What is the place of philosophy in the study of education? What is its significance for policy and practice? This paper begins by considering the policy and institutional context of the philosophy of education in the UK and by tracing its recent history. It examines both the place of philosophy in Education (as a field of study) and the status and character of the philosophy of education in relation to the 'parent' discipline of philosophy. Rival accounts of the nature of (...) the philosophy of education are outlined, in such a way as to acknowledge the importance of conceptual analytical approaches, but also to stress the value of a wider, more inclusive characterization. In the light of these, examples are offered to illustrate the role the subject must have in the understanding and improvement of educational policy and practice. Reference is primarily to the UK context, but the manner in which fundamental questions are addressed makes clear their much wider relevance and importance. (shrink)

This article explores aspects of eros in education in relation to ideas of indirectness associated with the French concept of pudeur, sometimes translated as ‘modesty’. It explores lines of thought extending through Emerson and Nietzsche but reaching back to Plato's Symposium. This is a means of exposing the ‘impudence’ of some aspects of contemporary education and of pointing towards a conception of eros that is otherwise obscured.

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

Since Plato, Western thought has framed knowing as a method within ‘some realm of what is’ and a predetermined ‘sphere of objects’. The roots and the consequences of this stance towards reason and truth were noted by Heidegger, who equates the history of Western thought with the history of metaphysics. Since Plato, truth has relied on definition, hierarchy and mastery. Discourse on the truth begins to be discourse on the limits of things and, thus, on who is able to set (...) these limits and discourse. This dominant position erases its own traces, presents itself as unique and unavoidable, and excludes all other ways of thinking. This exclusion includes violence, and this violence is not merely a philosophical matter. It is written in the history of the West, which is a history that includes conquest, genocide and war. However, we can also identify in Heidegger ways to transcend this inner violence by returning to the originating stance towards truth, namely, truth as aletheia, or world disclosure. This article provides the groundwork to argue that Heidegger's thought, based on a call for existential responsibility, requires education to remake our existence. (shrink)

In my paper, by drawing on the writings Heidegger developed in the late 1920s, I wish to display what we may refer to as the thorough educational nature of Heideggerian reflection. It is my argument that the analysis of Dasein we find in the early Heidegger displays an extraordinary deep and dense reflection on selfhood and subjectivity, a reflection that is rooted in subject’s freedom and transcending. By paying attention to the interplay between these two features, I argue that in (...) the late 1920s, while challenging the notion of an all-encompassing consciousness as the place where everything should be understood and managed, Heidegger built a conception of selfhood and subjectivity in terms of freedom, responsibility, and ongoing transformation. Such a conception, I argue, is in and of itself educational. (shrink)

In his 2012 article Philosophy of Education for the Public Good: Five Challenges and an Agenda, Gert Biesta identifies five substantial issues about the future of education and the work required to address these issues. This article employs a Heideggerian reading of education to evaluate ‘Biesta’s truth’. I argue that Biesta’s point of view underestimates knowledge’s predominance and relativism; frames intentionality in pre-Heideggerian terms, which—although not a problem in itself because an individual is free to choose a particular perspective on (...) the concept—raises the issue of consistency in Biesta’s theoretical framework; and a final criticism concerns Biesta’s choice of tools for engaging with the identified challenges: The primary tools Biesta uses are intrinsic to the perspective he challenges. The use of a ‘first person perspective’ to frame pedagogy that focuses on the subject and ‘subjectification’ reaffirms the fundamental Western gesture that makes human beings subjects who ‘stand-over-and-against’ the world. I argue that it is possible to penetrate Plato’s ‘theoretical gaze’ and find a ‘weak’ alternative to an all-encompassing point of view of education through a Heideggerian approach that regards intentionality and thinking as ‘hearing’. (shrink)

In this paper, I focus on teachers’ lived experiences during the COVID-19 outbreak. Specifically, I explore the emotional impact the abrupt shift to online teaching had on teachers’ work and life throughout the various phases of the lockdown. I develop my argument by analyzing teachers’ everyday work, using a qualitative approach, and constructing a small-scale empirical study. Philosophically, my attempt is phenomenologically developed and is framed by Heidegger’s and Arendt’s thoughts. Methodologically, my attempt falls within an emerging research horizon that (...) combines educational philosophy with empirical research. Drawing from research data, I argue that teachers’ experience bears witness to a deep modification of the schooling space-time, namely, the horizon in which the very perception of students, themselves, and teaching arise. In the case of teachers experiencing discomfort, fear, and even angst, the totality of their gestures and emotions was, as it were, swallowed by this unknown and disquieting horizon; teachers in distress were experiencing the collapse of any projecting without being freed by projecting itself. In the case of teachers experiencing feelings of fulfillment and even joy, a different horizon was allowed to emerge. Such a different space-time, rather than producing a sense of distance and alienation, created a new intimacy and nearness, which allows for a different attitude toward the topics and the educational community. Students became more sensitive, susceptible to transformation, and open to what was being said. At the same time, relationships were caught in a new web of meanings that transcended them, thus giving birth to an educational experience in its own right. I conclude with some remarks about the building of the educational community. (shrink)

In this paper, I wish to offer insight into the role of paradox in teaching. I will do so by analyzing teachers’ everyday work, taking a qualitative approach and constructing a small-scale empirical study. Philosophically, my attempt is framed by Heidegger’s thought. Drawing from research data, I argue the following: paradoxes and dilemmas are the very basis of teaching, and a teacher cannot see paradoxes and dilemmas if she/he has already made an choice of disengagement from the profession. Stated otherwise, (...) the sense of dependency, laceration, and even helplessness experienced by teachers I met and interviewed are not occasional or unwanted outcomes, but rather the very nature of the ethics of teaching. The rationale of teaching – curricula, objectives, and learning outcomes – is framed by teachers’ intentionality, namely, by teachers’ ‘being thrown’ and involved in leaving teaching situations. Teachers are simultaneously thrown into the projecting and understanding that co... (shrink)

Heidegger’s hermeneutic method and his account of pedagogy are useful in teaching students how to think and write. This paper interprets the method of thinking which Martin Heidegger taught to his students and indicates strategies that have been used to introduce that method to New Zealand students in an online course. The method appears to philosophers as a technique of conceptual analysis, although Heidegger may not have agreed with that characterisation or its use in this way. To tertiary teachers it (...) is one framework that they may use to teach a strategy and techniques under the rubric of critical thinking. The use of the method of procedure proposed is well within the capabilities of teachers in practical subjects such as business, management, medicine and law. Students in the author’s business analysis course say that a hermeneutic strategy forces them to struggle, but ultimately they report satisfaction at their increased abilities and believe that they have gained something efficacious. (shrink)