Education des Adultes: Inclusion et Exclusion. Manifeste pour une Democratie Internationale [Book review]

Abstract

In my workshops for adult educators, I sometimes ask participants to tell me 'something that they know is true'. The question raises the issue of how we construct knowledge, and of the mechanisms that we use to validate that knowledge. What causes me to 'know', for example, that today is Tuesday and not Wednesday? Are my beliefs based on perceptible evidence, on social convention, or some edifice of reasoned deduction? ls there a difference between these various types of knowledge, and if so, what is the nature of that difference? Of course, an important characteristic of 'knowing' is that not everyone agrees so readily about most things as they do about naming the day of the week. The world is too complex to be reduced to a single set of interpretations, and we must rely on our individual subjective understanding in order to negotiate the complexities of everyday life. Similarly, the act of learning is dependent on our ability to make sense of the infinite variety of stimuli that make up the realm of our perception. To achieve this remarkable feat, we need to engage in the collective act of knowledge-building, for there is nothing of value that we can know alone.