Learning as Intellectual Empowerment

Now more than ever, modern teaching has to find the secret of the cognitive economy that will permit the reconciliation of the ever-increasing mass of knowledge with the limited cognitive abilities of individuals, and of the training needs of highly specialized experts with requirements for high level, general understanding. We put forward elements towards a solution, starting from the question of what the notion of a “well-made head” might signify today. The hypothesis developed is that training the mind in any given field involves an understanding of the concepts and key ideas that form the basic structure of that field. 

Now more than ever, modern teaching has to find the secret of the cognitive economy that will permit the reconciliation of the ever-increasing mass of knowledge with the limited cognitive abilities of individuals, and of the training needs of highly specialized experts with requirements for high level, general understanding. We put forward elements towards a solution, starting from the question of what the notion of a “well-made head” might signify today. The hypothesis developed is that training the mind in any given field involves an understanding of the concepts and key ideas that form the basic structure of that field.