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Bernard Andrews @bernardandrews.bsky.social · 5h

may be of interest: @profbeckyallen.bsky.social

Bernard Andrews @bernardandrews.bsky.social · 6h

How we confuse two different meanings of 'typical' and why it is crucial for SEND discussions.

(or why correlation is not characterisation)

Bernard Andrews @bernardandrews.bsky.social · 6h

We need to untangle these two senses of typical, normal, characteristic and so on. Confusing what is common with what is constitutive leads us to confuse difference for deficiency.

Bernard Andrews @bernardandrews.bsky.social · 6h

(It’s also true that the fact that an organ might have a particular constitutive function, does not imply that the possessor of that organ has that function — that is a fallacy of composition.)

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Bernard Andrews @bernardandrews.bsky.social · 6h

It’s also worth pointing out that this ought-from-a-most fallacy, is also especially relevant to issues relating to stereotypes. Even if it is true that more girls prefer to play with dolls more than boys, but that fact does not entail that girls ought to or that boys ought not to.

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Bernard Andrews @bernardandrews.bsky.social · 6h

This is the logical fallacy: we can’t say things like ‘most students do X’ therefore ‘students ought to do X’. We can, however, describe the normative functions of particular organs etc. and point out when they are not working as they should, or when someone has a particular disability.

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Bernard Andrews @bernardandrews.bsky.social · 6h

Or it does not follow from the fact that most children achieve a certain level of progress, that children ought to make that progress.

It is common to find that SEND discussions slide from ‘most children do X’ to ‘children ought to do X’, and thus pathologising difference as it if were a defect.

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Bernard Andrews @bernardandrews.bsky.social · 6h

So now apply that to SEND: a child’s behaviour might be out of the ordinary, but the fact that they are not statistically typical doesn’t entail that they (or their abilities) aren’t normatively typical.

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Bernard Andrews @bernardandrews.bsky.social · 6h

So, if all humans except one were killed, and that one person was blind, what was statistically typical about eyes might have changed, but not what is normatively typical. Even though 100% of human eyes couldn’t see, that wouldn’t change the fact that eyes are the organ of sight.

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Bernard Andrews @bernardandrews.bsky.social · 6h

What's statistically typical, however, is what's true of most things of that type. Hearts are typically less than two metres from the ground, but this isn’t normatively typical of hearts. It isn’t part of what it means to be a heart that it is less than two metres from the ground.

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Bernard Andrews @bernardandrews.bsky.social · 6h

So a heart typically pumps blood around the body in the sense that it is constitutive of the meaning of ‘heart’ that it has that function. That of course doesn’t mean that every heart does pump blood around the body.

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Bernard Andrews @bernardandrews.bsky.social · 6h

Something can be typical in the sense of being...

Normatively typical: what is constitutive of a kind of thing — what it is for.

Or

Statistically typical: what is true of most instances of that kind.

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Bernard Andrews @bernardandrews.bsky.social · 6h

There is a set of words with very similar meanings: characteristic, normal, general… and they are all related insofar as they relate to the features of a group. But within this group of concepts, there is a very dangerous conflation.

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Bernard Andrews @bernardandrews.bsky.social · 6h

How we confuse two different meanings of 'typical' and why it is crucial for SEND discussions.

(or why correlation is not characterisation)

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Reposted by Bernard Andrews

Bernard Andrews @bernardandrews.bsky.social · 2d

What is an idea?
We tend to overcomplicate the idea of an ‘idea’. If asked, ‘what is an idea?’, people often answer with reference to something ‘inside our heads’ or in terms of ‘a thought’, and so on. But I think that the field of education would benefit if we demystified the notion somewhat.

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Reposted by Bernard Andrews

Bernard Andrews @bernardandrews.bsky.social · 2d

Just as a ruler is wood, plastic, or metal structured in particular ways, an idea is a set of sounds, words, gestures, images (etc.) structured in particular ways. The genius of language is that we managed to create tools using nothing more than the noises and marks that we make.

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Bernard Andrews @bernardandrews.bsky.social · 1d

Yep thanks for the chat!

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Bernard Andrews @bernardandrews.bsky.social · 1d

Well ideas reveal things.

Bernard Andrews @bernardandrews.bsky.social · 1d

1. It's all in the rest of the thread. bsky.app/profile/bern...

2. Tbh if we think of the mind as being some kind of 'private inner world' or information processing system, then yes.

Bernard Andrews @bernardandrews.bsky.social · 2d

We normally define, explain, give the rules for the expression of ideas with words and gestures. A sentence like ‘triangles have three sides’ might look like a description of triangles, but it’s actually just a rule, or better a norm —a norm of representation.

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Bernard Andrews @bernardandrews.bsky.social · 1d

We identify things, understand things using norms of representation.

You were saying that these structured use of words were somehow additional to something else. What is that thing if it's not something psychological?

representation.you

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Bernard Andrews @bernardandrews.bsky.social · 1d

Well this description certainly enables action and explains how it does so. It also explains how we perceive and understand things.
Adding some other psychological element is otiose.

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Bernard Andrews @bernardandrews.bsky.social · 1d

We can only make plans because we *possess*/can apply structures of words.

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Bernard Andrews @bernardandrews.bsky.social · 1d

You don't have to express an idea to possess it, but if we're going to make a distinction, classification etc. then we need a means to do it. And for us, mostly that involves language. Channelling Wittgenstein, a dog can know it's going for a walk, but not that it's going for a walk next Wednesday.

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Bernard Andrews @bernardandrews.bsky.social · 1d

No I think that is the idea/concept itself. It's a structure made of words or sounds or images or gestures.
We're always tempted to think there must be some other psychological or mystical 'thing' but I think that's a mistake and entirely unnecessary.

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Bernard Andrews @bernardandrews.bsky.social · 1d

Yeah, I suppose it's indirectly influenced by Wittgenstein, AR White, PMS Hacker and that kind, though I'm not sure any of them put it exactly like this. I'm pretty pleased with it as a description tbh! Haha

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Bernard Andrews @bernardandrews.bsky.social · 1d

Anyone want to disagree with me about this description of what an idea is?

Bernard Andrews @bernardandrews.bsky.social · 2d

Just as a ruler is wood, plastic, or metal structured in particular ways, an idea is a set of sounds, words, gestures, images (etc.) structured in particular ways. The genius of language is that we managed to create tools using nothing more than the noises and marks that we make.

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