Socrates and Confucius: a long history (?) of information technology in legal education

In his paper Abdul Paliwala (University of Warwick) explored the relatively recent development of information technology in legal education, arguing that this is affected by ancient debates about the nature of learning, and that in this context Socrates and Confucius form different ends of the spectrum.

Abdul’s full paper was published in the first issue of the European Journal of Law and Technology.You can also read Paul Maharg’s blog post on Zeugma about the Learning in Law Annyal Conference 2010 session. For earlier work by Abdul on Confucius and legal education see From Foucaultian bio-power to Confucian respect: bio-power and e-Confucius, presented at the Learning in Law Annual Conference 2009.

Abdul’s paper involved an exploration of the history of information technology in legal education – or e-learning – from its inception to now, part of a project exploring the history of legal informatics. Its main argument is that e-learning development has been influenced by the same pedagogical issues as have affected legal education generally.

Socrates would ask his students questions. The student would respond; at which point Socrates would challenge the student with a further question – and so on. This was learning by question, answer and feedback (in the form of subsequent questions). The influence of the Socratic method in the US meant that early developments in computer assisted learning (CAL) were Socratic in essence, with the development of multiple choice as a key part of the approach.

While the Socratic approach made an enormous contribution to learning and is often favourably contrasted with the more doctrinal European approach, it obscured significant issues, later taken up later in the US by the Realist school. The chief problem was that the case method, by concentrating on the judicial decision, reified the decision and abstracted it away from the real life of the law. For these reasons the method was challenged by pragmatists, realists, sociologists of law and critical legal scholars.

Several hundred years before Socrates, Confucius was an innovative pioneer of education with many of the principles of learning favoured by contemporary scholars. The Confucian approach to learning was also dialogical but more student centred, intended to cultivate the student’s inner strength, with an emphasis on learning in context. His emphasis on creating “educated moral persons who would contribute to the well being of society and the state” provides the foundation of ethical legal education. A Confucian approach is neither unique, exclusively eastern nor deserving of uncritical acceptance. Dewey’s pragmatism bears many similarities to the old Master.

The intention of the paper is to explore the ‘other line’ of developments in e-learning and suggest that recent shifts to more exploratory and transactional forms of learning, as represented in the development of learning techniques based on group learning, wikis, the use of virtual reality systems, drama and transactional learning, reflect both contemporary critiques of the Socratic method and the original wisdom of Confucius.

Karen Barton (University of Strathclyde) reports:
One of the great joys of coming to the Learning in Law Annyal Conference is the continuing contribution from esteemed academics in the field and this was abundantly illustrated by Abdul’s paper.

The proposition that most technology enhanced legal education can trace its roots to a Socratic or Confucian approach might at first seem far fetched, yet Abdul argued his case convincingly, introducing Dewey and Langdell along the way.

Abdul spoke of the transforming geography of learning in a technological sense and the respective responses from each of these movements:

• Socratic – leading us to the Iolis model, discussion fora and e-casebooks
• Confucian – producing simulations, self discovery wikis and Web-based group work

He then compared these two approaches to the more traditional western/European method of the instructional lecture, with its more conservative response to the technological age in the form of webcasts and podcasts.

As we have come to expect from Abdul, his talk was both intriguing and stimulating, and produced a lively debate from the floor. We concluded that a pluralism of approaches was necessary and that technology requires an underpinning pedagogy in order to have an effect.

However, an awareness of the influence of Confucius on non-Western cultures, for example, was one that we had perhaps failed to recgonise in the past, and is an area where we might look to ensure the relevance of other modes of discovery. There was recognition also of the all too constrictive institutional factors that influence our use of technology in teaching.

Abdul responded by making a strong plea for the return of academic sovereignty over managerial sovereignty. Our sympathetic audience couldn’t fail to agree with this fitting conclusion to a very thought provoking paper.

About Abdul

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Abdul Paliwala is currently at the University of Warwick but has previously taught at the universities of Belfast, Dar es Salaam and Papua New Guinea. He was involved in the establishment of BILETA, the Law Technology Centre, the Law Courseware Consortium, the Electronic Law Journals Project and UKCLE.

Last Modified: 9 July 2010