E-Journal of Philosophy of Education:
International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 4, 2019

Education Without Consideration of Human Inquiry:
Flaws in Arguments on Competencies
Ryohei MATSUSHITA
Mukogawa Women’s University
Abstract
Since the end of the twentieth century in many countries around the world, education has sought tofoster competencies, including those referred to by the MEXT in Japan as “the three pillars of qualities
and abilities.” This presentation will indicate some serious flaws inherent in the usual arguments oncompetencies. At the heart of my presentation are the questions: where and in what way docompetencies exist? How can they be learned? Current mainstream educational theory and practice isbased on frameworks such as “thinking consists of knowledge, skills, and character,” or “learning is
divided into passive learning and active learning.” What I attempt here, however, is to present anotherview on thinking, inquiry, and learning in a way that follows a new scientific-philosophical trend,
which has an affinity with the ontology or knowledge theory of phenomenology, hermeneutics, andpragmatism. Based on the view that criticizes the reductionist idea that considers knowing andthinking to be the inner workings of the mind and brain, and claims the idea to recognize action,
perception, and thinking as one continuous whole, education, which seeks to foster competencies
without taking into account the inherent character of human inquiry, may have serious limitations anddeficiencies.
Keywords
Competencies, Inquiry, Leaning, Pathos (Passion), Preunderstanding

Introduction
In a globalizing society, the future is everywhere increasingly unforeseeable,
uncertain, and complicated. It is expected that labor, which a knowledge-based economy
needs and AI (artificial intelligence) cannot defeat, will be required further and that
unknown social problems will arise one after another from now on. Responding to such

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near-future situations in a rapidly changing world is forcing the vision and principles of
education to be revised. In Japan, education aims to foster competencies referred to by
the MEXT (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) as “thethree pillars of qualities and abilities (Shishitsu / Nōryoku)’’: “working ‘knowledge andskills’,’’ “ability to think / make decisions / express oneself and so on,” and “ability geared
toward learning / human nature.” Furthermore, the way to achieve such aims of education
is called “proactive, interactive, and deep learning.” It goes without saying that since theend of the twentieth century, educational policies to foster competencies have been
introduced in countries around the world, including Japan.
There is some room for doubt in such education; for example, there is the possibilityof placing an excessive burden and hardship on the individual. Although, we admit herethat in the future people who can manage and solve unknown problems will be needed
more than ever before. However, even if we recognize the need for education to placehigh importance on inquiry, creation, dialog, collaboration, and knowledge, we cannot
but say that arguments regarding competencies such as “qualities and abilities” have
many serious flaws. In this presentation I focus on the issues considered to be the mostessential among such flaws and, in particular, those related to philosophical arguments.
1. Competencies and Learning as Global Standard
At the heart of my presentation are the questions: where and in what way do the“qualities and abilities” of competencies exist? How can they be learned? Researches to
elucidate the characteristics of human ability, thinking, knowing, and learning haverecently been advanced by cognitive science, psychology, brain science, robotics, biology,
anthropology, etc. And philosophy also plays an important role in advancing thoseresearches. However, as the researches have just begun and are only now in progress,
there are many issues still in the midst of controversies. Reflecting on the restrictions
which stem from these controversies, it appears that arguments on educational policies at
a global level are trying to incorporate only the minimal flame of the most common
achievements of these researches, but this seemingly neutral stance can cause serious
problems.
The frameworks of competencies proposed by the OECD, etc., on which arguments
on “qualities and abilities” are based, consist of the components of human abilities andcharacter considered necessary for achieving the goals demanded by a future society.
Those components are usually divided into three parts such as “knowledge, skills, andcharacter,” or “knowledge, (cognitive and social emotional) skills, and attitudes andE-Journal of Philosophy of Education: International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 4, 2019

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R. MATSUSHITA

values,” whose parts roughly correspond to each of “the three pillars of ‘qualities andabilities’.’’ Moreover, each component is divided into subcomponents, including
communication skills, creativity, collaboration, metacognitive skills, resilience, and so on.
Thus, in the “OECD 2030 Framework,” competencies are regarded as the whole of theinteraction or the interrelationship between these components (although how thesecomponents or subcomponents are to be understood depends on each responsible agentof education). What is knowledge or character? What kinds of communication skills are
required? These are open questions for each responsible agent of education or educational
practitioner. At the same time, it is assumed that a better practice will be discovered andtheory will be revised when we challenge new practices based on a certain learning theory
and verify whether they succeed or not based on evidence.
Next, thinking is supposed to be a manipulation of symbols using certain skills,
accompanied by ideas of two-step learning consisting of both passive learning(acceptance of knowledge) and active learning (utilization and creation of knowledge),
which are based on the dichotomy between knowledge and skill. Thinking is regarded asutilizing existing knowledge or creating new knowledge by combining symbolized
representations and data appropriately, while making full use of generic skills, driven andpromoted by character or attitudes, and directed by values.
In cognitive science or AI research in recent years, however, a trend of thought isemerging that rejects modern Western mainstream frameworks such as “thinking consistsof knowledge, skills and character” or “learning is divided into passive learning andactive learning.” It is a trend that has an affinity with the ontology or knowledge theoryof phenomenology, hermeneutics, and pragmatism1. What I attempt in this presentation
is to present another view on thinking, inquiry, and learning in a way that follows a newscientific-philosophical trend to criticize the reductionist idea that regards knowing andthinking as the inner workings of the mind and the brain, namely, to recognize action,
perception, and thinking as one continuous whole. The issues I discuss here are limited
to the basic frameworks and ideas of human abilities, thinking, inquiry, and learning.
However, if the view I present is correct, education based on arguments on competencies,
including the idea of “qualities and abilities” may have serious limitations anddeficiencies.
1

For some examples of this recent trend of thought derived from the ideas of James J. Gibson and / or Francisco
Varela, and so on, see below. Clark, A., Being There: Putting Brain, Body, and World Together Again, A Bradford
Book, 1997. Noë, A., Action in Perception, MIT Press, 2004. Barrett, L., Beyond the Brain: How Body andEnvironment Shape Animal and Human Minds, Princeton University Press, 2011. Dreyfus, H. and Taylor, C.,
Retrieving Realism, Harvard University Press, 2015.
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2. Inquiry Embedded in Preunderstanding
How do human beings think and inquire? We can summarize the characteristics ofhuman inquiry as follows, which is closely connected with what lies at the base of humanlife and is different from a search conducted by AI.
Much of human daily life is automated by following routines or habits. Lives that
follow them are in a steady flow of things. A human being who gets accustomed to agiven environment usually lives in a constant rhythm and tempo in such a flow,
maintaining balance, without thinking of “what should I do?” or “I am the agent of action.”
The world around her moves by itself.
When this steady flow is disturbed and interrupted and you realize that you are being
pulled apart from the world, you are forced to stop and think. It is an occurrence ofsituations to which you cannot respond by following existing expectations or prospects
about the world. Then, encountering the unfamiliar or the other obstructs the steady flowof life, shakes up your existing anticipations and prospects, and inspires “pathos(passion).” When you aim to mitigate or settle the “pathos” (wonder, resentment, pain,
sorrow, joy, and so on) in a convincing manner while responding to the environment, aquestion arises and an inquiry is triggered. What is needed to deepen the question anddevelop the inquiry is nothing but a thought as reflection that involves symbolic
manipulation and information processing.
When the flow of your life is steady and stable, you acquire some expectations orprospects, namely, an outlook or perspective about the future of the state of things you
confront. In general, these are tied to certain concepts or symbolized representations, butthese expectations or prospects emerge as implicit or tacit knowledge; in their originalform they are not the knowledge connected with a certain concept or representation. Since
they are knowledge which is brought about by collaboration between the body-brain andthe environment, and not knowledge about the environment, it is possible for
expectations or prospects of the environment not to require any concepts or
representations. Here I refer to this kind of understanding, which does not necessarily
require concepts or representations as “preunderstanding” (Vorverständnis)2 by using theterm hermeneutics.
In this presentation, I explain the structure of preunderstanding by using the concept2

Here I got suggestions from Hubert Dreyfuss and Charles Taylor's ideas of “preunderstanding” and “thepreconceptual” (Dreyfus, H. and Taylor, C., Retrieving Realism, Harvard University Press, 2015) rather than
“Vorverständnis” derived from Heideggerian hermeneutics.
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of “tacit knowledge” (Michael Polanyi) and “perceptual experience” (Alva Noë) as a clue.
According to both, the whole or the invariant can be understood implicitly without
representation or judgment. The recognition of wholeness or invariance cannot be
attained by the accumulation or combination of parts or elements but emerges in an
unexpected way from interactions among parts or elements. Namely, according to
Polanyi, a “comprehensive entity” emerges from “dwelling in” the relationship ofelements3; according to Noë, as a result of moving around with “sensorimotor skills” inthe environment, a “sensorimotor profile” of “appearance” or “how things appear” thatvaries according to movement is obtained, while at the same time, “how things are” that
does not vary with movement is “enacted.”4
The preunderstanding is, as it were, an understanding of the dynamic relationshipbetween the part and the whole, the specific and the general, or the particular and theuniversal; so, it allows us to foresee or anticipate the whole from parts. When looking at
it from this point of view, we can understand inquiry as an endless process in which theexisting preunderstanding becomes unstable when a new part or element is introduced
and therefore jumps to another new stable preunderstanding discontinuously throughemergence.
If the above explanation is correct, even primordial preunderstanding that does notinclude any representations or judgments can be regarded as a product of dynamic
cognitive activity, which could be called proto-inquiry. It can be said that the proto-matrix
of inquiry is embedded in preunderstanding, where the general is understood directlyfrom the specific processes moving around the environment skillfully; in other words,
where new understandings and actions can emerge in an unpredictable way from theinteraction between the whole and parts in the environment. By virtue of that type of
proto-inquiry, the acquisition of mother language, the understanding of another person’s
physical or emotional expressions, the acquisition of various kinds of physical skills /techniques / arts, and so on can be attained.
3. Education That Promotes / Hinders Inquiry
When we turn our eyes onto human inquiry by taking what is invisible in human life
into consideration, we can see that we actually follow a framework that can be put into
the form of “preunderstanding (with the proto-matrix of inquiry) leads to inquiry (with3
4

Polanyi, M., The Tacit Dimension, Routledge, 1966.
Noë, op. cit., chapter 3.

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thinking) through pathos” instead of that of “thinking consists of knowledge, skills andcharacter,” which is accepted by arguments of competencies worldwide. So, what kindof education is required to promote inquiry (with thinking)? According to the former
framework, it is necessary to nurture a fertile preunderstanding before anything else inorder to promote inquiry. Nurturing preunderstanding means having the opportunity tomove around in the environment freely, namely, to meet various and unknown people,
things, and events, and entrusting yourself to the emergence of knowledge and skills.
Although it is possible for preunderstanding to not include any representations or
judgments, it is necessary to expand the scope and deepen the substance of
preunderstanding by connecting it with various kinds of symbols and concepts in orderto promote and advance the inquiry. What is necessary for a question to arise is to be
shaken into preunderstanding by encountering unfamiliar people, things, and events. But
then if preunderstanding has richness and profundity a significant question can arise evenwhen you encounter trivial information, and consequently inquiry can endure. In contrast
with the case when preunderstanding is shallow and narrow, even an unprecedented
experience will only bring ad hoc fun or shock instead of enduring questions, and will
not lead you to inquiry or investigation. In today’s society, if your preunderstanding lacks
broad and profound conceptual understanding, you cannot foresee distant consequencesof social occurrences where politics, economics, and science have a great influence while
being intertwined with each other. Therefore, due to the lack of expectations or prospects,
your passion is not likely to be stirred up easily, and questions about many social issues
will seldom arise. It is indispensable to read a wide variety of linguistic texts to acquire
knowledge and information in order to advance inquiry and elaborate on the ideas
obtained in the inquiry. Furthermore, walking around what Ivan Illich called the“vineyard of the text” is important in order to initiate as well as deepen the inquiry.
To continue the inquiry it is also essential for the inquirer to keep asking the question
by not only thinking of the question as meaningful or significant but also accepting
responsibility for others or things. To that end, it is necessary to interact constantly withthe environment and participate in the community of inquiry which shares similarinterests or questions. In other words, what you need in order to continue the inquiry is tomaintain dialog, namely a calling-responding relationship with people, things, events,
texts, etc. and constantly reflect and correct your understanding. Dialog is not just talking
here. Dialog is a symbolic expression of the way in which we face others and things, orthe attitude toward the world surrounding an agent.
Turning to the other question: what kind of education hinders or impedes inquiry?
It is one that keeps the preunderstanding in an immature or narrow state. Examples we
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often find today include: education that is eager to arrange tools or equipment in order toeffectively and efficiently lead learners’ thinking and behavior to goals, or that reduces
learning to information processing or the operation of signs while pursuing the rationalityof education and which turns even the encountering of the other or the dialogs into the
manipulation of symbols or information. Under the type of education just cited thelearning of concepts and information does not lead to a deepening of preunderstanding,so the ability to foresee the consequences of circumstances and inquire about unknown
facts or truths remains poor or premature. The result is that those who lack such abilities
are likely to feel anxious about themselves and tend to be afraid of others and unknown
society. The more society becomes uncertain, the more the disease of the education thathinders inquiry will become apparent.
4. Perversions and Mistakes of Arguments on Competencies
If we seek to equip learners with competencies without taking account of theinherent character of human inquiry as described so far, we may get to a destination whichis completely different to the one we originally aimed at. Scenes of the wrong destination
we may arrive at can be summarized as follows.
1. When following the framework of “thinking consists of knowledge, skills andcharacter” or “learning is divided into passive learning and active learning,” on whicharguments on competencies including the idea of “qualities and abilities” are based,
thinking and learning are likely to be reduced to symbolic manipulation or information
processing so as to produce the visible outcome expected by educational administrators.
In this case, however, no matter how hard you provide learners the opportunity for the“proactive, interactive and deep learning,” your attempts will turn to the “education thathinders inquiry,” because the learning will lose its substance, preunderstanding willremain shallow, and encounters with the unfamiliar will be eliminated.5
2. There is no problem representing what you have acquired as a result of constantinquiry as the “ability to think / make decisions / express oneself and so on.” The notionthat knowledge, skills, and character play important roles in inquiry is not necessarily
wrong. However, the notion will fall into false consciousness brought about by the so5

See also, Matsushita, R., “Shutaiteki / taiwateki de fukai mnabi” no hakarishirenai konnan: Miushinawareta

kanōsei wo motomete (The Incredible Difficulties of the “Proactive, Interactive and Deep Learning”; In Search of
Lost Possibilities), Group Didactica ed., Fukai manabi wo tsumugidasu: kyōka to kodomo no siten kara (Spinningout the Deep Learning: From the Viewpoints of School Subjects and Children), Tokyo: Keisōshobō, 2019.

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called “reification,” when you consider as follows; knowledge, skills and character are
the abilities and qualities which belong to an individual and exist separately as they are
named; acquiring each can be set as educational objectives respectively, and therefore
each objective can be attained rationally through stepwise and effective teaching methods
that have been adopted away from the context of inquiry. In other words, the idea of“qualities and abilities” comes to connect with a fictional view of education, whichaffirms the teaching of what cannot be learned in such a way.
3. Competencies including “qualities and abilities” are not representations of whatreally exist but the symbolized representations of what education should equip children
with so that they can be comprehensible and accountable for educators or stakeholders.
Nevertheless, if you assume that the learning and teaching of each component and its
subcomponents is possible by rational educational methods and attempt to verify successor failure of learning and teaching by means of evidence, you will find the contradictionthat the educational objectives as fiction are not only attained but also verified. Education
goes beyond fiction and turns into fake.
4. Moreover, when components and their subcomponents of competencies are
regarded as the real entity that exists exactly as named, education can have a serious
misunderstanding about the interpretation of those components / subcomponents. For
example, regarding “self-control”6; when education attempts to equip learners with socialand emotional skills by rational methods, it is likely to equip them with the skills of“emotion management,” by which you can purposely conceal your real emotions andforge appropriate expressions for the scene while calculating the effect you will have onothers, instead of acquiring the self-discipline necessary for inquiry by practicing inquiry.
With such misunderstanding, your pathos (passion) will be pushed beneath yourconsciousness and questions that lead to inquiry will not arise.
The problems concerning competencies are not limited to what I explained above.
Along with a more detailed explanation of human inquiry, I would like to discuss themagain on another occasion.

Acknowledgment
This paper was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP15K04216.

6

Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) ed., Skills for Social Progress: The Powerof Social and Emotional Skills, 2015, chapter 3.
E-Journal of Philosophy of Education: International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 4, 2019