The purpose of this article is to add to the debate on the normative status and legitimacy of indoctrination in education by drawing on the political philosophy of Benedict Spinoza (1632–1677). More specifically, I will argue that Spinoza's relational approach to knowledge formation and autonomy, in light of his understanding of the natural limitations of human cognition, provides us with valuable hints for staking out a more productive path ahead for the debate on indoctrination. This article combines an investigation into the early modern history of political ideas with a philosophical inquiry into a persistent conceptual problem residing at the heart of education. As such, the aim of the article is ultimately to offer an account of indoctrination less fraught with the dangers of epistemological and political idealism that often haunt rival conceptions.
This article turns to the neglected pedagogical concept of ingenium in order to address some shortcomings of the admiration-emulation model of Linda Zabzebski's influential exemplarist moral theory. I will start by introducing the problem of the admiration-emulation model by way of a fictional example. I will then briefly outline the concept of ingenium such as it appears in a Renaissance context, looking particularly at the pedagogical writings of Juan Luis Vives (1492/3–1540). This will set the stage for the next part, look- ing at how early modern philosopher Benedict Spinoza (1632–1677) adopts a Vivesian notion of ingenium, adjusting it so as to fit into the setting of his political theory. Next, I will turn to Spinoza's use of the concept of ingenium in relation to his portrayal of exemplary persons, offering a pedagogical model of moral exemplarism that can counter same of the perceived problems of the admiration-emulation model as it highlights the necessary fallibility of efficient exemplars as well as acknowledges the socio-political dimension of emotions. Finally, I will lay out some preliminary consequences for educational theory, hoping to offer a way of reconciling moral exemplarism with a more realistic pedagogical and psychological framework.
There are two different interpretations of the state in Spinoza. On the one hand, the state is interpreted as an individual in a literal sense (Matheron, 1969; Zac, 1963) and on the other hand it is interpreted as an individual in a metaphorical sense (McShea, 1975; Den Uyl, 1983; Rice, 1990). Depending on what kind of individual the state is taken to be – a literal or a metaphorical – the state's role in education varies radically. The focus of this paper is to outline some consequences of Spinoza's political philosophy and of his metaphysics of individuation for the role of the state in education.
Proposal Information(e.g. topic, research question, objective, conceptual or theoretical framework …): In this paper it is argued that although Spinoza, unlike other great philosophers of the Enlightenment era (such as Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau), never actually wrote a philosophy of education as such, he did – in his Ethics – write a philosophy of self-improvement that is deeply educational at heart. When looked at against the background of his overall metaphysical system, the educational account that emerges is one that is highly curious and may even, to some extent at least, come across as counter-intuitive in a contemporary setting. This is so because it grounds the greater social and political endeavors of humanity in the individual's striving for an ever-increasing power of acting. Hence, education, for Spinoza, is a decidedly individualistic affair, but then again, so is the making of society. Since, for Spinoza, every instance of knowledge bears the unique mark of the individual body that expresses it, one might conclude that at the foundation of every social structure is an encounter between concrete bodies; each expressing a particular perspective from where to grasp the world. I would argue, based on this, that one of Spinoza's main contributions to educational theory is his grounding of larger social endeavors in the striving of the individual. Hinged on the striving to be more rational, as dictated by the doctrine of the conatus, education appears to offer a way of grounding the structure of the human social world in the same (egoistic) principles as those guiding the individual. Spinoza's doctrine of the imitation of affects thereby offers a way of linking the egoistic striving for power on behalf of the individual with the educational goal of building a sustainable society. It does so as it conditions self-improvement by the human characteristic to imitate what others desire. By being surrounded with people who desire to be more rational, one can utilize this desire for the good and become ...
This article argues that universal documents on children's rights can provide illustrative examples as to how childhood is identified as a unity using difference as an instrument. Using Gille Deleuze's theorising on difference and sameness as a framework, the article seeks to relate the children's rights project with a critique of representation. It seeks to illustrate how the children's rights project seems to be promoting an image of childhood that is sharply contrasted by adulthood in a dichotomised sense, as well as how, in these documents, the fate of the child is being intertwined with the fate of the state.
In this essay, our point of departure is the tension between the modern idea of childhood associated with the notion of the child as being, and the idea, found in both Rousseau and Arendt, of education as formation and becoming. The idea of children as political actors has become increasingly influential within the contexts of childhood studies, educational as well as child-welfare policies. As a result, in the general understanding of the role of children in society, the conceptual boundaries between adults and children have become blurred. From the point of view of educational philosophy, this is interesting because it highlights the problematic tension between an image of the child as already complete and the foundational idea of education as a process of formation. Using Taika Waititi's recent film Hunt for the Wilderpeople as an example we aim to illustrate some of the possible consequences of blurring the boundaries between generations and to investigate how this might impact our understanding of education as formation in the making of moral human beings.
In 1958, Hannah Arendt published "The Crisis in Education" 1 addressing what she considered to be the poor state of contemporary American education. While the causes of this educational crisis were identified as being part of much broader processes of social and political change, education stood out as the social arena where the effects of these transformations were most obvious. The lack of authority in modern societies, in particular, was one of the most manifest symptoms of the crisis in education. Arendt claimed that this lack of authority eroded the fundamental relation between teacher and student and the mutual trust necessary for safeguarding the social position of the teacher. In this paper, we aim to use Arendt's concept of authority in order to diagnose a current crisis in Swedish education, and to argue that this may help us understand the role of the teacher from a perspective that is missing in the current debate on Swedish education.
While Spinoza stipulates an ideal moral person in the propositions on the 'free man' in Ethics IV, this account does not seem to be intended to function as a pedagogical tool of political relevance. Hence, it does not seem to correspond to the purpose of moral exemplarism. If we look for that kind of practical guidance, Spinoza's political works seem more relevant. Interestingly, when we approach Spinoza's political theory with moral exemplarism in mind, we find that instead of constructing his exemplar on the idea of a supremely moral person, he emphasizes the concept of ingenium to chisel out an imperfect model of human behavior. We argue that the purpose of this is to avoid a utopian and inefficient political theory and to work out a moral practice that is capable of assisting people and communities in ethical self-transformation.
This text deals with a problem concerning processes of the productive power of knowledge. We draw on so called poststructural theories challenging the classical image of thought – as hinged upon a representational logic identifying entities in a rigid sense – when formulating a problem concerning the gap between knowledge and the object of knowledge. More specifically we are looking at this problem in the contexts of sustainable development and childhood using illustrating examples in order to test the validity of these theoretical accounts. The examples we use range from internationally agreed documents claiming universality concerning environmental protection and childhood to national curricula for the pre-school to a Swedish governmentally produced and distributed TV-series called Needle and Stick save the world, addressing the issue of sustainable development. In short, we wish to problematise the rigid positions of the child and the human being in relation to nature.
Codifications of human rights are widely understood as politically established instruments for evaluating human life. The call for such an apparatus emerges as a response to the age-old problem of social organization, constituting – in extension – a means by which to cope with the overall problem of survival. However, evaluating life is inherently problematic. It is problematic as it presupposes an already existing framework by which to judge all instances of life. In a way then, the impartial evaluation of life seems impossible from a human point of view. Nevertheless, as the problem of survival is one of continuous relevance, attempts to formulate reasonable variables may be viewed as a necessary strategy for organizing a viable society. We aim at investigating the problem of codifying evaluations of life by looking at paradigmatic examples from the discourse of education for sustainable development, using a theoretical framework drawing on the ethics of Nietzsche and Deleuze in particular.
