Social Learning and Paulo Freire

Abstract

Philosophers who analyze the concept of human learning tend to focus in upon the concept of learning as abstracted from the concrete cultural situation in which a person learns. Learning is analyzed more in its individual, logical, and psychological aspects, than in its collective and cultural aspects. Various senses of individual learning are distinguished depending upon the object of learning: a fact, a skill, an attitude, a value, the explanation. Attempts are made to ascertain the necessary and sufficient conditions for using the word "learn" in ordinary human language. Attempts are also made to define a concept of learning that would reduce the various uses of "learning" to a single concept.