Copyright © 2011 by William Allan Kritsonis/All Rights Re-served

Selected Thoughts and Insights

CHAPTER 1The Argument

1.0 The purpose of the book is to sketch a view of the curriculum for general education by showing how the desirable scope, content, and arrangement of studies may be derived from certain fundamental considerations about human nature and knowl-edge. It will be shown that the controlling idea of general education, imparting unity to the pattern of studies, emerges from a philosophy of hu-mankind and ways of knowing.

1.1 Perennial Threats to Meaning1) spirit of criticism and skepticism2) pervasive depersonalization and fragmenta-

tion of life3) sheer mass of cultural products, especially

knowledge4) rapid rate of change

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1.2 Six Fundamental Patterns of Meaning (Realms Of Meaning)1) Symbolics2) Empirics3) Esthetics4) Synnoetics5) Ethics6) Synoptics

1.3 The Complete Person

A complete person should be skilled in the use of speech, symbol, and gesture (symbolics), factually well-informed (empirics), capable of cre-ating and appreciating objects of esthetic signifi-cance (esthetics), endowed with a rich and disci-plined life in relation to self and others (synnoet-ics), able to make wise decisions and judge be-tween right and wrong (ethics), and possessed of an integral outlook (synoptics).

1.4 Principles For the Selection and Organization of Content1) disciplined inquiry2) rerepresentative items of the field3) methods of inquiry4) appeal to imagination

1.5 Education Centers on the Idea of Meaning1) inherently social2) social factors3) special needs and resources of society

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CHAPTER 2Human Nature

2.0 The Study Of Human Beings

Physicists Natural scientistsChemists Social ScientistsBiologists ArtistsPsychologists BiographersSociologists MoralistsPolitical Scientists HistoriansAnthropologists HistoriansLinguists People of KnowledgeGeographers and many more . . .

2.1 Four Dimensions of Meaning

1) experience and reflection2) rule, logic, or principle3) selective elaboration4) expression

2.2 Logical Classification of Meanings

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CHAPTER 3Meaninglessness and Modern

Man..

3.0 Meaninglessness in Various Phases of Cultural Life

1) ontological anxiety 14) animosity2) anxiety resulting from guilt 15) suspicion3) questions to which there 16) doubts

are no answers 17) mechanization4) feature of death 18) depersonalization of life5) skepticism 19) impersonal organiza-tions6) aimlessness 20) mass anonymity7) old certainties are gone 21) hyperabundance8) suffering 22) distractions9) ambiguity 23) cultural affluence10) outpouring or symbols 24) unmanageable multi-plicity11) mass media 25) rapid changes12) morbidity 26) congestion13) destruction 27) critical spirit

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CHAPTER 4The Search for Meaning

4.0 Human Beings Act on Meanings1) We create2) We discover3) We enjoy4) We perceive5) We act on meanings

4.1 Fundamental Patterns of Meaning Enable The Edu-cator to Make a Successful Attack on the Various Sources of Frustration in Learning

1) fragmentation2) surfeit of knowledge3) transience of knowledge

INTRODUCTION TO PART TWO

The chapters in Part Two are intended to show that the various fields of knowledge exhibit distinctive structures or patterns of meaning and to indicate the nature of these characteristic designs in the basic disciplines of general education.

MAIN QUESTIONS TO BE ANSWERED IN PART TWO

1) What does it mean to know in this discipline?2) How is knowledge gained in this subject?3) How is knowledge validated?4) How does knowledge in this discipline differ

from and agree with knowledge in other disciplines.

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CHAPTER 5Ordinary Language

5.0 By the Term “Ordinary Language” is Meant the Forms of Discourse Employed in Everyday Speech and Writing.

There are many ordinary languages that rep-resent variegated peoples of the world.

5.1 Use

The test of a person’s knowledge of a lan-guage is whether or not he can use it. The uses of ordinary language are largely practical.

5.2 Communication

The objective of using language is communi-cation.

5.3 Meaning

Language behavior and the language com-munity are on the outer face of language. The in-ner face is meaning.

5.4 Symbols

The meaning-content of language is ex-pressed by symbols that comprise another of the outer faces of language.

5.5 “Knowing a language” is not the same as “Know-ing about language.”

“Knowing a language” is practical. “Knowing about a language” is theoretical.

5.6 The abstractness of language is the source of its powers to express an infinite variety of experi-ences. To represent the real world in all its depth and complexity.

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CHAPTER 6

Mathematics

6.0 Mathematical symbolisms are essentially theoreti-cal.

6.1 Many students and teachers of mathematics never really understand the subject because they iden-tify it with calculation for practical ends.

6.2 Mathematical symbolisms occupy an independent, self-contained world of thought.

6.3 Mathematical communities tend to be specialized and limited rather than inclusive.

6.4 Mathematical languages are artificial dialects un-derstood only by members of special communities of voluntary initiates.

6.5 It is not enough to teach students of mathematics how to make calculations and demonstrations skillfully and automatically.

6.6 The student of mathematics can be said to know mathematically only if he understands and can ar-ticulate reasons for each assertion he makes.

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CHAPTER 7Nondiscursive Symbolic Forms

7.0 Nondiscursive Symbolic Forms

Nondiscursive symbolic forms are used in all the arts and for the expression of feelings, values, commitments, and insights in the domains of per-sonal knowledge, metaphysics, and religion.

7.1 Nondiscursive symbolic forms appeal principally to the imagination rather than to consecutive argu-ment.

7.2 In nondiscursive domains language is used to ex-press personal subjectivity.

7.3 In other words, discursive symbolic forms are out-wardly oriented, nondiscursive symbolic forms are inwardly oriented.

7.4 Principal Types of Nondiscursive Symbolic Forms

1) signals2) bodily gestures3) facial expressions4) manners and customs5) ritual6) graphic or object-symbols7) dreams8) myths9) The Arts

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CHAPTER 8Physical Science

8.0 Empirical meanings require ordinary language and mathematics for their expression.

8.1 Science, or systematic empirical inquiry, is con-cerned with matters of fact, not with symbolic con-ventions.

8.2 Science is characterized by descriptions that are essentially abstract.

8.3 Physical science provides descriptions of the world as experienced through the activity of physical measurement.

8.4 By “physical measurement” is meant the quantita-tive assessment of material objects by reference to agreed upon standards of mass, length, and time.

8.5 The process of Physical Measurement

1) Measurements are capable of yielding univer-sal agreement

2) the value of physical measurement is the op-portunity it affords for mathematical formula-tion

8.6 Essential Points to Remember

1) that principles, generalizations, and laws are not directly inferred from the data of observa-tion

2) that observations do not test the truth or fal-sity of hypotheses, but rather their scope and limitations

8.7 The ultimate goal of science is theoretical under-standing.

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8.8 There is no routine or foolproof system of hypothe-sis formulation. The construction of an hypothesis is essentially the work of the imagination.

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CHAPTER 9

Biology

9.0 Biology deals with those things that are alive.

9.1 One of the most difficult problems in biology is the construction of a satisfactory definition of exactly what distinguishes the animate from the inani-mate.

9.2 Biological investigation is observation of the world of living things.

9.3 The systematic study of living things naturally be-gins with the attempt to order and simplify the enormously variegated and confusing world of life by the use of descriptive classifications. This process of classification is known as “taxonomy.”

9.4 In the search for meanings biologists use the method of natural history. The ruling idea in natu-ral history is the concept of evolution.

9.5 A living thing has a particular kind of organization constituting it an organism.

9.6 Meanings in biology are empirical, factual, descrip-tive, and ultimately general and theoretical in ori-entation.

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CHAPTER 10Psychology

10.0 The subject matter of psychology is mind, or mental (psychic) aspects of living things.

10.1 Some biologists (vitalists) hold that “life” is a mysterious primal force that cannot be analyzed into anything else.

10.2 Opponents of the vitalist position (mechanists) in-sist that life is nothing but certain complicated physiochemical reactions.

10.3 An intermediate (organismic) view is that life is to be interpreted as a hierarchy of interdependent open systems.

10.4 Psychologists show a similar range of positions:

1) mind may be regarded as an inner psychic reality

2) mind may be considered as nothing but the activity of the brain

3) some psychologists see the organism as a psychological whole

10.5Psychology is difficult to define.

10.6Quality of empirical meanings depends on the in-vestigator’s skill in experimental design.

10.7Some Common Types of Uses for Statistics

1) direct quantitative descriptions of groups or populations

2) correlation analysis3) probabilities4) experimental and control groups5) errors in measurement

10.8 Psychology is the study of the mind. The meanings ob-tained in psychology are empirical, descriptive and theoretical.

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CHAPTER 11

Social Science

11.1 Geography is a descriptive discipline concerned with facts about the earth as humankind’s habi-tation.

11.1.1 The major organizing principle of geography is place rather than

11.2 Social Science deals with the world of culture and society.

11.3 Social Sciences have inner tensions and growing pains.

11.4 Social Sciences concerned with different as-pects of human life.

11.5 Sociology

1) social behavior2) interpretative understanding3) everyday experience4) social relationships5) customs6) values7) institutions8) power

11.6 Economics

The central fact around which all economic thought and action turns is that human beings have unlimited wants but only limited re-sources.

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CHAPTER 12Music

12.0 Esthetic meanings are gained by acquaintance and not by description.

12.1 Esthetic understanding is immediate.

12.2 Esthetic understanding is attained in direct per-ception.

12.3 Esthetic understanding is contained in particular presented objects.

12.4 The subject matter of music consists of individ-ual musical compositions.

12.5 A person’s musical understanding is unneces-sarily impoverished if he limits himself to cer-tain traditional, conventional, and habitual mu-sical patterns as being the only ones he consid-ers authentic or admirable.

12.6 Musical understanding in the final analysis is consummated in love.

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CHAPTER 13The Visual Arts

13.0 Though it may be copied by repeating the original design or represented in a variety of reproductions, the original of each work of art (except in graphic arts) is regarded as the one authentic instance of that work, all other copies or representations of it being considered secondary or derivative.

13.1 The proper subject matter of knowledge in the visual arts is the individual work.

13.2 The successful person in any given field thinks well with the characteristic materials of that field.

13.3 Mastery in the arts grows out of prolonged imaginative experimentation.

13.4 The Analysis of a Painting1) line 7) depth2) color 8) perspective3) light 9) plane4) shade 10) composition5) volume 11) frame6) mass

13.5 The power of the esthetic work is to create de-light in the observer.

13.6 The artist’s problem is to use materials to ex-press an esthetic idea to achieve certain per-ceptual effects.

13.7 Study the History of Art1) Primitive Art 7) Creating an Illusion2) Ancient Art 8) Perspective Art3) Classical Art 9) sfumato4) Roman Art 10) Imaginative art5) Medieval Art 11) Revolutionary Art6) Church Architecture 12) Modern Art

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CHAPTER 14The Arts of Movement

14.0 The arts of movement are the foundation for the learnings that take place under the broad head-ing of physical education. This also includes health, recreation, and physical education.

14.1The fundamental concept of the arts of movement is the organic unity of the person.

14.2 In the arts of movement, meanings are said to be of the flesh and bone.

14.3Play

1) play is free2) play is concerned with the make believe

world3) play has limited space and time 4) play has order5) play lives on contest and tension6) play proceeds according to rules7) play activities tend to form enduring commu-

nities8) play associations tend to be esoteric and se-

cret

14.4 The arts of movement are the source of esthetic meanings in which the inner life of persons is ob-jectified through significant dynamic forms us-ing the human body as the instrument.