Abstract
Why Heidegger? Heidegger’s work bears on education in multiple ways. His thinking gives reason to think again about human subjectivity and about the nature of knowledge, matters that have a bearing on the substance of the curriculum itself. I propose to draw out these and other implications by selecting three aspects of Heidegger’s work, Dasein, Being-in-the world, and Finitude, for each of which I shall provide an explanation followed by some remarks about its educational import. Heidegger helps us to see the problems in the basic metaphysical assumptions (consciously or unconsciously) rooted in educational theories and practices. In particular, this chapter draws attention to the way modern discourse refers to time in education. Heidegger’s reach account of technology and freedom shall lead us to seek new possibility of subjectivity. Lastly, further questions and some limitations of Heidegger shall be briefly considered.
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Notes
- 1.
Strictly speaking, Being and Time is not the complete book. The book was originally in two parts with three themes each. The first part is the interpretation of Dasein (human being) in terms of temporality and the second part is a phenomenological destruction of the history of ontology. Being and Time only covers the two themes of the first part. The third theme of the first part is believed to be covered in Introduction to Metaphysics. Although Heidegger’s thinking moved on from Being and Time in his later work, his other work cannot be understood independently from Being and Time. Regardless of Heidegger’s original intention, this does not change the fact that the book has been so influential in twentieth-century philosophy.
- 2.
The expression from Levinas reminds the readers of Heidegger’s unapologetic misjudgement in 1933. And the fact should never be neglected or excused in reading Heidegger. Although Heidegger has the radical and highly influential nature of his thought in twentieth century, one should never neglect the disastrous fact of his political involvements. No matter how long or short, his affiliation with Nazism, as Rector of the University of Freiburg, was an irreversible taint upon his career. It may still be controversial how much his philosophy influenced his political judgement, but there is no doubt about his involvement in Nazism. This is the disruptive historical nature for us to approach Heidegger. Thereby, reading Heidegger always has a double edge. One cannot simply ignore his political misjudgement when reading the philosopher’s great thinking. There is a painful reminder one should always bear in mind. Richard Rorty (1998) expresses this point that Heidegger will be read “for centuries to come, but the smell of smoke from the crematories – ‘the grave in the air’ – will linger on these pages.”
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Yun, S. (2018). Heidegger and the Recovery of Education. In: Smeyers, P. (eds) International Handbook of Philosophy of Education. Springer International Handbooks of Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72761-5_18
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