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ANALYTIC TEACHING AND PHILOSOPHICAL PRAXIS VOL. 37, ISSUE 2 (2017) 

  
 

 

 Community of Inquiry and Underserved Youth Engagement: A 
reflective account of philosophy and method 

 

 

 

Darren Garside & Karen J. Myskiw 
 

 

Introduction: Arts education and inquiry 

Braidotti, when considering her early career, poses the following questions: 
How do we do justice to experiences that have no recognition in the language and practice of 
conventional wisdom, common sense and reasonableness? What is the appropriate way to 
express silences and missing voices? (Butler & Braidotti, 2010, p. 315) 

  
n this paper we expand on the short answer “Art”, including visual arts, spoken word, and 
poetry, dancing and tableau, by elaborating upon one aspect - processes of inquiry that at their 
heart value recognition and voice. We begin our account by providing a dialogic narrative case 

study that explores an artist’s educational inquiry practice with underserved youth in British 
Columbia.  Braided into the account are analytical reflections from a philosopher of education 
working in a UK teaching university.  As we explore the phenomenon of giving expression to 
underserved youth voice, we go on to outline how Lin & Bruce (2013) address the matter. Their line 
is to wed critical theory and philosophical pragmatism in order to theorize inquiry with underserved 
youth. However, there are aspects that we find unconvincing because of unresolved tensions in 
ontology; tensions deriving directly from using Dewey without understanding contemporary 
developments in pragmatist scholarship. Our approach is to present an aspect of the work of the 
contemporary pragmatist, Colin Koopman, who sets out to emphasize transition, inquiry and 
transformation without necessarily locating agency solely in the individual. For Koopman sources of 
power and agency must be liberated from within contexts rather than imposed from outside as a form 
of utopian or dystopian scheme. This form of philosophy emphasizes action and a fluidity in the 
conception of ‘who’ is acting and is guided by an emphasis on meliorism, i.e. a justified hopefulness 
intending improvement in the situation at hand (Koopman, 2009; Garside, 2014).  Such a reading 
has affinities with the new materialist stance of Hickey-Moody et al. (2016, p. 217), who argues that 
“young people’s individual and group subjectivities becom[e] through [artistic] practices”1. 

Philosophical-artistic inquiry in a Canadian context: working with the underserved to combat 
epistemic and hermeneutic injustice 

 

I 



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In our case study we interpret the notion of voice and injustice through Fricker's (2007) work 
on epistemic injustice. Fricker systematically conceptualizes how voice is not heard, recognized, or 
responded to by all parties in configurations of power2. Injustices can take the form of testimonial 
injustice where the testimony of a specific individual or group is ignored or not heard. Here the 
wrong is done to the giver of knowledge as they are simply unable to make themselves heard or have 
their concerns acted upon. The second type of injustice, and is central to understanding our dialogue, 
is hermeneutical injustice. Here speakers’ claims about their experiences are almost insurmountably 
difficult to express as the linguistic and conceptual resources are not available within the discourses 
available to these subjects of injustice. We may say there are gaps or lacunae that deny voice so deeply 
that persons and groups, according to Fricker, are ‘prevented from becoming who they are.’ 
 

We also aver that cultural and artistic excellence is central to any good notion of human 
flourishing. In the classical sense of flourishing as eudaimonia we know that life as the practical art of 
living well requires both an understanding and expression of the good. A post­humanist sense of 
flourishing is necessarily non-teleological and must emphasize and cultivate the capacity to articulate 
and then navigate fractured and discontinuous experience. In order to construct narratives of 
engagement with our future selves and a sustainable life on our future planet then those generating 
meaning in othered or underserved communities, who are alienated from self­-replicating and 
perpetuating habits of powerful domination, must be able to start from their own situation and find 
resource and capability within those spaces and places.  
 

The following narrative case study is formed from the words of one of the authors of this 
paper and concerns her work with indigenous youth in British Columbia.  Aboriginal education in 
Canada, and in particular British Columbia, works with a variety of living theory concepts such as 
‘two­-eyed seeing’, ‘wayfinding’, ‘and elegant sufficiency of ourselves’ to revitalize indigenous peoples 
through processes of healing and emphasizing holistic wellbeing (Kelly, 2014; Kelly, 2015). Central to 
this are arts practices leading to a radical re­imagining of the self and the more­-than-­human, a notion 
that expands beyond the perniciousness of a colonial Western individualistic mindset.  As 
Etherington states, narrative analysis treats stories as knowledge per se which constitutes ‘the social 
reality of the narrator’ (Etherington, 2004, p. 81; 2009). Woven into this account is an analytical 
structure that the other author has read into the account as a dialogic response to themes that will be 
elaborated upon in the next section of the paper. Presenting the case study in this way is a 
cartographic act (Braidotti 2010) and one that maps the co-construction of meaning and knowledge 
between the authors, without over-generalizing, in ways that are meant to be interesting and 
reflection-provoking for a wider audience. We begin with a descriptive outline of the DAREarts 
process. 
 

KJM: The DAREarts3 programme in Vancouver is a week-long, non-traditional, arts-based 
studio & leadership activities intervention. Preparation for the students begins with in-class 
introductions to the artist facilitators, exploring the themes for the arts-based week, and a highlighting 
of the DAREarts vocabulary. Additional pre-teaching is allocated to develop storylines in advance of 
the intensive week and this helps students perform when time is precious in the week itself. The 
students are introduced to some of the facilitators, who are visual / multimedia artists and dancers, as 
well as the core DAREarts values and principles. These values, an acronym for Discipline, Action, 
Responsibility, Respect and Reflection for Excellence are core in all subsequent endeavors 



15 
 

undertaken. The values are modelled and repeated throughout the week-long program. In the week 
itself, the immersion of the whole class has immediate benefits for the individuals who participate as 
well as the class, which engenders class cohesiveness.  
 

“When I consider transitionalism, I am reminded of a line of poetry valued by my co-author, 
‘Time present and time past\\Are both perhaps present in time future’ (Eliot, xxxx). This 
echoes for me how my students (from a B.C. Elementary school) move into and reflect on the 
DAREarts intensive studio process, whose purposes are to provide long lasting transformation 
and growth.” 

 
DG: For me this resonates with a performative metaphor of the educator as cartographer. You 

describe a setting forth or journeying into a landscape and this requires commitment to hopeful 
connection. I also note the importance of the invitation and your respectful stance as you enter into 
relating with these children. You bring values with you, unavoidably, but own these values so that 
children have a chance to respond authentically and choose how they respond to the invitation.  The 
approaches in this paper are concerned with initiating inquiry in a way that is purposeful without 
being instrumental and the former requires a fundamental commitment to openness. It echoes one of 
the underlying assumptions of new materialism, Barad’s (2003: 815) insight that relating precede 
relata, and in the process of intra-relating there can be ‘agential cuts’ that recognize or deny agency as 
a materialist interaction of matter and discourse. I read your practice as affirming and acknowledging 
the children’s heritage as an essential part of their agency. Denying this heritage is to deny part of 
themselves by denying a whole apparatus of expression. Your approach to the classroom is more 
tentative and respectful since children’s voices are heard and made space for from the outset. 
 

KJM: With inquiry-based programs, such as DAREarts, the artists model and teach the 
leadership process that values discipline, action, reflections, responsibility, and a respect for 
excellence. Excellence is achieved through students doing their personal best; respect is integrally 
developed and recognized as students support the efforts of the group, as well, acts of responsibility 
ensure artist endeavors each day contribute towards the final performance. The product itself is not 
the main focus; the workshops are about the process and celebrating how far the participants have 
come by sharing their efforts at the end of the week with a wider community. Each day the circle 
opens and closes as students are encouraged to reflect on their learning, and to note these thoughts 
on sticky-notes to be gathered up each day as status updates. Action and the decisive ability to choose 
the expression of one’s agency offers a profound gift for empowering the students. The ability for 
students to take ownership of the studio environment and its outcomes arises from encouraging their 
mindful commitment to the creative process.  
 

DG: I read into these words an elaboration on themes of transitional becoming that requires a 
wrenching free by the students’ from being positioned.  I note how the circle is a practice central to 
indigenous cultural practice.  I hear that their trajectory and velocity of possibility is committed to 
and connected with by the artists in a melioristic and open-ended way. For me it is also worthwhile to 
imagine how artists create value by an embodied valuing of those with whom they work. Drawing 
again on Barad (2003), one aspect of valuing performing one’s voice over having it merely represented is 
that phenomena are made through the intra-action of matter (material processes) and instruments (the 
language and structures of recognition at play; the process of inquiring as community) rather than be 



16 
 

recognized by a sovereign self.  Hence, intra-subjective space emerges from, rather than being prior to, 
bodies in motion aligning their trajectories. 
 

KJM: Yes, this intra-subjective space becomes further elaborated upon by our Elder, in the 
talking circle. The talking circle creates a cohesive space with rituals that reinforce safety and celebrate 
the efforts over the course of the 4 days. Throughout the week, different artists and students take the 
lead and facilitate this process.  All participants, including students, teachers, artists and volunteers sit 
in a unifying circle whose space allows for equality, where individual voices can be heard in a 
respectful environment and performative space.  The circle creates a kindred experience that is both 
transformative for individuals and the group. “Our class came together as a team” a grade seven girl 
commented in closing circle of day four, bearing witness to the profound change she underwent 
compared to her group’s habitually destructive/negative behaviors. As she changed, her clique 
changed too. 
 

DG: For me this relates to temporal form and historicist practices that we shall see to be at the 
heart of Koopman’s work. A transitionalist situation has form and material circumstance, and what 
you describe is the centrality of a safe yet transformative space. I read in your words that there are 
three aspects to the space: the affective, the conceptual and the technical. The affective aspect 
concerns the emotional space where it is made possible to feel and to express what is often excluded 
and marginalized from common classroom work. The conceptual safe space is made possible by the 
comfort of artists in playing with ideas and possibilities that transmits the idea of permission to the 
students. Two aspects that come also from your words and that relate to the conceptual is that of 
elaboration and communication. The final necessary condition of the safe space is the importance of 
technique since (melioristic) intention is not sufficient in itself. There are strong parallels for me with 
the community of inquiry experienced as philosophy for children (P4C) practice. The emphasis on 
different types of thinking caring, critical, collaborative and creative reflect the safe spaces made 
through your artistic practices. But there are limits to thinking. Pietzner’s recent doctoral work 
reminds us of the emphasis that Lipman laid upon the product of inquiry (Pietzner, 2014), but in this 
paper it is our position that disembodied judgements are dissociative and alienating; It is this that 
gives rise to what Dewey criticized as the spectator theory of knowledge (Coulter and Weins, 2004) 
where our knowledge is good for nothing (or know-thing perhaps). This troubling passivity of 
knowledge is challenged by third-wave pragmatism.  
 

KJM: Yes, there is strong resonance between DAREarts and P4C pedagogical practice. The 
DAREarts program carefully constructs a program that builds collaboration over the course of the 
week where the sharing of responsibility for self-efficacy is given over to the students. Over the course 
of the week, this co-constructed practice deeply engages the student participants to call upon the 
leadership techniques they are exposed to that will over time be part of the transitionalist place 
Koopman speaks of, where future relationships to future selves and future worlds illustrate the 
impacts of a hands-on program.  
 

Co-construction leads to claiming our voices: within the workshop a Salish performer and 
artist recounts his poignant experiences as a youth, his choice of not speaking, to not have his voice 
heard, his need to be electively mute until he was 18 and how then the arts provided the means for 
his liberation. Through dance and drumming the gift of his becoming was fully actualized and 



17 
 

epitomized by the eagle dance, an autobiographical event that presented points of affinity for the 
youth and inspired the artists in attendance. Other mentors who have graduated from the DAREarts 
program also shared their personal accounts, building solidarity. Over the course of the morning the 
young students became eaglets, preparing to sing, dance and fly. The Eagle is closest to the Creator, in 
Salish culture, and epitomizes wisdom, loyalty and strength. The youth soar forth into a landscape 
charted mutually.  
 

DG: For me the theme of transformational experience is particularly strong. At the beginning, 
no one could have specified this as a learning outcome nor could this be planned for. Instead, a trust 
is required that the resources required for transformation are inherent in the situation and can be 
accessed through meaningful encounters with one another, in a safe space. There is a trust in one 
another and confidence that what one has at-hand is sufficient to find the way. Becoming eaglets is 
not just a metaphor but a genuine transformational experience that is accessible to young children 
but gets denied to us as we become older. The gift of the Salish Dancer is to free us to become 
children again and that allows us to move forward with our growth once we are wrenched loose from 
our positions. 
  

KJM: The practices are an embodied inquiry with individuals immersed in the fullest practice 
of becoming. As part of engaging holistically, we encourage active minds and bodies each day through 
rigorous exercises in movement, dance, drama and creative thinking. Through these exercises, the 
students get hands-on experience building animation sets, writing scripts, drawing and painting, 
playing instruments, shooting video and photography, creating lyrics and performing movement and 
dance. The students have control over the creative process and are encouraged to take ownership of 
their cooperative learning in the studio at all times. Then, they create artworks and their own 
performance pieces that are a direct product of their self-exploration and artistic interpretation of 
what it is to be an Eagle and the DARE values. They are expected to communicate their ideas and 
collaborate with their peers as they complete their artworks. 
    

Students reflect, communicate their point of view and insights as they progress through the 
DAREarts program on a status update board where students can ‘post it’ note how they are feeling 
about their progress and what they are learning about themselves and their peers. Through social 
media, the comments are tweeted to say Listen to the Voices of Youth.  
 

DG: This is another affirmation of the space which is fluid and matter-full. The recurrent 
themes of the physical, conceptual, affective and technically saturated practice are here in abundance 
and resonate with the intensity and commitment of a P4C inquiry by an established community of 
inquirers. CI and art engagement are not the same thing since they differ in their emphasis on 
reasoning and artistic practice. However, common to both are in interest in expression for broader 
purposes concerning identity and transformational change as well as a need for technique and 
execution. In my response to your words, spoken and written, I read into them what is of value in 
Koopman’s transitionalist pragmatism, the anti-essentialism of new materialism, and what is common 
to both of them - a commitment to challenging the systematic marginalization of underserved youth 
through recognizing their voice and making spaces for its performance. 
 



18 
 

KJM: The artists and educators that work for DAREarts play an integral role in guiding the 
students through free thought and free expression. They teach them, in a very distinct way, how 
tapping into their creative side can make them stronger and more confident and can reveal who they 
truly are and what they truly want in life. DAREarts educators and artists help students spark that fire 
inside that will help them move through life no matter what comes their way. Vancouver's DAREarts 
leadership models is inquiry based learning in that there are multiple outcomes possible, purposeful 
play where attention is focused on painting, dancing, acting, creating musical compositions and 
poetic verse, giving artistic license to the youth to have an authentic and inter-subjective experience. 
The DAREarts pedagogical philosophy that underpins the whole week is fundamentally student-
centered and empowering.  By students teaching their peers what they have learned, they are 
empowered to become leaders, not followers, and ignite change — in their own lives and in their 
communities.   
 

During the final performance, one student stood alone, spot-lit, reciting the phrases created 
through the spoken word workshop. A powerful message that both embraces and claims ownership of 
the experiences which have metamorphically valued the other. It is the duality of intent that allows 
deep transformation.  Witness each member’s words:  

 
Feelings are wild animals.  
When sorrow is like a purple mountain you feel you cannot climb. 
When life feels like an ice cream cone, melting around you. 
If I were an eagle I could be soaring down to the horizon line, always watching on the way, 
Not worrying about depression day after day.  
I wish I was the mighty eagle, flying with God, careless about my appearance, 
Tuning out the embarrassments, conquering all isolation, laughing at suicidal thoughts, 
Not overreacting at my loss.  
 

The Community of Inquiry as transitionalist phenomenon 

Two common ways for arts education to be conceptualized is as either inquiry or research 
(Sullivan, 2010) but little is written about it as a community of inquiry (CI) or emancipatory 
education. Visual culture arts education (Hernandez, 2000, 2007) is increasingly being used to 
promote inclusive education practices, such as challenging deficit narratives around immigrant 
populations (Hernandez, 2015). Karpati et al. (2015) also argue that `visual culture groups act as 
powerful student communities for auto­didactic and peer initiated learning'. Sclater and Lally (2013) 
identify the ‘significance of creative practices ... to support a range of wider educational aims, 
including those relating to social justice and the development of young people’s own authentic 
voices.’ They also recognize how Garber (2004) notes the importance of visual culture, and arts & 
design education in Social Justice Education. This manifests as ‘helping students to develop their 
`voice' [but this] actually requires educators to develop a deeper understanding of the array of 
contexts that young people find significant’. An interesting example is in the context of working with 
“underserved youth” and Lin & Bruce (2013) see art education instrumentally as a means to ‘foster 
engaged citizens by encouraging youth to see how social, cultural and political forces shape their 
experiences’ (p. 337).  Art does this by fostering learning through art as an alternative site of counter-
hegemonic struggle against reductive accounts of human experience; the authors term this perspective 



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‘community inquiry’ and to conceptualize the approach draw upon Dewey's philosophy of art and 
sociopolitical theory and his ‘inquiry methodology’. What is interesting and novel about this 
approach is marrying together two distinct philosophical traditions - critical theory and pragmatism. 
 

As part of the work in drawing on both traditions, first, Lin & Bruce (2013) analyze and then 
make a distinction between a community and the state of consensus, coherency or unified social 
entity and in their work attempt to find a balance between the individual and the social. 
Furthermore, they challenge the idea that art interventions are a sufficient condition to enable 
underserved youth to productively respond to their struggles. They do grant that art can and should 
play a vital role in fostering engagement as a form of democratic practice.  It is the concern of the authors 
to value a move away from an individualistic focus on learning to a community inquiry approach that 
fosters growth from real-life issues. They draw upon the model of inquiry established in Dewey’s Logic: 
Theory of Inquiry (1938) and make reference to the broader figures in the pragmatist tradition to justify 
a dialogic space and collaborative activities. Hence, community becomes not just a containing or 
hosting space but an enactive or performative space.  We note that these considerations of teleology 
and purpose, where neither individual nor collective can claim to be ontologically a priori, are at the 
heart of debates about subjects and their knowledges in Philosophy for Children and philosophical 
community of inquiry (Splitter & Sharp, 1995; Lipman, 2003; McCall, 2006; Kennedy & 
Vanseigelheim, 2010; Biesta, 2011; Murris, 2016). 
 

Moving on to consider the role of the Arts (p. 339-340), the authors take the position of 
Dewey in Art as Experience (1980) where art, or rather the communicative capacity for relating to art, 
‘offers an avenue for participation in the public sphere’, which emphasizes the collective relationship 
over individual authorship (p. 339). It is in the relationship to collective meaning-making that the 
individual, as an artist, integrates both difference and commonality in their experience and the 
experiences of others. Paradoxically it is by facilitating the individual voices of underserved youth that 
the collective voice can also be articulated; art in this instance catalyzes productive power and social 
action. After considering a number of their own projects, Lin & Bruce (2013) conclude that artist and 
audience need to reconsider their relationship, as it is evermore crucial to consider relationships to 
reality rather than objects (conceptual or discrete). Second, they argue that serving the underserved 
requires emphasizing strengths rather than needs. This approach builds on Noddings’ (1989) 
relational attitude that sees the relation as more basic than the individual (Lin & Bruce, 2013, p. 
343).  

Third-wave Pragmatist critique of Lin & Bruce 

We agree with the value position in the paper that places arts inquiry in a critical social 
context but we part from their approach in two ways. First, in our understanding of the account of 
agency underpinning critical social engagement. Despite Dewey's intention to move away from a self-
world philosophical dualism, his account of subjectivity, like those that precede him, remains a 
figurative one. Second, we note that contemporary developments in pragmatist philosophy raise 
considerable doubts over what Sellars termed 'The Myth of the Given', i.e. the role of the aesthetic as 
'given' directly to consciousness without mediation by normatively-laden language (Koopman, 2009). 
We begin by examining in more depth Dewey’s understanding of inquiry that underpins the 
pragmatist elements of Lin & Bruce’s commitment to democratic modes of intersubjective relating. 
 



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For Dewey, the subject is in a non-dualistic and naturalistic relationship with its environment.  
Since there is a continuous flow of information between organisms from the environment then 
transition, best articulated in the Logic is fundamentally a move from the indeterminate to the 
determinate.  Dewey's (1938) thinking on judgement in the Logic is highly significant; part of the 
'Later Works' series, this volume devoted to the one topic is indicative of Dewey's mature and settled 
thoughts on the subject.   
 

According to Nagel's introduction, at the heart of Dewey's theory of inquiry is an innovation 
in the theory of judgement.  For Dewey, judgement is the settlement of an issue that has been subject 
to inquiry arising from a break in previously untroubled behavior.  It is a problem-solving mechanism 
and Dewey intended to show that to speak of logic and logical forms as a distinct way of 
understanding is severely limited and does not warrant the full use of the term 'judgement'.  Instead 
propositional understanding and unwarranted positions should be treated only as proposals, 
hypotheses, assertions and appraisals and are only a part of the judging process (1938, p. xvi; ch.1). 
Full judgement is constructed through inquiry and is arrived at when logical forms (ideational matter) 
accrue to subject-matter (that brought to attention) when the latter is subjected to controlled inquiry 
(p. 105). As Dewey describes it, inquiry is a directed or controlled transformation of an indeterminate 
situation into a determinedly fixed one.  To do this there must be two operations acting in a 
functional correspondence - the ideational/conceptual subject-matter, and techniques and organs of 
observation (p. 121).  There is thus a unity where neither ideas nor empirical data is privileged over one 
another as proving fundamental to the generation of meaning.  Dewey is clear that in this view of the 
construction of judgement, 'construction' refers both to the act of construction and the structure that 
results from the act.  Only the subject-matter of judgement is existential and its substantial character 
is logically not ontologically determined.  In other words the world is not found but made. And for it to 
be an existential subject the conditions of inquiry must be satisfied (pp. 129-30).  The following quote 
exemplifies Dewey's anti-essentialism: 
 

It is a form that accrues to original existence when the latter operates in a specified functional 
way as a consequence of operations of inquiry. It is not postulated that certain qualities always 
cohere in existence. It is postulated that they cohere as dependable evidential signs. The 
conjoined properties that mark off and identify a chair, a piece of granite, a meteor, are not 
sets of qualities given existentially as such and such. They are certain qualities which 
constitute in their ordered conjunction with one another valid signs of what will ensue when 
certain operations are performed. An object, in other words, is a set of qualities treated as 
potentialities for specified existential consequences. Powder is what will explode under certain 
conditions; water as a substantial object is that group of connected qualities which will 
quench thirst, and so on (p. 132). 
 
Judgement has a direct existential importance, over and above representational importance, 

since its concluding objects emerge from the process of inquiry, or put another way the process of 
inquiry produces conclusions.  Nor is this the end of the matter.  The finality of judgement means 
that it is an individual situation but one that may always be open to further inquiry since each 
situation is part of a wider field or domain of understanding that can move from being untroubled to 
troubled given other information. 
 



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It is Koopman’s (2009; 2016) argument that this latter direction, the move from resolved to 
unresolved is undeveloped in Dewey’s work but it is precisely this aspect which needs greater 
emphasis when engaging with critical practices and situations - what Lin & Bruce termed counter-
hegemonic practice.  When we consider the CI as in transition from determinate to indeterminate 
then this creates an interesting set of issues for analysis. Koopman terms his third-wave perspective on 
pragmatism as transitionalist pragmatism or conduct pragmatism.  Transitionalism is described as a 
philosophical temperament that focuses on ideas, concepts and things as part of and constitutive of 
transitional processes (p. 11).  This working from old to new, from past to future, treats truth as a 
dynamic process with temporal duration rather than a static quality holding either momentarily or 
eternally.  Extending this idea to ethics changes our focus onto the process of improving living rather 
than evaluating the correctness of isolable acts (p. 11).  Hence, it is more meaningful to speak in 
terms of truer/better rather than true or good.  What Koopman is trying to get us to accept is that 
pragmatism in general, and transitionalism in particular, is concerned with processes of justification 
and inquiry; he is concerned not for 'epistemic or moral rightness but melioration, improvement, 
development and growth' (p. 12, my italics).  In order to make his argument Koopman states firstly that 
transitionalism is a figure or lens for drawing together a range of complex concepts such as 
temporality, historicity, evolution, development, process and event.  Here I follow Koopman and 
present his sketched clarifications of the relationship between some of these key terms. 
 

First, transitionality is not mere change (p. 13).  The former is temporally mediated 
development whilst the latter is temporally mediated difference.  Temporally mediated development is a 
purposive activity whilst difference implies only undirected change.  The former is central to 
pragmatism and indeed inherits a Kantian legacy where thought is regarded as thoroughly purposive 
and directive of activity. For example, a rolling boulder does not develop, it does not transition 
between states according to purposes unlike humans and humming birds who might 'strive towards 
the glory of the sun' (p. 13).  Koopman is making a fundamental distinction here between purposive, 
developmental activity that develops for better or worse, that is activity that is fundamentally 
normative or evaluable. At its crux all human endeavor depends on whether purposive transitions 
result in definite improvements or definite degenerations (melioration or decline) (p. 13)4.  On the 
other hand, there are situations which are comparatively continuous, ongoing processes of activity. 
This consideration ought to be borne in mind when we consider that for this form of pragmatism it is 
not necessary to specify in advance the shape of success in its transitions.  Koopman, I think, is not 
too concerned to over-specify in the manner of Dewey’s Logic since a key issue for Koopman is that 
the emergence of new futures is not fully determined by the structures of old pasts.  In other words, 
the future is radically underdetermined by the past in that the future develops out of the past without 
merely rehearsing the old and that purposiveness can be strictly delimited in advance.   Koopman 
states (p. 14) that purposive activity sets up a field of possibility where both progress and decay are 
possible. 
 

Moving on from purposiveness, Koopman then examines the inter-relationship between 
temporality and historicity.  It is an inter-relationship since both concepts imply one another and are 
both aspects of purposive change.  Temporality is (p. 15) the form of transitionality itself, whilst 
historicity is the determinate contents through which transitions occur.  Koopman then goes on to 
indicate how there is a growing interest in pragmatic meliorism but that it still remains to be spelled 
out how, precisely, meliorism contributes to pragmatism.  The keyword for Koopman is hopefulness 



22 
 

and he claims that the philosophically robust conception of hopefulness is meliorism.  Furthermore, 
he identifies hopefulness as consisting of a combination of pluralism and humanism.  By pluralism he 
means that the realities we inhabit are many and contingent, what he calls the pluriverse, and by 
humanism he means the idea that humans make definitive contributions to this pluriverse. In 
another description of meliorism he states it as the capability of creating better worlds and selves.  
Koopman then goes on to draw on James (pp. 19-22) to delineate meliorism from mere 
optimism/pessimism which he regards as the conventional positions in mainstream philosophy.  
Definitions of these terms are made through the common relationship to 'salvation' and truth where 
optimism is a belief in the necessity of salvation, pessimism the belief in the impossibility of salvation 
but meliorism focuses on the possibility of our creating the world's salvation whilst being willing to 
live without assurances or guarantees.  Meliorism therefore stands in contrast to  mainstream 
optimistic/pessimistic attitudes since it no longer regards truth, as external authority, as having any 
emancipatory power. 
 

Koopman discerns the constant theme of transitionalism as latent in all of the early pragmatist 
writers as well as Rorty.  In James he see the first account of pragmatist philosophy setting out as a 
practice to reconstruct the situation in which it finds itself rather than timeless contemplation of 
eternal verities.  Instead of truth standing in objective relation to humanity that then needs to be 
found, revealed and of which the consequences are necessarily emancipatory, James sees truth as 
something happening to an idea.  If we consider, as Koopman (p. 20) does, the verb forms 'becomes 
true' and 'is made true' we get this sense of truth as a species of improvement rather than inert state. 
Not only is the adverbial and processual aspect of truth emphasized but the fact-value distinction that 
is arguably core to the western philosophical tradition collapses; truth as improvement is both 
epistemological and axiological.  On this account, truth does not stand removed from human 
plurality, it is not a power extrinsic to human action, rather truth is how we free ourselves actively, 
not how we are made free passively (p. 21). Koopman claims that not even interpreters sympathetic to 
pragmatism have quite grasped this point or in other words 'truth is not powerful in itself but the 
name for our being powerful' (p. 22). 
 

In this paper what we wish to establish is a critique of Lin & Bruce’s use of pragmatist 
thought. They are right to emphasize a performative reading of the community of inquiry but  first-
generation pragmatism does not contain the conceptual resources to warrant this claim. Dewey’s work 
on inquiry focuses on the production of individual judgements. A CI may be a valuable form that 
facilitates the production of such judgements but the CI in itself does not produce knowledge at the 
level of intersubjective let alone intra-subjective understanding. Whereas the ontological openness to 
form, matter and purpose that is the feature of third-wave pragmatism provides a much firmer set of 
justifications for the type of practices that Lin & Bruce envisage. 
 

This ontological openness has strong affinities with new materialism but a discussion of this is 
beyond the scope of this paper.  We would also add that it is our understanding that the problem of 
how to use arts practice educationally, in ways that do not replicate existing modes of domination and 
repression, is also relevant to critical theorists’: 'discourse ethics' (Allen, 2010). For example, a 
distinctive feature of 3rd generation critical theorists is a concern to move beyond the rationalism 
(and the rationalist subjectivity) of Habermas (and by extension over-rationalistic conceptions of CI) 
in order to stress “the contextual, the ethical, the particular, and the concrete as crucial aspects of 



23 
 

moral-political deliberation (Allen, 2010, p. 132)”. Additionally, Medina (2010, p. 303) considers 
what was referred to earlier as the 'enactive and performative' and argues that: 
 

The issues we are confronted with as speakers are whether a legacy of use is worth maintaining 
and in what way the received use should be modified and how. In any performative chain in 
which we participate, we should ask ourselves: what are the transformations that are needed in 
this chain, if any? And how can they be produced? 

  
We end by agreeing with the implied position in Lin & Bruce (2013) that holds the site of 

educational-artistic engagement is a location of moral-political deliberation, but we add also a place of 
performative disruption. So far we have shown how we disagree with the implied unity of selves and 
the possibility of dialogic engagement as presented by Lin & Bruce. Our position is that the figurative 
account of subjectivity should be criticized for ascribing too much credence to the notion of the 
sovereign, uniform and constitutive subject who judges. We agree with the premise of Braidotti 
(2010) that ‘the nonunitary subject is ubiquitous’ and the implications that has for our practice are 
posed as a question: ‘How might [a] nomadic subjectivity as artistic practice allow us to consider 
political and ethical mattering in indigenous arts education contexts?’  

 

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Endnotes 
 
1 A more developed treatment of the relationships between Koopman’s conduct pragmatism, Braidotti’s 
figurations of the nomadic subject and cartography, and new materialist writing inspired by Barad will be 



25 
 

 

found in articles in production for Educational Theory and two forthcoming Special Sections of the Journal of 
Philosophy of Education (2018/19). 
2 In P4wC research, Murris (2016) has pioneered the reception of Fricker, Barad and Braidotti through Murris’ 
treatment on the posthuman child. 
3 DAREArts is a Toronto-based charitable arts and youth NGO with reach across Canada. 
http://www.darearts.com/index.shtml 
4 I pause here to note that Koopman does not to my mind adequately differentiate the situations and contexts 
where on the one hand we might consider matters discreetly, as part of momentary evaluations or episodes. 
 

 

Address Correspondences to: 
 

Darren Garside and  
Institute for Education, Bath Spa University, England 
+44 1225 876579 
d.garside@bathspa.ac.uk 
 
Karen J. Myskiw 
Vancouver, B.C., Canada,  
jardinsdesigns@gmail.com 

 
 

http://www.darearts.com/index.shtml
mailto:d.garside@bathspa.ac.uk

