Studies in Philosophy and Education

  In an article published in 1930, Lev Vygotsky refers explicitly to the seventeenth century Dutch philosopher Benedictus de
 Spinoza. From a close reading of Vygotsky's remarkable piece, ˜The socialist transformation of man,' the extraordinary parallels
 in the lives and philosophies of Vygotsky and Spinoza are revealed. Then the strengths and weaknesses are assessed of the
 analytical approach Vygotsky may have inherited from Spinoza. It is suggested that there are analytical ramifications arising
 from Vygotsky's possible reliance on Spinoza's nuanced but essentially dualistic philosophy. The conclusion is that the key
 limitation of this methodology is the elision of radical doubting with radical unknowability.
 
	

Review of Nigel Tubbs, Education in Hegel
	

Response to Ross Abbinnett's Review of Education in Hegel
	

  The general thesis of this paper is that the motives of the currently dominant global educational governance are rooted in
 a specific cultural milieu in the time of the Cold War, more precisely in the late 1950s, heading to a harmonious world. The
 more specific thesis is that a series of failures in the achievement of this harmonized globe led to reforms in educational
 governance, leading eventually to the development of instruments like large-scale assessments, such as PISA. The concluding
 thesis of the paper is that precisely because the idea of global governance is rooted in a specific culture, its instruments
 run the risk of only affecting formal structures of education in other cultures rather the inner activities of the ˜educational
 fabric'.
 
	

Leonard J. Waks (ed): Leaders in Education: Intellectual Self-Portraits
	

Response to Megan Laverty's Review of Beyond Learning
	

  Research indicates that upwards of 80% of our students experience the devastation of bullying during their school years. To
 date, research on bullying has mainly employed empirical methodologies, including quantitative and qualitative approaches.
 This research has largely concluded that bullying is situated in a lack of skill, understanding, or self-control and involves
 intentional action directed toward status dominance. Based upon these assumptions current anti-bullying strategies focus on
 training students toward more appropriate avenues of status acquisition and social interaction. Against the backdrop of an
 actual bullying encounter this paper employs a psychoanalytic philosophical lens to offer a fresh perspective on this enduring
 educational issue. Employing the philosophical work of Adam Phillips, Jessica Benjamin, and Emmanuel Ghent I ask the question:
 What is the desire to bully a desire for? Here I consider what is sought and what is at stake in the typical bullying encounter.
 Through careful analysis I argue that the domination represented in bullying is not simply situated in a lack of social skills
 or in disregulated aggression““skill deficiencies that require training. Instead, or perhaps in addition to these possibilities,
 I contend that bullying is foundationally a move toward establishing identity, a self. On this view bullying becomes an activity
 of self construction through attempted omnipotence. I argue that the status dominance inherent in bullying should be seen
 not as an end (a tool to secure resources or privilege), but as a means to something more foundational. I conclude that status
 dominance becomes a means toward the end of providing a secure place for the self to stand. Hence, instead of advocating that
 we train students to get along better this paper outlines the futility, as well as the insatiability of bullying, opening
 up new territory focused upon a re-construction of the bully through the relational bonding and differentiation available
 in the concrete Other.
 
	

Response to Claudia Ruitenberg's Review of Derrida, Deconstruction and the Politics of Pedagogy
	

  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.
 
	

Response to Fred Ellett's Review of Leaders in Philosophy of Education: Intellectual Self Portraits
	

Review Article: The Merits and Limits of Using Foucault to Criticize Lifelong Learning
	

Review of Michael A. Peters and Gert Biesta, Derrida, Deconstruction, and the Politics of Pedagogy
	

  Since cheating is obviously wrong, arguments against it (it provides an unfair advantage, it hinders learning) need only be
 mentioned in passing. But the argument of unfair advantage absurdly takes education to be essentially a race of all against
 all; moreover, it ignores that many cases of unfair (dis)advantages are widely accepted. On the other hand, the fact that
 cheating can hamper learning does not mean that punishing cheating will necessarily favour learning, so that this argument
 does not obviously justify sanctioning cheaters.
 
	

  Although since the 1960s human capital theory has played a major role in guiding educational policy, philosophical issues
 that stem from this development have rarely been discussed. In this article, I critically examine how the idea that human
 capital should serve as a guide to educational policy making stands in relation to the role assigned to education in promoting
 social cooperation. I begin by exploring the conception of human conduct that underlies human capital theory. I then move
 to examine the conception of social cooperation that tacitly guides human capital theory and maintain that it could not be
 effectively defended. I, therefore, turn to examine alternative ways to combine between human capital theory and the promotion
 of social cooperation. My main argument is that under existing conditions there is a deep theoretical incompatibility between
 the philosophical foundations of human capital theory and the ways in which education seeks to promote social cooperation.
 
	

  This paper is a philosophical study of the nature of thinking based on the philosophies of Martin Heidegger and Rudolf Steiner.
 For Heidegger, the pre-Socratic Greek philosophers exemplified genuine thinking, appreciating the meaning of Being. But this
 kind of philosophy was soon replaced by the onto-theological approach, in which Being was reductively objectified, and the
 question of the meaning of Being was forgotten. Hence, according to Heidegger, we still have to learn to think. Commentators
 on Heidegger point to the similarities between his approach to thinking and that of various mystical teachings, such as those
 of Meister Eckhart or Zen Buddhism. Another less well known philosopher who devoted himself to this question was Rudolf Steiner.
 Like Heidegger, Steiner claims that we do not know what it means to really think. Steiner was however more outspoken in insisting
 that only through a kind of meditative practice can we directly experience the nature of thinking. Present day materialistic
 explanations of thinking as caused by the brain stand in clear opposition to his spiritual conception of thinking. Drawing
 upon Heidegger (somewhat) and Steiner (mostly) I argue against the materialistic understanding of thinking as jumping to unwarranted
 conclusions. The paper ends with describing some of the elements of Steiner Waldorf education which are intended to promote
 the development of living, creative thinking.
 
	

Review of Michalinos Zembylas: The Politics of Trauma in Education
	

Response to Claudia Eppert's Review of The Politics of Trauma in Education
	

Review of Kent Greenawalt, Does God belong in public schools? Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005
	

  I seek to answer the question of whether publicly funded higher education ought to aim intrinsically to promote certain kinds
 of blue-sky' knowledge, knowledge that is unlikely to result in tangible' or concrete' social benefits such as health,
 wealth and liberty. I approach this question in light of an African moral theory, which contrasts with dominant Western philosophies
 and has not yet been applied to pedagogical issues. According to this communitarian theory, grounded on salient sub-Saharan
 beliefs and practices, actions are right insofar as they respect relationships in which people both share a way of life, or
 identify with one another, and care for others' quality of life, or are in solidarity with each other. I argue that while
 considerations of identity and solidarity each provide some reason for a state university to pursue blue-sky knowledge as
 a final end, they do not provide conclusive reason for it to do so. I abstain from drawing any further conclusion about whether
 this provides reason to reject the Afro-communitarian moral theory or the intuition that blue-sky knowledge is a proper final
 end of public higher education. I do point out, however, that the dominant Western moral theories on the face of it do no
 better than the African one at accounting for this intuition.
 
	

  The article distinguishes between the various arguments traditionally offered as justifications for the principle of academic
 freedom. Four main arguments are identified, three consequentialist in nature (the argument from truth, the democratic argument,
 the argument from autonomy), and one nonconsequentialist (a variant of the autonomy argument). The article also concentrates
 on the specific form these arguments must take in order to establish academic freedom as a principle distinct from the more
 general principles of freedom of expression and intellectual freedom.