I like the cover…

This last week Negin and I have been talking about graduate study in a more structured way. I know that I have a set of beliefs about human nature and human capacity, as well as a set of epistemological beliefs that inform how I want to approach learning and the generation of knowledge. I also have certain topics that are of interest: sustainability, how human beings interact with the rest of the environment, and the role of modeling and economics in all of that. But how do I move forward?

Negin and I agreed that I would continue to build my mathematical skills in courses like Linear Algebra, but we also discussed not taking a course over the summer, and instead focusing on a structured set of readings. While I’ve already been slogging through a few texts on the recommendation of Ryan Siegel, I know I’m not reading and processing them at the level I could be.

What to focus on? There is a literature around ethics and economics. Right now I’m moving slowly through Hausman and McPherson’s Economic Analysis, Moral Philosophy and Public Policy, as well as Amartya Sen’s On Ethics and Economics. What’s becoming quite clear to me is that there’s a whole body of work, over the last 30 years, written by people who don’t feel that perfect rationality, perfect information, and purely self-interested actors make a very useful model of social reality. So I want to get a handle on the shape of that literature. I’m assuming it doesn’t gain more ground because it doesn’t tell as coherent a story as the dominant, neoclassical framework. So that’s one task.

But still, I don’t feel grounded. I can’t yet see myself doing economic research, in part because I don’t know what it looks like. To that end, over the summer, I’d like to start reading the work of Elinor Ostrom. She works at the University of Indiana, is a core member of the Center for the Study of Institutions, Population and Environmental Change, and she won the Nobel Prize in economics this last year. One book that looks compelling is Institutions, Ecosystems, and Sustainability. It seems like the research I’m most interested in winds up in the political science / political economy category more often than the pure economics category. I don’t know how to feel about that.

At the Association for Baha’i Studies (ABS) conference, Mr. Lample spoke about frameworks for learning. He encouraged the friends to imagine frameworks for learning about other aspects of our lives: Social action, discourse, social and economic development, and even scholarship. Learning about growth is an enterprise the Baha’is are engaged in right now, but this does not mean that we should stop learning about other parts of human existence. What is important is to approach each of these aspects in an attitude of learning.

In his talk, Mr. Lample reminded the friends of steps that Baha’is have previously taken to translate belief into action:

1. Read the guidance
2. Reflect on experience to date
3. Ask what works? What has worked in the past?
4. Define initial lines of action. (They can always change later.)

Which brings us to the title of this blog post: A Framework for Learning about Baha’i Scholarship. Learning about scholarship will probably require elements of both reification and participation. For example, we can read about teaching children’s classes, but we also have to physically experience organizing a class and interacting with children. Otherwise the knowledge in our heads is two-dimensional. What do you think this looks like for scholarship?

Links:

• Workbook on “Scholarship, Service & Social Action in the Context of the Divine Plan” (pdf)
• Resources for Baha’i Scholarship at the Assocation for Baha’i Studies website
• Podcast of Paul Lample in Nashville, Tennessee at The American Baha’i, 24 August 2008 (requires login)

Over the next few days, I’ll post some write-ups of sessions, and thoughts on how Baha’i beliefs will translate into action in my own fields of endeavor. Keep an eye out for Mr. Lample’s thoughts on frameworks for learning about scholarship, and some initiatives that individuals both near and far will be undertaking.