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The article on which these questions and answers are based on is by Blythe Clinchy, on pp. 205 to 247, "Connected and Separate Knowing." Clinchy tries to explain the misperceptions about the stages of knowing WWK tried to develop from Perry's effort to "trace the epistemological and ethical development of a sample of undergraduate women" at Harvard. I've tried to explain both that these are stages, and yet that both separate can connected knowing can and usually are actual knowing, not the absence of knowing. And I still feel the concept is fuzzy, just as Clinchy does.

I think another concept might help to explain it. A professor of psychology once accused me of taking Bugelski's work on learning theory apart and putting it back together sideways. In the way of a separate knower, I thought he was trying to be funny and ignored the friendly swipe. I certainly didn't "get it." But now I think I do. WWK started from Perry's scheme on critical thinking, which was aimed at traacing the development of critical thinking, as he perceived it. WWK tried to show that his perceptions were lacking. But they started from a paradigm that was built on and reflected separate knowing. That approach has colored their explanation of connected and separate because most of us are steeped in Perry's approach. It is the approach of our school systems!

I think I can help you see what's happening here. I began by insisting in an early exercise. OK so I didn't insist; I hesitantly claimed, that the categories of knowing on p. 31 were not a hierarchy with each stage in development higher than the preceding stages. But I had trouble saying it clearly, because part of me really believed that they were hierarchical stages. But WWK never said or implied that. go back through the exercises, and you should be able to see my confusion.

Clinchy's article helps. She seems to have experienced the same reactions I did. First, anger and frustration and not being able to find the words to make "the others" understand. And then refuge in trying to figure it out. She describes a difference I discuss in a number of lectures and exercises: "Connecte knowing has much in common with subjectivism . . .Both value the sort of knowledge that emerges fro mfirsthand experience, and both draw on feelings and intuition as sources of information (p. 211). . . Connected knwoing shares with subjectivism an appreciation of subjective reality, but it does not adhere to the subjectivist doctrine of "subjective validity (p.214). . ."Understanding what people think doesn't mean you have to think the same thing" Geertz. (p.217). . .[Subjective knowing means] "to imagine the real," to "make the other present" . . . (Buber) this other, for Buber, is a particular other, not an "interchangeable someone."(p.217). . .

I think it might help to think about ways of knowing as a continuum of separate knowing running parallel to a continuum of connected knowing. Both the separate and the connected continuums have stages of development, and those stages are hierarchical. But some knowers can cross over to the connected continuum. I believe that that is a higher stage than the separate knowing continuum, because it takes extra cognitive and affective effort to make that jump. Perry completely ignored this warp speed move. Women do not. WWK did not. But it makes more sense to me to separate out more fully, as continuums, the quality of separate/connected.

I hope this helps. I'm thinking it through as I write it. It might help if you question. But I do think it's worth our pursuing in discussion for our own ends. the questions which follow are on Clinchy's article.

1. Carl Rogers, who advocated non-directive therapy, was one of those who valued the affirmation of the knower the therapist was trying to help. What technique did he suggest for learning to effectively affirm (not necessarily "believe" or "agree with") the knower? (p. 216-17)

   Rogers recommended trying "to describe the views of someone you believe is defintiely wrong in a fashion that the person will consider accurate." (p. 217) In legal training we call this "advocacy." Women's role as care givers has sharpened their skills in "advocacy" for those they take care of. And the lawyer's role as the spokesperson for the client has sharpend her skills in "advocacy" for the client.

   Now, oddly enough Clinchy describes separate knowing as "adversarial" in nature. (p.212). Law and philosophy have both tended as disciplines to be adversarial in nature. But law and philosophy have produced some outstanding leaders who epitomize "connected knowing." I think it's their ability to cross over to "connected," to make the other present in their minds, to understand what process could have led to the other knowing that makes them special and creative. Perhaps the cross over lies in the realm of divergent production and creativity. Perry wasn't measuring that. jeanne.

2. Why is Clinchy (of WWK) so exasperated by Code, a critic of WWK who argues that the WWK "acritical acceptance" of . . . women's autobiographicaal accounts "is not the only --or the best-- alternative."?"(p.213)

   Because Code has failed to grasp that acritical acceptance does not mean that you have to agree with the position expressed. But if Code is largely a separate knower, a position that many women adopt because it is the dominate mode of knowing in established male hierarchies, she may lack the experience or the skill to make the warp leap to connected knowing to continue this discussion. Clinchy is stuck with understanding Code's position, just as she was with affirming the positions, with which she may well have not agreed, of the subjective knowers in her sample.

3. What makes subjectivism look like connected knowing? (p.211)

   Both respect "views that differ from their own." Both refuse to criticize the other view. Both value knowledge borne of intuition and feelings, and firsthand experience.

Jeanne jcurran@csudh.edu