Faculty of Education - Theses

Permanent URI for this collection

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1

A criticism of Paul Hirst's forms of knowledge

Bradbeer, James M. ( 1980)

This thesis is not so much a confrontation of the arguments advanced by Paul Hirst, as an endeavour to show that his position, within its own terms, fails to afford genuine plausibility to the "forms of knowledge"; indeed, to show that this could not be done, that his arguments cannot be made. The failure to render the "forms" plausible is examined at two levels; the level of Hirst's expressions and the level of, for want of a better term, his vision. In Part 1 the case is made that despite all fair appearance, the Hirst thesis is in crucial ways not intelligible. In Part 2 it is argued that Hirst's conception of the "forms of knowledge" is fatally contradictory. Part 3 returns from this study of disharmony to the problem of knowledge and human freedom which is the whole concern of the liberal education Hirst has sought to re-proclaim. In it his idea of freedom is examined and rejected. It is rejected without any resort to a "metaphysical" basis such as he would scorn. Keeping, instead, strictly to description of language, the possibility of an understanding of knowledge and freedom is offered which - in the end - can only be conceived of if that which "metaphysics" stands for is not legislated out of relevance. Within his own terms then, this thesis finds not only central disharmonies in Hirst's "forms of knowledge" but also reason to affirm the premises he rejects.