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Complexity Theory and The Philosophy of Education Educational Philosophy and Theory Special Issues 1st Edition Mark Mason Download

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Complexity Theory and the Philosophy of Education
Educational Philosophy and Theory Special Issues 1st
Edition Mark Mason Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Mark Mason
ISBN(s): 9781405180429, 1405180420
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 1.58 MB
Year: 2008
Language: english
Complexity Theory and the Philosophy of Education

Complexity Theory and the Philosophy of Education. Mark Mason


© 2008 the Authors. ISBN: 978-1-405-18042-9
Complexity Theory and the
Philosophy of Education

Edited by
Mark Mason

A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication


This edition first published 2008
Chapters © 2008 the Authors
Book Compilation © 2008 Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia
First published as a special issue of Educational Philosophy and Theory (volume 40, issue 1)
Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwell’s
publishing program has been merged with Wiley’s global Scientific, Technical, and Medical
business to form Wiley-Blackwell.
Registered Office
John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ,
United Kingdom
Editorial Offices
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For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services, and for information about
how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our
website at www.wiley.com/wiley-blackwell.
The right of Mark Mason to be identified as the author of the editorial material in this work
has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
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is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional
services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a
competent professional should be sought.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Complexity theory and the philosophy of education / edited by Mark Mason.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4051-8042-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Education–Philosophy. 2. Computational
complexity. I. Mason, Mark, 1959-
LB14.7.C652 2008
370.1–dc22
2008027427
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Set in 10pt Plantin by Graphicraft Limited, Hong Kong
Printed in Singapore by Fabulous Printers Pte Ltd
01 2008
Contents

Notes on Contributors vii


Foreword: Complexity and knowledge systems
Michael A. Peters xi
1 Complexity Theory and the Philosophy of Education
Mark Mason 1
2 Educational Philosophy and the Challenge of
Complexity Theory
Keith Morrison 16
3 What Is Complexity Theory and What Are Its Implications for
Educational Change?
Mark Mason 32
4 Complexity and Education: Vital simultaneities
Brent Davis 46
5 Three Generations of Complexity Theories:
Nuances and ambiguities
Michel Alhadeff-Jones 62
6 Re-reading Dewey through the Lens of Complexity Science, or:
On the creative logic of education
Inna Semetsky 79
7 Foucault as Complexity Theorist: Overcoming the problems of
classical philosophical analysis
Mark Olssen 91
8 Complex Systems and Educational Change: Towards a new
research agenda
Jay L. Lemke & Nora H. Sabelli 112
9 Human Research and Complexity Theory
James Horn 124
10 Complexity and Truth in Educational Research
Mike Radford 137
11 ‘Knowledge Must Be Contextual’: Some possible implications
of complexity and dynamic systems theories for educational
research
Tamsin Haggis 150
vi Contents

12 Complexity and Educational Research: A critical reflection


Lesley Kuhn 169
13 Complexity and the Culture of Curriculum
William E. Doll 181
14 From Representation to Emergence: Complexity’s challenge to
the epistemology of schooling
Deborah Osberg, Gert Biesta & Paul Cilliers 204
15 Educating Consciousness through Literary Experiences
Dennis Sumara, Rebecca Luce-Kapler & Tammy Iftody 218
Index 231
Notes on Contributors
Educational
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Blackwell
Oxford,
NOTES Articles
UK
Publishing
EDUCATIONAL
ON Philosophy
ofLtd
Education
and Theory
CONTRIBUTORS
PHILOSOPHY Society of Australasia
AND THEORY, VOL. 40, NO.1, 2008

Michel Alhadeff-Jones is currently Instructor at Teachers College, Columbia


University, in the Department of Organization and Leadership. He is also associated
with the Interuniversity Research Centre EXPERICE (Experience, Cultural Resources
and Education, Universities of Paris 8 and Paris 13). He studied psychology and
taught in the Department of Adult Education at the University of Geneva before
completing his PhD in educational sciences at the University of Paris 8. Based on
Edgar Morin’s philosophy, his doctoral dissertation developed an epistemological
and methodological framework to design a multi-referential approach to critique as
a complex phenomenon. His teaching and research interests are in critical and
complexity theories, French and English-language philosophies of education, adult
learning, biographical approaches, trans-disciplinarity, and science studies. He has
published several papers and chapters related to these issues.
Gert Biesta is Professor of Education at the Institute of Education, University
of Stirling in Scotland, and Visiting Professor for Education and Democratic
Citizenship at Örebro University and Mälardalen University, Sweden. He is Editor-
in-Chief of Studies in Philosophy and Education. His research focuses on the relationships
between education and democracy, the philosophy and methodology of educational
research, and lifelong learning in formal and non-formal settings. He takes inspiration
from pragmatism (Dewey, Mead) and poststructuralism (Derrida, Levinas, Foucault).
Recent books include Derrida and Education (co-edited with Denise Egéa-Kuehne,
Routledge, 2001), Pragmatism and Educational Research (co-authored with Nicholas
Burbules, Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), Beyond Learning: Democratic education for
a human future (Paradigm Publishers, 2006), and Improving Learning Cultures in
Further Education (with David James, Routledge, 2008).
Paul Cilliers is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Stellenbosch in South
Africa. He teaches Cultural Philosophy, Deconstruction and Philosophy of Science.
He also has a degree in Electronic Engineering and worked professionally as an
engineer for many years. His research is focused on the philosophical and ethical
implications of complexity theory and he has published widely in the field. He is
the author of Complexity and Postmodernism (Routledge, 1998). He also has a lively
interest in literature and music.
Brent Davis is Professor and David Robitaille Chair in Mathematics, Science, and
Technology Education in the Faculty of Education at the University of British
Columbia. His research is developed around the educational relevance of recent
developments in the cognitive and complexity sciences. He is a founding co-editor
of Complicity: An International Journal of Complexity and Education and current
editor of For the Learning of Mathematics. He has published books and articles in
the areas of mathematics learning and teaching, curriculum theory, teacher education,
epistemology, and action research.
viii Notes on Contributors

William Doll is the V. F. and J. R. Eagles Emeritus Professor of Curriculum at


Louisiana State University. In his 53 years of teaching he has taught all grades and
most subjects. He has done administration at the school, college, and university
level. He has also served on the Fulton, NY Board of Education. Professor Doll
holds degrees from Cornell University, Boston University, and The Johns Hopkins
University. He has taught at SUNY-Oswego, the University of Redlands, and now
LSU, where he formerly directed the Holmes Elementary Education program and
co-directed the Curriculum Theory Project. His books are A Post-Modern Perspective on
Curriculum, Curriculum Visions (co-edited), and Chaos, Complexity, Curriculum and
Culture (co-edited). He also contributed to The Internationalization of Curriculum
Studies (edited by his wife, Donna Trueit). William Doll is a Fulbright Senior
Scholar, and in 2005 was awarded the American Educational Research Association’s
Division B Lifetime Achievement Award. Interests in international education take
Professor Doll regularly to Finland and China. His website is at www.lsu.edu/
faculty/wdoll.
Tamsin Haggis is Lecturer in Lifelong Learning at the Institute of Education
at the University of Stirling. Her research focuses on the different ways that
learning is defined, researched and theorised, particularly within the field of Higher
Education. More generally she is exploring the possibilities of complexity and
dynamic systems theories in relation to theory, epistemology and method in
educational research. She is a co-investigator in the EPSRC-funded project ‘Emerging
Sustainability’, a cross-disciplinary project focussed on the theme of Emergence,
which is in turn connected to three other projects: The Emergence of Culture in
Robot Societies; Biological Metaphors and Crisis: Building Self-Healing, Emergence
and Resilience into Critical Infrastructures; and Defying the Rules: How Self-
regulatory Social Systems Work.
James Horn is Assistant Professor of Educational Foundations at Monmouth
University, where he teaches courses in educational theory and practice, educational
philosophy and history, and research. His scholarly interests include the social and
cultural effects of educational policy implementation, the understanding of autonomous
learning systems, and the development of educational thinking consistent with the
new sciences of complexity.
Tammy Iftody is a doctoral student in the Department of Curriculum Studies at
the University of British Columbia. Her research interests bring a complexivist
orientation to understandings of popular culture, curriculum, computer-mediated
communication, and studies in consciousness.
Lesley Kuhn is a Senior Lecturer in the College of Business at the University of
Western Sydney in Australia. Dr. Kuhn’s academic interests are in applied philosophy.
Her research and teaching are concerned with exploring and promoting human
agency and epistemic awareness, flexibility and humility. She holds degrees in
music, education, environmental science and philosophy, with her doctoral work
focussing on the nature of epistemology and belief. Over the past ten years Dr.
Kuhn has been active in leading the development of complexity informed ethnographic
research approaches. She is the author of more than 40 book chapters and published
articles, and has led more than 30 research projects. Most recently she edited a
Notes on Contributors ix

special issue of World Futures: The Journal of General Evolution, show-casing the work
of UWS academics in bringing complexity informed approaches to social inquiry.
Her book, Adventures for Organisations near the Edge of Chaos, is due for completion
in 2008.
Jay L. Lemke is Professor of Educational Studies at the University of Michigan
and Co-editor of the journal Critical Discourse Studies. He took his PhD at the
University of Chicago in theoretical physics and is the author of Talking Science (1990),
Textual Politics (1995), and numerous contributions to the theory and applications
of functional linguistics, social semiotics and multimedia semiotics in education
and sociocultural studies. His current research interests include analysis of meaning-
making and experience across multiple timescales and issues of institutional and
organizational change.
Rebecca Luce-Kapler is Professor of Language and Literacy in the Faculty of
Education at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Her research
focuses on writing processes and technologies. Her book, Writing With, Through and
Beyond the Text: An ecology of language, brings together her work with women writers
and her understanding of learning, writing, and teaching. She has been a fiction
writer and poet for over 25 years, and is the author of a collection of poetry, The
Gardens Where She Dreams.
Mark Mason is Associate Professor in Philosophy and Educational Studies in the
Faculty of Education at the University of Hong Kong, where he is also Director of
the Comparative Education Research Centre (CERC). With research interests in
philosophy, educational studies, comparative education and educational development,
he is Regional Editor (Asia & The Pacific) of the International Journal of Educational
Development, Editor of the CERC Studies in Comparative Education Series (co-published
by Springer), and President of the Comparative Education Society of Hong Kong.
He has published some fifty articles, chapters and books in these research areas. His
philosophical research interest in complexity theory and education led to the invitation
from the Editor of Educational Philosophy and Theory to edit this book.
Keith Morrison taught in schools in the UK for many years before moving into
higher education. He has worked in higher education for over twenty-five years, in
the UK and Macau, formerly at the University of Durham, UK, and currently as
Professor, Vice-Rector and Dean at the Macau Inter-University Institute. He is the
author of twelve books, including Research Methods in Education (6th edition), School
Leadership and Complexity Theory, and A Guide to Teaching Practice (5th edition), and
around one hundred articles in his areas of interest. He is the editor of the journal
Evaluation and Research in Education. His current fields of research include research
methodology and evaluation, critical theory and policy scholarship, complexity
theory and management, curriculum and assessment development, management
and leadership, and the sociology of the curriculum.
Mark Olssen is Professor of Political Theory and Education Policy in the Department
of Political, International and Policy Studies at the University of Surrey. His most
recent book is Michel Foucault: Materialism and education, published by Paradigm Press
in 2006. He has also published recently a book with John Codd and Anne-Marie
O’Neill, titled Education Policy: Globalisation, citizenship, democracy (Sage, 2004); an
x Notes on Contributors

edited volume, Culture and Learning: Access and opportunity in the classroom (IAP
Press); with Michael Peters and Colin Lankshear, Critical Theory and the Human
Condition: Founders and praxis; and Futures of Critical Theory: Dreams of difference, also
with Peters and Lankshear (Rowman & Littlefield). He has published extensively in
leading academic journals in Britain, North America and Australasia.
Deborah Osberg is a lecturer in Education in the School of Education and
Lifelong Learning at the University of Exeter in England. Her work is inspired by
Prigoginean complexity and Derridean deconstruction, and she uses the closely
associated notions of ‘dynamic relationality’ and ‘emergence’ to rethink aspects of
educational theory and practice. She is Editor-in-Chief of Complicity: An International
Journal of Complexity and Education.
Mike Radford is based in the Canterbury Christ Church University (UK) Faculty of
Education and is Programme Director for the Doctorate in Education programme.
His PhD on philosophical and psychological issues in relation to the concept of
intelligence was completed at Leeds, and he has substantial teaching experience in
schools and universities across the UK. His research interests include aesthetic,
religious and spiritual education as well as issues in social and educational research.
He has published papers on complexity and educational research in leading
international journals.
Nora H. Sabelli is Senior Science Advisor at the Center for Technology in Learning,
at SRI International. She earned her PhD in theoretical chemistry at the University
of Buenos Aires, Argentina, for research undertaken at the University of Chicago.
Her research interests are in the use of new scientific metrologies in science
education, including complexity, visualization, and other applications of modern
technologies.
Inna Semetsky joined the Research Institute of Advanced Study for Humanity at
the University of Newcastle in Australia after a two-year (2005–2007) Postdoctoral
Research Fellowship in the Faculty of Education at Monash University. Her book,
Deleuze, Education and Becoming, was published by Sense Publishers in 2006 in
their series, ‘Educational Futures: Rethinking Theory and Practice’. In 2004 and
2005 she guest-edited two special issues of Educational Philosophy and Theory,
‘Peirce and Education’, and ‘Deleuze and Education’. In 2007 she was guest editor
of a special issue, ‘Semiotics and Education’, of Studies in Philosophy and Education,
published by Springer.
Dennis Sumara is Professor of Curriculum Studies and Department Head in the
Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. His
research focuses on phenomenological studies of imaginative engagement, with an
emphasis on how these create opportunities for tactical interventions into nor-
malizing discourses of identity and identification. His most recent book, Why
Reading Literature in School Still Matters: Imagination, interpretation, insight, was
awarded the National Reading Association Ed Fry Book Award.
Foreword: Complexity and
Educational
EPAT
©
0013-1857
Original
xxx
knowledge
2007 Philosophy
Blackwell
Oxford,
Foreword Article
:Publishing,
UK Complexity
systems
Philosophy
of Ltd.
Education
and
and Theory
Society of Australasia

knowledge systems
Michael A. Peters
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Mark Mason has done us great service in assembling these chapters from a distin-
guished group of international scholars who are well known or who have devoted
space in their thinking and writing to complexity theory and its relation to education.
This collection brings together a total of fifteen chapters: an introductory set of five
chapters; two chapters that address the issue of complexity theory and philosophy
of education; five chapters that pick up on the theme of complexity theory and
educational research; and, finally, three chapters that address complexity theory
and the curriculum. The final effect is a comprehensive and significant introduction
to complexity theory in educational theory and philosophy.
Given that Mark Mason, the editor of this book, has already addressed the
contents of the book and that there are no less than five introductory chapters,
I will not repeat the points raised or confine myself to issues that have been raised
or attempt to summarize arguments or interpretations. This also obviates the need
for much of a Foreword on my part. John Urry (2005) introducing a special issue
of Theory Culture and Society commented that the social and cultural sciences over
the last few decades have experienced a number of incursions including Marxism
of the 1970s, the linguistic and postmodern turns of the 1980s, and the body,
performative and global culture turns of the 1990s. Without commenting on the
simple metaknowledge schema he introduces he then goes on to introduce the
latest turn—‘complexity’—which he describes as follows:

This turn derives from developments over the past two decades or so
within physics, biology, mathematics, ecology, chemistry and economics,
from the revival of neo-vitalism in social thought (Fraser et al., 2005),
and from the emergence of a more general ‘complex structure of feeling’
that challenges some everyday notions of social order (Maasen and
Weingart, 2000; Thrift, 1999).

Within these scientific disciplines, an array of transformations took place,


loosely known as chaos, complexity, non-linearity and dynamical systems
analysis. There is a shift from reductionist analyses to those that involve
the study of complex adaptive (‘vital’) matter that shows ordering but
which remains on ‘the edge of chaos’. Self-assembly at the nanoscale is a
current example of new kinds of matter seen as involving emergent
xii Foreword: Complexity and knowledge systems

complex adaptive systems. At the nanoscale the laws of physics operate in


different ways, especially in the way that molecules stick together and
through self-assembly can form complex nanoscale structures that could
be the basis of whole new products, industries and forms of ‘life’ (Jones,
2004) (Urry, 2005: 1).

It is, he says, in the 1990s that the social sciences ‘go complex’ which he dates
from the 1996 Gulbenkian Commission on the Restructuring of the Social Sciences,
chaired by Wallerstein and including non-linear scientist Prigogine, who together
wanted to break down some of the divisions between the social and natural sci-
ences. Complexity thought he dates from the 1990s and also the global spread of
‘complexity practices’ and its popularizations, including applications to the social
and cultural sciences.
The historiography of these successive turns does not attract Urry’s attention
although to me it demands more of an explication and one that in a very real sense
bears on the complexification of the social sciences and philosophies of practice
like philosophy of education. An analogy and related phenomenon is the history of
the avant garde in twentieth century modernism and its uneven geographical spread
across cultural capitals of the world—Paris and Impressionism, Moscow and for-
malist linguistics and poetics, Vienna and Dadism, Paris and Cubism, New York
and Abstract Expressionism etc., and the dissipation of the avant garde as a series
of successive paradigms, each critique-ing the other, as it traveled to the west coast
and finally gave up the struggle and died among the eclecticism of a postmodern-
ism in arts and architecture that admitted strands of diverse and multicultural
thought and experience, as well as a total consumerism that incorporated art.
We could also tell a similar story of disciplinary reception of new formalist
techniques and developments in mathematics and physics and their penetration
into the social and cultural sciences, and indeed into philosophy (although this, it
might be argued, had a different trajectory especially with developments in logic
and philosophy of time, from Kant onwards), especially after Minowski’s elegant
equations gave mathematical expression to Einstein’s theories of relativity in the
early twentieth century. The subsequent mathematicization of ‘space-time’ and its
vectorization in the social and cultural sciences, as much a series of flows and
influences from the arts, indicated that epistemologically speaking scientific com-
munities exhibited an increasing complexity in their influence and formation, and
in the development of formalist methodologies and techniques adopted from devel-
opments in mathematics.
What is interesting to me here and is part of the kernel of investigating knowl-
edge systems is that complexity as non-lineal, emergent, self-organizing and
dynamic systems, with the advent of computers, with Claude Shannon’s 1948
‘Mathematical Theory of Communication’, with the development of cybernetics
and the Macy group (von Neumann, Shannon, Bateson, Mead etc.) after the war,
and with the development of the Internet as the preferred academic mode of
scholarly communication, the epistemological complexity of knowledge systems per se
and their interdisciplinization was set in motion as an irreversible development of
Foreword: Complexity and knowledge systems xiii

global systems. These developments in mathematics and in physics, evidenced


in topology, in forms of spatial analysis, in cybernetics and systems theory, in
relativity, thermodynamics, and chaos theory, as well as in the growth of techniques
in military surveillance, coding and decoding of military intelligence, soon spread
to allied disciplines and fields in the physical sciences that were open to quantifi-
cation and required the processing of very large numbers, and also to emergent
sciences like biology, ecology and other studies of living and social systems that
seemed to accompany the first awarenesses of globalization and socio-epidemiological
studies. The globalization of system analyses within and across the disciplines
demands a complexity approach, but more importantly, it demonstrates that these
complex systems operate at the level of infrastructure, code and content to enable
certain freedoms while controlling others.
Complexity as an approach to knowledge and knowledge systems now recognizes
both the growth of global systems architectures in (tele)communications and informa-
tion with the development of open knowledge production systems that increasingly rest
not only on the establishment of new and better platforms (sometimes called Web
2.0), the semantic web, new search algorithms and processes of digitization but
also social processes and policies that foster openness as an overriding value as
evidenced in the growth of open source, open access and open education and their
convergences that characterize global knowledge communities that transcend
borders of the nation-state. This seems to intimate new orders of global knowledge
systems and cultures that portend a set of political and ethical values such as
universal accessibility, rights to knowledge, and international knowledge rights to
research results especially in the biosciences and other areas that have great potential
to alleviate human suffering, disease and high infant mortality. Openness seems
also to suggest political transparency and the norms of open inquiry, indeed, even
democracy itself as both the basis of the logic of inquiry and the dissemination of
its results.

References
Fraser, M., Kember, S. & Lury, C. (eds) (2005) Inventive Life: Approaches to the New Vitalism.
Special Issue of Theory Culture & Society 22(1): 1–14.
Jones, R. (2004) Soft Machines: Nanotechnology and Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Law, J. & Urry, J. (2004) ‘Enacting the social’, Economy and Society, 33(3) August: 390–410.
Maasen, S. & Weingart, P. (2000) Metaphors and the Dynamics of Knowledge. London: Routledge.
Nowotny, H. (2005) ‘The Increase of Complexity and its Reduction Emergent Interfaces
between the Natural Sciences, Humanities and Social Sciences’, Theory, Culture & Society,
22(5): 15–31.
Urry, J. (2005) ‘The Complexity Turn’, Theory, Culture & Society 22(5): 1–14.
1
XXX
Educational
EPAT
0013-1857
© 2008 Philosophy
Blackwell
Oxford, UK Philosophy
ofLtd
Publishing Education
and Theory
Society of Australasia

Complexity Theory and the Philosophy of


Complexity
Mark Mason Theory and the Philosophy of Education

Education
Mark Mason
University of Hong Kong

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complexity
as a complexity
theory from
theorist;
educational
how educational
philosophy;
research
complexity
informed
theory
by complexity
and educational
theorycontinuity
might askand
different
change;
questions
the importance
with different
that complexity
analytical perspectives—connectionist,
theory places on interpretiveholistic,
perspectives
non-

philosophical study of education on a sceptical note, by taking note of the comments


of the physicist, Philip Ball (2004, p. 5):
We have been here before. In the 1970s, the catastrophe theory of René
Thom seemed to promise an understanding of how sudden changes in
society might be provoked by small effects. This initiative atrophied rather
quickly, since Thom’s phenomenological and qualitative theory did not
really offer fundamental explanations and mechanisms for the processes it
described. Chaos theory, which matured in the 1980s, has so far proved rather
more robust, supplying insights into how complicated and ever-changing
(‘dynamical’) systems rapidly cease to be precisely predictable even if
their initial states are known in great detail. Chaos theory has been
advocated as a model for market economics, ... [b]ut this theory has not
delivered anything remotely resembling a science of society.
The current vogue is for the third of the three C’s: complexity. The
buzzwords here are emergence and self-organization, as complexity theory
seeks to understand how order and stability arise from the interactions of
many components according to a few simple rules ... . But very often what
passes today for ‘complexity science’ is really something much older,
dressed in fashionable apparel. The main themes in complexity theory
have been studied for more than a hundred years by physicists who evolved
a tool kit of concepts and techniques to which complexity studies have
added barely a handful of new items.

Nevertheless, having pointed out that ‘[a]t the root of this sort of physics is a phenomenon
that immediately explains why the discipline may have something to say about society: it
is a science of collective behaviour’ (ibid., p. 5), Ball goes on to suggest (ibid., p. 6) that
... even with our woeful ignorance of why humans behave the way they
do, it is possible to make some predictions about how they behave
collectively. That is to say, we can make predictions about society even in
the face of individual free will.

Complexity Theory and the Philosophy of Education. Mark Mason


© 2008 the Authors. ISBN: 978-1-405-18042-9
2 Mark Mason

The physics might then not be new, but the substantial development of and rapidly
increasing interest in complexity theory in the social sciences certainly is. As Mason
indicates in the third chapter in this collection, complexity theory offers some useful
insights into the nature of continuity and change, and is thus of considerable
interest in both the philosophical and practical understanding of educational and
institutional change. Complexity theory’s notion of emergence implies that, given a
significant degree of complexity in a particular environment, or critical mass, new
properties and behaviours emerge that are not contained in the essence of the
constituent elements, or able to be predicted from a knowledge of initial conditions.
These concepts of emergent phenomena from a critical mass, associated with notions
of lock-in, path dependence, and inertial momentum, contribute to an understanding
of continuity and change that has not hitherto been readily available in other theories
of or perspectives on change.
Developed principally in the fields of physics, biology, chemistry and economics,
complexity theory arises in some senses out of chaos theory, and before that,
catastrophe theory, in that it shares chaos theory’s focus on the sensitivity of
phenomena to initial conditions that may result in unexpected and apparently
random subsequent properties and behaviours. Chaos theory suggests that even a
very slight degree of uncertainty about initial conditions can grow inexorably and
cause substantial fluctuations in the behaviour of a particular phenomenon. Perhaps
more importantly, complexity theory shares chaos theory’s concern with wholes,
with larger systems or environments and the relationships among their constituent
elements or agents, as opposed to the often reductionist concerns of mainstream
science with the essence of the ‘ultimate particle’. While it was pioneered in
economics (Holland, 1987; Arthur, 1989, 1990), complexity theory is otherwise a
relative stranger to the social sciences. It is, as Morrison (2002, p. 6) puts it, ‘a
theory of survival, evolution, development and adaptation’. It concerns itself with
environments, organisations, or systems that are complex in the sense that very
large numbers of constituent elements or agents are connected to and interacting
with each other in many different ways.
Many authors in this collection offer an introduction to complexity theory in their
particular chapters—this on top of the fact that some of the earlier chapters (see
especially Morrison, Mason, Davis and Alhadeff-Jones) are dedicated substantially
to introducing the field. Individual authors have not been asked to remove these
introductions in their chapters for two main reasons: first, leaving them in the chapters
enables readers who are not familiar with the field to read just one or a small selection
of chapters, because they will find in that or those chapters a brief introduction to
complexity theory; and second, the introductions offered by this volume’s various
authors offer different entries to and perspectives on the field—together they thus
enhance the experience of the reader who studies the whole volume. In particular,
the first two chapters that follow this introduction to the collection are best read in
conjunction with each other, in that each is concerned with providing an accessible
introduction to complexity theory, with Morrison raising ten challenges to complexity
theory for the philosophy of education, and Mason considering some of the impli-
cations of complexity theory for educational change.
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
DUGUÉ DE LA FAUCONNERIE—Un Belmontet sans la
rime.

DUMAINE—Quelqu'un en le regardant disait:


—C'est l'éléphance de l'art.
J'aime ce néologisme... Et vous?

DUMAS (fils)—Le premier bistouri de lettres que possède notre


époque. Fondateur-innovateur du Théâtre-Dupuytren.
Un merveilleux écrivain qui a le défaut de se guinder parfois. Quand
on est grand, on n'a pas besoin de talons.
Depuis quelque temps il a contracté la regrettable habitude de placer
sur sa table de travail un bénitier auprès de son encrier.
Il en résulte que, quand il se trompe et trempe la plume dans le
bénitier, dame, c'est de l'eau claire!...

DUMAS (J.-B.)—Chimiste célèbre et sénateur banal.


A pu, en cette dernière qualité, lors du 4 septembre, quand ses
chers collègues ont si bien tiré au large, faire des études sur la
décomposition des corps... politiques et les précipités de la peur.

DU MIRAL—L'homme à la soupière!
Prévoyait-il, en arborant ce symbole, les soupes que le suffrage
universel devait lui tremper plus tard?
DUPANLOUP—Un calice de vinaigre.—Comme cela se trouve
qu'il soit évêque d'Orléans!

DUPRÉ (JULES)—On prétend que les Dupré auront prochainement


la cote à la Bourse.
Combien ce très-remarquable peintre devait préférer le temps où il y
avait autour de ses tableaux moins d'agiotage et plus d'admiration!

DUPREZ—Un volcan refroidi.


A fondé depuis lors une école lyrique à l'usage de toutes les
médiocrités.
Comme s'il était possible d'apprendre aux buttes Montmartre à avoir
des éruptions!

DUPUIS—Aurait droit à ce surnom: Le ténor qui rit.


Plus de tic que de talent.
Mais le public a dit: Ainsi soit-il.
Ainsi il est, quelque rôle qu'il joue.

DUPUY (DE LOME)—Un des cent mille chercheurs de la navigation


aérienne.
Ce qu'il y a eu de plus ingénieux dans son système, c'est qu'il nous a
fait payer les frais de ses inutiles expériences.

DURAN (CAROLUS)—Un gaillard qui vous tripote la couleur de


main d'ouvrier.
Un tempérament de vrai peintre.
Espagnol par l'apparence physique, par ses admirations artistiques
(tout pour Velasquez!) et aussi par le contentement de soi.
Devrait pourtant savoir que, quand on se bâtit son Panthéon soi-
même, cela donne envie à tout le monde de le démolir.
Quand on est un arrivé, on devrait se méfier d'un défaut de parvenu.
NOTA.—Jusqu'à ses cheveux qui ont l'air de faire la roue!

DURIER (ÉMILE)—Une des notabilités les plus estimées du


barreau.
Parole qui ne trébuche jamais; conscience idem.

DURUY (VICTOR)—Un homme de bonne volonté, qui a cru


sincèrement que son libéralisme faisait l'empire prisonnier, quand il
était fait prisonnier par lui.
En rêvant pour le progrès l'alliance du césarisme, il m'a produit
l'effet de quelqu'un qui croirait faire un cadeau à un oiseau en lui
offrant une cage.

DUSOMMERARD—Les bibelots de mon père!...

DU TEMPLE—Un de ceux dont les colères voudraient faire croire


que la fleur de lis a des épines.
Quand il est venu déposer ses graines d'épinards sur la tribune, un
fantaisiste s'est écrié:
—Bah! il n'était que général en garni!
DUVERNOIS (CLÉMENT)—A passé presque sans transition d'un
cabinet dans une cellule...
O finance, voilà de tes coups!
La prison Tarpéienne est près du Capital.

DUVERT—Qui se douterait, à voir passer ce petit bourgeois


vieux, jaune, parcheminé, que, sous ces apparences de chef de
bureau en retraite, se cache un des esprits les plus merveilleux de la
fantaisie contemporaine!
Comparez ses chefs-d'œuvre de vaudeville avec les cascades bêtes
de l'opérette, et vous comprendrez la difficulté qu'il y a à jongler
avec la langue française sans la laisser glisser dans la boue.
E

ELWART—Un minois chiffonné de soixante-cinq ans.


Sa petite voix flûtée n'a pas sa pareille pour chanter un couplet de
circonstance au dessert d'un banquet, ou pleurer une oraison
funèbre au bord d'une tombe à peine entr'ouverte.
Professe entre temps l'harmonie au Conservatoire, quand les repas
de corps et les enterrements ne donnent pas.

ENAULT (LOUIS)—C'est un musc!


Son style minaude comme sa personne. Et, dame! comme l'un et
l'autre ne sont pas jeunes, ces minauderies-là manquent de charme.
C'est de lui qu'on a raconté jadis qu'il allait dans les imprimeries
corriger ses épreuves à cheval...
Pas sur la grammaire, toujours!

ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN—Un duo de haches qui fut très-


applaudi.
Ont ainsi sapé vigoureusement la légende impériale et le
chauvinisme. Mais, depuis nos défaites, le chauvinisme est redevenu
presque respectable. Ce fut une mauvaise herbe dont on
redemanderait volontiers de la graine.
Ont adopté comme façon d'écrire un procédé de simplicité voulue,
coupant comme une lame. Mais, à la longue, la lame tourne à la
scie, et cette préméditation de naïveté finit par lasser.
Se défier de la préciosité à l'envers.
La chaumière de Rambouillet!

ESCUDIER (Frères)—Éditeurs de Verdi.


—Et puis?
—Éditeurs de Verdi, vous dis-je.
NOTA.—On assure que l'un d'eux a fait de la politique jadis; mais
personne ne s'en est aperçu.

ESQUIROS—J'ai connu un bébé qui disait en embrassant sa


grand'mère:
—Tiens, vois-tu, grand'maman, je t'aime à te faire mal!
M. Esquiros me paraît être un républicain qui aime la République à la
façon dudit bébé.
A publié dans la Revue des Deux Mondes des études cosmopolites
aussi pondérées que ses agissements l'ont parfois été peu.

ESTANCELIN—On l'appelait jadis le jeune Estancelin.


A prouvé pendant la guerre que son patriotisme méritait encore
cette épithète.
Connu à la fois comme orléaniste et comme éleveur.
Ses bestiaux ont mieux réussi que sa politique.

ETEX—Une tour de Babel qui se prend pour un Parthénon.


F

FAIDHERBE—Un sabre intelligent.


Je ne dis pas que ce soit l'exception; mais je ne dis pas non plus que
ce soit la règle générale.

FAILLY (général de)—Inventeur de la huitième merveille du


monde (les chassepots de Mentana!).
Aurait vraiment mieux fait d'être merveilleux dans la dernière guerre.

FALLOUX (de)—Basile mondain, long comme le manche d'un


éteignoir de sacristie.
De ceux qui croient qu'il est avec la terre des accommodements, il
aurait voulu, en sa qualité de clérical tricolore, envoyer le drapeau
blanc chez le teinturier.
Aussi, malgré la façon brillante dont cet Othello catholique essaya
jadis d'étouffer l'Université avec son traversin de ministre, est-il en
butte aux injures de l'Univers, qui le traite de libéral!
On est toujours le révolutionnaire de quelqu'un.
FARCY—Pas l'homme-canon, l'homme-canonnière.
Son engin avait vraiment une fière portée, puisqu'il l'a lancé des
bancs de l'Océan sur les bancs de l'Assemblée nationale.

FARGUEIL—Une de celles (et il en est plusieurs) qui n'ont eu du


talent qu'à l'ancienneté.
Un défaut: sa diction a trop l'air de se rappeler que la comédienne
commença par être chanteuse.

FAURE—Je nous vois quand nous serons vieux, répétant en


hochant la tête, chaque fois qu'on fera l'éloge d'un virtuose.
—Ah! si vous aviez entendu Faure!.. C'était Faure qui était ceci,
c'était Faure qui était cela...
Comme nous en radoterons, mon Dieu! Et comme nous aurons
raison d'en radoter!

FAVART (Mademoiselle)—Une vaillante qui continuera


victorieusement sa carrière, bien que la jalousie dise en cherchant à
lui barrer la route:
—Je croise... ette!

FAVRE (JULES)—Un Prométhée dont il n'y a pas que les vautours


qui aient rongé le foie.
Les dindons s'en sont mêlés.

FECHTER—This gentleman was a very beautiful...


Mais, pardon, je m'aperçois qu'il n'y a absolument plus rien à dire de
M. Fechter en français.

FÉLIX (Père)—Un auditeur disait en l'écoutant:


—C'est l'abondance du Père Ravignan!
Oui, l'abondance... car il l'a diantrement coupé d'eau.

FERRY (JULES)—Un homme de travail, de courage et de loyauté.


Vous voyez si les photographies à la fange, tirées par ses
calomniateurs, sont ressemblantes. Dire que certains Français ne lui
ont pas pardonné encore d'avoir mieux aimé manger et nous faire
manger du pain noir que de se rendre tout de suite.
Les Prussiens non plus.
Ceci le dédommage de cela.

FEUILLET (OCTAVE)—Une guitare qui, depuis quelque temps, a la


prétention de donner des sons de clairon.
Quand on m'assure que ses dernières œuvres sont pleines de
passion, il me semble qu'on accourt me dire:
—Vous ne savez pas!... les chevaux de bois des Champs-Elysées qui
viennent de prendre le mors aux dents!
NOTA.—Fera bien de se défier de la profession d'agoniste (voir Julie
et le Sphinx), sans quoi il ne pourra bientôt plus écrire que pour le
théâtre de Méry-sur-Oise.

FÉVAL (PAUL)—Une figure allumée, un œil étincelant sous un


buisson de sourcils, qui coupent un front partant du dos.
Avait assez de finesse de main pour être un miniaturiste. A préféré
n'être qu'un décorateur.
A la vérité, il y a des décors qui valent des tableaux.
Une conversation d'où jaillissent mille étincelles, mais qui a le défaut
de battre presque toujours le briquet sur le dos d'un confrère.

FIGUIER (LOUIS)—La boutique à treize de l'érudition.


Je veux bien croire que la première chose qu'il aime en ce monde,
c'est la science; mais j'affirme que la seconde, c'est la réclame.
La réclame a l'air de le lui rendre. Quant à la science... Heu! heu!

FIGUIER (Madame)—Epouse du précédent.


Fait du théâtre à nos moments perdus.

FILON—Précepteur du prince impérial, et rédacteur de cette


grotesque dépêche: «Filons par la Belgique!» que quelqu'un a
appelée le couac du cygne.

FLAMMARION—Le Ponson du Terrail de l'astronomie.


Prête à tous les astres des aventures à la Rocambole.
C'est certainement amusant d'écrire le roman du ciel; mais je préfère
ceux qui se contentent d'en écrire l'histoire.

FLAUBERT (GUSTAVE)—
Après la Salambô
Oh! oh!
Après le Candidat
Holà!

Une légende botanique prétend qu'il existe en Amérique une plante


qui fleurit avec un bruit semblable à un coup de pistolet, et meurt
ensuite.
M. Flaubert a réalisé la légende. Son talent n'a pas survécu à
l'éclosion retentissante de Madame Bovary.

FLEURY (Général)—Un des auteurs du 2 décembre. Ce qui ne


l'empêche pas de déblatérer, j'en suis sûr, contre cet affreux 4
septembre.
Moi, quand les despotes ou leurs collaborateurs s'indignent que l'on
fasse des révolutions, cela me produit l'effet d'une araignée qui se
plaindrait que ces scélérates de mouches abîment sa toile.

FOURICHON (Amiral)—A été, pendant quelque temps, à Tours


et à Bordeaux, la cinquième roue du char de l'Etat.
Une roue qui, bien que royaliste, avait l'air alors de prendre feu le
plus révolutionnairement du monde.

FOURNIER (EDOUARD)—Son front colossal qui écrase une toute


petite figure me fait le même effet que si l'on mettait le dôme des
Invalides sur un entresol.
Critique de talent, il a surtout comme spécialité la littérature
rétrospective. Son idéal, c'est de faire bon comme vieux.

FOURNIER (MARC)—Homme de lettres, puis impresario.


A prouvé qu'il s'entendait mieux, comme directeur, à habiller les
idées des autres que, comme écrivain, à habiller les siennes.

FOY (DE)—Fondateur-innovateur de cette profession bizarre:


fabricant de chaînes sans sûreté.
C'est lui qui devrait prendre pour devise: «L'union fait ma force.»

FRANÇAIS—Le plus grand des peintres... par la taille. Est loin


d'en être le plus petit par le talent.
Un de ceux qui, les premiers, ont divorcé avec la nature de
convention du paysage historico-classique.
Mais de temps en temps (ô bizarrerie humaine!) il va maintenant
repincer un air de guitare sous les fenêtres de celle qu'il a délaissée.

FRANCK (ADOLPHE)—Ma plume ajoute toute seule: «de


l'Institut.»
Une paire de lunettes dans un paquet de rides. Corps débile, esprit
ferme.
Un des très-rares libres-penseurs que j'aie connus parmi les
Israélites.
Professe quelque part quelque chose comme le droit des gens.
Archéologue, va!

FRANÇOIS-JOSEPH—A deux fois déposé son bilan; à


Solferino et à Sadowa, sans que l'Autriche lui ait retiré sa confiance.
Duquel des deux cela fait-il le plus l'éloge? A moins que cela ne fasse
l'éloge ni de l'un ni de l'autre.
FRASCHINI—Le roi-ténor, qui a régné le plus longtemps après
Tamberlick.
Aujourd'hui il a déposé la pourpre en en conservant par mégarde un
petit morceau pour le bout de son nez.

FRÉDÉRIC-CHARLES—Malheur aux vainqueurs!

FRÉDÉRICK-LEMAITRE—Gloire au vaincu!

FRÉMIET—Pas bête. Est tant ennemi de la laideur, qu'il s'est fait


sculpteur d'animaux!

FREZZOLINI—Elle avait, celle-là, l'art de plus en plus rare de


faire tenir une âme dans un son.

FROMENTIN—Peint à la plume et écrit au pinceau.

FROMENTIN (Madame)—Tel ne brille pas au premier rang qui


s'éclipse au second.

FROSSARD (Général)—Fut jadis attaché à la personne du prince


impérial...
Comme professeur de défaites???
G

GABRIELLI (comte)—Une serinette armoriée.

GAGNE—Regardez-le passer.
La barbe blanche est imposante, l'œil noir est plein de feu, la
démarche est majestueuse et quasi pontificale.
On dirait que c'est un des sept sages de la Grèce, tandis que c'est un
des cent mille toqués de la France. Figurez-vous qu'il rêve de voir
notre pays uni! Est-ce assez de l'archidéraison, mon Dieu!

GALIMARD—Une des têtes de Turc de la blague


contemporaine. Et Dieu sait si les rapins ont cherché des poux à
cette tête-là!
Comme valeur artistique, Prudhomme ayant dans le temps lavé les
pinceaux de Raphaël.
GALLI-MARIÉ—Une originalité.
Ce qui fait que, même quand elle aura perdu sa voix, il lui restera
celle des gens de goût.
GAMBETTA—Un grand homme!...
—Un scélérat!...
C'est entre ces deux extrêmes qu'oscille perpétuellement l'opinion de
ce bon peuple français, à propos de tout personnage politique en
évidence.
Inutile de dire que Gambetta n'a mérité ni les excès de l'adulation, ni
les indignités de la calomnie.
Il y a là une éloquence qui, quand elle n'est pas possédée, possède
les autres.
Ils lui reprochent de n'avoir pas terminé la guerre et ils ne se
reprochent pas de l'avoir commencée.
Ils l'appellent (quel atticisme) dictateur borgne.
Mais, si ce borgne a régné, c'est ta faute, Empire des aveugles.

GANAL—Successeur de son père.


Que j'aime à voir autour de cette table...
Oùs qu'il embaum' nos détritus...ses,
Bocaux, flacons, corps et fœtus...ses
Que c'est comme un bouquet de fleurs!!

GANESCO—Où sont les paletots fourrés d'antan? Où les


redingotes à revers de velours? Où le sourire radieux qui abordait
tout écrivain avec ces mots stéréotypés:—Eh bien! cher maître!...
Beaux jours, velours, sourire et fourrures sont passés. Reviendront-
ils? Dans tous les cas, en souvenir de ces opulentes étrangetés, je
demande à ce qu'on grave sur sa tombe:
Il fut mamamouchi de lettres!
GARIBALDI—Don Quichotte poussé au sublime.
Mais, hélas! Ce vaillantissime n'est plus aujourd'hui que ce que je me
permettrai d'appeler un rhumatisme héroïculaire.

GARNIER (CHARLES)—Physiquement, ses traits contournés et


l'énorme tignasse qui les exhausse me donnent cette impression:
—Un bonnet à poil surmontant un marron sculpté.
Pour son coup d'essai, on lui a demandé un coup de maître. Il a
répondu par l'Opéra que vous savez, lequel a inspiré ce quatrain à
un poëte anonyme:

En voyant les splendeurs de l'Opéra nouveau


Où des maîtres si bien il a suivi les traces,
Chacun se dit: S'il a tant le culte du beau,
Il ne doit pas souvent regarder dans les glaces.

GARNIER-PAGÈS—La science médicale a toujours chanté sur


un air connu:
Quand les poumons vont par deux
Pour respirer ça vaut mieux!
M. Garnier-Pagès a trouvé moyen de changer tout cela et de vivre
parfaitement avec un poumon dépareillé.
Mais, dame! aussi il a adopté le régime des longs cheveux et des
immenses faux-cols qui ont étonné tout le monde et qu'il définit
ainsi: Un paravent portatif.
La bonté, la loyauté et la conviction mêmes.
Les apparences d'un roseau. Mais il a prouvé au 31 octobre, par son
courage impassible, que ce roseau a une tige d'acier.
GATAYES—L'alter ego d'Alphonse Karr.
C'est la seule fois que ce bête de rôle de confident ait été joué avec
esprit.

GAVARDIE—Je crie, donc je suis.

GAVARRET—L'étrange tête crépue, par ma foi!


Le teint est jaunâtre, les cheveux grisâtres, l'œil noirâtre. Tout en
demi-tons.
Bon physicien et membre-né de toutes les commissions d'hygiène.
Ses amis ne parlent que de son savoir; ses ennemis que de son
savoir-faire. Je ne vois pas pourquoi l'un exclurait l'autre, au fait!

GAVINI—Député de la Corse.
Aux jeux peu innocents de la politique, il persiste à vouloir faire
rimer Sedan avec gloire, et invasion avec prospérité.

GEFFROY—Un artiste hors ligne, qui n'avait que le défaut de


porter toujours un crêpe à son talent.
Mais malgré cet abus de la mélancolie, comme il vous pénétrait dans
un rôle, ce glaçon, taillé en pointe!

GEOFFROY—Est-ce bien un acteur?


Moi, il me semble que c'est un monsieur qui vient chaque soir passer
deux heures sur les planches, et qui là se joue lui-même.
GEROME—Son nom fait prime sur le marché de la peinture.
Mais, en matière d'art, l'éloquence des chiffres n'est qu'une
radoteuse.
Après avoir débuté par des œuvres de maître, M. Gérôme s'est avisé
de se faire porcelainier à l'huile.
Cette touche mince, luisante, devrait aller à Sèvres décorer des
services de table. C'est là qu'on pourrait doublement dire qu'elle est
dans son assiette.

GEVAERT —Fort estimable compositeur belge qui a un moment


exporté chez nous avec succès.
Mais, je l'avoue, je ne comprends pas, lorsque nos musiciens
meurent de faim, que, sauf le cas de génie, on éprouve le besoin de
faire aux étrangers les honneurs de nos maigres scènes lyriques.
Il me semble voir les gens du radeau de la Méduse invitant du
monde à dîner.

GIRARDIN (ÉMILE DE)—Une vaste bibliothèque exclusivement


composée de volumes dépareillés.
Son esprit, remuant sur place, a fourré, en guise de crochets, des
points d'interrogation dans bien des serrures, mais sans parvenir à
ouvrir la porte d'aucune grande idée. Journalisme, finances,
théâtres, minéralogie, il a touché à tout, sans profit... pour le public.
Sa grande fortune dément le proverbe: «Pierre qui roule n'amasse
pas de mousse.» Mais le proverbe n'a pas dit: Pierre qui roule... les
autres.
Vous connaissez ces phares qui tournent en changeant de couleur?
C'est l'emblème de ce versatile publiciste. Seulement le phare
Girardin a la spécialité de conduire au naufrage au lieu de mener au
port.

GLAIS-BIZOIN—Rien de l'Apollon du Belvédère dans ce petit


vieillard racorni que quelqu'un avait surnommé la Momie pétulante.
Mais cet excentrique a tant de fois dit la vérité en riant et même en
faisant rire... à ses dépens!...
—Il a une araignée dans le plafond, dit l'argot moderne.
Moi, j'aime assez les araignées, quand elles empoignent bravement
les mouches venimeuses.

GONCOURT (Frères de)—Un charmant duo qui a été


cruellement interrompu par un De profundis.

GONDINET—Enfoncé papa Buffon avec votre: le style, c'est


l'homme.
Gondinet a l'aspect aussi triste que ses fantaisies sont gaies. Excelle
à raffiner le comique. Une marotte à manche ciselé.

GONZALÈS—Je parie que vous me guettez en souriant


d'avance; je parie que vous vous attendez que j'y aille à mon tour du
notre sympathique confrère de rigueur...
Eh bien, non! Je m'insurge contre un cliché dont l'abus finit par
devenir trop agaçant.
Il y a bien, que diable! quelque autre façon de dire que Gonzalès est
un des rares privilégiés qui n'aient pas pour ennemis les neuf
dixièmes de leurs collègues en littérature.
Représente la Société des gens de lettres avec une précision dont se
glorifierait un notaire, et écrit des romans avec une fantaisie qui
ferait rougir le même officier ministériel.
Une de ses meilleures œuvres, c'est sa fille, qui peint comme un
homme de talent tout en restant gracieuse comme une jolie femme.

GOSSELIN—Chirurgien attaché au Val-de-Grâce.


Coupe les jambes avec tant de bonhomie, désarticule avec tant de
rondeur, que cela donne presque envie de se faire inciser quelque
chose pour s'amuser. Son sourire de Roger Bontemps fait croire
qu'une opération est une partie de plaisir... pour lui.

GOT—Eh bien, oui! c'est le comble de la science théâtrale, c'est la


perfection réglementaire et le triomphe du procédé.
Mais pourquoi toutes ces qualités incontestables ne m'ont-elles
jamais empoigné comme certains défauts qui me choquaient tout en
charmant?
C'est que ces défauts étaient originaux et que les qualités de M. Got
sont apprises. A eu grand tort de se fourvoyer parfois dans les
rugissements dramatiques.
Fauve qui peut!

GOUNOD—Ce front dénudé, cet œil ascétique, ce visage


amplement barbu, donneraient envie de dire le moine Gounod pour
faire pendant à l'abbé Liszt.
A écrit un chef-d'œuvre, Faust, et après...
La musique de Gounod a des caresses exquises, mais sans virilité;
c'est de la passion qui ne descend jamais plus bas que le cerveau.
J'y vois l'amour s'épuisant en prologues sans dénoûment.
Je me trompe sans doute; mais, pour moi, Gounod a écrit le poëme
des impuissants.

GOUPIL—Est entrepreneur d'artisses, comme d'autres sont


entrepreneurs de bâtisses.

GRAMONT (duc de)—Le commissaire des morts de nos


désastres. C'est lui qui a pris la tête du convoi.
Sa vanité, peu repentante, semblerait toute disposée à nous
organiser un nouveau deuil, pour le plaisir de recoiffer le chapeau à
cornes et de reparader avec la canne noire à pomme d'ivoire.

GRANDGUILLOT—La plus belle barbe de la presse


contemporaine. Une barbe que les événements ont, hélas! défrisée.

GRÉVIN—L'aspect d'un bourgeois, l'esprit d'un raffiné, un brin de


ventre au corps, des ailes au crayon. Une flamme qui se cache
exprès sous les cendres pour dérouter les imbéciles.
A su trouver un filon à lui dans la grande mine parisienne, tant
exploitée déjà.
Ne vous y trompez pas: ce n'est pas Gavarni Deux; c'est Grévin
Premier.

GRÉVY—Un impassible, qui s'est bien malheureusement avisé


d'avoir des nerfs une seule fois en sa vie: le jour où il a donné sa
démission de président de l'Assemblée.
Cette faute à part, il est un des porte-respect de la démocratie.
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