Volker Kraft
What’s the Purpose of the Foundation of Education Today?
On the basis of recent empirical findings, the theory-related problems of general pedagogy are examined from a disciplinary perspective. In this, the common distinction between profession and discipline is differentiated in more detail by showing that modern educational science – in contrast to theology, law, or medicine – is to be considered a secondary discipline the development of which is directly related to processes of secondary professionalization. Against this background, the author substantiates his proposal to determine a dual function of general pedagogy: on the one hand, it serves as delimitation against other disciplines (interdisciplinary aspect), and on the other hand, it serves the intra-disciplinary integration with regard to differential pedagogies. Both functions converge in an operative understanding of education in which the identity of educational science is reflected.
Christiane Micus-Loos
Recognition of the Other as a Special Challenge in Educational Processes
Within the context of school education, in particular, recognition is of great importance to the development of identity and self-confidence. Recognition of the other constitutes a special challenge in institutionalized educational relations because, on the one hand, the structures of these relations are asymmetrical and, on the other, the focus ought to be not only on an interpersonal event but, rather, it always has to include the reflection of the world as the other. Following an analysis of (socio-) philosophical and educational theoretical approaches to the category of recognition, the author sketches an approach based on Paul Ricoeur’s “The Course of Recognition”, which warns against forgetting the original asymmetry of education-related relations of recognition in the search for mutuality between the self and the other.
Ulrich Binder
The Use of ‘Future’ in Pedagogical Programs
The author inquires into the question of how the category of “future” is discussed in programmatic pedagogical writings of the early twentieth century. In this, his analysis focuses on the linguistic level, on the language in and with which pedagogy is tuned to the “future”. The basic motives and argumentative patterns applied when using “future” are reconstructed in order to show by what German, Austrian, or French pedagogues orientate themselves when talking about “future”.
Valentin Halder
Other Concepts of Autopoiesis – On the reception of Luhmann’s systems theory in pedagogics
Even today, there are several competing and fundamentally different approaches to the interpretation of the ‘autopoiesis concept’ in pedagogics; and quite often it remains unclear by what a specific interpretation is characterized and from which other actually existing position it distinguishes itself. Therefore, it is the author’s aim to differentiate between and analyze different interpretations of this concept – namely, the technological, the irritated, the humanist, and the meta-theoretical interpretation. This analysis is followed by a plea for a continued controversial approach to systems theory.
Jan Masschelein
Inciting an attentive experimental ethos and creating a laboratory setting. Philosophy of education and the transformation of educational institutions
All over Europe educational institutions (school, family, university, youth care etc.) are undergoing profound transformations. This paper explores on a more general level of what it could mean to deal with them, to relate to them, and to take up the challenge they offer for philosophy of education. In order to do so, the paper first recalls how Hannah Arendt in the preface to her book Between Past and Future entitled “The gap between past and future”, describes her own philosophical work as “exercises in/of thought“ implying a particular gesture and stance in relation to what happens. To further indicate what such exercises entail (what they actually are about) and what they require (in terms of equipment and preparation) a concrete and topical example of such an exercise is presented: the cinema of the Belgian Dardenne Brothers. Then, finally, these exercises are related to a proposal to create “laboratories”, to set up experiments, and to do a kind of ‘fieldwork’ in relation to the actual transformations of educational institutions.
Joris Vlieghe/Jan Masschelein/Maarten Simons
Corporeal experience and equality. A new approach to the educational significance of the body
In this article we overview different positions that have been taken in educational theory in regard with the meaning of corporeality for education. We argue that the body either appears as a factor through which subjectivity gets discursively formed, which makes the body lose its material weight, or as a vehicle by means of which existing educational goals, such as the furthering of a fully developed personality or an accurate view of the world are more authentically and efficiently realized. We argue that these approaches imply an instrumentalization of the body which makes it impossible to conceive the body in its full physicality. The experience of coinciding with one’s “flesh” might however carry a major educational importance out of itself, because of the radical equalizing and emancipatory qualities it might have.
Anselm Böhmer
The Aesthetics of Education – On the critique of subjectivity in the educational concept
The concept of education often proves to be problematic insofar as it conveysthe perspective of growth and perfection and thus reflects hegemonic orders of societies onto individuals. The author examines some of these structures and – by drawing on the approaches formulated by the late Foucault and by Judith Butler in her lecture on Theodor W. Adorno – he criticizes these approaches. These analyses allow to show the extent of the change in individual and social formations as well as the inclusion of such efforts into the stipulations of power and self-image. The thus revised concept of education offers critical perspectives and becomes, for its part, problematic. From this perspective, it is able to show the possibilities opened up by an “aesthetics of education” for the existence of men and their social structures.
New Books