity to make. Hence too they are not included one in the other; for neither is acting making nor is making acting. Now since architecture is an art and is essentially a reasoned state of capacity to make, and there is neither any art that is not such a state nor any such state that is not an art, art is identical with a state of capacity to make, involving a true course of reasoning. (1140^a1--10, emphasis in original)

Praxis (acting) is thus quite distinct from poiesis (making) which takes the form of art (techne). But is teaching a techne? While Aristotle clearly views education, nurture or upbringing as a potential contribution to praxis or living well (1130^b24--29), the bringing about or facilitating of that education through teaching exemplifies a techne, for two reasons. First, teaching aims at producing an outcome (telos) beyond itself (learning) and this is one of the defining features of a techne. Although one must draw a further distinction between technai in which the means are clearly distinguishable from the end (such as medicine) and those (such as music-making) in which the means partly constitute the end, the emphasis on the externality of the end sharply distinguishes poiesis from praxis which is inherently self-justifying and intrinsically worthwhile: it is not for anything. Praxis is a matter of conduct-through-character, and just as importantly character-through-conduct: the two are intimately linked in both directions, and form a kind of double virtuous circle. But the end of poiesis lies outside the process of 'making' or 'producing' in some outcome that is distinct from the person who makes or produces it. And as the example of medicine clearly shows, such an outcome may be a change of state or condition rather than the concrete product associated with the stereotypical, but limited, view of techne (Nussbaum 1986: 94--121).

Secondly, although Aristotle does not specifically address the nature of teaching (as distinct from the organization of education and content of curriculum), the parallels he cites are persuasive. The many examples he gives of technai (nearly 30 in NE alone) comprise not only manual crafts, sports and expressive arts but complex activities such as military leadership, architecture/building, navigation, and medicine, which go well beyond the conventional notion of the technical. As Nussbaum (1986: 94--121) points out, there is no real modern equivalent of techne: art is too vague (and has too strong connotations of beaux-arts), craft too narrow, science too systematic. In fact, despite Aristotle's oft-expressed disdain for work as menial, vulgar and servile and tied to the realm of necessity (e.g. Politics, 1277^a30--1277^b7),techne will bear the sense of occupation in some places, as the discussion of money and exchange value in Book 5 of NE shows. Indeed, most of the examples of technai given in NE either are or could be occupations, although it is made clear elsewhere that only occupations which involve a measure of understanding and skills qualify as technai (Metaphysics, 981^a24--981^b9 [Ross 1928]). And work in the sense of characteristic function or purposes is a central metaphor for Aristotle: 'The virtue of a thing is relative to its proper work' (1139^a17; see also Eudemian Ethics, 1219^a1--24 [Solomon 1925]).

In terms of teaching, it is the treatment of the techne of medicine that is the most significant here because of the professional parallels. Aristotle refers frequently to medicine in his work (Lloyd 1968) and in doing so makes clear that he regards it as no mere formulaic or rule-governed activity. It requires deliberation (1112^b1--5) and is a matter of relating general principles to particular cases, involving what in modern parlance we would call problem-solving (Metaphysics, 1032^b15--22). It gives scope for care and prudence (1180^b27--29). Medical expertise is developed through both scientific study (to gain an understanding of universals [1180^b13--23) and experience (doctors are not just made from textbooks [1181^b2--3]). Moreover, it is not always a precise (akribeia) business, and requires some interpretation of ends as well as means, i.e. working out what the problem really is (Broadie 1991: 194). It is characterized by indeterminacy not fixity and may involve calling in others to help us make decisions (1104^a4, 1112^b5--12). All these features broaden and refine the notion of techne to the point where it could accommodate many, though perhaps not all, of the characteristics people associate with teaching.

The issue is thus one of scope and application. Poiesis typically takes the form of technai which involve specific activities that 'produce' some kind of outcome or effect. By contrast, praxis has to do with living well in a broad personal, familial or socio-political context, in the light of acquired practical wisdom or sense (phronesis). There are criteria (which may be more or less precise) for carrying out and judging the success of the first; the second yields no such measures, and involves an on-going process of deliberation with reference to right reason and the mean. Teaching looks like an example of the first, informed by but not reducible to the second. Why then have so many people tried to relate it to the latter?

There are probably three main reasons. First, the reaction against educational or pedagogical theory which began to gather pace in the 1970s led, pendulum-like, to a new concern with practice. Aristotle's praxis was thus understandably invoked, on the dubious assumption that it was somehow the opposite of theory. It is now more widely understood that what Aristotle meant by theoria and praxis was very different from the familiar dualism (Lobkowicz 1967: 35) and that the whole modern problematic of the relationship or 'gap' between them is simply not an issue in his work because they constitute quite different aspects of life and the thinking (dianoia) that goes with each.

There is also the related issue, alluded to earlier, of the kinds of concerns one brings to a reading of NE. Because educationists are preoccupied with what may broadly be called an epistemological problem---what we know about teaching and how that relates to what we do, and issues such as situated cognition, practitioner knowledge or personal theories---it is not surprising that they privilege these aspects of the text, and in particular Book 6 where the 'intellectual virtues' are spelled out. But Book 6 is only one element in the whole, and that whole is concerned primarily not with epistemological issues, but moral ones: there are for example long passages on friendship, justice and pleasure. The danger in taking Book 6 in isolation is that one abstracts notions such as praxis, poiesis and theoria from their lived context, and in so doing ignores their scope and application. This perhaps explains why people have applied the idea of praxis to a field and in a way which is not warranted by the text.

Thirdly, the breakdown of existing applied-science or rational paradigms of teaching left a void and created the need for some kind of account that would do justice to the complex, subtle and morally-dimensioned nature of the work, particularly in the classroom (Squires 1999). That need is real! All I am saying here is that the concept of praxis cannot meet it, as it cannot meet similar needs in other professional fields (Squires 2001). But one can see its attractions in this context, and it is paradoxically the very lack of restriction and closure of the idea of phronesis that is appealing: it is intimately bound up with experience (Dunne 1993) and implies an on-going relationship, in teaching as in medicine (Davis1997). Wiggins (1980: 237) acknowledges that in aisthesis all explanations give out, but perhaps it is precisely the sense that in teaching there is no end to situational perception, which is always an iterative and reflexive process, which has led people back to these ideas.

Finally, it may be that when contemporary writers allude to praxis, they do so through the lens of later and different interpretations of 'practice' or praxis, in particular those of the Frankfurt School, the pragmatist tradition, or the phenomenological movement. Each of these has added its own distinctive gloss to the notion of practice, the first contrasting it with alienated theory, the second with technical rationality, and the third with what is taken for granted and not authentically lived. Each throws a particular kind of light on teaching, and the current discourse of practice may well be justified in these terms; but it is not, according to this analysis, Aristotelian.
 
 

1.Bekker numbers have been used in all Aristotle references.

2. For a parallel argument in terms of medicine, see King (1998) and Waring (2000).
 
 

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