[lit-ideas] Re: On Names and Respect
- From: Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 08:34:07 +0700
Robert Paul wrote:
"I would hate to think that my students' calling me by a diminutive of
my first name was a sign of disrespect."
I have not suggested that the use of a teacher's first name is a sign
of disrespect. In fact, I pointed out that it was intended to create
familiarity, surely something quite difference from disrespect.
I had written:
"My concern is that the increasing familiarity between students and
teachers parallels an increasing tendency to see the world primarily
in familiar terms. To paraphrase Heidegger, the tendency is to
increasingly see the world in terms of how we use it for our own
purposes."
to which Robert replies:
"I think this is a metaphysical answer to what is surely (if it's
anything) a sociological or psychological problem. I have no idea what
research Heidegger did to arrive at his conclusion."
If the question is whether a thing is what it is used for or whether
its uses draw on something internal to the thing, than I am not sure
how that is a sociological or psychological problem. Whether the
things around us are merely the totality of our familiar ways of
interacting with them, or whether they have a _something_ that sets
them apart from us as human beings, that is a metaphysical question.
My question is, if Heidegger is on to something, if our world is
becoming increasingly narrowed down to instrumental relationships,
does the use of familiar names between student and teacher reflect a
similar narrowing down? And if that is the case, what does it mean
for the process of learning? That is not a sociological or
psychological problem.
Robert wrote:
"The false assumption here is that our students' calling us by our
first names (for the most part) is a sign of 'familiarity' in the
sense of our sharing personal confidences, borrowing each others'
clothes, hanging out together...etc."
How is it not a sign of familiarity in that sense? If you are 'Bob'
sitting beside 'John' who is sitting beside 'Onora' (oops, sorry that
should be Baroness O'Neill) then how is that not a sign that in some
sense, you are one of the 'dudes'. Students may not be borrowing your
clothes for a reason other than your not being familiar in that sense.
Robert continues:
"You need to say what your idea of being on 'familiar terms' with
someone is. 'Encouraging critical thinking' is a fairly diffuse
notion, but if you want to claim that the students who were taking
part in a close (almost line-by-line) reading of Wittgenstein's
Tractatus and Philosophical investigations as a dozen or so of them
did in a course that a younger colleague and I taught jointly couple
of years ago were not 'engaged' with the texts in the best sense, you
need better evidence than that they addressed us by our first names."
The issue is not whether students can or cannot engage texts while
addressing their teachers by their first names. Engaging a
philosophical text is an activity independent of teaching students how
to go about the business of such engagement. My question concerns
better ways of encouraging such engagement.
Here, I am unwisely straying into deep waters were John Wager and
Walter O. swim easily. Can the familiarity that characterizes
friendship, the agreement, the shared interests and concerns,
influence ones ability to think something new, different and strange?
Don't we need an opponent, someone who is different, someone with whom
we don't agree, don't we need people like that to learn something new?
If I am stuck or need inspiration, I don't turn to the writers with
whom I agree, but rather the ones I respect but strongly disagree.
Doesn't the learning environment need a teacher who is not one of the
'dudes' but someone who can provoke learning by being different, or
set apart? It seems to me that when a teacher is addressed in the
same fashion as ones 'buds', the ability of the teacher to create a
learning environment is ever so slightly diminished. Except, perhaps
at Reed.
"Again though, your assumption that being on a first-name basis with
someone is incompatible with our showing 'respect' for them. This is a
very odd thesis."
It would be if it were the thesis I was advancing. Rather, I am
suggesting that there needs to be a degree of respect that belongs to
the role of teacher or peer. Is there a difference between Robert
leading a class on the Investigations and Robert meeting students at
the local pub and in the course of conversation, the Investigations
are discussed? Is there a difference between Robert and a peer
discussing the Investigations as part of a panel at the regional
Philosophical meetings and Robert running into colleagues in the
evening at a restaurant and having the Investigations coming up in
conversation? I am suggesting that there is a difference and part of
that difference is how we address each other when we occupy those
different roles.
Robert concludes:
"You feel as you feel. Perhaps the fact that we teach at different
institutions—different sorts of institutions—explains our different
views."
That would be a sociological or anthropological answer to a
philosophical question.
Sincerely,
Phil Enns
Yogyakarta, Indonesia
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