Session Information
13 SES 11, A Plea for Potentialism in Education
Symposium
Contribution
It could be argued, as Klaus Mollenhauer (2013) does, that in the archaic societies preceding the invention of the school in the Classical Greek Era there were, strictly speaking, no educational questions. Before that time, upbringing consisted solely in initiating and socializing newcomers into a given order of things. This is because societal life in archaic times was organized in ways that are seen as naturally given, i.e. as unchangeable. Therefore, the sole commitment of the existing generation consisted of introducing newcomers into a fixed order of things, and leading them to their one and only destination. Since then, it has become conceivable to see education as pertaining to the possibility of a (deep) transformation of who we are – i.e. in terms of (sometimes unpredictable) changes in the way in which we give shape to our individual and collective lives. As such, educational processes cannot be understood without taking into account this profound capacity for change. The question remains, however, how to theorize this capacity.
In recent times this has typically happened in terms of development and self-realization. This way of looking at education goes together with the growing impact and importance of psychological, medical and neuroscientific paradigms on the one hand, and with the ‘learnification’ of society on the other hand (Cf. Biesta 2010). Inspired by the work of Giorgio Agamben, the papers presented in this symposium try to take an alternative and more radical route. With Agamben (1999), it can be shown that development and self-realization don’t pertain to real transformation. This is because these definitions of education are predicated upon a particular ontology which regards the non-deterministic side of (human) existence in terms of the actualization of possibilities which are already given and which are defining and unique traits of the creature who possesses these possibilities.
Over and against this, Agamben has tried to conceive of (human) existence in terms of potentiality, i.e. a capacity for change which is never exhausted by the full realization (possession, appropriation) of predefined, unique possibilities. Because of the predominance of discourses which reduce education to processes of learning and development, we believe it is of the utmost importance to invent a new way of looking at what is at stake in education. Tentatively, we propose to call this new approach potentialism.
The various papers in this symposium are attempts to develop a ‘potentialist’ approach towards education. They draw from Agamben, but also of other authors who might be regarded as important sources of inspiration for his new ‘school of thought’ (such as Deleuze, Rancière, and the Utrecht School). It is an explicit aim of this symposium to explore which authors and theoretical stances can be used as a background for developing this new approach. Each paper addresses particular issues in education studies and philosophy of education, highlighting the value of this new approach, theoretically and practically.
The first two papers of this symposium address the philosophical problems that are behind a reduction of potentiality to the actualization of an already defined/fixed set of possibilities. They also sketch what an alternative conception might look like, and look for a new vocabulary to deal with true newness in education. The last two papers zoom in on concrete educational practices. One paper fleshes out the educational meaning of exhaustion in terms of im-potentiality, whereas the final paper focuses on (dance) practicing and the value of repetition.
References
- Agamben, Giorgio (1999). Potentialities. Collected essays in philosophy (D. Heller-Roazen, Trans.). Stanford: Stanford University Press. - Biesta, G.J.J. (2010). Good Education in an Age of Measurement. Boulder (CO): Paradigm Publishers - Mollenhauer, K. (2013). Forgotten Connections: On Culture and Upbringing (N. Friesen, Trans.). London: Routledge
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