The aim of this article is to examine ways in which localized research runs the risk of becoming a boundary discourse in a negative sense. The exaggerated emphasis on immanent critique, contextualization and incommensurability may lead discourse and disciplines to an isolationist self-understanding that leaves unchallenged or even entrenches existing discursive hegemonies. Or, it may side with the kind of facile and hasty fusion of discourses and disciplines that ignores epistemic demands and concerns for validity and semantic accuracy. That is, (...) it may overlook the necessity for positively understood discursive boundaries. Clearly demarcated, a-porous boundaries block osmosis and fruitful exchange and facilitate what is called here ?stronghold fortification?. And they make common cause with a disregard for all boundaries, i.e. with what is called here ?frame demolition?. Discourses of educational research, and particularly of ?special? versus ?inclusive? education, supply examples that are all the more telling since the very possibility of pedagogy reminds us that relativism is not an option here. To discuss interdisciplinarity and discursivity with an eye to such risks, I refer to Habermas? outlook on the position of philosophy after Kant alongside Derrida's rethinking of the right to philosophy ? a rethinking that is grounded in a reading of Kant's cosmopolitical point of view. (shrink)

This article examines the relevance of Hegel’s theory of recognition within educational theory and practice in relation to the development of a non-affirmative theory of education. The article argues that Hegel’s theory of recognition can serve as a fruitful starting point for articulating an educational theory that can contribute to the subject’s open-ended formation in modern society. To start with, the article surveys the connection between Hegel’s educational thought and his concept of recognition. Against this backdrop, the article singles out (...) how Hegel’s theory of recognition provides a compelling theory of intersubjectivity that calls attention to the role of norms in personal development and the construction of the social world. In continuation of a non-affirmative principle, it is argued that Hegelian recognition underlines, first, that the subject’s formation can fruitfully be an open-ended and dynamic process and, second, that in order to underpin this process it is necessary to critically assess norms and norm-generating practices within an educational context. (shrink)