The Cognitively Active Role Of Dogmatic Knowledge In Learning

Dogmatic knowledge as the knowledge-basis

Like any other knowledge, the dogmatic knowledge is taking shape in the process of growth in an individual psyche (Karpov, 2019а). It stems from steady-state data of practical activities, opinions of authorities, customs, generally accepted views and prejudices. It is cultivated by absorbing contexts, building up semantic links, accumulating theory and experience of use. Having presented itself as absolutely reliable, it becomes self-evident, indisputable, not requiring confirmation and, ultimately, what you should believe or follow, i.e. infallible and unconditional.

Dogmatic knowledge is the foundation of a stable cognitive structure of a personality and a cognitive support in processes of reality mastering. It forms a steady part of the world picture, and a system of epistemic frameworks (restrictions) and coordinates in it for cognitive thinking, i.e. positions and sets up landmarks in its activity.

Education, and especially upbringing, as an instrument of social management, relies on postulated ideas and suggestive perceptions. In this way, the education system cultivates the dogmatic knowledge and indoctrinates what should seem to be the truth. As a rule, the theory of evolution or creationism, physical models, the historical past and the social present are not problematized in education and taken out of learning discussion.

Socialization uses incorporated dogmas of education and upbringing so that an individual, proceeding from the embedded obvious, rationalizes social strategies and constraints. Socialization in the adolescent period is the process of mastering a social role (or a set of them) through participation in practices of social groups. Unlike upbringing as such, that is a product of a heterogeneous combination of influences (family, street, training, ethnicity, art, media, etc.), socialization takes place within a specific institutional system – in educational institutions, professional teams, social movements, political organizations, criminal gangs, etc. The ontological foundation of a social group is a system of dogmatic knowledge regarding values, attitudes, traditions, arrangements of activity, standards of behavior and rationalization. They are embedded into a person through socialization tools – social learning and group upbringing.

Forms of dogmatic knowledge cognitive activities

When a situation – internal or external – takes beyond a mental reflex, the dogmatic knowledge is functioning in cognitively-active forms. An indicator of the dogmatic knowledge cognitive activity is concentration of cognitive practices that stimulate an intense interest, conceptual changes, destruction of conventions, identity and conditions of group life. It forms an epistemically unstable region of the dogmatic knowledge that provokes an emergence of intellectual novelties.

Three forms of the dogmatic knowledge cognitive activity can be distinguished – rational-processual, sublimative and emotive-suggestive. To a greater extent, the first is an expression of the rational movement of thought, the second is a cognitive tension that intensifies cognitive practices and takes out of the limits (transcends) of existing knowledge, the third is the sensual activity of human psyche that is genetically involved into the cognitive action.

The rational-processual form is implemented through “mechanics” of thought that constructs combinatorial schemes, classifications, typologies, compositions, which forms deductions and conceptualizations. Thinking within the limits of the well-known and well-established cognitive material approaches its boundaries, puts them in question and gropes for epistemic lacunae, i.e. the area of cognitive insufficiency. The dogmatic knowledge in the context of problematic situations plays a role not only a supplier of a material for reflective thinking, it is an indicator of its deficit.

The sublimative form is a psychic transformation of internal non-conscious processes – cognitive interest, intuitive work of thought, a game of images and insights – into external activity of thinking or a physical action. Intensification of thinking at the boundaries of the epistemic lacuna forms an area of cognitive tension, which triggers the intuitive function of psyche.

The emotive-suggestive form is implemented through the sensual part of psyche – internal perceptions, emotional experiences, doubts caused by an epistemic instability in its region, and infusions that make it possible to comprehend and overcome them. This form accompanies the rational-processual and sublimative forms and participates in them. Emotions can involve cognitive changes and bear an evaluative content attributed to the object of emotions (Brogaard & Chudnoff, 2016). In so doing, they are able to change the subjectively perceived essence of things.

Emotive-suggestive activity is based on deeper layers of the subconscious that contains programs for responding to a situation or action. These programs are “built on” emotive-type and suggestive-type dogmatic knowledge that predetermines sensual and intellectual reactions. Consequently, we may conclude that dogmatic knowledge in the process of cognition addresses to itself by its emotive-suggestive constituent.

Dogmatic knowledge and dogmatization in learning

Dogmatic knowledge is genetically incorporated into learning – into the subject matter, ways of learning, pedagogical activities, curricula. It is a tool for personality programming by the powers, politics, and society. Cultural features of thinking and behavior, resting on deep dogmatic structures of knowledge, affect the possibilities of learning (Karpov, 2019d). Thus, traditions of Asian (including Russian) upbringing play the role of a cultural obstacle to introduction of active learning models (Joanne & Lateef, 2014). In these societies, learners prefer to follow the authoritarian and edifying initiative of teachers and feel comfortable in structured situations of learning. At the same time, teachers view themselves as absolute experts and interpret an intellectual disagreement as a personal disloyalty (Hofstede, 1986).

Learning cognition begins from acquisition of knowledge, which acts as the immutable truth. It may remain as it is and further on, or use a critical discussion, a study of alternatives, search methods leading to outside of dogmatic knowledge. Nevertheless, even in the last case, it is necessary to study what will be problematized, to master techniques allowing putting into question what has been adopted. Consequently, the non-dogmatic learning requires a knowledge-basis incorporating declarative and operational contents that are cultivated in the individual as an undoubted given, i.e. dogmatic in essence. This undoubted given is, for example, language, fundamentals of mathematics and natural science, social and moral principles of society.

Dogmatization of knowledge and cognition is influenced by normative structures built into learning, which determine the degree of its freedom or, in other words, its rigidity or transformative frameworks (restrictions). The concept of learning rigidity as a set of constraints was introduced by W.E. Doll. He treated the modern curriculum as a process meeting the post-modern principle of “four R” i.e. characterized by “rigorous, rich, recursive, relational” (Doll, 1993, р. 156). I identify three types of transformative frameworks (rigidity) of learning – didactic, epistemic and ontological (environmental). The first imposes restrictions on contents of learning, the second – on models of thinking that are cultivated in learning, and the third – on a link between learning and reality.

Pedagogical concepts are based on postulates that play the role of immutable truths, i.e. are dogmatic in nature. This pedagogical dogma, for example, is scientism, formally absorbed by education. It instilled a special “scientific” type of cognitive dogmatism into the modern education system that put at the forefront the empirical verification of knowledge, belief in infallibility of a scientific method, exclusion of “non-scientific” facts from the sphere of cognitive action. Nevertheless, it failed to develop a learning method that would be able to shape a scientific picture of the world at a practical level in the “scientized” society (Karpov, 2018b). Another example of pedagogical dogma are developmental models of teaching, which, more or less, are characterized by absolutization of a learner's cognitive role. In this way, a teacher is placed in the position of “epistemic mores police” isolating him/her from engagement with mastering and understanding the surrounding world (English, 2009).

Mechanisms of dogmatic knowledge cognitive activities in learning

The human ability to cognitive innovations depends not only on the scope of acquired knowledge, including dogmatic, but, to a greater extent, on thinking that makes dogmatic knowledge cognitively active. For this purpose, thinking should approach the limit of dogmatically absorbed, “loosen” it and use resources of dogmatics to acquire the new. It should become oppositional thinking , organizing the search for other conceptions, interpretations, definitions for objects of theory or experience. But even being such, it realizes its insurgent properties in working on the dogmatic material. Let’s review the mechanisms for implementing the forms of dogmatic knowledge cognitive activity in learning.

a) Rational-processual form of cognitive activity

The rational-processual form of dogmatic knowledge cognitive activity in learning is the first step in the work of thinking, leading to the boundaries of dogmatic material – a subject content, cognitive methods, ideas about reality. Here, overcoming the directively established rigidity of learning is planned, i.e. a learner fine-tunes his mind for aims at opening its transformative frameworks.

In this way, limitations imposed by the educational standard on the socio-cognitive and spiritual growth of an individual should be revealed. A learner may find them in the deficit of academic knowledge used to describe the reality (a didactic framework); in the shortage of cognition tools allowing penetration into the reality (an epistemic framework); through the weakness of thinking to understand the reality and oneself in it (an ontological framework). It should be noted that the material taken outside the academic reality does not guarantee the absence of dogmatic content.

Learning on the basis of dogmatic knowledge can use a critical interactionism, cognitive alternatives, problematic situations, a generative environment, a flipped class, virtual reality technologies, and other means creating epistemically unstable zones. Through them, thinking is directed into the depth of dogmatic knowledge (as it happens in scholasticism and in formal school), and comes to its limits. The spirit of creativity stimulates an emergence of “smart questions”, i.e. those “that pose dilemmas, subvert obvious or canonical ‘truths’, force incongruities upon our attention” (Bruner, 1996, р. 127). Therefore, it is appropriate to speak about the dogmatic knowledge cognitive “loosening” method that allows to clear up the cognitive boundaries incorporated into a personality by learning, and identify internally the presence of the external that they exclude.

The cognitive “loosening” method can be implemented as a set of cognitive shifts inside the preset system of dogmatic knowledge and ways of working with it. The greater is the wealth of this system, the higher can be the intensity of thinking and dynamics of cognitive movement. Consequently, perceptions of boundaries stopping the motion of thinking and epistemic lacunae behind them will become more sensitive. In such a way, molecular collisions in the Brownian motion heat a vessel and gives freedom to its content.

Cognitive “loosening” of the dogmatic knowledge, in order to be productive in terms of cognitive outcomes, should focus on specifics of the subject area expressed in cognitive acts of accessing to it – in formulated questions, tasks, and problematic situations. Here it is necessary to “encourage learners to explain their thinking, revisit their solutions, and invite alternative approaches” (Roberts & Le Roux, 2019, р. 14). The accessing process can be implemented as a set of study and non-study periods, any of them characterized by its duration and frequency of cognitive acts.

b) Sublimative form of cognitive activity

The sublimative form of dogmatic knowledge cognitive activity exhibits itself in learning when solving the tasks (exercises) that demands going beyond the limits of mechanical logicism: direct application of formulas, dependencies, facts, laws, or learned patterns of their transformation. Examining the non-obvious, thinking immerses into itself being intensely reflecting and goes into the unconscious. In normal situation, psychic activity can “elevate”, or in other words, sublimate , the internal tension up to other external contents or activities. Then, the task is postponed or discarded.

However, in conditions of learning, there are severe forces of external compulsion and internal self-motivation that are able (but not always) to keep the state of deep thinking over the task. Under pressure of motivating structures, work in the unconscious is underway on the material that includes the non-obvious in it. This deep-seated thinking is fed by contents of rational and non-rational experiences relevant to the task, including the dogmatic type. It destroys the dogmatic freeze of well-established knowledge and mental schemes that work with it, causing something similar to a cognitive dissonance. It leads to the inner maturation of the non-obvious, directing the sublimation to resolution. The result may be understanding, insight into the essence of the problem, intuition or flash of genius leading to the solution. Lack of cognitive resources leads to the sublimation process termination.

The sublimation process, leading to insight, underlies the transcendent function of thinking, which is implicated in creativity. Along with achievement the heights of creativity, the sublimation enables going beyond the boundaries of mechanical thinking in solving training problems (the latter is perceived as a borderline rationality). In general, the cognitive sublimation process leads to the following possible outcomes: creation of objectively new knowledge (including in learning), acquisition of subjectively new knowledge, substitution of unmet needs, deсay of sublimate activity.

In the cognitive sublimation, as an integral part of a cognitive action (including learning), a certain composition of cognitively active knowledge is involved, where, in general, I can distinguish three components. The first is knowledge-basis that is not in question, i.e. the dogmatic knowledge. The second includes the dogmatic knowledge that is called into question. Being subjected to reflection and analysis, such knowledge loses its dogma. The third component consists of units of knowledge that have not become, and some may never become, dogmatic (the innovative knowledge falls into this category, i.e. knowledge that is capable of producing objectively new knowledge). It includes theoretical and empirical contents, acquired in the current cognitive process and in the cognitive acts carried out outside of it.

I identify three types of cognitive sublimations – template, palliative, innovative, that differ in the composition of involved cognitive-active knowledge. Let’s briefly describe them.

The template sublimation uses the material of dogmatic knowledge. For example, it is peculiar to the process of solving problems from the course of school mathematics and social learning. Here the creative function of thinking is in the state of anemia. The template sublimation produces special speculative “innovations” that provide a learner with an available dogmatic material and fit into the custom and the canonical social role.

The palliative sublimation operates with the first and second components of cognitively active knowledge. To comprehend any social fact from academic disciplines or the reality, a learner uses a dogmatically absorbed knowledge platform with constituents called into question. Borders for mental innovations set the matrices of socially and culturally acceptable, that implanted into the socialization process.

The innovative sublimation involves all three components of cognitively active knowledge. It accompanies the processes of research training, scientific cognition, and deep social transformations. In these types of practice, the cognitive activity shapes and relies on the internal structures of innovative knowledge. And at the same time, the transcendence, making the transition from the existing knowledge to the new, uses the dogmatic basis – well-established knowledge and intelligence work patterns.

The type and amount of cognitive sublimation used in learning determine the level of its dogmatization. Let’s take a closer look at how this happens in three outlined types of the cognitive sublimation.

The dominant role of template sublimation in cognition processes makes learning mostly dogmatized, and its organization – mostly economical, i.e. requiring least pedagogical efforts and resources. Dogmatized learning formulates that this and only this is in existence, do like that and in no other way , i.e. it restricts thinking to a standardized set of facts and roadmaps of action. Verification of the solution uses mechanical transformations, similar to substitution of an answer in the original equation, or scholastic justifications in the closed system of dogmatic knowledge. In these conditions, the sublimation produces a speculative evidence (that is dogmatic in its nature), and generates thinking that is rigid to creativity.

The palliative sublimation gives rise to a critical function of thinking and makes it capable of acquiring knowledge that is outside the training template but at the same time typical for a specific profession, a social or cultural group. For verification of the solution, an external closed system of time-tested knowledge is additionally used. An exogenous resource involved in learning blurs its dogmatization and sets for thinking its own perimeter accessible for learning. This learning, enclosed in external cognitive boundaries, is called “open learning”. Nevertheless, it remains committed to the dogmatization of knowledge and cognition. Cognitive activity in the framework of open learning plays the role of sublimative exercises that prepares thinking for a higher type of cognitive transcendence.

The innovative sublimation is an enemy of educational dogmatism and a source of creativity and high achievements. In contrast to the dogmatized learning, thinking here goes beyond what is learned or taken from the limited surrounding. Features of creative activity – unpredictability of the process and outcomes, initiative and autoregulation of knowing, emotionality and spiritual concentration – make the traditionally rigid arrangement of education problematic. Verification of a creative problem solution in many respects is an open question; it often depends on cognitive views of a learner rather than the standard of correctness and opinions of an authoritative person.

The creativity destroys learning in its traditional class-lesson and lecture-seminar forms and calls for a new problem-cognitive form. It is constructed as an epistemically open and self-transforming cognitive system. Its core is a learner’s problem-cognitive program that involves acquisition of necessary complex of disciplinary knowledge in the course of its development (Karpov, 2017а). It is characterized by plasticity of socio-cognitive development, dynamics of pedagogical decisions, generativity of a teaching method and a learning environment (Karpov, 2019с).

c) Emotive-suggestive form of cognitive activity

The cognition process, including learning, is emotional and suggestive. Learning uses feeling and infusion when growing of knowledge in a learner. At the same time, it builds up the emotive-suggestive knowledge that a person genetically inherited and absorbed from the surrounding. In this case we should point to two kinds of emotive-suggestive activity of knowledge in learning cognition. The educational material digestion process is immersed in the first-kind activity; it accompanies and participates in it. The second-kind activity is a transformation of the emotive-suggestive basis of a learner’s personality.

The first-kind of emotive-suggestive activity of the dogmatic knowledge is characterized by overriding the cognitive thresholds the learning process contains. Let’s briefly identify the processes associated with it.

In the rational-processual form of the dogmatic knowledge activity, the cognitive threshold is the timepoint of identification of epistemic lacunae, which are sensually perceived as a cognitive barrier. Suggestive counteraction from well-established knowledge causes thinking “idling” and an increase in psychic tension, when emotive resources should be activated to overcome them. Emotional mobilization allows, as the saying goes, “collect thoughts”. Its assistance is the result of both personal emotional competence and teacher’s psychological literacy, especially important in the context of cognitive “loosening”

In the sublimative form of the dogmatic knowledge activity, the cognitive thresholds emerge at stages of cognitive process transition to the level of the unconscious and the sublimation product origination. The fruitless attempts at solution causes discomfort, anxiety, confusion exaggerated under action of an attitude that limits its time. Preoccupation with one's own powerlessness generates frustration due to the loss of time.

Wishing to overcome spending itself in time, thinking rushes to a place where time is not counted, thereby losing its comprehension and consciousness with it. Being in the unconscious and groping for a solution, thinking experiences excitement, inspiration, and tremble, turning into sublimative catharsis. Finding a solution causes exultance and delight, similar to Archimedean “Eureka!”. Here, the emotion is driven by the suggestion, calling for arriving at a solution.

The second-kind of emotive-suggestive activity of the dogmatic knowledge is peculiar to upbringing that produces enrichment, correction or change of emotional knowledge and attitudes of a learner’s personality. The identification of what needs to be changed uses sensual (emotional) and intellectual (suggestive) reactions to the learning action. For example, “like-dislike” relates to sensual reactions, “overcoming difficulties – retreating from them” – to intellectual reactions. The first, like intuition, is a response to a situation, the second – to a specific action. A learner may dislike mathematics situationally, because there are many tasks in it that a learner can’t solve. The solution of the problem is postponed pragmatically, because the thinking process faces hurdles. Grievance is not caused by a critical word of a teacher or a smile of a friend, but a situation that is interpreted as humiliation. An unlearned lesson is not just a result of “good weather outside” but a result of intellectual disregard. Lack of will is also an attitude.