Born in Tel-Aviv, Israel, 1939
Education:
B.Sc. in Chemistry, Bar-Ilan University, Israel; M.Sc. in Science
Education and Philosophy of Science, Hebrew University, Jerusalem,
Israel; Ph.D. in Political Science, Hebrew University, Jerusalem.
Doctoral Thesis: "Natural Science Curriculum as Designer
of the Image of
Science
using Rhetorical Patterns within the Socio-Political System."
Outline of Activities in Academic Framework:
Lecturer in the School of Education and Department for Teacher
Training
at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem (since 1972).
Lecturer at the School of Law (since 1998).
Lecturer at the Philosophy of Science Department (during 1995
to 1998).
Courses given under the titles: Philosophy
of Education, History and
Philosophy of Science, Myth, Scientific Language, and Social Order,
A course in The School of Law dealing with The Validation of Statement
in the Court: A Postmodern Perspective.
Seminars in the Philosophy of Science Department:
Teaching Science as
an Ideological Problem, Teaching Science and Rhetoric Patterns
in the
Political System, and Education, Language , Scientism.
Tutoring a workshop for science (chemistry)
education, in the Teacher
Training Department, School of Education.
Outline of Academic Activities Outside the
University Framework:
Guest Lecturer at the School for High Ranking Education Employees
of the
Ministry of Education. The main topics - addressing the relationship
between Science Education and Education Policy as well as the
Concept of Autonomy as a Paradoxical Message.
In theTeacher's College Framework:
Taught Chemistry, organized integrative course in education and
science,
David Yellin College, Beit Hakerem, Jerusalem
Lectured at the "Kerem" Institute for Teacher Training,
Jerusalem
Course Subject: Central Principles in the Philosophy of Science
in
Relation to Science Education
Since 1970 I have been affiliated to the Hebrew University, lecturing at the School of Education. During these years, while getting closer to the procedures of science curricula planning, I became immersed in decoding rhetoric patterns in the political discourse and in revealing their linkages with the criteria for verifying statements in the public sphere, by illustrating the proceedings of legitimizing an allegation relying on the truth theory of correspondence. I have presupposed the existence of some parallels between the kinds of validation that were taking over in education and those which prevail in law. This led me to deal with the topic of statement validation in court, from a postmodern perspective.
My study should be termed a discourse analysis associating the
issues of rhetoric in the public sphere with prevailing styles
of schooling, widespread images of science, and alternative attitudes
towards language and signification. These main topics are examined
by philosophical reasoning, through which the discourse analysis
conclusions are built upon post-structural modes of thought. In
order to demonstrate the predominance of phenomenology and constructivism
over what is called 'critical studies,' starting with critical
pedagogy up to Critical Legal Studies (CLS), I find it
necessary to challenge these schools of thought with contemporary
post-structural modes of critique. By introducing post-structural
critical ideas such as 'the critique of the notion of individuality,'
'rethinking the notion of meaning,' and reimagining the meaning
of historicism, we have to refer carefully back to the great German
philosophers from Kant through idealism to the romanticist philosophers
such as Schelling and Novalis, and to Subjective Idealism as represented
by Husserl, ending with Heideggers philosophy . The reader of
my research will be confronted with contemporary French philosophers
who are associated with Post-modernism and Post-structuralism,
and are therefore the most important contributors to the understanding
of political and socio-cultural discourses. J. Derrida is included
as the leading figure in the history of the deconstruction movement,
while J.F.Lyotard emphasizes the topic of the differend and Barthes
and Baudrillard are referred to in the context of simulation contra-representation
and the concept of hyper-reality. I make great use of Lacanian
psychoanalytical theory specially regarding the terminology of
symbolic imaginary and the Real, and Lacan's theory as related
to the concept of 'subjectivity'. The linguistic discussion is
built upon Sausserian linguistic structuralism. For clarification
of the discrete punctuated nature of language which prevents any
complete description of reality I am relying on some aspects of
communication theory, mainly as related to A. Wildens writings
with regard to the categories of continuity and discontinuity
in correspondence with the digital and analog modes of information.
By minding the gaps as a crucial component of language I stress
the imprinted human subjects inability to fully articulate expression
where human inexpressible reality is doomed to muteness. The unbreachable
gap between the concept and the idea is associated with the Kantian
speechless sublime. The terminology of the 'sublime' is discussed
at length in accordance with Heideggerian demarcation between
the ontic and the ontologic in learning beings task with the emphasis
on more listening to the sense of Being.
The relevance of this to science education is obvious since it
differentiates scientism and technology from questioning, imagining
and devising our [B]ing in the world. Thus to get involved with
such kind of writing and reading engenders the practice of applying
theories through methodologies, leading to alternative routes.
These require the modesty of being gazed upon rather then looking
and watching.
This elucidates the linkage between law and education. It is the
procedure for processing information according to guaranteed methods
for validating outspoken expression concerning reality. It has
to do with the question of whether a report of an event is a production
or re-production of reality. This inquiry attempts to pay attention
to some similarities between the (class) laboratory protocols
and the
testimony in the court. Since as a result of contemporary styles
of western education, the young generation is considered as having
been 'enlightened' by science and technology, I contend that they
are brain-washed with the correspondence theory of justification.
It results from the fact that the western civilian adult is easily
persuaded by sets of factual findings, data, or referential testimony.
In other words, statements are validated and legitimized in a
process of representation linking a name (a meaning) to a thing.
By ignoring the crucial role of language, and by moulding a narrow
scope of the image of scientific activity as experimentation,
youngsters internalize an accepted view of language as representation.
Using phenomenologist-constructivist, platitudinous expressions,
such as 'teaching science as inquiry', a proper inquiry is identified
with
experiential evidence. What is scientific is meant to be more
credible.
This is a kind of legitimization given to knowledge by establishing
its reliability on the basis of the observational experimental
ground. Having outlined some of the similarities between Law and
Education, the reader may get more about the subject in the following
articles.