The educational cost of philosophical suicide: What it means to be lucid

Educational Philosophy and Theory

Inspired by Camus' portrayal of Sisyphus, this essay examines the act of teaching as an absurd profession, one that faces numerous obstacles and challenges and continually falls short of its intended goals. I begin my analysis by demonstrating that Camus' understanding of the absurd was heavily influenced by Nietzsche's conception of nihilism. I argue that for Camus the sense of absurdity comes from the conflict between humans' longing for order and meaning and the disorder and meaninglessness that we experience in our daily lives. Next, I show that Camus' understanding of absurdity can help us make sense of the recent wave of educational reform. More fundamentally, I argue that that the existential conditions of schooling that many teachers have to negotiate daily are themselves absurd in Camus' sense of the term. In the last part of this article, I take a close look at how a number of teachers are attempting to resist and even rebel against the new educational mandates.

When one travels around the world, one notices to what an extraordinary degree human nature is the same, whether in India or America, in Europe or Australia. This is especially true in colleges and universities. We are turning out, as if through a mould, a type of human being whose chief interest is to find security, to become somebody important, or to have a good time with as little thought as possible.

Avi Mintz (2008) has recently argued that Anglo-American educators have a tendency to alleviate student suffering in the classroom. According to Mintz, this tendency can be detrimental because certain kinds of suffering actually enhance student learning. While Mintz compellingly describes the effects of educator’s desires to alleviate suffering in students, he does not examine one of the roots of the desire: the feeling of compassion or pity (used as synonyms here). Compassion leads many teachers to unreflectively alleviate student struggles. While there are certainly times when compassion is necessary to help students learn, there are other times when it must be overcome. Compassion in the classroom is a two-edged sword that must be carefully employed; and yet it is often assumed that it is an unequivocal good that ought to trump all other impulses. In this article I hope to raise awareness concerning the promises and pitfalls of compassion in education by examining the theories of two historical figures who famously emphasised compassion in their philosophical writings: Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Friedrich Nietzsche. Rousseau and Nietzsche argue that compassion is a powerful educational force but that it must be properly employed. For Rousseau and Nietzsche, compassion is necessary to develop self-mastery in human beings—the ultimate goal of education—but it is a compassion that must hurt in order to help. My hope is that Rousseau’s and Nietzsche’s ideas on compassion will encourage thoughtful reflection on the uses and abuses of compassion in education.

While a great deal has been written on Plato's Lysis in philosophy and philology journals over the last thirty years, nothing has been published on Lysis in the major Anglo-American philosophy of education journals during that time. Nevertheless, this dialogue deserves attention from educators. In this essay, Mark Jonas argues that Lysis can serve as a model for educators who want to move their students beyond mere aporia, but also do not want to dictate answers to students. Although the dialogue ends in Socrates's affirmation of aporia, his affirmation is actually meant to persuade his interlocutors to reflect on an epiphany they had previously experienced. In what follows, Jonas offers a close reading of relevant passages of Lysis, demonstrating the way that Socrates leads his interlocutors to an epiphany without forcing his answers upon them.

This article attempts to identify certain shortcomings in analytic philosophy as practised today. First, it identifies a disconnect between the darker aspects of the human condition and philosophers' inability to engage with them. Second, it locates this inability in a certain logic of detachment, explored by Peter Strawson. Third, it points out problems with Strawson's analysis, which it then tries to overcome, using Constantin Noica's account of the Platonising attitude philosophers are perennially tempted by-one of several ways in which humans try to overcome their fallen condition. This is contrasted with Thomas Nagel's valuable but still deficient discussion of the "cosmic question". This brings us, finally, to a reconsideration of an older tradition in philosophy, which focused more explicitly on human fallenness. Petrarch's Secretum meum is used as an example to show that while the failure of analytic philosophers has deep existential roots, it is not commendable. Philosophers must learn, again, to reflect on the darkness of the human soul-their own darkness.

Studies in Philosophy and Education, 2012

Nowadays there is a renewed interest in philosophy as art-of-living. Several prominent authors have pointed out the return of the notion of the good life in philosophy, particularly understood as a form of normative ethics. Questions such as: how should I live have been taken up as a resistance against the dominances of a neo-liberal discourse in all areas of life. This paper is concerned with this renewed interest in philosophy as art-ofliving and the form of education that supports this. The main idea is that the commitment from which we live is a subject of change. This way, art-of-living comprises the possibility and the effort to lead on's life in a reflective way, and not to let it simply go by. Historically this has been connected to the process of becoming educated. In this paper I will take a closer look at this renewed interest in philosophy as the art-of-living by contrasting two different readings of philosophy as the art-of-living. One that is inspired by Oscar Brenifier and one that is inspired by the late Foucault.

In this essay I begin with remarks made by Bernard Williams that there are two main motives for philosophy, curiosity and salvation, and that he is not ‘into salvation’. I seek to make the case for the claim that philosophy, at its best, should aim at a kind of 'salvation’. In the first section, I discuss the problematic character of the world that philosophy should aim to address as a matter of seeking a kind of salvation. I identify this as the problem of ‘cosmodicy’, i.e., the problem of how to justify life in the world as meaningful and worthwhile in the face of extensive evil, suffering, disorder, and the like. In the second section, I discuss how Williams’s claim not to be ‘into salvation’ is not entirely accurate. Although he rejects a certain ‘grand’ traditional picture of salvation, he still seeks a more minimal kind insofar as he addresses the problem of cosmodicy. This comes through in his advocacy of ‘humane’ philosophy and in his attempt to support the values that arise for us from within our historically contingent forms of life. I argue here that Williams is wrong to reject the human concern for a larger cosmic significance. In the final section, I discuss two secular attempts to address the issue of cosmic significance: viz., those of Thomas Nagel and Paolo Costa. I also briefly consider here what a theistic perspective has to offer. I conclude by suggesting that if I am right that philosophy, at is best, should aim at a kind of salvation, then this means that the philosophy of religion should have a central place in any philosophy curriculum.

Studies in Philosophy of Education , 2022

Greek literature prior to Plato featured two conceptions of education. Learning takes place when people encounter “teacher-guides”—educators, mentors, and advisors. But education also occurs outside of a pedagogical relationship between learner and teacher-guide: people learn through painful experience. In composing his dramatic dialogues, Plato appropriated these two conceptions of education, refashioning and fusing them to present a new philosophical conception of learning: Plato’s Socrates is a teacher-guide who causes his interlocutors to learn through suffering. Socrates, however, is not presented straightforwardly as a pedagogical success story. Socrates’ failures are, paradoxically, part of what makes him an ideal literary model for a philosophical teacher-guide. Plato requires his readers to question why Socrates’ interlocutors fail to be converted to philosophers.

Education Sciences

This is a collection of articles preoccupied with the future of education [...]