"The Way of Ignorance": Reading Wendell Berry and Object-Oriented Ontology for Philosophy of Education

• In Event: 51.080 - Sheraton Roundtable Session Nine - Osgoode Ballroom
  In Roundtable Session: 51.080-3 - Knowns and Unknowns in the Practice of Educating

Abstract

Berry’s “way of ignorance” has within the past decade been met with extensive esoteric philosophical rigor but it has yet to have made explicit connections in educational research. The purpose of this essay is to make this connection explicit by facilitating a constructive dialogue between Berry and speculative realism in the order of making a case for an ignorance-based philosophy of education. In this manner, this essay is concerned primarily with (1) elucidating the organizing ideas of speculative realism as enunciated by object-oriented ontology in relation to the writings of Wendell Berry on ignorance; and (2) making a case for how these ideas might influence the research and practice of education by factoring “the way of ignorance” into our pedagogical encounters.

Author

• John Mullen, Eastern Michigan University