Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T07:23:47.876Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

There's madness in your method: a philosophical exploration into the thought of Paul Feyerabend and its implications for music education

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 August 2013

Paul Louth
Paul Louth*
Affiliation:
Youngstown State University, 1 University Plaza, Youngstown OH, [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Drawing on the work of the philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend, this paper argues that the popular yet mistaken notion of scientific method has had a deleterious effect on music education by discouraging us from embracing conflict or pursuing counterinductive ways of thinking about music. Feyerabend argues that knowledge advances not according to principles traditionally associated with scientific method, but rather as a result of ad hoc hypotheses, counterinduction, and contradictions that are recognised between partly overlapping theories that are mutually inconsistent. Ignoring this truth results in the erasure of all but abstract forms of knowledge acquired through methodical investigation, which occurs when educators put all of their faith in method and ignore musical knowledge that escapes articulation or measurement. Yet tacit or informal musical knowledge can be seen as the artistic equivalent of the ad hoc propositions that are required, ultimately, to advance knowledge.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Journal of Music Education , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , March 2014 , pp. 69 - 83
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BENEDICT, C. (2004) Chasing legitimacy: the National Music Standards viewed through a critical theorist framework. D.Ed. Dissertation, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York.Google Scholar
BLUESTINE, E. (2000) The Ways Children Learn Music: An Introduction and Practical Guide to Music Learning Theory. 2nd edition. Chicago, IL: GIA Publications.Google Scholar
BOWMAN, W. (1980) Tacit knowing, musical experience and music instruction. Ed.D. Dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.Google Scholar
CHERRYHOLMES, C. (1988) Power and Criticism: Poststructural Investigations in Education. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.Google Scholar
CHOKSY, L. (1981) The Kodály Context: Creating an Environment for Musical Learning. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
CHOKSY, L. (1988) The Kodály Method: Comprehensive Music Education from Infant to Adult. 2nd Edition. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
CHOKSY, L. (1999) The Kodály Method I: Comprehensive Music Education. 3rd Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
CHOKSY, L., ABRAMSON, R. M., GILLESPIE, A. E., WOODS, D. & YORK, F. (2001) Teaching Music in the Twenty-First Century. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
FEYERABEND, P. (1987) Farewell to Reason. New York, NY: Verso.Google Scholar
FEYERABEND, P. (1988) Against Method. New York, NY: Verso. Originally published 1974.Google Scholar
FEYERABEND, P. (1999) Conquest of Abundance: A Story of Abstraction versus the Richness of Being. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
GORDON, E. (1989). Learning Sequences in Music: Skill, Content, and Patterns. 3rd Edition. Chicago, IL: GIA Publications.Google Scholar
GORDON, E. (2007) Learning Sequences in Music: A Contemporary Music Learning Theory. Chicago, IL: GIA Publications.Google Scholar
JORGENSEN, E. (2003) Transforming Music Education. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
JORGENSEN, E. (2005) Four philosophical models of the relation between theory and practice. Philosophy of Music Education Review 13, 21–36.Google Scholar
JORGENSEN, E. (2009) A philosophical view of research in music education. Music Education Research 11, 405–424.Google Scholar
KODÁLY, Z. (1974) The Selected Writings of Zoltán Kodály. Translated by Halápy, L. & Macnicol, F.. Edited by Bónis, F.. London: Boosey & Hawkes.Google Scholar
KUHN, T. (1970) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 2nd Edition. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
MORRIS, R. (1993) Inventing the universe. In Brockman, J. (Ed.), Creativity: The Reality Club 4, pp. 130–148. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
PEMBROOK, R. & CRAIG, C. (2002) Teaching as a profession: two variations on a theme. In Colwell, R. & Richardson, C. (Eds), The New Handbook of Research on Music Teaching and Learning, pp. 786–817. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
POLANYI, M. (1958) Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-critical Philosophy. New York, NY: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
PURPEL, D. & SHAPIRO, S. (1995) Beyond Liberation and Excellence: Reconstructing the Public Discourse on Education. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey.Google Scholar
REGELSKI, T. (1996) Scientism in experimental music research. Philosophy of Music Education Review 4, 3–19.Google Scholar
SCHÖN, D. (1987) Educating the Reflective Practitioner: Toward a New Design for Teaching and Learning in the Professions. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers.Google Scholar
SCHULER, S. (1991) A critical examination of the contributions of Edwin Gordon's Music Learning Theory to the music education profession. Quarterly Journal of Music Teaching and Learning, 2, 1–2, 48.Google Scholar
WOODFORD, P. (1996) Evaluating Edwin Gordon's Music Learning Theory from a critical thinking perspective. Philosophy of Music Education Review 4, 2.Google Scholar
WOODFORD, P. (2000) Is Kodály obsolete? Alla Breve. Special research edition of the newsletter of the Kodály Society of Canada 24, 1, 10–18.Google Scholar
ZAVARZADEH, M. & MORTON, D. (1994) Theory as Resistance: Politics and Culture after (Post)structuralism. New York, NY: Guilford Press.Google Scholar