Abstract

The question usually posed regarding emancipation and education is what kind of education is in place, possible, or desired for a given emancipatory goal. This chapter seeks to step away from the usual account of the emancipatory capacity of education, and ask: does education itself require emancipation, and if so, from what and to what end? In its first step, the text presents an understanding of emancipation in Roman Custom Law and the discourse of the Enlightenment. The middle section is dedicated to calling into question emancipatory thinking and practice in general, drawing on Lyotard’s analysis of the postmodern condition and its transformation of the status of knowledge. Final considerations hint at the necessity for an account of abandoning the emancipatory dimension of education. The conclusion reached is that education can (and should) be unmoored from being thought of as a functional emancipatory means for anything other than itself. Seemingly paradoxical, only such conceptual untethering of education and emancipation allows for an understanding of education as another word for emancipation: such a “negative” understanding of emancipation—along with the corresponding understanding of education—could disentangle these two long-traveling companions, setting them aright, closer to their original and, hopefully, desirable meanings.