A Rule-Following-Based Approach to Student Learning in Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Educational Ideas

Abstract

This study is intended to demonstrate that, based on the ideas provided by Ludwig Wittgenstein in his later works -specifically the Philosophical Investigations, the process of learning among student could be better understood and achieved by using the Rule-following-based approach. Any teaching methodology is presumed to achieve learning among students but it generally doesn’t provide the teacher with the exact instance to determine when the student has already achieved learning. This means that the teacher during the course of the lesson possesses no succinct criterion to ascertain that the student has indeed learned what he needs to learn, i.e. the teacher has the difficulty in determining the exact moment when the student is considered to have learned something. Ludwig Wittgenstein in his notion of Rule-following provides a feasible explanation as to how one can confirm that one has learned something. His conviction that when a child plays by the rules of the game he/she has learned how to play the game. Textual analysis is the primary methodology used in this study. This would include references to other works that are pertinent to the matter in discussion.