Abstract
In this chapter we return to the phenomenon of education as a broader issue. We show that education can be conceived of either in an immanent or in a transcendent way. We take our inspiration here from Agamben’s classification of philosophies of life according to these two categories. More exactly, we show that a transcendent account of education is dominant today. Against this, we call for a fully immanent view. Whereas transcendence comes down to the search for an external ground for and/or justification of education, immanence refers to an autotelic idea of education, i.e. that education is meaningful in and of itself. It is an intrinsically worthwhile endeavour, in so far as it testifies to a love for the world and brings about the possibility of a transformation in our individual and collective lives, in the here and now. We also discuss the pitfalls of a transcendent approach to education, by analysing what a functionalization, politicization and moralization of education entails.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
- 2.
This terminology is inspired by Heidegger’s rendering of substance in terms of Satz vom Grund (i.e. the principle of reason, Heidegger 1996).
- 3.
Our defence of immanence comes close to Stanley Cavell’s quest for the ordinary (see Vlieghe 2017), which is concerned with (re)turning to that what is plainly visible and yet invisible because (and as long as) we are seeking for metaphysical foundations. However, as Noako Saito (2016) argues, the educational moment has to do with “transcendence in the ordinary”. This is, again, close to what we have called a formal version of transcendence.
- 4.
There are of course notable exceptions to this rule such as the German tradition of Geisteswissenschaftliche Pädagogik (as defended by figures such as Theodor Litt, Herman Nohl and Eduard Spranger), which is not only closely related to hermeneutics, but also to vitalist tendencies in philosophy (and especially Dilthey). The main idea defended by this school of thought is that it does not make sense to start thinking about education outside of the conditions set by the concrete, contingent, historical and material life-world of those involved in educational processes.
- 5.
There is a connection here with the notion of “goods internal to a practice” as introduced by MacIntyre (1985). The difference is, of course, that the practice of education is defined by transformation, whereas MacIntyre describes practices in terms of constancy.
- 6.
This is a standpoint defended by the tradition of liberal education within analytical philosophy. What we argue for here is close to what R.S. Peters claims when he says: “To ask [a teacher] what the aim or point of the form of life is, into which he [sic] has himself initiated, seems an otiose question. […] This sort of question, he senses, can only be asked by barbarians outside the gates” (Peters 1973, p. 103). At the same time our approach is radically different from this school of thought. Even though we share the idea that an external justification of education is not necessary and unwanted, liberal educators call for an internal justification and precisely advance a transcendental argument in order to do this.
- 7.
Cf. Masschelein and Simons’s (2010) suggestion that from its very origin in the Greek city state the school was perceived as a danger, i.e. as a threat to society. Youngsters, separated from the sphere of the home, were given an opportunity to develop a profound interest in things they were not destined for, and to excel in them (Cf. Arendt 1961). The subject matters one discovers to be meaningful for one’s own life at school are potentially contrary to one’s parents’ or one’s social clan’s expectations. But also contrary to what civil society desires. The merchant’s child that learns at school to love music and that wants to devote herself/himself to a study of this discipline was no longer fit to play his/her role in any of both spheres. Hence a deep distrust for the school and the ongoing attempt by forces outside of the educational sphere to interfere with the school and to dictate what should happen at school (viz. to deliver things that are economically speaking useful).
- 8.
For a more nuanced account of Freire’s educational thought see Vlieghe 2016a.
- 9.
In our view qualification and socialization are to be considered as side-effects that do not touch upon the essence of education.
- 10.
Interestingly, Biesta comes here close to a traditional definition of the goal of education, and more exactly to Kant (1982). For Kant, being-educated is defined in terms of the possibility to resist the impulses that come with our empirical nature. For Biesta, living as a grown-up is about resisting the impulse-society we live in and reorient (not suppress; see Biesta 2017, p. 16) our desires (and give them a worldly form), when called for by the Other, or when we are called for to live together with others in the world, rather than egologically. Students should no longer being subjected to their desires, but become subject of their desires (Ibidem, p. 18).
- 11.
Our critique in terms of Dingvergessenheit also bears on Biesta’s own critique of constructivism and of the later work of Rancière (on art). Biesta’s main objection against constructivism is that it reduces students to meaning making animals and hence that it prevents students from true subjectification, i.e. being touched by Otherness. Convincing as it might sound at first, education has nothing to do with making meaning of the world we live in, Biesta says, as all meaning-making processes start from the ego and ends with the ego (“acts of understanding and interpretation always start from where we are – they are issued by the self, so to speak – to go out to the world, and in some way then return to the self” [Biesta 2017, p. 31]) That is also why Biesta takes issue with Rancière’s recent writings on art, which come down to the message that every spectator of an artwork just has to come up with her most personal interpretation – and that this is a verification of the assumption of equality of intelligences. Biesta seems to omit here that what is really at stake in Rancière is that emancipation consists in starting from the idea that we all have the equal intelligence to give meaning to some-thing. As he explains in The Ignorant Schoolmaster, it is the very fact that we are attentive to one and the same thing and that we put our interpretations to the test of this very thing which vouches for equality (see Chap. 4).
References
Agamben, G. (1998). Homo sacer. Sovereign power and bare life (D. Heller-Roazen, Trans.). Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Agamben, G. (1999). Potentialities. Collected essays in philosophy (D. Heller-Roazen, Trans.). Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Allen, A. (2014). Benign violence. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Arendt, H. (1961). The crisis in education. InBetween past and future: Eight exercises in political thought. New York: The Viking Press.
Aristotle. (1921). Politica (B. Jowett, Trans.). In W. D. Ross (Ed.), The works of Aristotle (Vol. X). Oxford: University of Oxford Press.
Biesta, G. J. J. (2006). Beyond learning: Democratic education for a human future. Boulder: Paradigm.
Biesta, G. J. J. (2010a). Good education in an age of measurement. Ethics, politics, democracy. Boulder/London: Paradigm Publisher.
Biesta, G. J. J. (2015b). On the two cultures of educational research and how we might move ahead: Reconsidering the ontology axiology and praxeology of education. European Educational Research Journal, 14(1), 11–22.
Biesta, G. J. J. (2017). The rediscovery of teaching. New York/London: Routledge.
Canguilhem, G. (1991). The normal and the pathological (C. Fawcett, Trans.). New York: Zone Books.
Deleuze, G. (1992). Postcript on the societies of control. October, 59, 3–7.
Deleuze, G. (2005). Pure immanence: Essays on a life (A. Boyman, Trans.). New York: Zone Books.
Foucault, M. (2008). The birth of biopolitics. Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978–1979 (G. Burchell, Trans.). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Freire, P. (2005a). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Continuum: New York/London.
Giroux, H. A. (2011). On critical pedagogy. New York/London: Continuum.
Heidegger, M. (1969 [1955–57]). The onto-theo-logical constitution of methaphysics. In Identity and difference (J. Stambaugh, Trans.) (pp. 42–74). New York: Harper & Row.
Heidegger, M. (1973). Overcoming metaphysics. In The end of philosophy (J. Stambaugh, Trans). New York: Harper & Row. (Original work published 1954).
Heidegger, M. (1996). The principle of reason (R. Lily, Trans.). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Illich, I. (1995). Deschooling society. New York: Marion Boyars Publishers.
Ingold, T. (2017). Anthropology and/as education. New York: Routledge.
Kant, I. (1982). Ausgewählte Schriften zur Pädagogik und ihrer Begründung. Besorgt von Hans-Hermann Groothoff. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh Verlag.
Lewis, T. (2009). Education and the immunization paradigm. Studies in Philosophy of Education, 28(6), 485–498.
MacIntyre, A. (1985). After virtue: A study in moral theory (2nd ed.). London: Duckworth.
Masschelein, J., & Simons, M. (2010). The hatred of public schooling: The school as the mark of democracy. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 42(5–6), 666–682.
Masschelein, J., & Simons, M. (2013a). In Defence of the school. A public issue. Leuven: E-ducation Culture & Society Pub.
McLaren, P. (2000). Che Guevara, Paolo Freire, and the pedagogy of revolution. Lanham/Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield.
Peters, R. S. (1973). Education as initiation. In R. S. Peters (Ed.), Authority, responsibility and education. London: George Allen and Unwin.
Rutschky, K. (1997). Schwarze Pädagogik. Quellen zur Naturgeschichte der bürgerlichen Erziehung. Berlin: Ullstein Buchverlage.
Saito, N. (2016). Beyond biocentrism. Cavell, Thoreau and transcendence in the ordinary. Balkan Journal of Philosophy, 8(1), 13–18.
Vlieghe, J. (2016a). Rethinking emancipation with Freire and Rancière. A plea for a thing-centered pedagogy. Educational Philosophy and Theory. On Line First Article: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00131857.2016.1200002
Vlieghe, J. (2017). Founding, finding and the materiality of language. Cavell and Agamben on the (im)possibility to speak. In N. Saito & P. Standish (Eds.), Stanley Cavell and philosophy as translation. The truth is translated (pp. 73–88). London: Rowman and Littlefield.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Vlieghe, J., Zamojski, P. (2019). Immanence and Transcendence in Education. In: Towards an Ontology of Teaching . Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education, vol 11. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16003-6_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16003-6_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-16002-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-16003-6
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)