In this paper, I analyse the Deweyan account of thinking and subject and discuss the educational consequences that follow from such an account. I argue that despite the grouping of thinking and reflective thought that has largely appeared in the interpretation of Deweyan work, Dewey discloses an inescapable uncertainty at the core of human thinking. This move is even more challenging given Dewey's firm faith in the power of intelligent action, and in education as the means by which human beings (...) grow and create meaningful existence. I argue that throughout his work, Dewey dismantled the understanding of the subject as a detached and self-assured centre of agency. In Deweyan understanding, on one hand, the subject is empowered to reflect on experience and to use this reflection to evolve new ways of acting, thus pushing experience forward. On the other hand, by acting, the subject can create new points of interaction within experience. This understanding of thinking and subject has far-reaching consequences for education, which must be conceived not so much as the attempt to master and control experience but as the means to create new, unpredictable experience by putting new points of interactions into our relationship with the environment, changing our being-embedded-in-the-world. Dewey repositions educational, intentional agency away from control and mastery and in the direction of growth and openness. (shrink)

In this paper, I analyse the Deweyan account of thinking and subject and discuss the educational consequences that follow from such an account. I argue that despite the grouping of thinking and reflective thought that has largely appeared in the interpretation of Deweyan work, Dewey discloses an inescapable uncertainty at the core of human thinking. This move is even more challenging given Dewey's firm faith in the power of intelligent action, and in education as the means by which human beings (...) grow and create meaningful existence. I argue that throughout his work, Dewey dismantled the understanding of the subject as a detached and self-assured centre of agency. In Deweyan understanding, on one hand, the subject is empowered to reflect on experience and to use this reflection to evolve new ways of acting, thus pushing experience forward. On the other hand, by acting, the subject can create new points of interaction within experience. This understanding of thinking and subject has far-reaching consequences for education, which must be conceived not so much as the attempt to master and control experience but as the means to create new, unpredictable experience by putting new points of interactions into our relationship with the environment, changing our being-embedded-in-the-world. Dewey repositions educational, intentional agency away from control and mastery and in the direction of growth and openness. (shrink)

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)

Drawing on insights into the philosophies of Dewey and Heidegger, this book moves forward the greater philosophical discourse surrounding education. It illuminates deep affinities between the corresponding traditions of Dewey and Heidegger, broadly labeled hermeneutics and pragmatism, and in doing so reveals the potential of the Dewey-Heidegger comparison for the future of education. To accomplish this task, Vasco d’Agnese explores the Deweyan and Heideggerian understanding of existence and experience. Both thinkers believed that humans are vulnerable from the very beginning, delivered (...) to an uncanny and uncertain condition. On the other hand, such an uncanniness and dependency, rather than flowing in nihilistic defeat of educational purposes, puts radical responsibility on the side of the subject. It is, then, educationally promising. The book explains that for both Dewey and Heidegger, being a subject means being-with-others while transcending and advancing one’s boundaries, thus challenging the managerial framework of education that currently dominates educational institutions throughout the world. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to discuss the role of art in Deweyan thought, making a case for the relationship among art, experience, and education. I will do so by drawing on both Deweyan works—primarily Art as Experience1 and chapter nine of Experience and Nature2—and scholarly literature devoted to the issue.3 Based on such precedents, I wish to argue that art plays a central function in Deweyan thought. Dewey conceived of art as the basis on which to deepen, enlarge, (...) and make sense of experience; the place where human beings search for meaning and unity finds its fulfillment; and the means by which we may enact the primary task of education, namely, bringing newness to the fore, or in Dewey’s words... (shrink)

Is von Glasersfeld's constructivism actually radical? In this article, I respond to this question by analyzing von Glasersfeld's main works. I argue that the essential theoretical move of radical constructivism – namely the assertion that reality is the construction of a human mind that only responds to the subjective perception of ‘what fits’ – results in a conservative vision of reality, knowledge, and education. To the extent that the friction with, and the challenge of, reality is eliminated, knowledge remains only (...) a subjective affair and the world is reduced to a living tautology. In this way, von Glasersfeld constructs a theory of ethical disengagement in which personal responsibility is de facto denied. Thus, to the extent that education entails responsibility, change, and comparison, radical constructivism is a theory that is unsuitable for education. I also attempt to argue that the equivalence between radical constructivism and relativism and nihilism that many support is i.. (shrink)

The premise that underlies this volume is that there are strong interconnections between wonder, education and human flourishing. And more specifically, that wonder can make a significant difference to how well one's education progresses and how well one's life goes. The contributors to this volume--both senior, well-known and beginning researchers and students of wonder--variously explore aspects of these connections from philosophical, empirical, theoretical and practical perspectives. The three chapters that comprise Part I of the book are devoted to the importance (...) of wonder for education and for human flourishing. Part II contains four chapters offering conceptual analyses of wonder and perspectives from developmental psychology and philosophy (Spinoza, Wittgenstein, philosophy of religion). The seven chapters that form Part III contain a wealth of ideas and educational strategies to promote wonder in education and teacher education. This volume not only underlines and articulates the importance of wonder in education and in life but also offers fresh perspectives, allowing us to look with renewed wonder at wonder itself--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)