Abstract
Agonistic recognition in education has three interlinked modes of aesthetic experience and self-presentation where one is related to actions in the public realm; one is related to plurality in the way in which it comes into existence in confrontation with others; and one is related to the subject-self, disclosed by ‘thinking. Arendt’s conception of ‘thinking’ is a way of getting to grips with aesthetic self-presentation in education. By action, i.e., by disclosing oneself and by taking initiatives, students and teachers constitute their being. The way Arendt theorizes action (vita activa) makes it essentially unpredictable and destabilizing, which does not seem to fit into what should be expected from education. In the article I will argue that it should have a place by virtue of the debate, challenge and contest it offers. But education should also be defined from a specific kind of contemplation called ‘thinking’ to become the cultivation of a faculty of judgment in education—thinking (vita contemplativa) as a common virtue in education. Arendt’s demarcation between truth and meaning does from the point of view of agonistic recognition in education call for ‘thinking’ as a qualification of political and moral meaning–the ‘taste’ to be established in the individual, by individual judgements but always judged in relation to members of a community.
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Notes
C.f. Curtis (1999, p. 164, n. 23) concerning Arendt’s conception of the self.
Passerin d’ Entrèves (1994) introduced the notions of ‘distinct who’ and ‘shared what’ into the discussion on Arendt’s philosophy. I find these notions helpful for my understanding of agonism and agonistic recognition and will argue that becoming a ‘distinct who’ necessitates ‘thinking.’
Arendt’s attitude to ‘the crisis in education’ explicitly says that the teacher’s authority lies in pointing out the details and saying to the child that ‘this is our world’ (Arendt 1961/1983, Chap. 5).
Even though Heller is sceptical of Arendt’s thesis that the quest for meaning has nothing to do with the quest for knowledge, I find it defensible to use this thesis in my discussion of education since the arguments, also from Heller, for “accepting” the quest for knowledge and truth (cognition/Verstand) as aspects of reason (Vernunft) do not concern what one could term ‘scientific knowledge’ (Heller 1989, p. 152). So, if the term ‘knowledge’ is to be used in order to define ‘reason’ it should be a specific kind of knowledge.
The importance of the preservation of distance can be justified on the basis of Arendt’s ontological vocabulary about the relation between people but also on the basis of her conception of judgements as past-oriented. Several authors have argued that with this suggestion Arendt blurs her own concept (see, e.g., Heller 1989, p. 148; Passerin d’ Entrèves 1994, pp. 104–108; Benhabib 1996, p. 174). I will not go into this discussion but will try to make sense of judgement and judging as oriented to the past as well as to the future by reminding the reader of my point that morality cannot guarantee or form the foundation of political existence.
See my discussion of Minnich’s (1989) thesis above. The strongest and most convincing argument for the agonistic aspects of ‘thinking’, even though the authors do not elaborate the relationship, may perhaps be found in what Villa describes as a philosophy of “negative preparation” in Arendt (Villa 1999, p. 101) and what Pirro (2001, Chap. 1) defines as the intuitive basis for democratic citizenship.
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Ljunggren, C. Agonistic Recognition in Education: On Arendt’s Qualification of Political and Moral Meaning. Stud Philos Educ 29, 19–33 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-009-9154-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-009-9154-2