Rethinking Ethical-Political Education

Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education 16
Torill Strand Editor
Rethinking
Ethical-Political
Education
Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in
Education
Volume 16
Series Editors
Jan Masschelein, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
Lynda Stone, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
Editorial Board
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Jorge Larrosa, Barcelona University, Barcelona, Spain
Nel Noddings, Stanford University, Ocean Grove, NJ, USA
Roland Reichenbach, Erziehungswissenschaft, University of Zurich,
Zurich, Switzerland
Naoko Saito, Graduate School of Education, Kyoto University,
Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, Japan
Paul Smeyers, Psychology and Educational Sciences, Ghent University and KU
Leuven, Ghent, Belgium
Paul Standish, UCL Institute of Education, London, UK
Sharon Todd, Professor of Education, Maynooth University, Maynooth, Ireland
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Torill Strand
Editor
Rethinking Ethical-Political
Education
Editor
Torill Strand
Department of Education
University of Oslo
Oslo, Norway
ISSN 2214-9759 ISSN 2214-9767 (electronic)

Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education
ISBN 978-3-030-49523-7 ISBN 978-3-030-49524-4 (eBook)
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Acknowledgments
This volume is the result of a Nordic workshop series sponsored by NOS-HS, the
joint committee for Nordic research councils in the humanities and social sciences.
The overall aim of these workshops was to identify, conceptualize, and meet the
most pressing issues regarding ethical-political education (Bildung) today.
These workshops brought together social researchers and philosophers of educa-
tion from Copenhagen, Helsinki, Oslo, and Stockholm. Here, we shared and dis-
cussed our research work with a joint ambition to identify, conceptualize, and meet
the most pressing issues regarding ethical-political education in and for today’s
world of change.
I want to thank NOS-HS for sponsoring these workshops. Moreover, I want to
express my deepest appreciation to all my Nordic colleagues who offered valuable
contributions to the philosophical debates and helped to create a collegial convivial-
ity that inspired the philosophical discussions in and between the workshop ses-
sions. In addition, a big thank you to those who more than enthusiastically helped to
organize these workshops. Many good memories will remain.
I owe a special thank you to each single contributor of this volume for their
responsiveness, attentiveness, and commitment to this book. Moreoever, I am grate-
ful to the anonymous reviewers, who definitely encouraged our work and helped to
strengthen the quality of the manuscript by providing insightful remarks and con-
structive critical comments. Finally, a special thank you to the Springer team for
their lasting support, encouragement, and diligent work.
This book makes an original contribution to the field. Overall, it provides fresh
perspectives on the many faces of ethical-political education. The authors here
address current dilemmas with diligence and insight; they contribute to philosophi-
cal clarification and the advancement of research with solid arguments for theoreti-
cal and practical redirections. Students, teachers, and researchers will find this book
a valuable contribution to educational research and debate.
Oslo, Norway Torill Strand
April 2020
v
Contents
1 Rethinking Ethical-Political Education – Beyond

the Nordic Model�� 1
Torill Strand
Part I Youths in a World of Change

2 Young Citizenship: Civic Engagement and Participation
in Four Nordic Countries�� 13
Kristinn Hegna
3 Philosophical and Youth-Studies Perspectives
on the Participation Imperative�� 29
Tomi Kiilakoski, Mervi Kaukko, Rauno Huttunen,
and Hannu L. T. Heikkinen
4 Situating Moral Education in a Globalized World.
Environmental Ethical Values and Student Experiences �� 45
Ole Andreas Kvamme
5 While We Wait: Unaccompanied Minors
in Norway – Or the Hospita(bi)lity for the Other �� 67
Wills Kalisha
Part II Educational Philosophies, Old and New

6 Encouragement and Appeal – Free Auto-activity
(Selbstwirksamkeit) and Subjected Freedom�� 87
Henrik Vase Frandsen
7 Towards Educational Justice : What Difference
Can Recognitive Justice Make?�� 101
Teemu Hanhela
vii
viii Contents
8 Citizenship Education and the Role of Immigrant Students

in the Nordic Countries �� 121
Anniina Leiviskä
9 Bildung as Democratic Opinion and Will Formation.
Habermas Beyond Habermas �� 137
Asger Sørensen
10 Towards a Plastic Starting Point: Rethinking Ethical-Political
Education with Catherine Malabou �� 153
Kjetil Horn Hogstad
11 What Is Called Thinking in Education?�� 167
Claudia Schumann
Part III Rethinking Ethical-Political Education

12 Educational Cosmopolitanism: Education Beyond
Nationalist and Globalist Imaginations �� 181
Niclas Rönnström
13 Pragmatism, Education and the Problem of Pluralism�� 197
Henrik Rydenfelt
14 Reconceptualising the Subject-Citizen of Bildung
in a Posthuman World: Rethinking the Promise
of Higher Education�� 209
Carol A. Taylor
15 Challenges and Possibilities of Media-Based Public Dialogue:
Misunderstanding, Stereotyping and Reflective Attitude�� 223
Minna-Kerttu Kekki
16 The Educative Process and Its Relation to Truth, Knowledge,
Culture and Critique: Epistemological and Metaphysical
Premises for Formation �� 237
Jørgen Huggler
17 What Causes Education?�� 251
Kirsten Hyldgaard
18 Here and Now: Rethinking Philosophy of Education�� 263
Torill Strand
Name Index�� 279
Subject Index�� 283

Chapter 1
Rethinking Ethical-Political Education –
Beyond the Nordic Model
Torill Strand
Abstract Ethical-political education is an area of continuous disputes and conflict-

ing beliefs, values and world-views related to its embedded complexity embracing
social, cultural and not least political community and identity. In short, “education”
is a name for those phenomena through which a community or society preserves
and renews itself. The term “ethical-political education”, however, more explicitly
relates to those aspects of education through which the communal and formative
values and norms of a community, culture or society seem to be at stake. Discourses
on ethical-political education do not only mirror conflictual values and beliefs. They
also carry the potential to shape, justify, uphold and direct shared images, values,
norms and practices. So, taking the fact that communal beliefs, values and world-
views are at stake in an ever-changing globalized and multi-faceted world, a system-
atic re-thinking of the many faces of ethical political education seems today more
urgent than ever. This chapter gives and overview of this book by introducing an
overall perspective on ethical-political education; some of the hot topics of today;
and the ways in which the authors of this book explore and discuss these topics.
Keywords Ethical-political education · Citizenship education · Democracy ·

The Nordic model
Young Europeans, including Nordic youths, now grow up in a globalized world

marked by visible economic and social inequalities, new patterns of migration, digi-
tized imaginaries, epidemic threats and an uncertain future. Youth revolts, emerging
fascism and a “democratic recession” (Fukuyama 2015) may indicate that the soci-
eties’ social contract is put to test. In this situation, national and transnational
T. Strand (*)
Department of Education, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
e-mail: torill.strand@iped.uio.no
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 1

T. Strand (ed.), Rethinking Ethical-Political Education,
Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education 16,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49524-4_1
2 T. Strand
policy-makers tend to portray ethical-political education as a remedy. But is it nec-

essarily so?
This volume offers a variety of outlooks and perspectives on this question.
Educational researchers and philosophers of education from Copenhagen, Helsinki,
Oslo and Stockholm are here mixing conceptual and critical philosophical works
with empirical studies as they systematically address current dilemmas with dili-
gence and insight. In doing so, they challenge ethical, ontological and epistemic
assumptions beyond contemporary models: What may be the potential prospects
and pitfalls of traditional and novel approaches to ethical-political education today?
Today’s Imperative
Ethical-political education is an area of continuous disputes and conflicting beliefs,

values and world-views related to its embedded complexity embracing social, cul-
tural and not least political community and identity (Koselleck 2004; Straume
2013). In short, “education” is a name for those phenomena through which a com-
munity or society preserves and renew itself. The term “ethical-political education”
more explicitly relates to those aspects of education through which the communal
and formative values and norms of a society seem to be at stake. The term may sig-
nify a sociopolitical mission; an instituted practice; or some discourses mirroring,
embracing and reinforcing images of social and political rights, “the good society”
or “the virtuous citizen”. Such discourses are configured into educational policies
and practices that are both products and productive of institutionalized values and
world-views (Bottici 2014; Castoriadis 1987; Moutsios 2018; Straume 2013).
Consequently, discourses on ethical-political education do not only mirror conflic-
tual values and beliefs. They also carry the potential to shape, justify, uphold and
direct shared images, values, norms and practices. So, taking the fact that communal
beliefs, values and worldviews are at stake, a systematic re-thinking of the many
faces of ethical political education seems today more urgent than ever.
Issues of ethical-political education have long since been an integrated part of
political theory and philosophy. A classic example is Plato’s Republic, which
equates educational questions with political and moral questions. To the ancient
Greeks, paideia (rearing well-conducted citizens of the polis) was not an abstract
idea, but rather the sum of the tangible historical experiences that cultivate the ideal
citizen (Jaeger 1973). At the beginning of the nineteenth century political philoso-
phers – i.e. Humboldt (1793) and Kant (1979) – conceived enlightenment and edu-
cation as two sides of the same coin: Bildung (character formation) did not only
designate inner cultivation, but also a reflective and critical self-refinement linked to
“broader hopes for a better society” (Taylor 2016). A century later, Dewey (1985)
placed education at the heart of his political philosophy, as he paralleled his notion
of democracy with progressive education. Today, however, political theorists and
philosophers have a tendency to leave out the question of ethical-political education
(Honneth 2015). This void may signify, on the one hand, novel ways of thinking
1 Rethinking Ethical-Political Education – Beyond the Nordic Model 3
political theory and philosophy. On the other hand, it may be a sign of new divisions
of academic labor, in which the thinking of ethical-political education is delegated
to policy-makers, NGOs and practitioners (Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff 2005). This
book is a response to this void, including the potential pitfalls of assigning the think-
ing of ethical-political education to non-academic stakeholders only.
A Will to Democracy
Assuming that the task of ethical political education is to promote active citizenship,
the authors of this book hold that ideas on ethical-political education should not be
separated from images of a vigorous democracy (Dewey 1985; Holma and Kontinen
2015; Kymlicka and Norman 1994; Strand 2015). Consequently, democracy is here
taken as an axiom, which means that the worth of democracy is seen as self-evidently
valuable and true. The notion of “democracy”, however, can be given multiple inter-
pretations (Held 2006). The term is composed by the Greek demos (people) and
kratos (government), and translates “governed by the people” or “rule of the peo-
ple”. Social and political studies may explore democracy as a form of government
or political system. But educational researchers, including authors of this volume,
do not narrow the notion of democracy down to designate a form of government
only, neither as a model of a state, or as an abstract idea that every now and then
materializes into everyday experience. Democracy is rather studied as tangible
forms of everyday and inclusive practices that mirror and shape loyalties and iden-
tification with a polis (body of citizens). So, “instead of limiting the participatory
activity of citizens to the function of periodically legitimating the state’s exercise of
power, their activity […] should be understood as the source of all political decision-
making processes” (Honneth 1998, p. 763). Consequently, focus is not so much on
citizenship-as-legal-status, but rather on citizenship-as-desirable-activity (Marshall
1949; Kymlicka and Norman 1994).
Subsequently, the identities and loyalties of citizens are here drawn to our atten-
tion: The health of a democracy does not only depend on the legitimacy of its politi-
cal system or the citizens’ capability to participate. A healthy democracy also
depends on the citizens’ sense of belonging; their “abilities to tolerate and work
with others that are different from themselves”; and their “desire to participate in the
political processes in order to promote the public good and hold political authorities
accountable” (Kymlicka and Norman 1994, p. 353). Thus, in the intersection
between “democracy” and “ethical-political education”, democratic will formation
seems crucial. Such democratic will formation is at the heart of discourses on
ethical-political education in the Nordic countries (Hilson 2015; Strand 2006;
Telhaug et al. 2006).
4 T. Strand
The Nordic Model
As this book is a collection of chapters written by Nordic authors, it is not far-

fetched to assume that the so-called “Nordic model” serves as a hidden assumption
beyond their ways of exploring ethical-political issues relevant to education. The
“model” here refers to some symbolic representations, communal beliefs and imag-
inaries on the aims and missions of ethical-political education characteristic for the
Nordic countries (Bottici 2014; Horlacher 2016; Strand 2009; Taylor 2004). So,
what are the main features of the Nordic model, and how does it differ from the rest
of the world?
First, this model connect to the Nordic welfare state system, in which education
is a vital pillar. Despite important differences between the Nordic countries, there
still exist an idea of a common Nordic political model, characterized as “a specific
egalitarian social democratic community of destiny” (Sørensen and Stråth 1997) or
a social democratic welfare state regime that “promotes equality of the highest stan-
dards” (Esping-Andersen 1990). Basic principles are freedom, equality, and solidar-
ity. Freedom encompasses freedom from poverty and oppression, as well as
opportunities for personal development and creative self-expressions. Equality
refers to equal rights and obligations for everyone, independent of social back-
ground, sex, religion or ethnicity. Solidarity refers to the ties that bind the citizens
together, as well as solidarity with marginalized groups and the next generation. The
incentive of the Nordic welfare state model is that “all benefit; all are dependent;
and all will presumably feel obliged to contribute” (Esping-Andersen 1990, p. 169).
It must be pointed out, however, that the notion of a “Nordic welfare state” is not
unambiguous, uncontroversial, or static. The Nordic welfare states and their sym-
bolic representations are continuously in the making; contingent and unstable, fluc-
tuating in time and space (Antikainen 2006; Hilson 2015; Frimansson 2006; Telhaug
et al. 2006). Nevertheless, one of the key premises of a Nordic welfare state is that
the state or the government has particular responsibility for the material or social
welfare of its population, whether it is about protecting against poverty, or ensuring
the health, education, and social participation of its citizens. Here, education is a
vital pillar as the comprehensive school system an important tool for nation-
building, constructing identity, and equalizing social differences. Consequently,
public education is both the goal and the means for realizing the full potential of a
Nordic social democratic utopia. As an implemented idea, public education aims at
cultivating the next generation, while at the same time serving as a means for build-
ing, strengthening, justifying and developing the welfare state.
In contrast to other European countries - such as Germany, UK, France and the
Netherlands - the Nordic comprehensive school system includes everybody, from
early years up to the university level (Telhaug et al. 2006). The rationale is, first, that
there is a clear connection between economic growth and the population’s general
level of education; second, that a comprehensive school system helps to equalize
social differences; and third, that a comprehensive school system promotes com-
munal identities and loyalties. In short, the Nordic model of ethical-political
education mirrors a social democratic ideology of inclusion, equality, progressivism

and pragmatism (Antikainen 2006). Nevertheless, the Nordic model should be con-
ceived as an ideal type only. First, because current discourses on ethical-political
education obviously mirror conflictual values and beliefs. Second, because there are
manifest differences between the Nordic countries. Third, because the Nordic
model - as “an attempt to construct a national education system on the foundation
of specific local values and practices” - definitely is subject to transnational policies
and influences (Antikainen 2006, p. 230).
Despite the fact that the Nordic model of education is a shifting, more or less
inconsistent ideology, the Nordic discourse on education mirrors a conviction that
ethical-political education is a vital tool for building a nation. Moreover, that such
education is a remedy against societal challenges. But to what degree do present-
day philosophies, theories and programs on ethical-political education promote
desirable values, worldviews and activities? What may be their potential prospects
and pitfalls? Authors of this book explore these questions.
Youths in a World of Change
The chapters included in the first part of this book set the stage by deliberating
empirical studies on Nordic youth’s tangible experience and reflections on ethical-
political issues. What does it mean to grow up in this world of change? How do
Nordic youths describe and reflect upon their situation? What are to them the most
pressing issues? What seems to be at stake? The authors here move close to Nordic
youth’s daily life, opening up for dialogues that may help to reveal and reflect upon
vital issues and ambiguous loyalties negotiated among these youths and between
them and the larger society. In her chapter on Young Citizenship, Kristinn Hegna
explores Nordic youths’ civic engagement and participation. To what extent do they
participate in everyday civic activities? Are there signs of civic engagement? In
other words, to what degree are young people passive or active citizens in school,
leisure and family life? Hegna’s analysis is based on the 2016 ICCS study for
Norway, Denmark, Finland and Sweden and concludes that today, Nordic youths
seem to endorse conventional citizenship ideals. The next chapter – Philosophical
and youth-studies perspectives on the participation imperative – examines the idea
of political participation. Here, Tomi Kiillakoski, Mervi Kaukko, Rauno Huttunen
and Hannu Heikkinen reinterpret some Finnish youth studies that reveal how young
people’s interest in political participation now seems to be diminishing. However, to
what degree can we trust these findings? After a diligent rereading, the authors con-
clude that the results are not unambiguous. First, it seems essential to distinguish
between different arenas of participation. Next, to re-think the ways in which
national or supranational political systems actually promote and justify youth par-
ticipation. Third, to consider the close link between participation and recognition.
Consequently, it seems pertinent to ask to what degree current education may
help youth to navigate local and global challenges. Chapter 4 – Situating moral
6 T. Strand
education – explores this question. Here, Ole Andreas Kvamme reports a classroom
study on how Norwegian 15 year’s olds consider the values and norms embedded in
education for sustainable development. Through an attentive analysis, Kvamme
finds that teachers tend to adopt a rule-based approach that overlooks the students’
diverse backgrounds and many-faceted experiences. In contrast to such a practice,
Kvamme contends that we should bring the classroom diversity and the students’
local/global experiences into play in a well-informed and up-to-date pedagogy that
helps to mediate the moral and the political, the local and the global.
Following this line of thought, it is pertinent to consider the experiences of the
numerous young asylum seekers arriving at the Nordic borders. In his chapter –
While we wait – Kalisha Wills does so. He reports a phenomenological study that
addresses the lived experience of waiting as described by unaccompanied asylum-
seeking minors. First, Wills depicts these young people’s tangible experiences of
waiting as they deal with other aspects of life. Next, he explores their way of
describing waiting as first, a lingering and worrying; second, as a delayed welcome
to a new nation; and third, as a detached way of living.
In short, this first part of the book portray Nordic youths many faceted lived
experiences and reflections. The authors here draw attention to their various identi-
ties and loyalties. But to what degree do current models of ethical-political educa-
tion respond to and encourage a democratic will formation?
Educational Philosophies, Old and New
The second part of this book includes six chapters that explore some potential pow-
ers and pitfalls of educational philosophies, old and new. One dilemma may be the
embeddedness of educational philosophies and theories, and thus their lack of onto-
logical awareness. Honneth (2015), for example, emphasizes that philosophers,
such as Plato, Herder, Rousseau, Kant and Dewey all developed their models of
ethical-political education as responses to historical situations quite different from
the complex situations of today’s world of change. Moreover, Toulmin (1990)
exposes the hidden, but yet persistent agenda of political philosophies of the West:
A vision of society as rationally ordered as the Newtonian view of nature.
Conventional Western images may thus not only fail to recognize the non-western
representations carried by Nordic citizens, but they may also overlook the potential
values of the creative hubbub of today’s world of change. The authors of the chap-
ters included in this part of the book aim to move beyond such conventional theories
and orthodox beliefs.
In his chapter on Encouragement and appeal, Henrik Vase Frandsen throws a
critical eye on Dietrich Benner’s (2015) well-known theory of education. Focus is
Benner’s way of solving the famous Kantian paradox: How can we – through exter-
nal influence – raise children that do not let themselves be determined by external
influences? Benner aims to solve this paradox through an educational practice
named “encouragement”. However, Frandsen questions Benner’s solipsism, which
to him mirrors a distorted idea of freedom. The self, Frandsen holds, is not isolated,
but rather a being concurrently oriented towards freedom and subjection. In the next
chapter – Towards educational justice – Teemu Hanhela elegantly demonstrates the
ways in which Axel Honneth’s political theory of recognition captures the perspec-
tives of the worst offs. In doing so, he places the experiences of the excluded at the
forefront in his search for a theory of justice relevant to education. However,
Hanhela identifies some weaknesses in Honneth, which illustrate the difficulties in
theorizing the tacit experiences of the excluded. This goes well with Kalisha Wills’
deliberations in Chap. 5. However, Hanhela concludes his chapter by outlining how
an emphasis on pedagogical aspects may further Honneth’s theory.
In her chapter on Citizenship education and the role of immigrant students in the
Nordic countries, Anniina Leiviskä holds that the previous Nordic vision of schools
as arenas of social equality is now eroding. The Nordic model increasingly margin-
alizes students with immigrant backgrounds. One problem, among others, seems to
be the “patriotic” idea of citizenship education. However, Leiviskä claims that no
liberal democratic society can justifiably demand that immigrants endorse a given
Danish, Swedish, Norwegian or Finnish identity. However, what we justifiably can
demand - of both immigrants and the majority population - is reasonableness.
Leiviskä maintains that a Rawlsian “political” model of citizenship education pro-
motes such reasonableness.
The link between citizenship education and deliberative politics is also at the
heart of Asger Sørensen’s chapter on Bildung as democratic opinion and will for-
mation. However, Sørensen holds a different outlook than Leiviskä, as he here per-
forms a close reading of Habermas’ theory of deliberative democracy. Sørensen
claims that democratic citizenship education would benefit from a substantial notion
of Bildung. However, he finds that Habermas cannot support such an argument. In
contrast to Sørensen’s somewhat dystopic outlook, Kjetil Horn Hogstad argues– in
his chapter Towards a plastic starting point – that Catherine Malabou’s concept of
change may open up for a rethinking of ethical-political education. In doing so,
Hogstad identifies and revisits three main moments in Malabou’s philosophy: First,
her re-elaboration of Hegelian dialectics as the process through which change hap-
pens. Next, the open potentiality of the event, as explored in Heidegger. Third,
change as driven by, and dependent on, concepts and schematization, as implied by
Derrida. These three moments, Hogstad holds, may open up for a rethinking of the
onto-epistemic imaginaries beyond ethical-political education.
The last chapter of this part of the book also discusses the potential powers and
pitfalls of educational theories and philosophies. Claudia Schumann – in her chapter
What is called thinking in education? – draws attention to a lack of ontological
awareness. Taking Martin Heidegger’s famously controversial lecture series What is
called thinking (1951–1952) as a starting point, she discusses which forms of think-
ing, which methods and bodies of knowledge are promoted, and which are margin-
alized and devalued within the academic discipline of education. A narrow
understanding of objectivity and rationality can hinder a serious consideration of
ethical-political issues. In line with Alice Crary (2016), Schumann argues that the
education of our sensitivities is vital for getting a rational grasp of our (educational)
8 T. Strand
realities. Schumann thus questions the forms of thinking encouraged by contempo-

rary educational sciences.
In short, the chapters included in the second part of this book move beyond con-
ventional models of ethical-political education, while questioning their potentials to
shape, justify, uphold and direct shared and desirable images, values, norms and
practices. But how do these models respond to the most pressing issues within
today’s world of change?
Rethinking Ethical-Political Education
Again, are there prospects of a fruitful rethinking of ethical-political education in

response to today’s most pressing issues? Chapters included in the third part of this
book aims to respond by deliberating topics relevant to contemporary education,
such as cosmopolitanism, post-humanism, social media and the post-truth society.
In his chapter on a growing need for cosmopolitan imagination in education –
Educational Cosmopolitanism: Education beyond Nationalist and Globalist
Imaginations – Niclas Rönnström discusses dilemmas of traditionally nation-
centered and recently developed globalist ways of imagining society and education.
To avoid the constraints and pitfalls of both, he proposes a rooted imaginary cosmo-
politanism, which to him is a third road yet to be taken and a pertinent response to
both inward nationalist views and globalist economic views of education.
In the next chapter – Pragmatism, Education and the Problem of Pluralism –
Henrik Rydenfelt explores the concept of pluralism, which is vital to contemporary
ethical-political education. However, the concept of pluralism is somewhat vague.
In addition, pluralist views seem hard to defend without submitting to relativism.
Drawing on philosophical pragmatism, Rydenfelt here aims to meet these criticisms.
In Chap. 14 – Re-conceptualizing the subject-citizen of Bildung in a post-human
world – Carol Taylor identifies post-humanism as a shift in terms of a re-
conceptualizing of the subject-citizen of Bildung. She thereby portrays post-
humanism as an ethical-political project aiming at more inclusive, socially just
pedagogies in higher education. In her chapter on Challenges and Possibilities of
Media-based Public Dialogue Minna-Kerttu Kekki claims that radical dialogue is
vital to democracy. In contemporary pluralist societies, however, stereotyping and
misunderstandings are major and common obstructions of radical dialogues.
Nevertheless, Kekki carefully portrays a self-reflective attitude as the key to over-
coming these obstacles.
All since antiquity, philosophers have explored education as a process initiated
by the experience of truth (aletheia) (Badiou 2012, Heidegger 1940, Plato 1993).
Consequently, Jørgen Huggler – in his chapter on The Educative Process and its
Relation to Truth – claims that education without a commitment to truth seems
senseless. Theories of truth are thus vital to theories and philosophies of education,
not least within today’s “post-truth society”. Exploring two present-day examples –
first, the algorithms and data targeting of internet search technology and, second,
propaganda and disinformation – Huggler demonstrates ways in which truth and

critique are significant to ethical and political formation.
However, we should not overlook the fact that education implies a social rela-
tion, a relation between a child and a pedagogue. In the next chapter – What causes
education? – Kirsten Hyldgaard explores this relation through a diligent reading of
Lacan. Etymologically, education derives from Latin educere (to lead out) or edu-
care (to nourish). Education means to lead. Hyldgaard carefully demonstrates how
the image from ancient Greece, of the pedagogue as the slave accompanying the
child to school, goes well with the Lacanian way of thinking the pedagogical rela-
tion as a social relation in which the pedagogue cannot be considered the master.
In the last chapter – Here and Now – Torill Strand sets out to explore to what
degree Alain Badiou’s anti-philosophy may represent a way of re-thinking philoso-
phy of education in face of the current situation. In the first part of this chapter, she
maps out the many faces of current philosophies of education. Next, she performs a
close reading of Alain Badiou’s philosophical position. In the third part of the chap-
ter, she compares and contrasts Badiou’s position with some contemporary philoso-
phies of education.
References
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Education, 50(3), 229–243.
Badiou, A. (2012). Plato’s republic. Cambridge: Polity press.
Benner, D. (2015). Allgemeine Pädagogik. Eine systematisch-problemgeschichtliche Einführung
in die Grundstruktur pädagogischen Denkens und Handelns. Weinheim: Juventa.
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Held, D. (2006). Models of democracy. Cambridge: Polity Press.
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Honneth, A. (2015). Education and the democratic public sphere. A neglected chapter of political
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political thought. Brill: Leiden.
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theory. Ethics, 104(January), 352–381.
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Torill Strand (b. 1957) is Professor at the University of Oslo, Department of Education. Her
competencies range from meta-theory to social epistemologies, educational philosophy and the-
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issues and published widely in international journals. Recent publications are Alain Badiou and
Education (2020), Reification as a forgetting (2019), “I create silence”: Revisiting the ancient
dispute between poetry and philosophy (2017), and Cinema, Philosophy and Education
(forthcoming).
Part I
Youths in a World of Change
Chapter 2
Young Citizenship: Civic Engagement
and Participation in Four Nordic
Countries
Kristinn Hegna
Abstract Since the beginning of the 2000s several studies have expressed a strong
concern about young people’s lack of interest in political issues and their low degree
of political participation through traditional channels. This chapter aims to describe
the civic engagement and participation of young Nordic people today by investigat-
ing the extent to which they participate in everyday civic activities and show signs
of civic engagement. Participation in school democracy, local youth organisations
and organisations with socio-political aims such as environmental issues, or engag-
ing in discussions with family or friends on social and political issues shows how
young people are active as citizens in their own right. At the same time, these activi-
ties and networks are important for the socialisation of youth for democracy. Young
people’s engagement as young citizens and seeing themselves as voters and active
political participants in adulthood is important for the reproduction and renewal of
democracy. In this chapter, we address the question of to what degree young people
are passive or active citizens in school, leisure and family contexts. The analyses are
based on the ICCS study in 2016 for Norway, Denmark, Finland and Sweden.
Keywords Youth · Citizenship · Civic participation · Civic engagement ·

ICCS 2016
Introduction
Young people’s participation in democratic processes and their socialisation into

competent future voters and citizens is essential for the future of democracy. Two of
the basic functions of the civic and citizenship education of youth is thus to qualify
K. Hegna (*)
e-mail: kristinn.hegna@iped.uio.no

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49524-4_2
14 K. Hegna
and socialise them into citizenship (Biesta 2009) in an effort to contribute to the
reproduction of the democratic system that they will be part of as adults. To achieve
this, the existing knowledge and truths about what it takes to sustain a living democ-
racy need to be integrated with a sense of citizenship in the younger generations.
This establishes a society’s ethical-political education at the heart of discussions not
only about which values and beliefs should be conveyed in education, but also about
whether the classroom actually reflects modern societies’ complexities in such a way
that is the best place to anchor this education. With its potential to ‘shape, justify,
uphold and direct shared images, values, norms and practices’ (Strand, this volume),
ethical-political education must be related to young people’s everyday life experi-
ences in such a way that societal change and re-thinking of citizenship is possible.
One critique of the civic education of youth for instance in the United Kingdom,
is that it is arranged in such a way that its focus is mainly on imparting facts and
knowledge about the established democratic institutions, standards and practices
(Gholami 2017) – thus preserving and strengthening the existing democracy, but
also in a way teaching democratic obedience to younger generations. Paradoxically,
the period of youth is often described as a time of life in which the individual is
particularly sensitive to social change and may even act as a driver of social change.
Generational change has often been described in terms of opposition to the previous
generation or to the establishment (Mannheim 1952, see also Ødegård 2016 for a
discussion). However, the current generation seems rather to be described as apoliti-
cal and disinterested in politics. In this chapter, I will discuss young people’s civic
engagement and participation today based on analyses of The International Civic
and Citizenship Study (ICCS) 2016. Are youth in the Nordic countries active,
engaged and participating as citizens in the ways that are available to them, or are
they passive and disengaged?
ociological Perspectives on Young People’s Civic and Political

S
Participation and Engagement
Since the beginning of the 2000s, several studies have expressed a strong concern
about young people’s seemingly increasing lack of interest in political issues and
their low degree of participation through traditional political channels (see, for
example Furlong and Cartmel 2007; Harris 2009; Keeter et al. 2002; Torney-Purta
et al. 2001). These descriptions of youth as apolitical or apathetic on one hand, are
contrasted by other studies that portray this youth generation as having marginal but
spectacular and oppositional youth cultures on the other (Harris et al. 2010). Harris
et al. (2010) argue that neither stories may be telling the ‘truth’ about a whole gen-
eration of youth – ‘normal’ youth is rather to be found somewhere in the middle.
Perspectives that primarily relate young people’s lack of involvement in social
issues and politics to characteristics of the youths themselves – such as their lack of
knowledge about democracy and citizenship – have been criticised for
2 Young Citizenship: Civic Engagement and Participation in Four Nordic Countries 15
individualising the lack of political engagement and rebellion in youth and making
it the responsibility of young people to engage themselves (Bastedo 2015;
Cammaerts et al. 2014; Edwards 2007; Kimberlee 2002).
In contrast to individualising perspectives, other contributions thus point to soci-
ety’s responsibility for enabling this process, and describe a wide range of social
and structural barriers to their engagement and participation. Wyn and White (1996)
describe the youth phase as a gradual movement from the child’s social position as
vulnerable and dependent, to an increasingly socially meaningful position in social
structures and institutions, where their participation in political processes is seen as
desirable and expected (see also Øia 1995). A qualitative study of adolescents in
Australia has shown important barriers to political engagement among youth. For
instance young people perceived politicians as unresponsive, and felt that youth
were excluded by the political language or their lack of practical knowledge required
to be included in the political sphere (Harris et al. 2010). The gap between young
people’s everyday lives and their civic and political concerns on the one hand, and
the ‘adult’ world of politics on the other, contributed to this feeling of
marginalisation.
A claim to the same effect is presented by Gholami (2017) who contends that
civic education in British schools tends to emphasise the types of civic knowledge
mostly related to conventional citizenship and its institutions. This is also true for
Norway and Denmark, according to the ICCS 2016 study, but not for Finland and
Sweden (Schulz et al. 2018a). Gholami (2017) claims that reducing civic education
to information about for instance the national assembly and electoral arrangements,
further contributes to demarcating young people’s everyday citizenship and social
policy activities from what counts as ‘citizenship’, and thus to define youth as ‘non-
participating’. Teachers of ethical-political education in the Nordic countries mark
students’ independent and critical thinking as one of their top three priorities in their
teaching, more often than teachers from other ICCS 2016 participating countries do
(Schulz et al. 2018a). Preparing the students for future political engagement and
promoting participation locally, however, was hardly mentioned by Nordic teachers
as a priority. Thus, the actual ethical-political education given in the Nordic coun-
tries, may be in danger of the same.
The types of youth engagement described by Harris et al. (2010) and Gholami
(2017) however, underlines the importance of understanding the involvement of
young people in everyday citizenship activities, in a perspective of here and now.
Rather than describing youth in line with the idea of youth’s marginal status as
becoming citizens who have the potential for participation (‘human becomings’, see
Farthing 2010), a youth-centred view acknowledges youth’s status as citizens in
their own right. In this chapter, we will use a youth-centred, everyday perspective
on youth’s citizenship, civic engagement and participation. This perspective is
inspired by Thomson et al. (2004) who in their study took a ‘subjective approach to
citizenship in which participation is not deferred to some distant future in which
economic independence is achieved, but is understood as constantly constructed in
the present’ (p. 218). Such an approach would interpret teens’ intentions to partici-
pate in elections and political processes in the future as an expression of their
16 K. Hegna
socio-political self-esteem, interest and emotional commitment today, and their

‘commitment to civic participation’ (Kahne and Sporte 2008, p. 738). From this
perspective, young people are understood as independent actors who are ‘already
actively involved in claiming, resisting and negotiating a range of competing respon-
sibilities and freedoms’ (Thomson et al. 2004, p. 221). A parallel to this perspective
on everyday participation can be found in Putnam’s (1995) definition of civic
engagement as ‘people’s connections to life in the community, not only to politics’
(Putnam 1995, p. 665).
In this chapter, we will depart from a youth-centred understanding of civic par-
ticipation, engagement and commitment. Civic participation is operationalised as
participation in school democracy and in civic organisations in line with Keeter
et al. (2002) typology. Civic engagement is operationalised as youth having discus-
sions about politics and community issues with parents and friends, as well as per-
ceiving themselves as active future citizens through future electoral participation
and active political participation.
revious Research on Social Policy Participation

P
and Involvement Among Young People
The results of the ICCS 2016 test of civic knowledge indicated that the level of civic
knowledge and understanding of democracy and citizenship among students in
Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway is significantly higher than the interna-
tional average, and also that it increased markedly in Norway and Sweden from
2009 to 2016 (Huang et al. 2017; Schulz et al. 2018a). The four Nordic countries all
had more than half of their students at the top level of the test, describing the stu-
dents as demonstrating reasoning and ‘a holistic knowledge and understanding of
civic and citizenship concepts’ as well as “some critical perspective’ (Schulz et al.
2018a, p xvi). This knowledge is, however, not equally distributed in the student
population. Gender differences are larger in the Nordic countries than elsewhere,
whereas the impact of parental education is low in Finland and Norway, but not in
Sweden and Denmark (Huang et al. 2018). The ICCS 2016 survey results show that
the Nordic youth reported higher levels of institutional and political trust, compared
to youth from other countries (Huang et al. 2018). Based on this source of knowl-
edge, the Nordic model of education to a large degree seem to build on discourses
of ethical-political education which shape and justify the values, norms and prac-
tices that often are – perhaps stereotypically – described as the Nordic ‘fabric’ of
society; trust, but fail to succeed in equalizing differences in all Nordic coun-
tries. Several studies have also shown that there is a connection between knowledge
and understanding of democracy and citizenship and participation in school democ-
racy (Fjeldstad et al. 2010; MCEETYA 2009). A longitudinal study of teen minority
students from poor neighbourhoods in Chicago (USA), investigated what character-
ised those who reported an increasing commitment to political participation over a
two-year period. Students who received civic education in the classroom, who
spoke with their parents about civic issues or participated in youth organisations,
showed a trend of increasing commitment to future political participation (Kahne
and Sporte 2008). These studies seem to indicate that civic knowledge could con-
tribute to higher engagement and participation among todays’ youth.
However, research from a Swedish context questions this finding by showing
that citizenship skills and knowledge rather seem to be related to family background
(Ekman and Zetterberg 2010). Students that already are provided with a beneficial
home background scored higher on the political literacy test and future active politi-
cal citizenship than students with parents with lower levels of education (Ekman
and Zetterberg 2010). From a socialisation perspective, ‘recruitment networks’
(Verba et al. 1995) such as the family, schools and organisations play a central role
in civic engagement and political participation. Moreover, Ekman and Zetterberg
(2010) claim that political socialisation is increasingly taking place in the family
and outside of school. A study in Australia also showed that participation in the
local community and social policy activities increased students’ intentions for future
political participation more than being taught civic issues at school (Reichert and
Print 2018).
In the present study, active and engaged citizenship is operationalised across the
arenas available for students’ engagement; we include peer networks and activities,
family activities, school participation as well as indicators of individual identity as
a future citizen.
Research Questions
The overall aim of this chapter is to investigate the extent and character of civic par-
ticipation and engagement among youth in four Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland,
Norway and Sweden) based on analyses of the ICCS 2016 Study. By utilising a wide
range of indicators of civic participation and engagement, we identify groups of
youth showing particularly high degrees of engagement and participation. Absence
of the same indicators shows a corresponding lack of involvement and participation.
In this chapter, we address the question of whether there are differences between the
four Nordic countries in the indicators and in the degree of active and passive civic
engagement and participation? Lastly, we investigate the relationship between the
educational aspirations of youth and their civic engagement and participation. Is
active and passive citizenship more widespread in certain groups of youth?
Methods and Analyses
The analyses for this chapter are based on survey data from the Danish (N = 6254),
Swedish (N = 3264), Norwegian (N = 6271) and Finnish (N = 3173) youth included
in the International Civic and Citizenship study (ICCS) 2016. The study is an
18 K. Hegna
ongoing, comparative research program investigating the ways in which young peo-
ple are prepared to undertake their roles as citizens across the world (Schulz et al.
2018a, b). In 2016, 24 countries participated in the study. The respondents were
students with a mean age of 14.3–14.7 years, and the response rates of these four
countries were 91 to 93%. The rigorous sampling and data collection procedures
used are described in the technical report from the IEA (Schulz et al. 2018b). The
data set was analysed using the IDB Analyzer, an IEA-developed program based on
SPSS, as well as weighting variables as calculated by the IEA. The results therefore
represent the population of Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish students aged
14–15 years in 2016. The description of the data set and the data collection proce-
dures are described in the international technical report (Schulz et al. 2018b), and
the main international results from the knowledge test and the survey material have
previously been described by Schulz et al. (2018a). The results of the test and the
survey in the participating Nordic countries have been published nationally.
Twenty-four items were used to calculate the five indicator variables shown in
Table 2.1. The analysis was built around a logic where the different indicators are
used to construct two typologies, rather than scales or aggregates. A typology is a
collective measure that implies that respondents are classified into categories based
on their answers to first-order indicator variables (Babbie 2007). The purpose of this
is to capture various forms of engagement and participation by giving the indicators
a theoretically equal value. Typologies for active civic participation and active civic
engagement, respectively, were constructed on the basis of participation in civic
organisations (6 items), participation in school democracy (5 items in addition to
voting in school council elections), future electoral participation (3 items), future
active political participation (5 items) and discussions about social/political issues
with friends and family (4 items). Furthermore, students were categorised as very
active, rather active, average, rather passive or very passive respectively, based on
their scores on the two typologies. The procedure is described in further detail in
Hegna 2018.
Independent variables are gender (boy/girl), immigrant background (two parents
born abroad), parents’ highest completed education (higher education vs not) and
students’ educational aspirations (secondary school or lower/short tertiary educa-
tion/higher ed. (BA, MA or PhD). In addition, students’ interest in social and politi-
cal issues (not at all interested – very interested) is included to confirm the value of
the composite measure of active and engaged citizenship (Fig. 2.2).
ivic engagement and Participation Among Youth

C
in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden
We set out by conducting an initial analysis of the various indicator variables for
civic participation and engagement. Participating in civic organisations, participat-
ing in school democracy, discussing civic issues with friends or family, seeing
Table 2.1 Indicators of active and passive youth citizenship among youth in four Nordic countries.
Percent. Students 14–15 years old. Highest figures in bold. (ICCS 2016, weighted)
DENMARK FINLAND NORWAY SWEDEN
Civic participation
Participation in civic Member in at least 17 9 22 15
organisations one civ.org last year
Participation in school Voted and otherwise 23 20 45 33
democracy active
Civic engagement
Future electoral ‘Certainly’ will vote in 28 23 48 36
participation the future
Future active political ‘Certainly’ politically 29 8 17 19
participation active in the future
Discussions about Frequent discussions 20 11 13 17
civic/political issues
Civic
non-participation
Participation in youth Never a member in an 41 67 36 56
or civic org. org.
Participation in school Never voted nor been 20 38 18 19
democracy otherwise active
Civic disengagement
Future electoral ‘Most certain will 4 8 6 4
participation NOT’ vote
Future active political ‘Most certain will 19 49 42 35
participation NOT’ be pol. active
Discussions about Never/almost never 5 14 12 10
civic/political issues discussions
oneself as a future voter or a future active participant in political processes were all
seen as indicators of civic participation and engagement among youth. The oppo-
site, not participating in any types of organisations, not participating in school
democracy, not discussing civic issues or not imagining oneself as a future voter,
were interpreted as indicators of civic non-participation and disengagement.
Table 2.1 shows the percentage of students for each of the 10 indicators for each of
the four Nordic countries.
Table 2.1 also depicts a large variation between the four Nordic countries. The
students from Norway indicated more often that they were members of civic organ-
isations and that they voted and otherwise participated in school democracy. They
also more often saw themselves as future voters compared to students from the other
countries. The students from Denmark more often saw themselves as politically
active participants in the future, and more often had discussions with friends or fam-
ily about civic and political issues.
The students from Finland indicated the least participation and engagement in all
of these indicators, and also indicated most often to never have been a member of a
20 K. Hegna
civic youth organisation, never been involved in school democracy, to almost never
discuss civic and political issues with parents or friends, and not to see themselves
as voting or actively participating politically in the future.
In the further analysis, these five indicators were used to categorise the respon-
dents into four categories based on their level of civic participation and engagement.
These four categories identify groups that are characterised by either very low civic
participation and very low civic engagement, or, at the other end of the spectrum,
very high civic participation and very high civic engagement. In doing this, we
found that the majority of the youth population is characterised by neither of these,
forming a middle group with average participation and engagement.
The specific indicators used in the study can exemplify the level of participation
or engagement among the youth that are categorised as very active or very passive:
Among the very active-group, 85% have participated in school democracy in more
ways than just voting in a school election, 74% have participated in an environmen-
tal or human rights organisation or a political party youth organisation, 75% discuss
social or political issues with their parents at least weekly, 94% will certainly par-
ticipate in future local and central elections and 86% see themselves as politically
active in the future. The very passive-group show very low levels of civic participa-
tion and engagement: 57% will ‘probably not’ vote neither locally nor centrally and
97% will not be politically active as adults, 69% have never discussed social or
political issues nor ‘what is happening in other countries’ with their parents nor with
friends and none of them have ever been members of any local youth organisation
or participated in school democracy other than the obligatory school election.1
Figure 2.1 shows the percentage of students in the ICCS 2016 study categorised
within these five groups across the Nordic countries.
First of all, Figure 2.1 shows that the majority of the youth population – from 57
to 73% – is neither passive nor active citizens. Rather they form the ‘average mid-
dle’ that may vote when they get the chance and are engaged or participate on a
medium level. Figure 2.1 also clearly shows that the students in Finland were more
often categorised as rather passive or very passive, compared to the Scandinavian
countries. These two categories comprise 36% of the Finnish students, which is
more than twice as many as in the other countries. While 22% of the Norwegian
students are categorised as rather or very active, only 6% of the Finnish students are
in the same two categories.
In the ICCS 2016 study, the students were also asked a question about their inter-
est in social and political issues, which can be used to understand the level of inter-
est reflected in their level of participation and engagement. Figure 2.2 shows the
percentage of students who responded ‘very interested’ and ‘quite interested’
respectively, in each of the five categories of participation and engagement, for each
country.
1
In Denmark, Sweden and Finland, the students have a right to form a student council and to vote
in elections for that council, in Norway however, students have a duty to participate in elections for
the student council. Due to this, to be active, participating in school democracy above voting was
set as a criterion
Fig. 2.1 Categories of civic participation and engagement among youth in Sweden, Norway,
Finland and Denmark. Percent. Youth 14–15 years old. (ICCS 2016, weighted)
Fig. 2.2 Degree of interest in social and political issues in different categories of civic participa-
tion and engagement among youth in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark. Percent. Youth
14–15 years old. (ICCS 2016, weighted)
22 K. Hegna
Figure 2.2 reveals how the level of interest is clearly higher in the most active
groups. Although the groups of very active and quite active students are very small
in Finland, the students in these categories are far more interested in social and
political issues than the comparable category in Norway and Denmark.
It is interesting to see whether male and female students, students from different
class or immigrant backgrounds or those with different educational aspirations
show different patterns – both in general and between the countries. In comparing
the two gender groups, we found that male and female students are equally active in
all four countries. However, across countries, more of the male than female students
are in the two passive groups. For instance, in Sweden 15% of the girls and 21% of
the boys are categorised as passive (chisq 42,8, p < .001), whereas in Finland as
much as 28% of the girls and 44% of the boys are in the passive category
(chisq = 169,6, p < .001). Students from immigrant backgrounds are more often
categorised as active than non-immigrants in Sweden are, while there are no differ-
ences in the other countries. The students from immigrant backgrounds are more
often passive than non-immigrants in Denmark.
In all four countries, the active groups are larger among those students whose
parents have a higher education. In parallel, the passive groups are larger among
students whose parents do not have a higher education. The difference in passivity
is smallest among the Swedish students, and largest among the Finish students. The
relationship between involvement in political engagement and education levels is a
robust finding (Hillygus 2005), which is also evident in the differences in civic
engagement and participation between youth from different parental education
backgrounds. Figure 2.3 shows the differences between youths based on their edu-
cational aspirations for each of the four Nordic countries.
Figure 2.3 shows a pattern where the shares of active citizens is higher among
those with higher education aspirations in all of the four Nordic countries. The stu-
dents aspiring to complete a 2- or 3-year tertiary education (less than a bachelor
degree) are rather similar to the students aspiring to complete secondary level edu-
cation in Norway, Finland and Sweden. Among these students, we found the largest
percentage of students that were categorised as rather or very passive citizens.
Young Citizenship or Citizens in the Making?
Civic and citizenship education in the Nordic countries shares some of the same
characteristics; civic education is normatively considered to be a result of the school
experience as a whole, although this is not always the case, as can be seen from the
school principals’ point of view (Schulz et al. 2018a). The aims of civic and citizen-
ship education most frequently listed by school principals in all four Nordic coun-
tries are to promote knowledge of citizens’ rights and to promote students’ critical
and independent thinking (Schulz et al. 2018a, p. 34). In reaching this goal however,
classroom activities are just one part of the lesson. In Norway for instance, The
Ministry of Education’s Committee on The School of the Future — Renewal of
Fig. 2.3 Degree of active and engaged citizenship in different groups according to their educa-
tional aspirations. Percent. Youth 14–15 years old. (ICCS 2016, weighted)
subjects and competences (Ministry of Education 2015) states that schools schould
be expected to ‘be a place that gives pupils experience of various forms of participa-
tion in democratic processes in its daily activities and representative bodies’ (p. 33).
This is also emphasised in the Norwegian parliament white paper on the renewal of
school subjects (Ministry of Education, Science and Culture 2016) where democ-
racy and citizenship are prioritised and established as an interdisciplinary theme
across subjects; its content being described as ‘learning about democracy, learning
for democratic participation and learning through democratic participation’ (Stray
2014, referred in Ministry 2016, p 38).
In this study, we acknowledge the socialising potential of young people’s activi-
ties at school, but include activities outside school, as well as participation in social
networks and organisations (Hyman 1959, Verba et al. 1995). However, rather than
seeing this as merely a preparation for adult citizenship or as a development stage,
young people’s everyday social and political activities are included as expressions
of citizenship in its own right. In doing this, we are able to see past the powerful,
24 K. Hegna
albeit marginal, images of spectacular youth cultures and opposition or radicalisa-

tion and describe the political engagement and participation of the average youth.
The findings of this study confirm that most Nordic youth are involved in some
activities or are somehow engaged in social and political issues, but also that only a
minority of 6–22% are truly active citizens. One study of youth civic engagement
have previously found that their participation in volunteer groups or school commit-
tees was related to their fear of missing opportunities to strengthen their resume
(Friedland and Morimoto 2005). Success in education and ‘resume padding’ were
seen as an investment for the reduction of later risks of unemployment or failure,
and this worked as a motivator in addition to intrinsic motives like ‘helping people’.
According to Zaff et al. (2010), a deep engagement should be an important aspira-
tion for civic practice. Following this, the strong interest in social and political
issues reported by the active youth of this study, seems reassuring for the future. The
students in Finland seem to stand out as less active and more often passive, but at
the same time the active youth in Finland show a stronger interest in social and
political issues. An earlier survey from Finland pointed to a weak discussion culture
related to political and social issues in Finland (Eränpalo and Karhuvirta 2012).
According to the authors, this calls for ‘society as a whole to provide the prerequi-
sites for building an identity that allows positive encounters, interaction and democ-
racy between people’ (ibid p 55). Kiilakoski et al. (this volume) point to the fact that
political participation in the sense of participatory rights, dignity and agency is quite
recent in Finland, and that the implementation of this into the Finish educational
system – changing the schooling practices – has been hard (Hakalehto 2015, ref. by
Kiilakoski et al).
Elsewhere, I have shown that the proportion of active or very active citizens
among Norwegian students increased from 19% in 2009 to 22% in 2016 (Hegna
2018). In the same period, the proportion of Norwegian students that was very or
rather passive decreased from 20% to 16%, indicating no signs of polarisation in
participation and engagement. In addition, the international comparisons of the test
scores of the ICCS 2009 and 2016 studies also showed that the level of knowledge
and understanding of democracy, civic and citizenship issues increased in 11 of the
18 countries that participated in both studies, among them Norway and Sweden
(Schulz et al. 2018a, b). Thus, given the theory that these results are cohort effects
that will be of importance for these young people’s participation as adult citizens,
they are positive signs for the future democracies of these countries.
Young people’s families, relationships to friends, schoolmates and teachers as
well as organised leisure activities have the potential to fulfil a function referred to
by Verba et al. (1995) as ‘recruitment networks’; that is, social institutions that can
play a decisive role in stimulating youth to be active citizens, and to participate in
politics by ‘cultivating psychological engagement in politics and by serving as the
locus of recruitment to activity’ (p. 17). When Verba and co-authors wrote this in
1995, they concluded that such networks of personal contacts between acquain-
tances, friends and family members—so-called social capital—were more impor-
tant than ‘electronic communication’. The face to face social relationships would
contribute to exposure to political signals and further networks, but most
importantly, they provide ‘organisational and communications skills that are rele-
vant for politics and thus can facilitate political activity […] activities that are not in
and of themselves political. Yet, they foster the development of skills that can be
transferred to politics’ (p. 18). This in turn increases the likelihood of political par-
ticipation and commitment in the future. It is therefore reassuring to see that 70–80%
of the ninth grade students participate in at least one such socialising context. The
importance of ‘electronic communication’ in general has of course changed enor-
mously since 1995. The ICCS 2016 study included few indicators about the role of
social media, virtual networks and electronic communication for young people’s
civic engagement. About one in three Danish or Swedish youth, one in four
Norwegian youth and only one in five Finnish youth used the internet to find infor-
mation about political or social issues at least once a week. Furthermore, only 3–5%
of these Nordic youths reported to post something related to social or political issues
on social media on average once a week (Schulz et al. 2018a). This may indicate
that social networks and relationships are still of importance for political socialisa-
tion. An important question, however, is the extent to which civic and citizenship
education in school is able to bring the students’ civic experiences into the class-
room and suceed in making this education relevant for the students. It is important
for schools to continue their efforts to expand and develop school democracy as well
as to include community activities.
Harris et al. (2010) addressed the tendency of youth citizenship studies to miss
the opportunity to describe civic engagement and participation among ordinary
youth. The ICCS 2016 study shows that young people in the four Nordic countries
today endorse ideals related to the ‘conventional citizen’ (Westheimer 2015) as
more important than young people did in 2009 (Schulz et al. 2018a). This could be
interpreted as an indication that students have moved towards becoming more
‘moral’ and ‘duty oriented’. This contrasts studies of youths’ political engagement,
portraying today’s youth as a ‘new nation of critical citizens’ who are interested in
politics and social issues and engage in political activities, but are strongly critical
of the political system and do not want to participate in conventional political activi-
ties (Hooghe and Dejaeghere 2007). By using concepts such as the ‘monitorial citi-
zen’ (Schudson 1996) and ‘standby citizen’ (Amnå and Ekman 2014), others discuss
the development of a ‘postmodern citizenship’ where young people more freely
construct their own citizenship tools. Although the ICCS 2016 study cannot be used
to investigate the existence of such postmodern citizenship directly, based on these
results it seems reasonable to doubt whether this type of citizenship is on the rise
among average youths. Rather, it appears that conventional participation has been
strengthened.
Seeing the marked differences between Finland and the other countries, we
understand that there indeed are differences between the Nordic countries in how
they see and how they teach ethical-political values. The Nordic model of ethical-
political education may not be as uniform as the ideal type may indicate. In addi-
tion, the ICCS 2016 study also clearly shows that although the values that the Nordic
countries aim to promote through teaching – e.g. trust, critical thinking and equity –
seems to be highlighted, there is far from equality in the level of knowledge, and the
26 K. Hegna
level of engagement displayed by the students. Finally, teaching ethical-political

education needs to include a perspective on youths’ ‘activity […] as the source of
all decision-making processes’ (Honneth 1998, p. 763), to include the potential for
political engagement that can supplement the mainstream, institutional participa-
tion that seems to be the main focus in school. Failing to do so, could represent one
of the pitfalls of the Nordic model of ethical-political education.
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Chapter 3
Philosophical and Youth-Studies
Perspectives on the Participation
Imperative
Tomi Kiilakoski, Mervi Kaukko, Rauno Huttunen,

and Hannu L. T. Heikkinen
Abstract In this article we analyse the concept of participation. The analysis is

informed by both quantitative and qualitative youth studies conducted in Finland.
To analyse different aspects of participation special emphasis is placed on the
migrant young seeking asylum. Young can be seen as sometimes engaged and dis-
engaged from the existing forms of participating. The results of the youth studies
also show that there seems to be a gap between representative democracy and the
peer-group-based forms of participation of the young. To analyse in detail how this
gap can be understood, the theory of recognition developed by Axel Honneth is used
to pinpoint different arenas of participation. Honneth’s levels of recognition – fam-
ily, civil society and the state – can be used to reformulate the results of the youth
studies, which show that personal relations and work life continue to be important
for the young, while the interest in the traditional political participation is
diminishing.
Keywords Participation · Recognition · Youth studies · Migrant youths · Politics
T. Kiilakoski (*)
Finnish Youth Research Network, Helsinki, Finland
e-mail: tomi.kiilakoski@youthresearch.fi
M. Kaukko
Faculty of Education and Culture, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland
R. Huttunen
Department of Education, University of Turku, Turku, Finland
H. L. T. Heikkinen
Finnish Institute for Educational Research, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49524-4_3
30 T. Kiilakoski et al.
Introduction: The Emergence of the Concept of Participation
During the past two decades, the concept of youth participation has gained
ground in political discussions about education and civic governance in Finland
and elsewhere. Despite the importance of the concept, there is no clear consensus
regarding the origin of the word participation, or about the reason why it has
become so popular, let alone what it actually means in practice. It is common-
place in research focusing on participation to state that there is no shared defini-
tion (Theis 2010; Nivala and Ryynänen 2013; Kiilakoski 2017), nor is there a
coherent theoretical framework with which to analyse participation (Thomas and
Percy-Smith 2010). Furthermore, different languages conceptualise the idea in
various ways, which makes it difficult to provide a coherent and unquestioned
definition of what we mean by participation. Yet participation has, in the past
20 years, become one of the key concepts in Finnish educational policy, influenc-
ing schooling practice from the level of the national core curriculum, where par-
ticipation is one of the key principles, to actual practices in schools and
classrooms.
To explain why participation has become such a powerful concept, a brief discus-
sion from a Finnish point of view is needed. There are two competing arguments
regarding the origins of participation (‘osallisuus’ in Finnish) in the Finnish policy
debate. One dates back to the late 1990s and the democracy development of the
European Union. In this debate, active citizenship and social inclusion were seen as
requirements for working democracies. The influential EU white paper on European
governance stated that the legitimacy of the EU ‘depends on involvement and par-
ticipation’ (European Commission 2001). In the field of youth policy in particular,
participation is viewed as one of the guiding principles of Europe. In this discourse,
too, there is no shared conception of what participation means.
Simultaneously, especially in relation to children and young people, the roots of
participation have been traced back to the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child
(1989). Finland ratified the convention in 1991, which means that it is a binding law.
There are four guiding principles in the treaty, one of which is to respect the views
of the child. Meanwhile, the influential article 12 states that ‘States Parties shall
assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to
express those views freely in all matters affecting the child’ (United Nations 1989,
12§). From this, participation is seen not only as a basic human right, but also as an
enabling right for implementing all other rights. In Finnish legislation, the right to
be heard is almost synonymous with the right to participation (Pajulammi 2014).
Participation, therefore, is a prerequisite for a democratic society from both these
points of view.
Since the turn of the millennium, the idea of participation has been manifested
in many ways in Finnish society, including in national legislation and many key
policy documents. It has influenced basic education, child welfare, youth work
and youth policy, and the workings of local government (Kiilakoski 2017). Thus,
3 Philosophical and Youth-Studies Perspectives on the Participation Imperative 31
the imperative to promote participation has been widely shared and has affected
many societal fields and arenas. It has been a strong influence in educational gov-
ernance in Finland, and the Basic Education Act and national core curriculum
emphasise participation. Connected to this, it is usually stated that the current
level of participation is not enough and that schooling practices need to change
(cf. Kiilakoski 2017).
Even a brief sketch of the genealogy of youth participation shows that the con-
cept has gained popularity in human rights and policy discourses, and is connected
to such concepts as hearing, social inclusion and customer perspectives. However,
developments within the educational discourse are notably scarce. It can even be
claimed that the idea of children and the young being agents of their own destiny is
contradictory to traditional schooling cultures. An illustrative example of this is a
comment by the Committee of the Rights of the Child, which states in strong terms
that ‘Children do not lose their human rights by virtue of passing through the school
gates. Thus, for example, education must be provided in a way that respects the
inherent dignity of the child and enables the child to express his or her views freely
in accordance with article 12(1) and to participate in school life’ (CRC/GC/2001/1,
8). In Finland, the view of children as rights-bearers and agents has been difficult for
the educational system as a whole (Hakalehto 2015).
In the Nordic model the concept of participation is ambiguous. On the one hand,
especially in non-formal education (Folk-Bildung) the idea of participation and
self-determination of learners has been highly important (Niemelä 2011). On the
other hand, Finnish society has been criticed for being too state-centered and not
respecting the opinions, ideas and hopes of citizens enough. Since participation is
strongly currently promoted by the state, and the educational debate on the concept
of participation has been rather thin, there is a clear need for further conceptual
analysis based on empirical findings regarding how the young themselves see par-
ticipation. This sort of clarification regarding participation and education is espe-
cially relevant for us, since we also see participation as one of the constituting
features and aims of education.
In this chapter, we start by examining the results of both quantitative and qualita-
tive youth studies. We feel that there is a need to understand the realities of young
people in order to better analyse what participation could actually mean in the pres-
ent societal condition. The clash between traditional forms of representative democ-
racy and the subsequent participation mechanisms, and between different everyday
forms of participation, is a common result in youth studies, and our own research
points in the same direction. The results of the youth studies also show that there
seems to be a gap between representative democracy and the peer-group-based
forms of participation of the young. To analyse in detail how this gap can be under-
stood, we use the theory of recognition developed by German philosopher Axel
Honneth to pinpoint different arenas of participation. In the latter part of the paper,
we use Honnethian insights to analyse different arenas of participation and the con-
sequent educational implications.
Empirical Viewpoints on Participation: Levels and Arenas
The idea of participation is based on the communal nature of human life and involves
elements of being part of a larger community such as a family, youth group, class,
school community or society at large (Kiilakoski 2007). It connotes having a part in
something in which it is worth participating. It also has an active element, as there
is no participation without human agency. Participation is possible when there is a
possibility to change things, to transform the status quo and to do something differ-
ently (Kiilakoski et al. 2012). Participation is sometimes equated with political par-
ticipation, such as taking part in the decision-making process. Those under the age
of 18 are excluded from the electoral process, and different mechanisms, such as
youth councils and children’s parliaments, have been developed to help them be
heard. According to this perspective, youth participation is important in allowing
the young to learn how to make an impact and socialise themselves in democratic
life, usually understood as a representative democracy. This perspective has been
important in Finland, and has influenced how participation has been promoted
(Kiilakoski 2017).
This is not all there is to participation. Besides political relations, participation
can also be about social relations, with the emphasis on social processes rather than
political ones. Talk about social inclusion, fighting marginalisation, promoting a
sense of community or creating safe spaces for different vulnerable groups all points
to the social aspects of participation. Following Nigel Thomas, a scholar of theoreti-
cal aspects of child and youth participation, we will look at quantitative and qualita-
tive youth studies on participation using the analytical definition of participation as
a political and as a social process (Thomas 2007).
An examination of quantitative youth studies reveals how the young people
themselves feel about political participation. The Finnish Youth Barometer is an
annual survey of the attitudes of young people in Finland that involves those between
15 and 29 years of age, the latter being the maximum age of a young person as
defined by the Finnish Youth Act. The 2018 Youth Barometer examined the political
attitudes and political behaviour of the young. While we acknowledge the inherent
difficulty or even impossibility of operationalising theoretical concepts in survey
research, we believe that these results illuminate how the young people themselves
see participation.
The Youth Barometer asked young people to evaluate the effectiveness of differ-
ent ways of influencing society. The respondents were given eight alternatives cor-
responding to different democracy ideals (such as representative, deliberative,
participatory and counter-democracy). Only four means of influencing society were
seen as really or relatively efficient by over half of the young people. These were, in
order of importance, becoming a candidate in elections, voting, actively taking part
in a youth council or a non-governmental organisation and consumer decisions.
There was a clear rise in the importance of consumer decisions compared to 2013,
when only 28% of the young thought that one could influence society this way. The
share of young people believing this had risen to 57% in 2018. Clearly, political
participation follows traditional ideas, although the importance of consumer
decisions seems to be bringing new political agendas into play. (Myllyniemi and
Kiilakoski 2019). This is telling in terms of the attitudes of the young, which per-
haps reflect the expected ways of influencing society.
The picture changed when young people were asked about the methods that they
had used themselves. While 79% of the respondents had at least sometimes voted,
and 78% had participated by making consumer decisions, only 37% had debated
political affairs on social media or the internet. Meanwhile, 27% had participated in
youth councils or non-profit organisations, 22% had used non-voting as a way to
influence society and only one in eight had engaged in political activities (Myllyniemi
and Kiilakoski 2019). There seems to be a discrepancy between the way the young
themselves act in society and what they feel are effective ways of influencing soci-
ety. It appears that the efficient ways of participating do not necessarily interest the
young or motivate them to act, and a large number of them are not interested in
participating in politics in Finland. This requires further analysis.
The gap between dominant forms of youth participation promoted by the adult
society and the methodologies used by the young has been analysed before. Young
people might be viewed as being disengaged from politics if we consider traditional
measures such as electoral turnout. Indeed, only 33% of people aged 20 voted in the
municipal elections in Finland in 2017. On the other hand, young people might be
seen as engaged and active if their political participation is taken to include themes
such as identity politics or community activism (Farthing 2010). The active youth
using alternative ways to influence society receive a lot of attention in the media and
research (see for example Wimmer et al. 2018). However, based on the actual find-
ings of the Youth Barometer, it seems that this group is only a small minority or a
‘subculture’, if one uses the youth research terminology. Therefore, resisting simple
dualisms (such as collectivist/individualist citizen, institutional/non-institutional
participation, party politics/life politics, conventional/social-movement-related citi-
zenship behaviour, modern adults/postmodern young etc.) and recognising the plu-
ralism and richness of democratic culture requires looking at the different ways of
participating. To do this, we need to turn to qualitative studies on youth
participation.
An ethnographic study conducted among young people in vocational education
in Finland examined the social and political aspects of participation using visual
materials and interviews based on pictures showing Finnish a Finnish prime minis-
ter, and school council elections. According to the interpretation of the research, the
political sphere was seen as alien to the young. They viewed politicians as selfish
and as being in politics to advance their own interests, and believed that elderly poli-
ticians were probably not interested in the living conditions and interests of the
young. In general, the sphere of politics did not offer them emotional or intellectual
points of reference. To use Honnethian parlance, they thought that the political
sphere was not for them, and they did not want to be recognised as agents in it.
Social participation, especially in the school class and hobby communities, was
seen as valuable, and they wanted to be recognised as members of these communi-
ties. According to the researchers involved, this creates a significant challenge to the
promotion of participation, as it should be based on the experiences of the young
instead of the formal political system (Maunu and Kiilakoski 2018). Other youth
studies show that the young in vocational education view work life as important
(Herranen 2014), and want to be recognised as competent workers. They want to
participate, but not necessarily in the field of traditional representative democracy.
Not all young people are interested in the political sphere and, at least in Finland,
the educational system produces a division between the political activities of aca-
demically and vocationally inclined students. This in turn calls for new ways of
taking into account what arenas are important for young people, and of identifying
the participatory mechanisms that would take these into account. This leads to a
question of how well the concept of youth participation actually recognises the
diversity of young people. Likewise, the notion of universalist participation should
be challenged, because just like anything ‘universal’, it tends to overlook the differ-
ent realities of different young people. Although there were some attempts to
address diversity in the process of drafting the UNCRC, it was written by decision
makers from Western Europe and North America (Twum-Danso Imoh 2014, 4),
and, remarkably, not by children or youth but only by adults (Pupavac 2001).
We now turn to studies focusing on the migrant young to highlight how questions
of participation appear in a different light if the living conditions of the young differ
from the normal life-course of the middle-class Nordic experience. Research with
young people from minority backgrounds, or those in less ordinary life-situations,
reveals types of participation that fall outside (or on the edges) of the radar of com-
monly conducted research into youth participation. These studies remind us that if
we start from a fixed notion of the adult-designed methods of participation as being
useful and effective, and explore youth participation based on these fixed ideas, we
inevitably overlook the diversity of possible ways to participate and the myriad of
rationales for participating. There are at least two problems with this assumption.
First, as the above-mentioned Finnish Youth Barometer shows, while young people
are aware of the effectiveness of political participation, they do not choose to use
those means. The other problem is that adult-designed methods of participation por-
tray the use of one’s own voice as a route to and an outcome of meaningful partici-
pation. Studies with youth from minority groups, especially those speaking Finnish
as an additional language, remind us that connecting participatory rights with voices
disadvantages those whose voices are difficult to express or for adults to hear.
Overemphasis on the individual voice also ignores the collaborative nature of the
rights exercise (Tobin 2013). The voices of the young, even in plural, are rarely
enough to make a difference; they must be conjoined with others as part of an inter-
generational project. These dilemmas have been evident in a number of studies on
the participation of young people living in extraordinary circumstances (Amadasi
and Iervese 2018; Baraldi and Cockburn 2018; Turkie 2010).
In Kaukko’s study (2015) of unaccompanied asylum-seeking girls from different
African countries who were waiting for their asylum decision while living in a
Finnish reception centre, the opportunity to use a voice intertwined with the right to
be silent. The girls wanted to use their voice selectively, being careful about what
they said when talking about their wishes or themselves, especially to adults (care
workers, immigration officials, researchers) whom they connected with the Finnish
society to which they were seeking entry. This finding, which is in line with many
other studies involving unaccompanied minors (Kohli 2006; Hedlund 2017;
Bjerneld et al. 2018), could be partially explained by the girls’ young age and status
as unaccompanied asylum-seekers, or by the fact that they were in a precarious situ-
ation they did not fully understand.
Following a closer examination of what the girls shared about their participation
or non-participation, it became clear that their use of voice/silence was not only a
consequence of their situation; instead, it was a deliberate choice. The most impor-
tant decisions were in any case outside the reach of these young women, and their
silence was, at times, an active way of non-participating and resisting adult-imposed
ways of action. More important than helping a researcher understand youth partici-
pation was understanding their own situation as an asylum seeker and bonding with
fellow youth in the same situation. Those who decided to talk about their future
dreams indicated that while a smooth everyday life in their temporary homes was
important, their main priority was to be trusted as deserving asylum in their new
home countries and to be welcomed as future citizens (Kaukko and Wernesjo 2017).
As the asylum decision depends on how much the young girls are trusted, it is
understandable that they must use their own voices with care.
A later study (Kaukko and Wilkinson 2018) found similar, nuanced forms of
selectivity or resistance among young, ‘successful’ (considering the problematic
concept of success in a very broad sense, including academic achievements, school
engagement, wellbeing and all other forms of ‘flourishing’) students from refugee
backgrounds. In this study, the youth were asked to talk about what had helped them
succeed, while some also talked about what they hoped to see in the future. A
twelve-year-old girl with a refugee background, who was finishing her primary
schooling in Finland, talked at length about the high expectations imposed on her,
and how she had decided to depart from them:
Girl: I will be a Youtube star.
Mervi: Excuse me?
Girl: Youtube star. YouTube, you know? That video thing. I’ll make YouTube vid-
eos, that’ll be my job. I know how to do it, I’m good at it. If it does not work out, I’m
not sure what I will become. Because all from my country, who I know anyway, they
want to be engineers or doctors. I am good at school, so I should become a doctor
or something. I don’t want to be that if all people become doctors, it would be a little
bit boring if we all would be doctors. So, I want to be something else.
This girl was determined to participate in Finnish society, but she saw her route
to membership through labour citizenship. Becoming a professional Youtuber was
seen as fulfilling a respected role in the society she envisioned in the future, a role
we adults may not instantly consider for ambitious youth. The young girls in both
studies, all quite recently arrived in Finland, wanted to participate, but in unex-
pected ways. Career counsellors rarely discuss how to become YouTubers, although
professions such as that might be in great demand in the future. Similarly, the
guidelines for good practice with refugee-background youth rarely mention the
importance of silence. The ways in which these young people choose between
engagement and disengagement should not be misinterpreted as passivity, mirror-

ing their reaction to the traditional methods of promoting youth participation.
Remaining silent when asked to speak up, or going against the grain in career
expectations, were these girls’ alternative routes to lives worth living. Thus, their
disengagement was not political as we might interpret the word, but it was deliber-
ate and active.
Following sociologist Ulrich Beck, Rhys Farthing (2010) talks about unpolitical
young people whose way of perceiving participation differs from both traditional
and critical conceptions. Joakim Ekman and Erik Amnå (2012, 294) have under-
lined the importance of recognising passive and active disengagement. By a passive
form of non-engagement they refer to citizens who perceive politics as not interest-
ing, and they refer to active non-participation actors when political discussions or
actions are actively avoided (e.g. voting is out of the question because ‘there are no
real alternatives’ or ‘the whole system needs to be changed’). The latter can also be
combined with violent anti-political behaviour. Grimm and Pilkington (2015, 206)
have studied variations between young people in terms of their experience of formal
politics as a ‘politics of silencing’. From their findings, the rejection of politics can
be ‘quiet standing and listening’ or ‘loud and proud activism outside the institu-
tional politics’.
Most participation mechanisms available to young people in Finland mimic the
traditional structures of a representative democracy, such as school councils, youth
councils or hearings based on representative structures. However, the participation
of the young, as sketched based on the findings above, seems to suggest that they
view participation differently. There appears to be a dualism between what are seen
as legitimate forms of participation, and consequently citizenship, and the way
young people want to be recognised, and the way they negotiate their memberships
in a peer group. Different argumentative strategies have been used to overcome
dualisms. It has been suggested that low turnout rates might be a result of criticism
of the existing political system, and that they can, in fact, be effective ways of par-
ticipation and influence themselves. However, at the same time, more traditional
participation methods (such as electoral turnout) are valued as legitimate ways of
influencing society. It has been suggested that the either/or dualism should be
replaced by the dialectics of trust and distrust (Cammaerts et al. 2014). If the young
do not trust the existing political system, it is necessary to analyse what the mean-
ingful arenas of participation actually are. These seem to include peer relations,
different communities in civil society and in educational institutions, new arenas of
social media and the world of work.
Farthing states that ‘Young people are simultaneously disengaged and engaged’.
By this, he means to emphasise their disengagement from the traditional ways of
conceiving politics and their attempts to identify ways to influence their surround-
ings. To achieve this, they need to ‘disengage from what we currently understand
as the “political” and live their agenda elsewhere’ (Farthing 2010, 190–191). The
unaccompanied girls in Kaukko’s (2015) study were simultaneously disengaged
(acknowledging that they currently had no real alternatives to their situation) and
engaged, living their agenda of bonding with friends, learning about their situation
and choosing what to share and not share and with whom. They were active in a
way of ‘quiet standing and listening’ (Grimm and Pilkington 2015, 206) by choice.
Encouraging youth to ‘participate’ and use their voice may be well meaning, but it
may also fail to acknowledge that extraordinary situations require extraordinary
means of participation. It is the youth living in those situations (rather than the
researchers researching participation) who know what makes sense. Therefore,
new ways of analysing the participation of the young is needed. We believe that
utilising the theory of recognition reveals that young people can actively participate
in different arenas while at the same time being passive in other arenas. The
Honnethian dialectical perspective helps us theoretically formulate the results
described above.
Recognition of Citizens
Given the information gleaned from quantitative and qualitative studies on youth
participation in Finland, we argue that there is a need for a theoretical framework
that recognises the fluid nature of engagement and disengagement, as well as par-
ticipation and non-participation, without considering them as extremes or mutually
exclusive modes of action or non-action. Non-participation or disengagement may
not be passivity when the decision not to participate is deliberate, or the only pos-
sible one. We also argue that understanding how to promote political participation
will likely require looking at the dialectics of recognition in different arenas of
participation. How one moves from recognition as a member of peer groups in a
school community to becoming a political agent is based on the existing engage-
ments of the young. These should be understood, recognised and valued as resources
for promoting participation.
Traditionally, children and the young have been seen as non-competent members
of society who should not have access to democratic decision-making. A prerequi-
site for a person’s participation in society is that he or she is recognised as a fully-
fledged person who is able to make rational decisions; in other words, the person’s
status is acknowledged and honoured by others in terms of how capable they are of
thinking and communicating with others. In Habermas’ terms, this kind of person is
regarded as a communicatively competent person. The concept does not only refer
to the person’s linguistic capacities, but also to their cultural and cognitive capaci-
ties (Habermas 1970). In the theory of communicative action, Habermas connects
communicative competence with the notion of personality (Habermas 1987, 138):
‘By personality I understand the competences that make a subject capable of speak-
ing and acting, that put him in a position to take part in processes of reaching under-
standing and thereby to assert his own identity.’ Thus, the concept of participation is
associated with the problem of recognition and identity (personhood).
The word recognition has two different meanings in many languages. On one
hand, we may use the word to mean recognising something as something; for exam-
ple, to recognise that someone is a child, or a teenager or an adult. However, we can
also use the word to mean recognising something worth something. The first mean-
ing of the word recognition (recognise as) is a prerequisite for the second meaning
(recognise worth). The basic level of recognition is that one is seen, or noticed, as
the worst kind of humiliation is not to see or notice another individual. If you are not
recognised as anything, you are definitely recognised as being worth nothing.
Everybody needs to experience being noticed and recognised, meaning that recog-
nition is more than a kind gesture. Charles Taylor (1994) claims that ‘due recogni-
tion is not a courtesy we owe people. It is a vital human need’. We need recognition
in order to build our identity and personhood (Huttunen 2007, 424). Honneth claims
that when we receive recognition from others we learn about ourselves and of our
special features, and when we receive positive recognition for our special abilities
we start to form a positive self-image (Huttunen 2007, 425). ‘Should this form of
social approval fail to arise at any level of development, it opens up, as it were, a
psychological gap within the personality, which seeks expression through the nega-
tive emotional reactions of shame or anger, offence or contempt’ (Honneth
1995, 257).
In this case, we focus on the latter meaning of the word recognition: to be recog-
nised for your worth, as a person who has the required capacities to think and to
communicate, and thus has the right to participate. The essential question is this: at
what age should a child or teenager be recognised as a person who is able to partici-
pate? Should the recognition come at a certain age, and should that age be univer-
sally agreed? Alternatively, should it come on reaching a certain level of maturity?
These sort of developmental debates are at the heart of participation issues. However,
the changing view of the child supposes that the child is capable of participating
even if her or his communicative resources differ from the supposed adult level. In
this way, the whole participation debate can be seen as a struggle for recognition,
which transforms the previous categories of political, economic and cultural citizen-
ship and participation (cf. Thomas 2012).
Honneth has developed a philosophical theory on the struggle for recognition
based on philosophy. He suggests that, in the modern society, the struggle for rec-
ognition takes place at the levels of family, civil society (community of rights) and
state (community of values). First, at the level of family, the form of recognition is
love, which is considered the primary form of recognition. At the level of civil soci-
ety (community of rights), the form of recognition is the rights of a mature person.
At the state level (community of values), the person receives recognition for their
achievements or work. Thus, he or she achieves dignity, which is the highest level
of recognition. Thus, the process of recognition starts from being loved in a family,
before gradually the person moves on to the two higher levels. In Honneth’s terms,
there are three practical self-relations in the social development of personality: (1)
self-confidence (Selbstvertrauen), (2) self-respect (Selbstachtung) and (3) self-
esteem (Selbstschätzung). Practical self-relations are achieved at these three levels
of the struggle for recognition in this order.
At the first level, children seek recognition of one’s existence and expect their
basic needs to be fulfilled. This is the most elementary form of recognition, and it
takes place in the primary socialisation process within the family and within circles
of other persons to which one is close. From their very first contact with their par-
ents, children gradually achieve a basic level of trust (Huttunen and Heikkinen
2004). According to Honneth (1995, 253): ‘This relation of recognition thus also
depends on the concrete physical existence of other persons who acknowledge each
other with special feelings of appreciation. The positive attitude which the individ-
ual is capable of assuming toward himself if he experiences this type of emotional
recognition is that of self-confidence.’ Based on the youth studies discussed here, it
can be proposed that this mechanism applies to peer relations as well. This is espe-
cially significant for the young, since adolescence is a period where friends and
other people of the same age are particularly relevant.
At the second level of recognition, the individual struggles for the practical self-
relation called self-respect (Selbstachtung). Self-respect in this context means that
an individual receives recognition for being a mature person (moral and legal matu-
rity) in a community of rights. Honneth calls this community of rights a civil soci-
ety. Recognition at this level also means that the individual is accepted as an
autonomous person who has the right and the communicative competence (Habermas
1970) to take part in the discourses in which people reach a consensus about politi-
cal and theoretical issues. As has been indicated by findings from the youth studies,
it seems that the importance of this sort of recognition has diminished, and the
relationship with the civil society, especially its political element, is not seen as
important.
At the third level of recognition, the individual – who has received recognition
as a mature and legal person – struggles for an even more advanced form of self-
relation called self-esteem (Selbstschätzung) through self-directed and autonomous
work. Only when the person starts to work of their own free will for a common
good can they become a respected member of a value community, which Honneth
refers to, in a Hegelian manner, as a ‘sittliche State’, a political community of virtu-
ous citizens. Self-esteem means that person sees his or her work being recognised
by a value community (state, society, gang, rock band etc.). At this level, ‘the indi-
vidual is recognised as a person whose capabilities are of constitutive value to a
concrete community’ (Honneth 1997, 30). Based on the youth studies introduced
above, it can be claimed that this sort of recognition remains highly relevant to
young people.
We are now in a position to reformulate the question regarding disengagement
and engagement. Using Honnethian analysis, it can be claimed that the two arenas
Honneth talks about, namely social relationships and the level of the work, are rel-
evant arenas of participation for the young; they seek recognition in these fields and
see this as personally satisfying (Maunu and Kiilakoski 2018). However, participa-
tion in the civil society is not particularly important; the formal role is there, but
there is no action. Therefore, the problem of participation can be stated in the fol-
lowing form: young people clearly participate in arenas of personal relations and the
state, but the civil society dimension is lacking. The practical implication is thus
how to educate the young so that they want to act in civil society, and how the edu-
cational system can use the participation in other fields of recognition to promote
participation in the political sphere as well.
Conclusion: Spaces of Participation
Ways of promoting participation of the young reveal how societies understand

democracy and how the roles of citizens are seen. Participation is tied to the ideas
and ideals of citizenship, the nature of communities and nations, respecting and
nurturing diversity, and promoting inter-generational justice. Theorising about par-
ticipation is therefore connected to many aspects of ethico-political education. Also,
the practice of youth participation can teach how to influence, discuss and debate
together, how to make a difference and understand how processes of decision-
making work.
Promoting the participation of children and young people has traditionally meant
introducing into the lives of the youth top-down structures that often mimic the
existing structures of a representative democracy. Following this framework, par-
ticipation promotion in schools in Finland has meant introducing school councils
and other representative forms of participation. The insights of both quantitative and
qualitative youth studies show that interest in these structures does not evolve auto-
matically. At the same time, the spheres of personal relations and the field of work
remain important arenas of participation for the young, while questions of activity
and passivity and engagement and disengagement need to be analysed in a nuanced
manner. Three conclusions can be drawn based on our chapter.
First, one needs to have a theoretical framework nuanced enough to analyse both
the engagement and disengagement of the young. The theory of recognition devel-
oped by Honneth seems to be a useful theoretical tool with which to analyse the
arenas of participation of the young. It helps to see that the politically passive young
are active members in others spheres. This perspective also changes the focus of the
issue from the passive young to the political system that they do not find attractive.
Second, one of the goals of youth participation is to maintain the legitimacy of
the political system in nation states and in Europe in general. It is usually supposed
that this can be secured by doing ‘more of the same’, such as bringing student coun-
cils to schools instead of focusing on everyday participation. Since the history of
participation promotion stretches back more than 20 years in Finland, it can be
claimed that if this approach were sufficient then we would not have the results
indicated by the Finnish Youth Barometer regarding the passivity of the young.
Therefore, understanding how to promote political participation will likely require
consideration of the dialectics of recognition in other spheres. Thus, the politics of
ordinary participation, situated within the everyday environments of the young,
should be explored, understood and valued (Vromen and Collins 2010). Meaningful
participation can take place wherever young people are, such as within mundane
and commonly explored sites such as schools, homes or youth centres, as well as
within less ordinary yet equally important sites such as reception centres or foster-
care institutions (Havlicek et al. 2018; Fylkesnes et al. 2018). Based on our review
of the literature, this will probably require developing theoretically sound ideas
about how one gains recognition and how the young recognise different spheres of
society. This in turn requires learning from youth studies and the way they analyse
the cultures and life worlds of the young. These should be understood, recognised
and valued as a resource for promoting participation.
Third, even a brief research review is likely to highlight the conceptual and prac-
tical connections between participation and recognition. Although we call for
improved theoretical frameworks, we acknowledge that theories often share the
problem of being quite distant from the realities they try to represent. However, the
theme of recognition seems to be important for the young as well. The unaccompa-
nied girls studied by Kaukko did not use the word recognition, but they talked about
being noticed. When new people said hello, smiled and looked friendly, the girls felt
they were noticed (Kohli and Kaukko 2017). One of the girls discussed being
noticed and connecting with new girls, adding an important element of reciprocity:
‘There are no groups, we are all one. We are close with everybody, if we understand
one another. And if we can tell jokes, then we can be friends… When new girls
come, especially if somebody is alone from her country, we go and try to speak to
them.’ Being accepted, gaining recognition through meaningful everyday interac-
tion and being welcomed are important for the young. The question, then, might
relate to how the political system can do the same: how can it speak to young people
in their everyday settings?
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United Nations. (1989) United Nations convention on the rights of the child. Geneva, United
Nations.
Vromen, A., & Collin, P. (2010). Everyday youth participation? Contrasting views from Australian
policymakers and young people. Young: Nordic Journal of Youth Research, 18(1), 97–112.
Wimmer, J., Wallner, C., Winter, R., Oelsner, K. (2018). (Mis)understanding political participa-
tion: Digital practices, new forms of participation and the renewal of democracy. Routledge
studies in European communication research and education.
Tomi Kiilakoski (b. 1975) is a leading senior researcher at the Finnish Youth Research Network.
His research interest include youth work, participation, cultural philosophy, and educational pol-
icy. His publications include Youth Work Education in Finland (2019), I am Fire but my Environment
is the Lighter (2016), and How to study young people and youth work (2018, co-edited with profes-
sor Päivi Honkatukia) and Lessons in Democracy (2012, edited with Dr. Anu Gretschel), both in
Finnish.
Mervi Kaukko (b. 1982) is Assistant Professor at Tampere University, Faculty of Education and
Culture. Her research interests include global education, refugee/migration studies, and practice
theories. Kaukko’s recent publications include Learning how to go on: Refugee students and infor-
mal learning practices (with Jane Wilkinson, 2019) and Intertwined journeys of a PhD-student,
unaccompanied minors and the “refugee crisis” (2018). She is currently co-editing the book
Pedagogy, Education and Praxis for Critical Times (forthcoming in 2020/2021).
Rauno Huttunen (b. 1966) is Senior Lecturer of Education at the University of Turku (Finland).
His research interests includes philosophy of education, sociology of education, Frankfurt School,
and theory of qualitative research. His publications includes the book Habermas, Honneth and
Education and articles published in the journals Educational Theory, Educational and Philosophical
Theory, Journal of Philosophy of Education, and Studies in Philosophy and Education. Huttunen
is a section editor in Springer’s Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory.
Hannu L. T. Heikkinen (b. 1960) is Professor at the Finnish Institute for Educational Research,
University of Jyväskylä, Finland. His research interests include teacher development, mentoring,
education in and for work, and methodologies of narrative practitioner research. His publication
include Mentoring as Contested Practice: Support, Supervision and Collaborative Self-
development (2014), What is (good) practitioner research? (2018), Developing pedagogical prac-
tices under umbrellas of different colours (2019), and Professional Expertise, Integrative Thinking,
Wisdom and Phronesis (2020).
Chapter 4
Situating Moral Education in a Globalized
World. Environmental Ethical Values
and Student Experiences
Ole Andreas Kvamme
Abstract Since the 1980s the United Nations has called for a sustainable develop-
ment, responding to the challenges of ecological crisis, global warming, and con-
tinuous social inequity. Within the sustainable development agenda environmental
ethical values are addressed, formulated as concerns for human beings in the pres-
ent and the future, and for the more-than-human world. These values are also central
in UNESCO’s initiative of education for sustainable development.
This chapter is an empirical study based on observations of a class of tenth grade
Norwegian students who are exposed to the challenge of sustainable development in
moral education. I examine how the environmental ethical values formulated by
UNESCO are recontextualized in the classroom. The analyses are informed by criti-
cal cosmopolitanism, with a sensitivity for the situatedness of the students in a web
of relations.
In the particular lesson in which sustainability is addressed, carbon footprint
plays a significant role, drawing attention to the students’ consumption patterns. In
this way the issue becomes individualized and depoliticized, reflecting central tenets
in neoliberalism. National concerns seem to add to this impact of hegemony.
Informed by a retrospect group interview, the article demonstrates the potential
of bringing in the students’ web of relations in moral education, addressing both
their global and local embeddedness. An educational practice is suggested, in which
the environmental ethical values are disclosed and explored, involving the students’
situatedness, and mediating between the ethical and the political.
Keywords Environmental and sustainability education · Moral education · Moral

judgment · Democratic iterations · Critical cosmopolitanism
O. A. Kvamme (*)
Department of Teacher Education and School Research, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
e-mail: o.a.kvamme@ils.uio.no

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49524-4_4
46 O. A. Kvamme
Introduction and Global Context
In autumn 2016, I observed Norwegian tenth grade students in a moral education

class. Moral education is part of the Norwegian national curriculum, explicitly
included in the syllabus of the school subject of Christianity, religion, philosophies
of life, and ethics (CRLE) (Ministry of Education and Research 2005). In this par-
ticular class moral education was taught in seven subsequent lessons. In one of these
lessons, the challenge of sustainability was addressed through the teacher’s lectures,
teaching material, and class discussions. This is where my research interest is ori-
ented, and this lesson is what this chapter deals with, where an analysis, interpreta-
tion, and discussion of what I observed are presented.1 However, before detailing
the empirical study, the paper demands space to set the stage, present the relevant
background, and make the necessary theoretical and methodological
considerations.
he Emergence of Environmental Ethical Values Within

T
the UN Discourse
Since the Industrial Revolution in late eighteenth-century England, the human

impact on the earth has been overwhelming. The main characteristics of this time,
often referred to as the era of the Anthropocene (Hamilton et al. 2015),2 are ecologi-
cal crises, mass extinction of species, and global warming.
For decades, the United Nations (UN) has acknowledged the severity of the cur-
rent state of the earth. This acknowledgement was first demonstrated through the
UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm in 1972. Since the publi-
cation of the UN report Our Common Future (World Commission on Environment
and Development 1987), the continuous calls for societal change and transforma-
tion have been related to the key concept of sustainable development, which desig-
nates development in which human actions fulfill the needs of the present generation,
acknowledge the limits of ecosystems, and do not compromise the ability of future
generations to meet their needs. This concept has been conceived of as an attempt
to create engagement that reduces global inequity and combats poverty while
concurrently accommodating the conservation of nature (Le Grange 2017). The
three values addressed here—namely, concerns for present human beings, future
1
Aspects of the empirical material presented here have, at a preliminary stage of the analysis, been
published in an article that discusses the relationship between religious education and moral edu-
cation (Kvamme 2017).
2
Crutzen and Stoermer (2000) suggest the Industrial Revolution as the starting point of the
Anthropocene. At the moment, scholar opinion converges on 1945, coinciding with the outset of
the great acceleration (Hamilton et al. 2015, p. 1).
4 Situating Moral Education in a Globalized World. Environmental Ethical Values… 47
human beings, and the more-than-human3 world—are expressed in numerous UN

conventions (United Nations 1948, 1992a, b) and UNESCO documents (UNESCO
2004, 2006), and they are continuously referred to in the reports of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Science-
Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. These values are also piv-
otal to the 17 sustainable development goals that constitute the UN’s 2030 Agenda
(2015). The three values may be conceived of as environmental ethical values
(Kronlid and Öhman 2013) that emphasize what is at stake—that life on earth is
under threat in the present and future. These values are also positioned at the center
of this chapter.
The environmental ethical values have emerged in the discourse of United
Nations as responses to global threats. However, within this context, an ethical and
political contradiction is established by the lack of sufficient societal transforma-
tions. Despite numerous declarations made by the world’s nations since the early
1990s in relation to environmental ethical values, the sum of activities that harm and
threaten to harm said values has increased dramatically during this period, thus
establishing a contentious political field.
A Globalized World
The global character of the current predicament is striking. Both the causes and
consequences of the ecological crisis and global warming transcend borders
(Attfield 2015), thus representing environmental globalization (Papastephanou
2012). The crisis is not solely caused by economic globalization, but certainly exac-
erbated in a neoliberal form (Christoff and Eckersley 2013) characterized by rapid
increase in production, consumption, and transport of commodities, resulting in
both economic growth and global inequity. The UN’s initiatives to deal with the
crisis are also global and are instantiations of political globalization.
From an educational perspective, this global picture is overwhelming in its com-
plexity. Educational systems have been central to national reproductions of social
and cultural imaginaries of sovereign nation states (Rizvi and Lingard 2010). Today,
this entity is challenged by a range of interconnectivities, including economic glo-
balization and ecological crisis. Still, the nation state continues to be important, and
education will continuously be local and particular in its concrete expressions. This
complex situation comprises a background and context for the current study.
3
The formulation “more-than-human world” is increasingly in use in scholarly literature (see e.g.
Jickling et al. 2006), evading the designation of the non-human as a negative opposite to what
is human.
48 O. A. Kvamme
The National Context
Norway has historically, during the nineteenth century and into the twentieth cen-
tury, been a net exporter of people, primarily to North America. Since the late 1960s,
this situation has changed, with a growing number of immigrants. Between 1995
and 2011 the number of immigrants and descendants almost tripled, reaching
600,000 out of 5 million (Eriksen 2013). The majority of the tenth grade students
participating in this study, belongs to this group of descendants. They take part in a
national school system, expressing the Nordic model, with an overall aim of equal-
izing social differences and promoting communal identities and loyalties (see
Strand’s introductory chapter of this volume).
After the Second World War, Norway, as a country positioned in Northern
Europe, benefited from the considerable economic growth during the great accelera-
tion (McNeill and Engelke 2014), and established a modern welfare state. When
offshore petroleum production started in the 1970s, this country became one of the
most affluent countries in the world. Norway’s position as a petroleum producer
coincided with the economic globalization, followed by the demand of increased
energy supply, which Norway could provide.4 On the other hand, Norway has, like
the other Nordic countries, been an active contributor to the United Nations, most
famously personally linked to the Norwegian prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland
leading the commission presenting Our Common Future (WCED 1987), establish-
ing the UN sustainability agenda. An international engagement of solidarity, char-
acterizing the nation’s soul (Oxfeldt 2017), is an inextricable aspect of Norwegian
identity.
Consequently, Norway, even more strongly than most affluent countries,
expresses the contradiction between acclaiming environmental ethical values, and
contributing to the prolongation of unsustainable practices, pertinent to this study.
Moral Education and Environmental Ethical Values
Ethics or moral philosophy as a normative discipline is concerned with clarifying

what is good and right (Darwall 1998), also characterizing moral education as an
educational practice. This concern is crucial for environmental and sustainability
education. The normative element is widely acknowledged, e.g. listed as the first of
five characteristics in Handbook of Research on Environmental Education
(Stevenson et al. 2013, p. 2). Other studies within this field have explored values in
educational settings (e.g. Öhman and Östman 2008; Pedersen 2008; Manni et al.
2017), and even global values in Swedish curriculum (Sporre 2017) and
4
Norway is currently the eighth largest producer of oil and the third largest producer of gas in the
world, making the petroleum industry the country’s largest industry (Ministry of Petroleum and
Energy 2019).
environmental ethical values in Australian curriculum (De Leo 2012), supplemented

by my own study of Norwegian curriculum and education policy documents
(Kvamme 2018). Here I found that although the humanities in general are barely
included in educational initiatives on sustainability, the syllabus of CRLE, including
moral education, nevertheless offers a space for environmental and sustainability
education, pivotal as a background for the present study.
Although the normative aspects are widely acknowledged within the research
field of environmental and sustainability education, there still seems to be a lack of
research interest in how environmental ethical values are positioned in classroom
interactions involving moral education. This is where the attention in the following
is drawn.
Theoretical Considerations: Critical Cosmopolitanism
The specific purpose of this study is to explore how the environmental ethical values
formulated within UNESCO’s initiative of education for sustainable development
are recontextualized in a Norwegian context of educational practices in moral edu-
cation that addresses sustainability issues. This approach is qualified by perspec-
tives from the moral philosopher and political theorist Seyla Benhabib.
With reference to Derrida (Benhabib 2004, 2006), Benhabib emphasizes how
iterations of universal claims always differ from the previous formulation, thus
making conflict, plurality, and context visible. Benhabib designates the new formu-
lations as democratic iterations, emphasizing that the conditions for these iterations
may vary: They can be better or worse, more or less democratic, qualified by another
concept, jurisgenerativity, drawn from Robert Cover (1983), signifying the inter-
pretational space established by the universal claims in question.
In Situating the Self (Benhabib 1992), Benhabib criticizes the tendency in mod-
ern moral philosophy to position the moral subject outside of specific contexts.
Benhabib emphasizes the significance of the concrete other embedded in a world of
interdependency (Benhabib 1992). She retains the possibility of ethical universal-
ism, but starting from the situated self, within context. From Hannah Arendt,
Benhabib draws the concepts of narrativity and enlarged thought, making context
visible. While narrativity denotes the immersion of human action in a web of rela-
tions, enlarged thought includes the views of others in making moral judgments.
Benhabib’s perspectives accommodate the dynamics distinguishing curriculum
and educational practices, involving both bottom-up and top-down processes (see
Ball 1998). Other scholars have applied her concepts to educational studies
(Wahlström 2009; Vestøl 2011; Sporre 2015; Franck 2017), and Vestøl in particular
accentuates the relational aspect of Benhabib in studies of moral education. Below,
the relational aspect is expressed in the multiple allegiances of the students, also
instantiating Papestephanou’s (Papastephanou 2012) concept of eccentric
cosmopolitanism.
The complexity of the recontextualizations of values in educational settings
should be accounted for, with a sensitivity for the hidden curriculum (see Gress and
50 O. A. Kvamme
Purpel 1988). Michael Apple has highlighted how conflict may illuminate “hidden
imperatives built into situations that act to structure their actions” (Apple 2004,
p. 92). According to Basil Bernstein, discourses are pedagogized when they are
recontextualized in school settings. In this transformation, “there is a space in which
ideology can play” (Bernstein 2000, p. 32). Both Apple’s sensitivity for conflict and
Bernstein’s attention to ideology inform the analyses in this study.
Pertinent to the environmental ethical values involved in this study is the distinc-
tion between ideology and utopia, discussed by Ricoeur (2008). Here, ideology, in
close affinity with hegemony,5 is conceived of as what sustains the current order,
functioning as a resistance to the transformation of social relations that constitute
domination. Utopia has the potential to question social reality. Here I explore the
utopian dimension of the environmental ethical values, pondering the critical poten-
tial the values represent, creating possible alternatives to the current order, as
expressed in the tradition of critical theory (Neupert-Doppler 2018).
Method and Material
The hallmark of qualitative research is to make specific contexts visible. This pro-
cess has determined the present study, which explores recontextualizations of envi-
ronmental ethical values in moral education. The study is an instantiation of reflexive
methodology that ontologically assumes an external world while epistemologically
acknowledging the involvement of interpretation in all aspects of the research pro-
cess. Alvesson and Sköldberg (2009) identify four levels of interpretation; in the
interaction with the empirical material; while considering underlying meanings of
the material; as critical interpretation of ideology, power, and social reproduction;
and in reflection on the text production. They suggest that reflexivity is involved
when these levels are brought together. Such a practice of reflexivity may be dem-
onstrated with an example. At the outset, I limited the value scope to the concern for
future generations and the more-than-human world. When encountering students
with allegiances to various geographical, social, and political contexts, I realized
that there were good reasons to include intragenerational concerns, left out at the
outset, then warranted by a concern for a tight research design. Within the practice
of reflexivity, this initial choice may be seen as enabled by the Norwegian (affluent)
context, and, thus, as an instance of hegemony.
The interpretational practice is further deepened with reference to critical herme-
neutics (Ricoeur 1981). Unlike Gadamer (2004), Ricoeur includes the practice of
distanciation in hermeneutical processes, emphasizing the practice of ideological
critique and the sensitivity to textual structures and patterns. In this particular study,
distanciation characterizes my positioning as a researcher. I was just to a minor
5
Hegemony refers to the dominant culture that saturates the educational, economic, and social
world (Apple 2004).
extent taking part in the educational activities. Most of the lessons were recorded
with video cameras, sometimes just with Dictaphones. The recordings relevant to
the research topic were transcribed (von der Lippe 2009a, cf. footnote 7, as well). In
the analysis and interpretations, I distorted and questioned field notes, and tran-
scripts. In the final discussion below the hermeneutical practice of appropriation is
carried out, reflecting on the study’s significance for moral education.
During the project, I conducted five semi-structured interviews (Brinkmann
2018), all within the timeframe of 60 min. Two were conducted with the participat-
ing teacher, one with the school principal, one with the group of teachers responsi-
ble for this class, and one group interview with seven of the participating students.
The interviews were recorded, the student interview with video camera, and the
others with Dictaphone. All the recordings were transcribed by me, as is the case
with the English translations presented in this chapter.
The analysis of this material has been conducted in two stages. In a preliminary
study, I have studied how the environmental ethical values in question have appeared
in the transcribed classroom interactions and interviews.6 This initial analysis forms
the background, but the main concern has been to explore the recontextualizing
processes in which the values are concealed, unpacked, disclosed. An analytical
device is the identification of incidents that appear unusual and surprising, some-
thing that cannot prima facie be fully understood but seems to be “crystallizations
of a problem related to the basic question” (Knauth 2009, p. 24).7
All the participants in the classroom interactions and interviews were informed
about the project beforehand, both orally and in writing, and all the participants
gave voluntary, written consent, including the school principal and teachers
involved. One out of the 26 students declined to participate, while three students had
reservations to be video recorded, but allowed their voices to be included in the
transcriptions. These four students were positioned in the upper-left corner of the
classroom and were not video recorded. The students were 14 and 15 years old, and
consent was obtained from one of their superiors as well as from the students.
Personal information was anonymized when completing transcriptions of the
recordings.
6
I identified the presence of first-person singular/plural to express my or our needs, concerns, and
identified intragenerational concern including the other in expressions of rich/poor/ (un-)righ-
teous/ (un-)righteousness/ (in-)just/ (in-)justice/ (in-)equality. In identifying references to the
more-than-human world, I employed the words nature, environment, ecology, ecosystems, ani-
mals, and plants. Correspondingly, future generations have been identified by future, future gen-
erations, and coming generations. Other expressions have been considered and used, most
significantly sustainable development.
7
The transcription of recordings linked to the research interest, the strategy of recall in post-obser-
vation interviews, and the deployment of incident analysis are well-established procedures within
qualitative research, here included with reference to the REDCo project, a major European research
project in religious education (2006–2009) based on hermeneutic, reflective methodology (von der
Lippe 2009a, b; Knauth 2009; Weisse 2010).
52 O. A. Kvamme
While fulfilling the requirements of the NSD Data Collection Services,8 there are
aspects of the research design that deserve particular research ethical reflection. One
concern pertains to the use of video recordings. The reservations made by some
students to be video recorded—which the teacher believed was due to a reluctance
for surveillance and control—demonstrate the strain that here is placed on educa-
tional practices. Due to technical problems, the lesson that is explored here was
recorded solely by Dictaphones. Still I consider the transcriptions to be trustworthy.
Because the study has not placed particular emphasis on the use of artifacts, ges-
tures, and movements, it is justifiable to ask whether it was necessary to do video
recordings at all.
The other concern addresses the fair treatment of the participating teacher. The
teacher had a close relationship with the class and demonstrated exemplary teaching
practices during the weeks of observations, establishing what emerged as a safe
educational space. Still, regarding this particular lesson, the research approach
makes aspects of the educational practice the starting point of a problematizing
analysis determined by the perspectives of critical hermeneutics and critical cosmo-
politanism. Hegemonic imaginaries are considered that transcend what supposedly
may have been the deliberate intentions made by the teacher.
The following considerations should here be stated. First, a hermeneutical
approach as conducted below, is distinguished by its awareness of the limitations
of any research perspective. At some points I suggest alternative interpretations of
aspects of the material, demonstrating how other approaches may yield other
results. Second, some of the teacher’s exemplary practices are made distinct, but
not all the constraints involved in non-ideal educational situations. For instance,
during the observation period the teacher was assigned to follow up students on a
scale far exceeding her working plan, due to the absence of colleagues and lack of
qualified substitutes. And finally, it should be emphasized that the aim of this study
has neither been to evaluate the manifold aspects of particular teaching practices
nor to elucidate the deliberate intentions made by the teacher.
Analyses and Interpretations
From 9 September to 14 October 2016 I observed a tenth-grade class in moral edu-

cation. The school is positioned in an urban setting in the south-east of Norway. I
observed a total number of seven lessons. In the sixth lesson, sustainable develop-
ment was addressed in whole class education, determining the teacher’s lectures,
the selection of teaching material, and the student discussions.
8
In a Norwegian context, NSD Data Collection Service assesses whether research projects that
process personal data meet the requirements of data protection legislation.
Overview
This key lesson consisted of five parts and started with a teacher introduction to
the issue of sustainable development, followed by showing a documentary. Third
comes a whole class discussion, fourth a short teacher lecture, ending up with
students preparing for the written assignment that is to be continued the
next lesson.
Duration (minutes) Part

17:45 Introduction: Sustainable development and carbon
footprint
29:46 Documentary: Am I Guilty?
15:09 Plenary discussion with the documentary as starting point
11:06 Teacher’s lecture: Ecosophy and philosopher Arne Næss
07:33 Ending: Preparations for written assignment
In this lesson, all the environmental ethical values are made explicit at some point.
In the introduction, the teacher defines sustainable development and addresses the
issues of the environment and the future. While introducing the documentary, the
teacher explains that the ecological footprint shows how sustainable development
includes our present needs, the needs of future generations and the more-than-human
world. Actually, the documentary does not exactly focus on the broader term of eco-
logical footprint (Wackernagel and Rees 1998) but on the carbon footprint that relates
to carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and greenhouse gases.9 Following the documen-
tary, a plenary class discussion is held in which the students are engaged by the
teacher. During this discussion, the more-than-human world is touched upon with
regard to the consumption of meat and the status of cows. The students converse
about the value of future generations, as well. In the final section of the lesson the
intrinsic value of nature is briefly presented by the teacher with reference to ecosophy.
Awareness of Consumption Patterns
Within the structure delineated above, the carbon footprint issue stands out as a
decisive element of the entire lesson. It is the main focus of the documentary, and in
the subsequent discussion in class, the emphasis placed on carbon footprints
continues.
In the documentary, Am I Guilty? (Våge and Holte 2016), the carbon footprint of
24-year-old Sigbjørn is calculated by an expert. With the premise that the footprint
9
This is a consumption-based emissions account, in contrast to more territorial accounts (West
et al. 2016).
54 O. A. Kvamme
should be of a size allowing all human beings to have equally big footprints, his
carbon footprint is far too high. This assessment is followed by Sigbjørn’s efforts to
reduce his footprint, with implications for his transportation, food, and clothing.
Then, the documentary deals with Sigbjørn’s reflections as he realizes that he can-
not meet a sustainable level. He is told by the expert that he has to move into an
energy-efficient passive house, which Sigbjørn cannot afford.
In the plenary discussion following the screening of the documentary, its content
is soon left behind, and the students’ own consumption patterns and lifestyles are
addressed and problematized.
From this perspective, the lesson accentuates the individual’s ethical responsibil-
ity to adapt to a sustainable lifestyle. Thus, the contribution made by moral educa-
tion encourages critical reflections on individual consumption patterns. Considering
the previous lessons in this class focusing on moral dilemmas, with Heinz’ dilemma
employed as a recurrent example, the practice may be conceived of as a dilemma-
driven moral education promoting moral reasoning.10 In this particular lesson,
dilemmas are established by—from the universalizing perspective of carbon foot-
print—problematizing otherwise advantageous, favorable everyday practices.
While this positive contribution to an environmental and sustainability education
should be acknowledged, what is conspicuous from the perspective of critical cos-
mopolitanism, is how the environmental ethical values in themselves are not made
visible in the class room discussions, nor are the students’ contexts, except when
problematized. These aspects are to be further explored below.
The Exercise of the Carbon Footprint Rule
The discussion that follows the documentary is began by the teacher, who asks the
students: “So, what do you think, is he [Sigbjørn] guilty?” Soon, the focus moves to
the students’ own practices. The discussion begins with one of the students, Saba,
asking how one would travel to Bangladesh without an airplane. In the subsequent
discussion, Saba adopts the leading position, but several of the students have similar
questions, as their relatives also live far away. Waqas states that he does not under-
stand why one could not use an airplane to travel. From here on, the teacher main-
tains the focus on carbon footprint as a legitimate measure, questioned by the
students, thus establishing a tug of war in a somewhat chaotic but still convivial
10
Heinz’s wife is severely ill, and needs a medicine which is beyond reach, due to the high price
set by the pharmacist who developed the medicine. Heinz´ dilemma was made famous by Lawrence
Kohlberg (Kohlberg and Hersh 1977) who in the 1970s developed the so-called moral reasoning
approach within moral education. The emphasis is here laid on duty and justice, with the aim of
developing moral reasoning through the consideration of moral dilemmas. Benhabib (1992) as
introduced above, is criticizing Kohlberg for a lack of sensitivity for context, partly following
objections raised by care-oriented feminist scholars (Gilligan 1982; Noddings 1984), but still
upholding an interactive universalism. The observed lessons in this class deviate in some respects
from Kohlberg’s approach, but the emphasis on moral dilemmas is a common feature.
classroom atmosphere. Saba contributes to this by contextualizing the issue at stake

with reference to her own life, including her life in Bangladesh:
Saba: One cannot just stop travelling. I see my family in Bangladesh. I feel guilty if
I don’t visit them. Or not guilty…
Teacher: Saba, so your argument was…? […] [Y]ou have a bad conscience if you
don’t go to Bangladesh. Then you have a bad conscience if you leave for
Bangladesh, because you realize that your footprint is increasing.
Saba: You have to eat meat as well. That cow farts.
Students: (Laughing).
Saba: When it does, it pollutes a lot. I read something about cows polluting more
than cars, or something like that. It was an article.
Anton: Do they fart that much?
Saba: (Laughs). Yes! But in Bangladesh, I have seen how much they poo and fart.
Waqas: I have never seen a cow fart in my life.
Saba: That is because you don’t stand behind her!
Saba: I have a cow. That is different. I am sorry.
Teacher: Saba, your argument is…?
Saba: My argument is that if you eat a cow, isn’t that good for society?
In assessing the action of flying to Bangladesh, Saba takes her family into con-
sideration. This is how she expresses narrativity here—through the web of relations
in which the action is immersed. Saba’s maneuver may be seen as a way of avoiding
the teacher’s suggestion to include her carbon footprint in the moral judgment.
Instead of confirming a moral dilemma Saba demonstrates how the carbon footprint
rule may be played with, thus making the calculations ridiculous. At the same time,
she also introduces first-hand knowledge of life in Bangladesh and her family ties
here. In this, Saba connects the feeling of guilt with her familial obligations. As a
practice of enlarged thought, Saba is prioritizing her family as a moral concern.
In one respect, this analysis does not shed much light on the position of the envi-
ronmental ethical values in question, the concerns for the more-than-human world,
or the present and future generations. These values may be viewed as being tied up
in the carbon footprint itself, stated as a universal claim, which, based on the docu-
mentary, may be formulated as a moral rule in the following way: The consumption
of an individual human being should not exceed the concomitant amount of green-
house gases produced directly and indirectly and equivalent to 1.5 tons of CO2.
In the lesson’s introduction, the teacher maintains that the footprint specifies
what sustainable development is about, addressing the concerns for future genera-
tions and the-more-than-human world. Our present needs are mentioned, but global
intragenerational justice is not addressed, and the rationale behind the carbon foot-
print rule is not disclosed, neither in the film nor in the classroom discussion.
Because of this, the rule may be said to reduce the jurisgenerative capacity of the
values in question rather than encouraging democratic iterations. The carbon
56 O. A. Kvamme
footprint rule stands out as a version of the Kantian position (i.e., a universal rule
under which the particulars are subsumed) that Benhabib is criticizing.
This impression is both modified and confirmed by the inclusion of ecosophy in
the final part of the lesson. The teacher seems to refer to a philosophical position
that expresses a relational perspective on the human–nature relationship and the
intrinsic value of nature:
Teacher: I know that you are tired now, but please pay attention. […] We are a total-
ity, right? For Arne Næss, this applies not just to human beings, right? It con-
cerns plants, animals, all life. We are the same totality, right? And he is concerned
with non-violence. Then, he does not just refer to war between people, but vio-
lence against nature, right? Pollution is violence against nature. Do you agree?
Several students: Yes.
The teacher seeks support from the students, which she receives in the final state-
ment that references Næss. While this consent may be seen as democratic, the situ-
ation is characterized by a familiar restriction in educational settings—that of time
running out. The jurisgenerative capacity of the educational situation established
here may then be considered quite limited.
Said this, the playful tug of war between the teacher and students during the les-
son may in itself be conceived of as the enactment of democratic iterations, because
the students are not passively subsuming under the carbon footprint rule itself. The
frictions, disagreements, and play with the rule are part of the iterations, accommo-
dated by the teacher. From this point of view, it is relevant that the students them-
selves situate the discussion in their own life and web of relations.
Eccentric Selves
A salient contrast emerges in this lesson. On the one hand, a concern for present
human beings involving distant others (i.e., intragenerational justice) is not
addressed, although often included in the sustainability agenda (WCED 1987;
United Nations 2015). On the other hand, many of the students themselves are
related to people living in places where the living conditions are very different from
what the students experience in the Norwegian context. We have already seen Saba
illustrating this global situatedness in a distinct way. Saba, an urban Norwegian,
owns a cow in Bangladesh, thus expressing a personal embeddedness within this
Bangladeshian context. In the group interview following the observation period,
several students share similar experiences and knowledge. In other words, the stu-
dents in this class represent knowledge and experiences of the concrete other, which,
according to Benhabib (1992), is decisive for moral judgment. However, it is not
just a question of knowledge and resources. For Saba, it is a question of relations
and commitment. The narrativity of her self includes her allegiances to Bangladesh.
Such manifold relationships are what Papastephanou (2012) refers to with the con-
cept of eccentric circles that question the notion of a local, unified self that is nicely
positioned in the center of concentric circles. Relationships to geographically dis-

tanced others may be strong and pivotal among the self’s multiple allegiances
(Papastephanou 2012, p. 24).
However, the multiple allegiances that the students experience are not necessar-
ily global in character. They are also local, concerning Norwegian family and
friends, and even expressed in their relatedness to the more-than-human world. In
this lesson, the students were not invited to explore this aspect of their situatedness,
but in the subsequent group interview, they were asked whether they had a place in
nature that was of particular importance to them. Most of the students responded
positively, with Omar being the one to come forward.
Omar: Yes, I do.
Interviewer: Where is that?
Omar: I will tell you. (The other students laugh.) It is not where I live, but, you
know, near a town 30 kilometers away. There is a small river there. I can drink
the water. Everyone can do that. I didn’t even know about it. I had to walk the
dog, which I don’t like to do any longer. (The other students laugh.) After that
episode, the dog started to love me because I was there. Then it was the river, and
I started to drink from the river. And the river is really beautiful. People come
there and take photos.
Interviewer: Why is it a special place for you?
Omar: It is still there, I hope.
Interviewer: So, if somebody came by and said: “I am going to build a huge shop-
ping center there…”?
Omar: Then I will reject that.
Marjori: But do you believe this is something you can decide? I don’t mean to
be rude.
Omar: It is all the memories that are there. I will always remember what my mother
has done to me, then.
The river is a place that is accessible to all; it is a place that made the dog love
Omar and gives rise to memories of his mother. Omar also believes that it is a place
that should be protected from human intervention, and here Omar speaks with
authority, making a claim with both ethical and political reverberations. Still, there
seems to be something about the place that is difficult for Omar to articulate—
something beyond the beauty of the river. This aspect of his eccentric self, which
also involves an element of otherness that values the more-than-human world,
seems to apply to moral education when engaged in environmental ethical values.
Hegemony and Ideology
In recontextualizations involving educational structures, ideology makes an impact

(Bernstein 2000), also characterizing contentious and conflicting situations (Apple
2004) in which hegemonic order is maintained. These perspectives pertain to this
58 O. A. Kvamme
school lesson through an individual emphasis and a possible impact of national

boundaries.
When Waqas states that the carbon footprint calculation doesn’t make sense to
him (“Why not just take an airplane?”) and Saba holds that meat should be eaten as
a way of reducing the number of cows and, consequently, the amount of greenhouse
gas emissions, the teacher finds it necessary to defend the market law of supply and
demand. The carbon footprint rule here functions as an introduction to the laws of a
market economy, thus educating sustainable consumers.
This pattern is consolidated by the consistent individual perspective on sustain-
ability issues established during the lesson, only expanded shortly at the end.
Political processes that determine the conditions for living sustainable lives are not
brought in, and there is no reference to Norway’s role in the world economy as a
prominent producer of oil and gas. The emphasis on individual responsibility dem-
onstrated in this lesson, distinguishes dominant approaches within moral education
(Halstead and Pike 2006), both the previous mentioned moral reasoning approach
(cf. footnote 10) and the value clarification approach (Raths et al. 1966). In that way
this lesson may be said to instantiate a central feature of moral education.
However, to pose the sustainability challenge as a predominantly individual con-
cern solved within a market economy may also be seen to support basic tenets of
neoliberalism (Rizvi and Lingard 2010; Peters 2011). The lesson illustrates a con-
cern raised by Huckle and Wals regarding the educational employment of ecologi-
cal footprints that may “unwillingly contribute to a false consciousness engendered
by ideology and hegemony, while leaving existing structures of power intact”
(Huckle and Wals 2015, p. 502).
In the interview with the teacher carried out in retrospect, I was curious about her
reflections on the absence of a societal and political perspective. She referred to the
limited time available and shared a concern for distinguishing between moral edu-
cation and social science. However, she also added:
I would very much like to position these issues in the larger picture. Obviously, ethics is just
not valid on an individual level. Then it turns out to be just a thought experiment. If they [the
students] are to apply ethics in their own lives they are living in a society and within a con-
text. It is here they need the tool that ethics should be. It should be applicable to such a
purpose. And I haven’t taught them to do that, really.
In these considerations, the teacher suggests that grounds exist for more of an inclu-
sion of the students’ societal and political situatedness in moral education.
Hegemony may also be studied in connection with the impact of national imagi-
naries and boundaries. In a key scene in the documentary, Sigbjørn summarizes his
impressions of a Danish eco-village he visited, stating: “If my friends see this, they
do have to realize that it is completely possible to live sustainably and still have a
really good life.” (Våge and Holte 2016). A community complying with the carbon
footprint rule is a rare instance in the documentary. In this context, Saba’s immedi-
ate comment about living sustainably in Bangladesh is significant. She is never
challenged to qualify this statement, neither by her teacher nor by her fellow stu-
dents. Still, in this study, the single comment made by Saba here is of prime interest,
not because what it signifies is obvious, but because the reply turns to pivotal
questions: What does Saba mean? What kind of experiences is she referring to?
What kind of knowledge is this based on?
I recalled Saba’s statement in the interview with the teacher, who recognized the
student: “I noticed it at once when she came up with this, because the statement is
so incredibly comprehensive.” She expressed difficulties with grappling the mean-
ing, but instead went on with referring to Saba’s preference for her life in Bangladesh
and her wish to live there as an adult. The teacher had challenged this statement with
reference to how Norway provides Saba with free education without benefiting
from this investment if she moves to another country. However, Saba’s reply satis-
fied the teacher: She plans to be a physician in Bangladesh, a nation with a shortage
of health workers.
From one perspective this account expresses this teacher’s capability to establish
confident relationships with her students and in a Socratic manner encouraging
them to examine their lives. From the perspective of critical hermeneutics adopted
here, this particular instance stands out as part of a larger societal project of equity,
integrating multicultural Norwegian students to a future life in Norway, in confor-
mity with the comprehensive school system expressing the Nordic model (Strand,
in the introductory chapter of this volume). This project is well-grounded, but at the
same time and in this case, certain hegemonic boundaries become visible.
When Saba argues that her Norwegian education is needed in Bangladesh, the
teacher is ready to give her approval. In this way the pattern of an asymmetrical
relationship—with the privileged supplying health aid to the unprivileged—is con-
firmed. With reference to the national imaginaries presented previously in this chap-
ter, Saba may be said to enter the role of the nation’s soul, here demonstrating a
Norwegian solidarity with those in need (Oxfeldt 2017.11) However, in this particu-
lar lesson Saba’s line of thought follows the opposite direction; within a sustain-
ability perspective her life in Bangladesh seems to represent exemplary qualities
pertinent to an unsustainable Norwegian life.12
Following up on the issue of hegemony and ideology, the utopian dimension of
the environmental ethical values turns significant. To recall, utopia expresses the
potential to question social reality and the current order, while ideology is what
sustains the status quo (Ricoeur 2008). The school lesson in question illustrates how
an individual focus may rule out the utopian function of the environmental ethical
values. It should be added that Sigbjørn, in the documentary, questions societal
structures when he cannot comply with a sustainable carbon footprint. This instance
of mediation between the individual level and the societal and political level is not
reflected in the classroom interactions.
11
Oxfeldt (2017) interprets the Norwegian high school-drama series Skam as a national allegory,
and the character Noora as an expression of the nation’s soul.
12
This interpretation should not be seen as a reconstruction of deliberate intentions made by the
teacher, but as an exploration of the impact of hegemonic boundaries. (The omission of intragen-
erational concerns from the original research design, accounted for above in the section on method,
makes another case).
60 O. A. Kvamme
The individual outlook even includes a scene in the class when the value of
future generations is subject to controversy among the students. This is a distinct
recontextualization of this value. Lydia holds that the world does not change if a
child turns vegetarian, with support from Waqas. Maria, Anton, Saba, and Mona, on
the other hand, insist that it does make a difference, with Saba stating that “The
children are the future” and Mona holding that “I won’t have a future if I go on like
this.” Here, then, the environmental ethical value is appropriated by some of the
students, but the focus is still individualistic and concerns a moral responsibility for
private consumption.
In addition to the potential of ideology critique, the utopian element also opens
up possible alternatives to the current order (Neupert-Doppler 2018), and again, the
documentary explores other examples, mainly the Danish eco-village. This realized
utopia is not a reference in the subsequent classroom discussion. Even more signifi-
cant, the utopian element is not explored with reference to the students’ multiple
allegiances.
I raised Saba’s statement in the group interview with the students (Saba was not
among them). Six out of the seven students had relatives in other parts of the world.
They identified the statement at once and conducted various reflections that were
based on their own experiences. There were references to a circular economy, where
neighbors borrowed and exchanged goods and services, and they reported experi-
ences of living with nature, not against nature.
However, the students also problematized Saba’s claim, stating that the use of
wood and gas for heating constituted a considerable environmental problem in
many places. One of the students had relatives who were quite rich with consump-
tion patterns that were comparable to her family in Norway. In general, a nuanced
picture emerged through the students’ comments, and the utopian potential of the
environmental ethical values was explored and exemplified. It offered critical per-
spectives and opened up new possibilities based on the students’ multiple allegiances.
A striking element in this group interview is the concern for justice—this was
continuously brought up by the students themselves but was conspicuous because it
was not addressed in the school lesson. In one instance, the students discussed pos-
sible future scenarios of climate change. Several students reported on their own
experiences of climate change, with Marjori stating: “People die already in India
due to the heat.” I asked whether this kind of knowledge could be included in moral
education.
Waqas, Amit, and Omar: Yes.
Aisha: Yes, of course.
Marjori: Because it is our fault that it is so hot there.
Waqas: Or not our fault…
Marjori: The rich part of the world. We are the ones who pollute the most.
When Marjori confirms the approval made by her fellow students, she uses the
perspective of personal responsibility but makes the utopian and critical element
visible with reference to global justice.
Final Discussion and Concluding Remarks
In this study, I have explored the recontextualizations of environmental ethical val-

ues in moral education lesson focusing on the concern for present and future human
beings and the more-than-human world.
The analyses and interpretations have been anchored within critical hermeneu-
tics that emphasizes ideology critique and the significance of context. Critical cos-
mopolitanism has been employed to explore the mediations between universal
claimed values and specific contexts. I have proposed that the environmental ethical
values are distinguished with a utopian dimension, which expresses potential for the
critique of the hegemonic order and the exploration of possible alternative worlds.
In the moral education lesson in question, the major contribution to environmen-
tal and sustainability education seems to be to challenge the students’ individual
consumption patterns with reference to their carbon footprints. The interactions
between the teacher and students are guided by an emphasis on individual responsi-
bility, in itself reflecting a typical position within moral education. In this case
responsible consumer behavior is promoted while problematizing the students’
contexts.
It does not follow from this study that personal responsibility should be dis-
missed as a vital concern in moral education. And processes of universalization
should not be ruled out in environmental and sustainability education. Still, in this
study an unambiguous individual perspective has been problematized, quite simply
because it does not take the situatedness of the students into account. In this way,
vital aspects of the students’ selves are not employed as resources in the educational
discourse.
Thus, from the perspective of critical cosmopolitanism certain limitations of this
instance of moral education has been discussed. The environmental ethical values in
question seem to be tied up in a carbon footprint rule, which lays restrictions on the
jurisgenerativity and the exercise of democratic iterations. The students themselves
become generalized others, and the others who are influenced by their consumption
patterns disappear. Morally significant relations that involve the students’ eccentric
selves are not accentuated. In these ways, the utopian functions of the environmen-
tal ethical values are restricted in terms of the potential for critique of the current
order, here conceived of as neoliberal tenets and national boundaries, and alterna-
tive life practices and communities are not explored.
These patterns are not unique. Hume and Barry (2015) address the tendency to
view the student as an individual actor as one of the main criticisms of education for
sustainable development (p. 735), quoting Scott and Gough (2010), who address the
neglect of “the student as a social and more public actor” (p. 3737). Huckle and
Wals (2015) report on similar tendencies in their study of the UN’s Decade of
Education for Sustainable Development. In her study on civic education, Schindel
Dimick (2015) identifies how consumption is conceived of as merely an individual
concern.
62 O. A. Kvamme
However, the present study also demonstrates the potential of the students’ situ-
atedness as a resource in moral education on sustainability. This potential has
become visible by concepts such as the web of relations (Benhabib 1992) and
eccentric allegiances (Papastephanou 2012). In the classroom discussion and the
subsequent group interview the students reveal these multiple allegiances— their
relatedness to the more-than-human world and their relatives, places, and life prac-
tices in other parts of the world. The situatedness represent experience and knowl-
edge with converging relevance for all of the three environmental ethical values
addressed above.
A possible future direction for moral education in terms of this study, would be
to further explore this situatedness considering practices of mediations—between
the personal and the political, the private and the public, and the local and the global.
In such meditations which should accommodate the integrity of the students, both
tensions, inconsistencies, and disagreements may become visible, opening up
spaces for the critical and constructive utopian employment of environmental ethi-
cal values. Within such a scope, the question of what distinguishes a good society—
locally, nationally, and globally—becomes equally as important as what distinguishes
the morally right individual action. This might also be a good place to pedagogi-
cally, ethically, and politically struggle with the main contradiction in the sustain-
ability agenda, constituted by proclaimed values and insufficient action.
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Ole Andreas Kvamme (b. 1965) is a Lecturer in the Department of Teacher Education and
School Research at the University of Oslo. His research interests include moral education, critical
cosmopolitanism, theories of Bildung, and religious education. Among his latest publications are
School Strikes, Environmental Ethical Values, and Democracy (2019), Sustainability Didaktik
[Bærekraftdidaktikk] (2019), Blurring the image of the other? The recontextualization of environ-
mental ethical values in Norwegian education policy documents (2018), and The significance of
context: Moral education and religious education facing the challenge of sustainability (2017).
Chapter 5
While We Wait: Unaccompanied Minors
in Norway – Or the Hospita(bi)lity
for the Other
Wills Kalisha
Abstract This chapter addresses the lived experience of waiting for asylum, as
described by unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors. Their state of vulnerability
might be seen as a “gate-pass” to asylum or safety in the host nations. Nevertheless,
policy changes and on-going societal and political transformations have meant a
prolonged stay in reception centers waiting for asylum. How do they experience
waiting as they entangle, mingle and interact with others? Or said more precisely:
how do they experience the host they have got and the hospitality they [do not]
receive? The chapter takes a phenomenological point of departure into the lived
realities of three unaccompanied minors living in two reception centers somewhere
on the west coast of Norway. I begin with a contextualization of the study in Norway
and thereafter a thematic analysis of the phenomenon of waiting. Chosen themes
include waiting as; worrying and lingering on, a hostage to pain, paradoxical or
delayed welcome, when the host is not ready, hospitability must be meant and being
absent present.
Keywords Unaccompanied minors · Waiting · Hospitality · Host ·

Phenomenology of practice · Asylum-seeking · Refugee
Introduction
In one of her poems from 1984, Lize Stilma describes how a disabled boy dresses
up every weekend before he lines up among the others waiting for the bus with visi-
tors coming to the institution. He hopes to see his father among the visitors, and his
father is going to give him a watch, he trusts. His father, however, until now has not
W. Kalisha (*)
NLA University College, Bergen, Norway
e-mail: kalisha.wills@nla.no

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49524-4_5
68 W. Kalisha
been among those who disembark the visitor’s bus on Saturdays. However, the boy,
Frans, does not give up waiting. Repeatedly during the week, he asks his caregivers,
When is it Saturday? Tomorrow? Today? The question dominates his life, embraces all, and
sparkles as the sun.
Tomorrow?
No!
Today?
Not either. But when is it?
“You have to go to bed twice, get up twice, shave twice, and then it is Saturday,” they tell
him. (p. 300).
Frans’ unceasingly trusts that what he is waiting for will happen. His caregivers
witness the situation and seem to care – equally unceasingly for his exposed posi-
tion – by trying to keep up the possibility that what he waits for might one day
become real. We might believe that caregivers rationally do not share the same hope
as Frans, and after countless disappointments-cease to care for a situation that obvi-
ously is not paying off. We might expect that they want to orient him to the harsh
reality, alternatively, that they end up in a routinized and indifferent practice of non-
involvement. Nevertheless, they do not. They seem to see his exposedness, and they
perhaps unthinkingly, respect his preserving hope. Frans’ waiting, his remaining on
guard for his father to come bringing him a watch, encounters some kind of protec-
tion through his caregivers’ words and actions. They do not wait like Frans is wait-
ing, with trustful anticipation, filled with hope, looking forward to that Saturday
when father comes.
For Frans, the waiting is meaningful. The length of his waiting does not seem to
matter to him. He waits trustfully every Saturday. He longs all week for Saturday, it
comes and goes, and he remains waiting. His caregivers, on their side, might as
responsible grown-ups, linger in the undecidability of a moral dilemma. Should
they tell Frans the most likely truth – that his father may not ever come, perhaps he
has forgotten his son or, he does not want to think of him. Or should they believe in
Frans’s belief that his father, one day, will come to see him? How does one relate to
the other’s waiting in situations like this? What would be gentle and human, but also
honest ways of caring for the other’s waiting, longing, hoping? This is the dilemma
I deal with in this chapter. The waiting boys or girls of this context are not disabled
adolescents living in an institution more than 30 years ago like Frans above. Instead,
they are foreigners, teenagers, underage and parentless arriving in Norway from
other parts of the world to seek asylum, a place of safety. They are called unaccom-
panied minors between 15 and 18 years of age.
Receiving the Young Asylum Seekers
A former tourist motel on the Norwegian coast with a magnificent view of the
ocean has new inhabitants: young refugees waiting for their asylum interview. On
the outskirts of the city, an old village restaurant has also been transformed into a
5 While We Wait: Unaccompanied Minors in Norway – Or the Hospita(bi)lity… 69
center for “waiting young refugees”. These centers are referred to as reception
centers and are temporary homes for teenagers seeking asylum in Norway. The
Norwegian reception centers are mainly run by private profit operators typically
without the professional expertise presumed in Child Welfare, the prescribed care
system for the unaccompanied minors from 15 years and younger. In other coun-
tries, the minors as they are commonly referred to, are housed in make-shift impro-
vised emergency centers (Auger-Voyer et al. 2014) or in specialized housing to
cater for their needs. The term “reception” is a legal designation since the center
only promises to receive the fifteen to eighteen-year-olds who must wait here for
their asylum papers to be accepted or not, under conditions that might not take into
account their individual needs, problems, traumas or their entire life-situations.
Here, they are more or less considered to be adults that can care for themselves.
Their former life conditions might be considered worse than those they meet when
they arrive in Norway, and thus a reception center – as they appear – is acceptable
to offer.
Anthropological research targeting asylum seekers explores waiting as a con-
textual, cultural issue; a result of power-play between asylum-seekers and govern-
ments hosting them, (Rotter 2016). In these studies, time is essential to waiting for
it is lost, cut, stolen or put on hold beyond the desires of the asylum-seekers com-
prehension or desire. Waiting is characterized with its invariant quality, time, that
seems to disturb and make this phenomenon meaningful. The daily experiences of
interacting with one another are considered in far as the time aspects of waiting are
expressed.
In medical studies, the question of asylum is concerned with biopolitics, where
age determination creates a distinction of a specific asylum seeker that can be
granted asylum based on age (Hjern et al. 2011). The concern for these studies is on
the mental and physical well-being of the asylum-seekers while waiting (Eide and
Hjern 2013). Other qualitative researchers have concerned themselves with the liv-
ing conditions while waiting (Hilde et al. 2013) and the host’s social-cultural atti-
tudes which have implications on those waiting for asylum determination (Hirvonen
2013). Other researchers either in the field of education, psychology or sociology,
look at the experiences of immigrant children from the point of diversity, multicul-
turalism, race, inclusion or exclusion and discrimination, comparatively a phenom-
enological perspective is missing. How do we encounter those waiting and how do
we respond to their waiting? In this chapter, the focus is on the lived experiences of
those we encounter as they wait, a phenomenon that is nuanced and daily experi-
enced by many in various forms and variations but whose potency and the meaning
differ significantly when those experiencing are unaccompanied teenagers. To
inquire phenomenologically into the possible experiences of waiting for these
youngsters, whose lives are made Other by the host state, is a tenuous and delicate
endeavor.
70 W. Kalisha
The Norwegian Context
Unaccompanied minors1 who arrived in Norway between 2004 and 2015 were
mainly from Afghanistan, Syria, Somali, Eritrea, Pakistan, and Iran - the majority
coming from Afghanistan (Hilde et al. 2013). There is sparse statistical data for
those who arrived in 2016–2018. Nonetheless, the young people, between 15 and
18 years of age, have no idea when their interview will occur and are given no guar-
antee that the outcome of their application will be positive. Their life hangs in the
balance of being accepted in Norway or being forced to leave and go back to the
miseries of the war-torn lands from which they fled. Typically, the time between
arrival and the date of the official interview, for most of them is growing longer than
expected. Waiting becomes their main occupation. Uncertainty and the hope for a
positive outcome (to stay), a hope that is mixed with fear of a bad outcome, (to
leave), characterises an impasse laden with [im]possibilities. Nevertheless, the hope
they have carries their life so completely that a negative outcome is unbearable to
their free existence as young adults. They wait for the interview and the judgment
that follows stay or leave. Both judgments might mean a new situation for the
young. S/he will either start a future in Norway- a country they know only sparsely,
with friends they may have or not, alone in a world of foreign symbols, systems,
words, habits. Alternatively, they will have to leave a country they have travelled far
to reach. The travel might have been dangerous, lonely and cold. The young might
have been victim(s) of other peoples’ abuse, violence or other use of force, and
already can imagine what kind of world s/he will be subjected to. These youths real-
ize perhaps gradually that Norwegian law only allows a temporary residence permit
for refugees like them (Beredskapsdepartementet 2012). How might waiting for the
interview and for the uncertain judgment be like for them?
Despite the individual rights they have in common with all human beings in
Norway and elsewhere due to human rights, these rights do not seem to give them
the freedom to exist outside the reception center or to freely be involved in the
Norwegian society on human premises common to all citizens. In fact, they are not
yet citizens but are waiting to become citizens possibly. We seem to make distinc-
tions between the immigrants of our society and ourselves when it comes to the
personal freedom of the individual: “We treat Norwegians as people with various
characters and the personal ability to think for themselves. Immigrants, however, we
treat as the product of their culture2” (Wikan as cited in Øia 1998, p. 16). The term
‘product’, meaning “a quantity produced by multiplying” (Onions 1966), implies
the rejection of an individual’s influence on the result, which in the case of
immigrants is culture or religion. A significant consequence of our stigmatizing
1
I will use teenager or young asylum seekers interchangeably to mean unaccompanied minors
between the ages of 15–18.
2
The original Norwegian text:” Vi behandler nordmenn som folk med ulik karakter og evne til å
tenke selv, men innvandrere som produkt av. sin kultur” (Øia 1998).
culturally qualified view is followed up by the Iraqi / Norwegian author Walid al-
Kubaisi, who says:
When the immigration policy constructs its view on the idea that Muslims are the product
of their culture, the so-called multicultural society automatically offers freedom to the cul-
ture, not to the human being. […] The individual is deprived of the freedom to infringe on
the taboos of the culture.3 (al-Kubaisi 1996, p. 80).
Could this deprivation of personal freedom be true also for these unaccompanied
youths of this study? Could it be true as well that to give freedom to a culture, a
minority or a marginalized group comes easier than to approve the freedom of per-
sonal character to the individual member of this group? Or, has freedom become
even more limited than in the 1990’s – before the huge flight of refugees from Africa
and Middle East countries where the majority of the young people over 15 years but
not yet adults, come from? Is this group still in a limbo because we as host country
restricts individual (as well as group) freedom to certain refugees from certain coun-
tries and cultures that have a bad reputation?
Phenomenological Methodology
My focus is on those between 15 and 18 years of age who are yet to be interviewed
for asylum or have been interviewed but have not received asylum response. I take
my point of departure in the concrete, “context-sensitive form of interpretative
inquiry, phenomenology of practice” (van Manen 2014, p. 282) and as developed by
Max van Manen (1997, 2014). The phenomenology of practice used here is about
wonder, words and the world of lived experience; one that serves to foster meanings
of being and knowing. This methodology reflectively studies pre-reflective experi-
ences of modes of being a young asylum seeker’s understanding of their own
experience(s) of waiting alone, or while encountering others. Waiting thus is not
taken only in its featural absurdity or emptiness. Rather it is a phenomenon that is
“there” intermingling, encountering other lived realities that make it be suspended,
or held at bay or beheld in its vagueness or emptiness for what it is to the self of
those experiencing it. I do not aim to explore this phenomenon to a logical conclu-
sion, but rather to open it up and show its tentativeness or incompleteness. Max van
Manen asserts that “phenomenological determination of meaning is always indeter-
minate, always tentative, always incomplete, always inclined to question assump-
tions by returning again and again to lived experience itself” (2014, p. 230).
As a methodology, phenomenology of practice is eclectic, literally gathering or
from a variety of other methodologies that make the human experience possible and
3
The original Norwegian text:” Og når innvandringspolitikken bygger sitt syn på at muslimene er
at produkt av. sin kultur, skjer det automatisk at det flerkulturelle samfunn gir kulturen frihet, men
ikke mennesket. […] Individet blir berøvet friheten til å bryte med kulturtabuene” (al-Kubaisi
1996, p. 80).
72 W. Kalisha
meaningful. It has a basic philosophical foundation, a human science orientation

and a descriptive writing that amalgamates the methodologies into a whole to show
the “whatness” of the experience. In remaining loyal to its philosophical roots, a
phenomenology of practice applies an eidetic reduction- a “leading back” to the
primordial experience before explication is made of it. Here as a researcher in elu-
cidating the eidos of the phenomenon, I try to wonder “what makes this phenome-
non what it is, it is” (van Manen 2014, p. 229). Considering this, I ask how do we
support their waiting for asylum?
As an immigrant studying and working in Norway, I wait for approval of my
residence and work permits every other year. The permit is occasionally called upon
and the question of waiting becomes meaningful when I must travel out of the coun-
try and it is not granted. I long for it, but my knowledge of being an immigrant
waiting for a residence permit has constantly to be held at bay. At the same time it
forms a valuable experience of the phenomenon. I constantly reflect “lead back” and
question myself; is this actually what the experience of waiting might be like? The
more I ask myself this question, the more the variant and invariant qualities of this
phenomenon open the phenomenon to wonder and rigor. As mentioned, phenome-
nology of practice is eclectic, open to “constantly questioning and rediscovering
itself” (van Manen 2014, p 281).
To access the lived experience of the young asylum-seekers, I audio-recorded
interviews4 with twelve teenagers. These open interviews were intended to gather
rich descriptions of the experience that would help to explore the underlying pat-
terns and meaning structures (van Manen M 1997). The interviews were conducted
in two reception centers on the west coast of Norway. Three participants (unaccom-
panied teenagers) were recommended by the center staff in the reception centers. In
contrast, the rest volunteered to be interviewed or were recruited through a six-
month period of “hanging out” with them while conducting the research. The timing
of the interview coincided with a period when many had received rejection letters
meaning the experience of waiting had become more palpable and meaningful.
However, I use interview excerpts that describe the experience of waiting at the
point of entry, which mostly covered the first one to two years of their stay in Norway.
I transcribed the interviews, read and re-read, dwelling with them, reflecting on
and analyzing existential themes for a phenomenological writing. In Gadamer’s
understanding of the hermeneutic experience, it is “taken out of the continuity of
life and at the same time related to the whole of one’s life”, (Gadamer 2006, p. 62).
He continues “the movement of understanding is constantly from the whole to the
part and back to the whole. Our task is to expand the unity of the understood mean-
ing centrifugally” (p. 291). My preunderstandings and personal experiences in
Gadamer’s understanding bridge the gap between the phenomenon being described
and my ability to hear the descriptions and other meanings of the experience. In
this chapter, this is done through anecdotal narratives constructed from the field
interviews, and insights gathered from poetry and etymological meanings as
I used a hermeneutic interview in the larger PhD project see Max van Manen 2014.
4
recommended by Max van Manen (2014). Reflections are attended to by the help

of anectdotes, poems, philosophical and other relevant literature. This process
reveals connections between and across different experiences and open up implica-
tions for pedagogical practice.
Findings
The inquiry yielded the following interpretive themes around which this text has
been composed; waiting as worrying and lingering on, a hostage to pain, paradoxi-
cal or delayed welcome, when the host is not ready, hospitability must be meant and
being absent present. These themes are used as figures of meanings that point to the
multifaceted lived meanings that may relate to the phenomenon of waiting.
Waiting, Worrying, Lingering on
As a researcher, one wonders how to encounter a teenager whose waiting lays a

demand for something, which cannot be offered. Kumar5 tells of an episode when
he sees the reception centre’s psychologist approach her room:
My body aches, my ears ring, my heart throbs very fast every time I see Vera- (the psycholo-
gist) coming towards our building. I have been experiencing the same pain here in my room
for a while now when I am alone thinking about my future and how it is in the hands of
UDI.6 Her coming makes it worse because I do not know what she brings for me. Will she
knock on my door? What will she tell me? I am confused, she might come with good news,
or ask about my pain? Will the good news make this pain go away? So, on this day, she
finally knocks at my door and I allow her in. When we sat down, our eyes locked acciden-
tally. She asks me how I am doing, and I can’t help but cry. How can I explain this pain I
feel in my body? Pain, unimagined and indescribable, causing aching that I cannot tell the
origin. It is in my body, my heart, my head, my legs, my stomach everywhere! Sometimes I
must literally lay in bed for many days before the pain eases. She asks, what can be done to
stop the pain? “Tell UDI about it”. I respond angrily. "Let them know how I am in pain,
maybe the only way to stop this pain is for me to get asylum or an assurance that I will stay.
Maybe then- the pain will go”
When waiting has become indefinite, not knowing when the awaited for will arrive,
the waiter might lose hope. When I visit a friend who has been waiting for a work
permit, for a job that is already assured, and the waiting has been indefinite, does it
matter that I visit, or what I say? I might say or not say anything, but perhaps my
coming and encountering this friend at his lowest moment might be a sign of my
care or worrying about this situation he is in?
A participant in this study.

5
UDI- (Utelendingsdirektoratet) is the department of immigration in Norway.

6
74 W. Kalisha
The waiting room in a hospital maybe charged with expectations much in the
same way as Kumar experiences. Some people are standing, while others look at
watches or wait with bated breath to see the doctor emerge either to call them in or
break the news about their medical condition or that of their loved one(s). As the
door opens to reveal who is coming, it opens to a moment flipping between sighs
either of relief or anxiety. Perhaps, “this is it”, my time to know the truth. Any news
is still news anticipated or unanticipated that might bring the moment of waiting to
a stop, prolong it or postpone it. On the other hand, the sight of a visitor or a stranger
at the reception center where Kumar lives might be charged with a different kind of
expectation. Perhaps hope on one hand, and palpitation and despair on the other.
Both in the same moment. As the one waiting, it might be possible that the sight of
a person in authority like a psychologist approaching your room has a message.
What matters perhaps is what kind of message they are carrying. At this moment,
the one waiting, on citing the psychologist approaching her room, passes to this
“precipitous position” (Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos 2011, p. 3) of “being thrown-
in” (Heidegger 2010, p. 169). This ‘throwing-in’, could be a moment of exposure to
the draughts of the other that is encountered. What the psychologist represents could
open up the possibility to speak or remain mute.
As I write about Kumar’s experience, I am strikingly brought to the awareness of
my own experience of waiting. My own experience does not at any point relate to
what the minors of this study experience, but it might help me come closer to an
understanding of what waiting might mean. While on transit to a conference in an
airport somewhere in Europe, and after my flight had been delayed for one hour, I
was taken for a random security check. Random checks are normal in airports, but
their normalcy is interrupted when oneself is randomly checked. My passport shared
features with someone of interest to the border control officers. Once the passport
was taken, I could not travel even though the last call to board the plane was made
through the airport’s audio system. In this liminal space of waiting at the airport, a
space that is no-man’s place, I was ordered to wait for a security check and verifica-
tion of my documents. While waiting, tensions run high, palpitation is at its peak, I
wondered whether I will be flagged as a “flight risk” passenger or my documents
will be confiscated. I fear I must stay in this no-man’s land indefinitely. At least for
me, while I waited for the emergence of an officer to tell me their determination,
there was a chance that this is only a transitory space. I will go on with my journey
or be returned to where I came from.
The reception center where Kumar now finds abode is a transitory, liminal space,
yet it is not a “no-man’s” space as the airport is. Here, there is no place to go back
to. Kumar cannot proceed anywhere for there is this nebulous person that should
permit to stay or move on. But move to where? This thought of where, strikes with
force, rekindling thoughts of what should remain covered for now. Both at the air-
port and the reception centre this nebulous person is unknown in person but exists
as an institution with powers beyond the traveller and minor seeking asylum. The
palpable, momentous event of waiting, though short, can be marred with thoughts
and un-thoughts, some painful while others merely wandering in the wonders of
what is happening. If it is prolonged, it becomes painful, yet the possible alleviation
of this pain is the encounter with this supposedly benign person or a representative
to say something.
In such limit waiting, where the waiting does not show prospects of ending, one
might wonder what to say when eyes meet, and you come face to face with the pain
of waiting. To the patient in a hospital waiting room, an encouragement from a
friend might be important, but what is significant in determining what to do next is
what the doctor says. Lingis (1994), acknowledges that there is a rational commu-
nity that speaks a representative voice, a voice that might belong to anyone. It does
not matter who speaks as long as what is said is spoken. A psychologist speaks the
language of psychology, of trying to determine the causality, effects, and symptoms
of pain, possibly diagnose Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) to Kumar
because of experiencing war or depression or prolonged periods of waiting or uncer-
tainty. The interest in speech is precisely for what is being said. Kumar is a stranger
to the psychologist but, needs her to speak for and to UDI. The psychologist speaks
about pain, but Kumar is not interested in that speech. It may not be the pain for
which rationality is demanded but rather a representative of that rationality. UDI
exists as a metaphorical organism whose appearance and speech might solve the
pain. What to do in such a thick moment, where the psychologist and Kumar have
nothing in common apart from the moment they meet?
Hostage to Pain
The pain might be unbearable and sadly un-transferable to Kumar. Pain exceeds any
form of “assemblage of data into order and meaning that constitutes a state of con-
sciousness or unity of apperception” (Simon 2009, p. 141). At the airport, this
assemblage of data, is helpful, for it might constitute an ending to this waiting,
while at the reception center, it might exacerbate it. The psychologist is in a way
held hostage by Kumar- “Tell UDI about it”, she says in despair. Her face, her vul-
nerability her pain, speaks before speech is verbalized. Kumar, so to speak, speaks
beyond words of diagnoses and pain. Perhaps in this ambiguity lies the issue of how
to communicate and listen to each other to a point of understanding What kind of
understanding is needed here when it is the rational language that is expected by the
psychologist? The sense that it makes in this episode might not be commensurate to
the expectations of either Kumar or to the traveler at the airport. But how can com-
munication be possible when the incommunicable, despair and pain is “ontologi-
cally always beyond me and beyond what I am ever able to know” (Lévinas 1998,
p. 139) or help? There is perhaps a desire from the psychologist to end the pain or
suffering for Kumar and thereafter become responsible for her situation. At this
point it leaves us with a question;. what should I do when I face another persons
76 W. Kalisha
vulnerability, and for whom the responsibility demanded is beyond me, beyond
what I am able (or willing) to give?
For the teenagers waiting like Kumar, a possibility arises for an opening, more
precisely, “the half opening that a moan, a cry, a groan or a sigh slip through- the
original call for aid, for curative help, help for the other me…?” (Lévinas 1998,
p. 93). To Levinas, this groans or writhing in pain that Kumar experiences, expresses
“vulnerability and a cry for help from her that is primordial, irreducible, ethical and
undeclinable” (Simon 2009, p. 142). The cry calls me to respond, and the command
opens a space for the inter-human interaction that might suspend the asymmetrical
power existent in the encounter. The space that is opened does acknowledge the
vulnerability of the other and might choose to listen and report about this pain or do
nothing. Kumar already substitutes here her suffering for the responsibility of the
other. This responsibility cannot be calculated and may not be long-lasting. It does
not impose on the psychologist what to do, but beckons, maybe for a moment of
being there, speaking as herself, with her own comforting voice, not for who she
represents. For this is a child- a teenager, appealing to her.
Paradoxical or Delayed Welcome?
There was an upsurge of asylum-seeking children who arrived in Norway to seek

asylum7 between 2009 and 2015. The rise in numbers in this period was motivated
by a perceived child-friendly welfare policy and Norway’s “open-doors” and hospi-
tality towards asylum-seeking children. Having child-friendly policies, as one dis-
covers is not equivalent to being welcome. The welcome of the child-asylum-seekers
implicitly meant an invitation to them although without being invited. They came
unannounced due to forces beyond them seeking protection wherever they might be
welcome. The moment of welcome implicates both host and guest especially when
it is unexpected, and the guest cannot be refused. Derrida (2000) clarifies the dual
meaning of the word hóte in French to mean both host and guest. His idea is that
hospitality, seen as a welcome to cross the threshold, and join the host in their place,
meets difficulties. For the host who welcomes, becomes guest to the guest he is
welcoming. They both receive from the house or place they are in. The welcome of
the other who comes without invitation is exhausting whether the other is welcomed
out of guilt (from the host) or of his/her vulnerability.
Flight from wars, persecution, famine and the fear of joining criminal gangs
initiate in a Levinasian sense a beginning of saying “yes” to anyone who might be
hospitable. “It is not I- it is the other that can say yes” (Levinas as cited in Raffoul
1998, p. 215). That the migrant said yes to come without being invited, and upon
arrival, an implicit yes is said without saying it, which allows the minor to come in,
7
See https://www.udi.no/statistikk-og-analyse/arsrapporter/tall-og-fakta-2015/faktaskriv-2015/
hvem-kom-som-enslige-mindrearige-asylsokere/
complicates the meaning of a welcome. This condition makes a standstill, not know-
ing where to begin and caught unprepared or in our conflictual state of welcoming
or not welcoming. This eventually turns a welcome into awaiting to be welcome as
Omar8 recounts below;
When I first arrived in Norway I was told, I will only wait for three months since I am under-
age to receive my asylum status or continue with my search for a safe country to live in.
Now six months are gone without hearing from anyone. Every day I go to check mails. I
think today is the day. But nothing. I have no life apart from thinking about whether I am
going to stay or leave. Mrs. Inger, my Norwegian teacher told me, “you know here in
Norway things are very efficient, you should get your response within a month or two”.
Whoever I ask, I seem to be getting nowhere. How long will I wait to know what my
destiny is?
To be hospitable means to say “Come in, come in” (Still 2010, p. 4) or “welcome to
my home” (p. 4). But for Omar, either because of his perceived vulnerability or
because of being a minor, the host seems to prepare for him first while he is present.
The welcome, where the one coming suits the will or wish of the host seems to be
absent, or at least to be paradoxical to the young asylum seeker. The will of the host
is at best unclear. The appeal of the minor, his or her coming, the war, the effect of
migration, all move the host to say an initial ‘yes’ –the host acquiesces- to this other,
surrender to their appeal but only momentarily. To welcome without being willing
to mean it, however, shows that hospitality at its core inheres a violence. I might be
hospitable to one and to the other, but I might not have the capacity to host both. By
choosing who to welcome and be hospitable to, and exclude others shows that hos-
pitality has a paradoxical nature and might welcome, while being violent at the
same time.
Host Not Ready?
According to Derrida “the arrival of the other is always incalculable” (Derrida and

Roudinesco 2004, p. 58). If a visit or a stay cannot be calculated it is because we do
not know what we are opening ourselves to. We do not know what might occur in
the moment of welcoming the other. In the case of the young asylum seeker, the
other is here and demands that someone responds. But for this response the host is
not ready. To welcome as much as it is “difficult, [is] even a gesture”, says Derrida
(1999, p. 25). A welcome is a gesture that reinstitutes my response as a host to the
guest, one with whom we in this case even have no shared language, culture or reli-
gion. There is an arrivant in the guest as Derrida (2007) calls it. Omar’s use of the
word “arrive” is instructive to me. Derrida uses the word arrivant to differentiate
between one who visits and one who is invited. The arrivant comes without being
invited, in a way “it must be someone whose unexpected, unforeseeable arrival,
8
Omar is a boy who turned 16 years two months after he arrived in Norway. By the time this inter-
view happened, he had been waiting for an asylum interview for more than six months.
78 W. Kalisha
whose visitation… is such an irruption that I’m not prepared to receive the person”
(Derrida 2007, p. 441). The arrivant in Derrida’s analysis cannot be refused hospi-
tality, he is welcomed even before asking us, for his arrival baffles us, and takes us
by surprise. Here this other, whose name or proper identity or category is yet to be
determined and takes time to be determined, must wait for me who has welcomed
him/her to sincerely welcome him/her. In this case as host, I must wait for the state
to give me the right to welcome. On the other hand, the force with which this wel-
come comes, reveals language’s double quality. Language is imprecise here. One
can say “yes” when one in fact means “no”. Some are welcomed but must leave the
country later. The initial welcome (yes) becomes a longing, a waiting for the proper
welcome even though the initial welcome is an acquiescence to the other that is
beyond linguistic expression.
What interests me in Omar’s experience is the “yes” moment of the welcome that
was supposed to initiate hospitality and mark a crossing of the threshold. The “yes”
became the threshold itself, for Omar still stands on the threshold of hospitality
waiting to truly be welcome. Hospitality has become unknowable, and Omar is
dwelling on the threshold unable to move until the state’s laws of hospitality have
been met and he can “enter the country”.
Hospitality Must Be Meant
This yes, has vestiges of the non-dialectizable antinomy of hospitality that affirms
hospitality and makes it momentarily possible before turning it upside down to its
opposite or impossibility. The “yes” moment happens unnoticed and gives hospital-
ity a temporal structure, as a phenomenon that happens sometimes unnoticeable and
recursively. Did Omar notice the gesture of welcome? What preoccupies his life and
has become his concern is that moment of asylum where genuine hospitality is
finally revealed to him, where he receives a place, perhaps a home. When he is given
a ‘proper’ category that marks the end of visitation and becomes a resident or even
a citizen. Waiting then becomes the preoccupation of hospitality. For when will
hospitality come?
If we turn to the nineteenth century English poet D.H Lawrence’s poem, “The
Snake” (Lawrence and Blaisdell 2016) we might get a glimpse of the missed
moments of a visitation, and see that hospitality might happen unnoticeable.
Lawrence is caught unprepared on a hot summer day in Sicily in preparing him-
self for the day. He writes:
A snake came to my water-trough on a hot day,
Hot day and I in pajamas for the heat
To drink there (p. 44)
Lawrence realizes that he must wait as his guest, one that arrived without welcome,
sips water “with his straight mouth” (p. 45). He is taken by wonder; a fascination at
how this visitor is drinking water, like how cows drink. He feels honored to have the
visitor, but he is afraid of who it is. “Voices of education” whisper to him that his
visitor has “venom” – “he is gold and not black”. He writes:
But I must confess how I liked him
How glad I was he had come as a guest in quiet to drink at my water trough
And depart peacefully, pacified and thankless into the burning bowels of the earth. (p. 46)
Is there a parallel between Lawrence’s description of a snake visitation to asylum-
seeking and waiting? We notice that the visitor strangely arrives without prior
notice. The host is overtaken by the event of the arrival, unable to fathom the silent
acquiescence, of the ‘yes’ moment of hospitality for this moment comes and goes
quickly. Lawrence overcomes his fear of the voices of education and the thankless-
ness of the snake, and he says, “he hurls a log at it” (p. 47). He regrets and wishes
the snake to come back. What is he really wishing for? He did not converse with the
snake. He did not know when he came. He was exposed to him and became vulner-
able in his face not knowing what to do, only listening to the voices of familiarity or
knowledge as passed on, he writes. If there were to be a second chance what would
he then do? Would he give him a right to drink and go his way or serve without
harming him? This arrivant renders host powerless and immovable. The host might
struggle with the intrusion of personal space. Still, he cannot do anything without
knowing what is “right” and wrong and how to handle the other who must be granted
the right to cross the threshold of his life. The threshold has made both host and
arrivant mute (literally for in both examples they have no-common language). They
are both waiting for another, a third party (in Omar’s situation maybe the state) to
give a proper welcome. Therefore, “hospitality awaits [attend] its chance. It holds
itself out [ see tend vers]. Its chance is beyond what it is, namely the paralysis on the
threshold. In this sense, hospitality is always to come [a venir], but a “to come” that
does not and will never present itself as such in the present” (Derrida 2000, p. 14).
To Derrida, hospitality is paradoxical, for it happens momentarily and comes again
and again- as “a-to come”. This might mean that the response has to be meant, con-
firmed, honest. The impertinent question to Omar and the other teenage asylum-
seekers like him is how they can stand a still life where nothing happens while they
are waiting hopefully for the hospitable welcome that might “come”.
For Omar his arrival is initiated with inevitable ruptures of hospitality and wel-
come. But the initial welcome is not really a welcome because it comes with reser-
vations. That is why the initial welcome goes unnoticed. His preoccupation is a
possible access to a hospitality that grants rights beyond the threshold, perhaps into
the home, a place of safety, as any other asylum-seeking person would hope for.
With such preoccupation he is blinded to any momentary occurrences of hospitality.
While waiting for a welcome to happen, Omar’s content of life is how time moves
slowly and his waiting is a watching for time to move. The term waiting9 has the
words watching and being on guard as two of its meanings. To him the teacher’s
promise that common practice is unproblematic because “in Norway, things are
very effective, you will get it soon” proves no truth. There is no right to asylum.
See (Onions 1966).

9
80 W. Kalisha
Nevertheless, if hospitality is this aporetic and recursive, when will it happen?

Waiting, watching, being on guard impact Omar and the other young peoples’ lives.
Being Absent Present
An initial yes has been granted; deliberations are- underway. The young asylum-
seekers must wait in a reception center, living side by side to each other. Lumire, a
17-year-old boy reflects on what he sees while walking out of the office of the leader
of the Reception centre:
My eyes glance through the wide windowpanes of the room to my left. I see my reflected
image through the mirror created by the windowpanes and the dark curtains in the room.
This is not something I often would notice, but there I was in the ‘window’, I look thin. I
move closer to the next window to see 10 of my peers dressed in what seemed like their
national regalia with a notice on the door indicating their names and the time they are leav-
ing for their Independence Day celebration. To my right, there is another group dressed in
a sport-like outfit playing with volleyballs around the room. Looks like they are headed out
for either a volleyball tournament or practice. The room adjacent to the right one has two
others with two center staff who seem to be preparing them for their interview. Information
is written on a paper hanged on the door, it will be in about 30 minutes. Outside this build-
ing, two girls are receiving, envelopes maybe confirming their asylum status. Everyone is
waiting here. This is a waiting center—not a reception center—that is what they should
have told us right when we came. In a prison, they operate with time limits of when one is
going to be free. Here we are told, "Wait! Just wait”
Lumire is in an indefinite waiting, not knowing whether it is possible to go to school

today, or whether he will be enrolled in an activity like the others. Nevertheless, the
walking out of Olav’s office opens another seeing into the waiting of others.
As Lumire gazes on his mirrored image, we may wonder whether his gaunt face
reflects a body that is not merely malnourished of food but also refuge as waiting
has become an experience of looking onto the happenings of a world of waiters. So,
while the windows offer the possibility of both a self inspection and a worldly
inspection, it ultimately signifies the bared existence of waiting. Foucault says,
In the mirror, I see myself there where I am not, in an unreal, virtual space that opens up
behind the surface; I am over there, there where I am not, a sort of shadow that gives my
own visibility to myself, that enables me to see myself there where I am absent: such is the
utopia of the mirror (Foucault 1986, p. 25).
With the mirror, one occupies an imaginary space—a past, a now, and a potential
future place—yet a non-place. Foucault calls this non-place heterotopia- an unreal
space that, as seen from the mirror, is simultaneously made real in the moment of
observing it, this is it. The mirror makes the place that Lumire occupies now, when
he looks at himself in the glass, at once real, connected with all the spaces that sur-
round it. At the same time the place is absolutely unreal, “since in order to be per-
ceived it has to pass through this virtual point which is over there”. (p. 25). Although
this self-inspection happens without prior planning it gives an opportunity to realize
that life goes on despite the challenges of waiting. This heterotopia, in a Foucauldian
language is a crisis heterotopia, and is reserved for those who deviate from the
norm. Lumire deviates from the norm as he like the other teenagers at the reception
centre has no parents, is an undocumented immigrant because he did not go through
proper channels of recognizing him. In the space of heterotopia, Lumire has not
received a representative category where he desires to be. This is also the case with
the other young asylum seekers: they deviate from the norm. Even in the reception
center each takes the place of the other. They took a place once used as a motel and
a village barn, now as Lumire observes each one is being substituted by the other
continuously to a point of un-representativity. One goes to play, the other remains.
One receives his or her residence permit or reply to his or her asylum claim, while
the other gets a rejection and still the other moves up the queue to wait to replace
another.
Agamben characterises such a scenario by tracing the etymology of the term
“ease” as one that “designates the space adjacent (ad-jacens, adjacentia), the empty
place where each can move freely, in a semantic constellation where spatial proxim-
ity borders on opportune time (ad-agio, moving at ease) and convenience” (Agamben
1993, p. 24). The reception center as Lumire recounts is a space that only the
asylum-seeking teenagers can move with ease, mingling in spite of and irrespective
of their nationalities. In fact, the lack of sufficient data to show the numbers of unac-
companied minors that sought asylum from 2017 onwards shows how un-
representable this space of asylum is. Movement within and without this space is
strictly monitored by center staff. For Lumire, this space will remain a space of
self-inspection and a mirror of a prison- except that here, as he says, there is no
time limits.
In Omar’s example above, we saw that his waiting is preconditioned on a wait-
ing for a welcome. Lumire’s experience reveals that the foundation of being
human and asylum-seeking children is not based on what is conditioned but on
categories of citizens and non- citizens. Both Omar and Lumire exist beyond these
categories but still intermingling with the existing categories. As a category that is
suspended as a guest of the state without the right or duty of a citizen, they are not
part of the community; Yet, in their interaction (Omar with Inger Lumire with
Olav and others), there are possibilities that abound where there is a welcome,
playing with, being with others something that Lumire observes in the different
nationalities that exist in this heterotopia. To Lumire’s such a community is only
possible if he exists in this suspended category of a guest of the nation, where he
has no rights similar to the regular citizens and are already set-up to be excluded
from this country. Yet he is unrepresented, misrepresented absent yet present and
can only wait.
A World We Rather Not Be in
Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot (Beckett 2011/1956), ends with a non-
movement. He writes:
82 W. Kalisha
Vladimir: Well shall we go?

Estragon: Yes, let’s go. [Silence as they remain motionless]
[Curtain] (Beckett 2011/1956, p. 94).
There is no sound but a deafening muteness emanating from the actor’s reluctance
to go as they say. It is a climax without a climax where the audience is invited to an
indefinite tension. They linger on at the moment, speculating and anticipating
maybe the promised Godot will come. The words of the actors do not recede to the
imagination or retention of the audience but remain hanging in the air without con-
nection to an ending. The ending is premised on the event of meeting Godot, an
ending that might bring closure to the unending waiting. The sense that this play
leaves in the audience is a “waiting for something that we would not like to wait
for”, in (Derrida as cited in Reynolds 2004, p. 166). The audience is no longer audi-
ence but entrapped in this waiting. The actors are no longer hidden by the curtains
but are all thrown into this world anticipating something. We might say that the
object of waiting—Godot, asylum response or interview, or school, or parents, will
be available in the future. However, the future is postponed, unknown and unpre-
dictable. The minors in our study have been thrown into a world they would rather
not be in. They are existentially exposed to this waiting, a waiting that is unbearable.
But here they are, still waiting.
In Vladimir’s words, they are waiting for “nothing very definite” (Beckett
2011/1956, p. 18). This kind of waiting is permeated with emptiness, a continuous
waiting, bereft of substance, where the one coming is expected to bring meaning,
explain the misery and trouble they are currently in. Until then life is empty and
must be filled with meaning. In a way this waiting instills a certain apprehension of
how the encounter with the waited for will be. Will Godot be able to give them rest
from their troubles finally? Such kind of waiting where the waited for seems absurd,
sucks meaning out of life. There can be a tendency to fill life with meaningless
actions in a bid to ignore the passage of time. Many of the young asylum seekers
describe such experiences. Vladimir and Estragon as well follow a unity of time in
a play without time. They follow a unity of place in a play that is no-place (a dry
winding road). This waiting seems empty. Yet it is a waiting for something. In con-
tradistinction to the minors of this study, where there is a specific object of waiting-
asylum response or interview or the daily ‘waiting’s as described above.
Vladimir and Estragon focus on a “waiting that is without a horizon”, to use
Derrida’s words (Derrida cited in Reynolds 2004, p. 166). A horizon becomes a
meeting point, with an estimated outcome of the encounter with the object of wait-
ing. In our minds there may be mental pictures of what we expect as we wait, a
condition that keeps stand the waiting. Nevertheless, there is an element of unknow-
ingness or a certain fear in waiting that it might turn out to surprise us negatively.
The two actors take Godot to be someone beyond them, maybe a sovereign being
with a benevolent hand over them who sees. He understands all and can resolve
their situations in an instant and has the capacity to explain their suffering upon
meeting him. Perhaps this desire for certainty and encounter creates the possibilities
for waiting as a longing. Longing as langung10 expresses, etymologically, a
10
See www.etymonline.com
“weariness, sadness, dejection”. The noun form of the word longing illustrates an
instability of seeking satisfaction that is never achieved. Longing does not predefine
itself; but inhabits us as we wait and empties us of expectation immediately when it
is achieved so that we can long again. If I were waiting for a bus, in the moment of
waiting, I long for it to come, but after it comes, there is the longing to be home or
reach my destination that sets in. Longing takes mystical characteristics; it is some-
where in-between the appearance of dusk and dawn, of mists that announce the
disappearance of the night, or of a sudden light that illuminates the darkness before
quickly fading away. In a moment this longing is satisfied, for example, when a
minor gets an opportunity to attend school or is interviewed for asylum or gets a
residence permit to stay in the host country. The asylum center becomes home-like
or a temporal place to be while waiting for resettlement or repatriation. The bus or
plane becomes a temporal place of being comfortable since the longing is momen-
tarily quenched. Yet at the same time, waiting as longing induces sirens awakening
and calling from yonder where we desire to be, an un-satisfaction with what is avail-
able and a thrilling expectancy for asylum, home or belonging.
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Foucault, M. (1986). Of other spaces. Diacritics, 16(1), 22–27.
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Heidegger, M. (2010). Being and time (J. Stambaugh & D. J. Schmidt, Trans.). Albany: State
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asylsokere.pdf
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Lingis, A. (1994). The community of those who have nothing in common. Bloomington: Indiana
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Wills Kalisha (b. 1983) is a Lecturer at NLA University College and a doctoral researcher in the
Department of Education at the University of Oslo. His research interests include phenomenology
of practice, marginalized youth, and the intersectionality between policy and concrete life experi-
ences of refugee/asylum seeking children. Recent publications are Teaching for results or for well-
being? To what Extend can pedagogical tact be an alternative teaching approach in Refugee
secondary schools? (2013), “What is education for? Or does it matter what it is for?” Exploring
the meaning of education for refugee girls in Dadaab Refugee camp secondary schools (2014),
Writing the in-between spaces: Discovering Hermeneutic-Phenomenological seeing in Dadaab
Refugee Camp, Kenya (2015), and Being unaccompanied – A dilemma for Policy? Representation
of unaccompanied teenagers in Norwegian policy (forthcoming).
Part II
Educational Philosophies, Old and New
Chapter 6
Encouragement and Appeal – Free Auto-
activity (Selbstwirksamkeit) and Subjected
Freedom
Henrik Vase Frandsen
Abstract This chapter consists primarily of a discussion of Dietrich Benner’s

description of pedagogical activity as ‘encouragement’. Behind this encourage-
ment, I find a conception of freedom that in Benner remains unclear, and an idea of
authenticity that ends up in the isolated Self. In contrast to the encouragement, I
propose to study the phenomenon of the appeal in order to encircle an idea of free-
dom that does not exclude every exterior influence. This, I suggest, presents the Self
not as an isolated being, but as a being oriented in relation both to freedom and to
subjection.
Keywords Educational paradox · Freedom · Subjectivity · Dietrich Benner ·

Emmanuel Levinas
In the past two decades, debates on theoretical pedagogy and educational philoso-
phy – at least in Denmark – have been confronted with a concept of the educational
or pedagogical paradox, as explained in a book of the same title authored by
Alexander von Oettingen and published in 2001 (Oettingen 2001). The success of
this concept – in terms of its frequent use – is probably due to the fact that it points
out a problem which can be perceived as a genuine pedagogical issue, promising
‘the educational’ a relatively independent field of investigation in relation to other
scientific areas. Oettingen made it possible to define the scientific status of peda-
gogy by defining pedagogy from within, his effort gave promise of a relatively
autonomous status of pedagogy in relation to other scientific fields or ‘occupations’
such as psychology, anthropology, philosophy, economy, theology and so forth. In
other words, if other scientific fields want to say anything pertinent about pedagogy,
H. V. Frandsen (*)
Danish School of Education, Aarhus University, Copenhagen, Denmark
e-mail: hvf@edu.au.dk

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49524-4_6
88 H. V. Frandsen
they have to accept in one form or another the particular issue that characterizes and
defines educational practice: the educational paradox.
Oettingen’s fine effort draws essentially on the fundamental study from 1987
Allgemeine Pädagogik by Dietrich Benner (Benner 2015). And since this present
chapter is intended for an international audience and not only for a Nordic one, I
will refer to Benner’s work in the following discussion, while admitting that it was
Oettingen that showed me the way.1
The Paradox
The paradox that characterizes pedagogy can be described shortly as a perpetual

tension between an ideal and a necessity. The ideal concerns the free man, while the
necessity concerns the fact that from birth man is unable to live without help; and
the paradox is that man can only be (to some extent) free and (to some extent) him-
self when assisted by somebody else. Oettingen localizes a few different formula-
tions of the paradox, including a head phrase in L. Nelson: “How can we through
external influence bring man not to let himself be determined by external influ-
ence?” (Nelson 1970, Vol I, p. 349). In Benner, we find the paradox embedded in his
definition of educational practice. Benner writes:
Die … Grundparadoxie pädagogischen Denkens und Handelns, den Zu-Erziehenden zu
etwas aufzufordern, das er noch nicht kann, und ihn als jemanden zu achten, der er noch
nicht ist, kennzeichnet eine Besonderheit der pädagogischen Praxis, durch die sich diese
von allen anderen Praxen unterscheidet (Benner 2015, p. 94).2
//
The … basic paradox in pedagogical thought and deed – to encourage the one-to-be-
brought-up to something he cannot yet do, and to respect him as someone he has not yet
become – is a distinctive trait in pedagogical practice that makes it different from all other
practices (my transl.).
In Benner’s view, the possibility to deal with this paradox or this insurmountability
lies in two ‘constitutive’ pedagogical principles: the principle of man’s Bildsamkeit,
and the principle of encouragement (Aufforderung) to a free auto-activity
(Selbsttätigkeit).3
1
Throughout the chapter I will not make a distinction between ‘education’ and ‘pedagogy’ but use
these words randomly.
2
See also p. 87, where Benner formulates the task to clarify “… wie etwas, das noch nicht gelernt
worden ist, so erlernt werden kann, dass der Lernprozess weder fremdbestimmt noch dem Belieben
des Lernenden anheimgestellt wird”. // “… how something that has not yet been learnt can be
learnt in a way in which the learning process is neither determined by the foreign nor left to the
learners’ own pleasure” (my transl.). Here Benner points to encouragement and Bildsamkeit as
central concepts.
3
The constitutive status of these principles lies in the fact that they define the aspects in which
pedagogics can understand its own autonomous field of action (or area of practice). In Benner, the
two principles must be understood in concert with two regulatory principles for pedagogics that
determine how pedagogics relates to society in general. The first is the principle of transforming
6 Encouragement and Appeal – Free Auto-activity (Selbstwirksamkeit) and Subjected… 89
This leads me to my subject. What I would like to show is that these two princi-
ples – and by implication the conception of man and the implicit philosophical
anthropology – are supported by a conception of freedom that is not examined
either in Benner or in Oettingen. In other words, the pedagogical paradox is a varia-
tion of a classical problem concerning freedom which can be formulated in the
question: how can my freedom be the result of non-freedom? Or alternatively: how
can separate freedom result from a foreign freedom? Benner – as well as Oettingen –
are quite clear on the modern aspect of the paradox. When the paradox defines peda-
gogy today, it is based on a historical development leading to a situation in which
ideas of freedom and equality occupy the dominant points of orientation and set
aside a former understanding of the relation between the individual and society. The
question of freedom (and thus the paradox) becomes dominant in reflections on
education with J.-J. Rousseau, I. Kant, J.G. Fichte and J.F. Herbart, from whom it
receives its different formulations and conceptual fixations. However, the dominant
role of freedom is due to a larger historical development in society, which we can
describe briefly as a shift from a feudal and rank-oriented society in which the posi-
tion of the individual was pre-ordained, into a more open and undetermined society
that, like the individual itself, has to be discovered and shaped.4 Hence, the paradox
expresses a modern determination of pedagogy.5
My interest in the following pages is primarily to encircle the theoretical concep-
tion of subjectivity implied by the educational paradox in order to clarify the pre-
supposed philosophical anthropology and the assumptions of a more metaphysical
sort concerning the essence of man implied by this anthropology. My claim is not
spectacular: the paradox confirms two central presumptions that mark the ‘modern
thought’: that freedom has priority over non-freedom and by consequence that the
Self has priority over the Other or the foreign. By contrast with this conception, I
will later in the chapter accentuate a phenomenological description of the appeal,
claiming that the appeal reveals the basic structure in the ‘encouragement’ which is
so central in Benner’s determination of pedagogical practice. The appeal reveals the
true paradox, and by means of the phenomenon of the appeal it becomes possible to
understand the concept of freedom within another horizon than the one indicated by
“free auto-activity” (“freien Selbsttätigkeit”).
societal influence into a pedagogically legitimate influence (see Benner 2015, p. 108 ff. The crite-
rion seems to be a question of whether societal demands on pedagogics accept the two constitutive
principles). The second is the principle of a non-hierarchical order of the human spheres of practice
(cf. p. 118 ff.), with Benner counting six of these: work/economy, pedagogics, ethics, politics, art
and religion (cf. p. 25, p. 35 f.).
4
Benner writes for instance: “Die Bestimmung des Menschen ist nicht anlagendeterminiert, denn
seine Imperfektheit beruht gerade darauf, dass er seine Bestimmung selbst hervorbringen kann und
muss. Sie ist auch nicht umweltdeterminiert, denn die dem Menschen gegebene Welt ist nicht eine
ihm umgebende Umwelt, sondern eine von ihm erfahrene, interpretierte und mitgestaltete Welt”
(Benner 2015, p. 73) // “The destiny of man is not determined by his dispositions, since the imper-
fection of man is due to the fact that he himself can and must produce his own destiny. Nor is it
determined by the environment, since the world given to man is not a surrounding world, but a
world experienced, interpreted and co-designed by him” (my transl.).
5
On this subject see also Benner (2015, p. 65).
90 H. V. Frandsen
Encouragement for Free Auto-activity
The correlation between the priority of the Self over ‘the foreign’ and the priority of
freedom over ‘non-freedom’ indicated above is presumably to be found generally in
German idealism. The stipulation of the concept of autonomy in Kant is an evident
example. However, J.G. Fichte’s catch-phrase on nurture or education seems admi-
rably suited to my purpose; and as stated by Benner himself, this principle of
“encouragement for free auto-activity” is already present in Fichte’s writings
(whereas it is Benner, who interprets the status of this principle as ‘constitutive’).
Fichte’s catch-phrase says shortly: “Die Aufforderung zur freien Selbsttätigkeit ist
das, was man Erziehung nennt” (Fichte 1979, p. 39). // “Encouragement for free
auto-activity, that is what we call education” (my transl.). This phrase can be said to
be a slogan for the ideal of educational activity, formulated by Fichte on behalf of
the Enlightenment and the new era. Benner is right off course to state that this idea
constitutes a challenge to the previous understanding of what the aim of educational
activity ought to be. Resumed shortly: The traditional understanding indicated that
the child should assume or undertake the attitudes, values and virtues already exist-
ing in its societal environment. This is what we nowadays somewhat shortened refer
to as “vocation and class”. The idea being that when children assume the existing
values and virtues of the society in which they live, they are introduced to the tradi-
tions and conventions of that society. Fichte’s catch-phrase is exemplary in that it
captures the rupture with tradition that was promoted by the Enlightenment. The
aim or ideal for education and upbringing is no longer to maintain the existing soci-
ety. The aim for education is to discover a wholly new society based on the indi-
vidual’s freedom, and for that purpose also to discover a wholly new individual
capable of free action. Free action, or as Fichte puts it, free “auto-activity”, is pre-
cisely an action whose source lies in the free “Self”, in the free subject. Think for
yourself, evaluate for yourself, and act for yourself!
Now: This priority of the self’s freedom includes a problem: freedom cannot be
issued like an injunction. It is not possible to command someone to be free or to
determine man to freedom. And since freedom cannot be ordered, modern educa-
tional thought is confronted with the paradox that the individual’s freedom presup-
poses a foreign authority or – putting this more bluntly – that an attempt is made to
force the individual to be free. The problem is how to reach freedom through
enforcement – and as mentioned above, this is the educational version of the more
classical philosophical problem: how can my freedom be a result of foreign freedom?
Benner and Fichte solve this problem (or come to terms with it) by stressing the
particular pedagogical status of encouragement (Aufforderung). If you cannot
determine the individual to be free, you can at least encourage the individual to real-
ize his or her freedom. Encouragement then becomes the form of educational action.
The teacher or responsible adult does not command and enforce the child, but
encourages the child instead: “Come on, you can do it!”
However, encouragement gives rise to another problem: the freedom and sponta-
neity, which the individual is supposed to achieve (“free auto-activity”), is based on
a kind of passivity. Children must be able to receive something: they must be able to
receive the very encouragement. Some kind of susceptibility must be assumed; oth-
erwise the encouragement will be lost on the child. As Fichte writes: “Die gesetzte
Ursache der Aufforderung auβer dem Subjekte muβ demnach wenigstens die
Möglichkeit voraussetzen, daβ das letztere verstehen und begreifen könne, auβerdem
hat seine Aufforderung gar keinen Zweck.” (Benner, 2015, p. 82; Fichte 1979, p. 36)
// “The supposed cause of the encouragement outside the subject must accordingly
at least presuppose the possibility that the latter is able to understand and compre-
hend; otherwise the encouragement would have no point at all” (my transl.).
It is in connection with this problem that Benner introduces the concept of
Bildsamkeit, a term he draws primarily from J.F. Herbart and rephrases as follows:
“… Bestimmtsein des Menschen zur Mitwirkung an der Gesamtpraxis und mithin
als Bildsamkeit zu rezeptiver und spontaner Leiblichkeit, Freiheit, Geschichtlichkeit
und Sprache menschlicher Praxis …” (Benner 2015, p. 74). // “… man’s determina-
tion to collaborate at the whole practice and therefore as Bildsamkeit to receptive
and spontaneous embodiment, freedom, historicity and language of human prac-
tice” (my transl.). The concept of Bildsamkeit – I dare not suggest an English trans-
lation of this word – is precisely designed to capture the receptivity implied in being
human as a formational or educational openness. But the concept also underlines
the problem with which we are confronted: the subject’s sovereignty (or freedom)
cannot be conceived of unless we simultaneously consider some sort of receptivity.
And this receptivity does not point towards sovereignty. On the contrary, receptivity
points towards dependence and passivity.
In other words, the situation seems to be as follows: the “free auto-activity” that
Benner talks about in prolongation of Fichte denotes the ideal of an individual spon-
taneity and an inner sovereignty. But this “free auto-activity” begins against the
background of an “encouragement” that the recipient must be able to hear. This
possibility of ‘hearing’ the encouragement is the recipients’ educational or forma-
tional openness, their Bildsamkeit. But this ‘openness’ is not possible without
implying some sort of receptivity and affectability, which in turn implies a depen-
dence and passivity that plays within the idea of sovereignty and the inner man. In
short: inner sovereignty presupposes a dependence on the exterior. The active, or
Benner’s and Fichte’s “activity/ wirksamkeit” presupposes the passive. Freedom
requires a special way of being bound. And we can go a little further, since the
‘Self’ – the ‘Self’ suggested in the concept of a “free auto-activity” – presupposes
an otherness, and it is this otherness which is in possession of the first “action”, the
first “wirksamkeit”, the first initiative, that is: the encouragement that comes to the
recipient from elsewhere. As a result, Benner’s constitutive principles implies some
problems. “Encouragement for free auto-activity, that is what we call education”, so
Fichte and Benner. My first question is who encourages? In other words, which
‘otherness’ is at stake here? And my second question is: who is the intended recipi-
ent of the encouragement? Who is the proper ‘receiver’ of the encouragement? And
it all depends on encouragement. What does ‘encouragement’ mean?
92 H. V. Frandsen
Encouragement and Heteronomy
Now, my thought is that the encouragement to which Benner turns is but one exam-
ple of a figure that could be referred to more generally as an appeal or a call. And
when we realize that it is the more fundamental figure of the appeal which is
involved, the idea of freedom put forward by Benner and Fichte is placed in
another light.
We know of other significant encouragements that have had an impact on our
cultural horizon. In close connection with Fichte’s encouragement for free auto-
activity, we find Kant’s encouragement in the text on Enlightenment: Emerge from
your self-imposed immaturity, “Have the courage to use your own understanding //
Habe Mut, dich deines eigenen Verstandes zu bedienen!” (Kant 2005, Vol. VI, p. 53,
A 481). Like Fichte’s encouragement, this form of encouragement places the Self in
the very foreground and takes its point of departure in the idea of this “Self” and its
spontaneity. Activity has to begin from within, that is from this “Self”, otherwise we
cannot speak of freedom. This priority of the inner Self or “the inner man” seems to
be a dominant characteristic in the long history of Western thought. But it is note-
worthy that the inner man is often known as some sort of tension, split or division,
also in Kant, who knows the difference between what we ought to do and what we
wish to do (Sollen und Wollen). Other important stations in the history of the inner
man are the cogito in Descartes, which surely exists as a certainty but does not know
what it thinks. And we can also point towards the “chamber of the heart” and the
experience of the inner conflict in Augustine6 and before him in Paul (Rom. 7,15).
At the same time as the Self is discovered as the place of freedom, authenticity and
sovereignty (liberum arbitrium), this place is experienced as division, as imperfec-
tion, as unease. Against this background it is striking when already the Oracle in
Delphi says “Know thyself!” At the beginning of Western thought and our cultural
landscape, we find the Self emphasized just as Fichte emphasizes the Self, and it is
especially striking that this Self is addressed. The Oracle actually encourages. Here
we have the pedagogical form of activity – the encouragement – perhaps in its very
first figure, engraved in stone at the entrance to the Temple of Apollo. And the one
to whom there is spoken: A human that does not yet know himself but is called
towards such knowledge.
In order to put this encouragement for the Self in perspective, I will now leave
Greece (and Fichte and Benner) and move to another part of the Mediterranean: to
Jerusalem, or rather to Mount Sinai, and to the revelation of the Law or the Torah.
Here we find a form of appeal that is not an encouragement but has the form of an
imperative, or indeed a prohibition. The fifth commandment. From the Oracle in
Delphi sounds the encouragement “Know thyself!” From Mount Sinai sounds the
commandment “Thou shalt not kill!” In other words, I now leave the perspective
advanced by the freedom of the Self and turn to Emmanuel Levinas and the
6
“Tum in illa grandi rixa interioris domus mea, quam fortiter exitaveram cum anima mea in cubi-
culo nostro corde meo …” (Augustine 1845, p. 757 (Book 8 chapter 8). // “Then, as this vehement
quarrel, which I waged with my soul in the chamber of my heart, was raging inside my inner dwell-
ing, agitated both in mind and countenance …” (Augustine 1955, trans. A.C. Outler).
perspective imposed by the other and alterity. It is the other that I must not kill, and
the “face” that Levinas speaks of is the kind of Sinai that reveals such a law or
expresses this prohibition. This is the face’s first words, its first signification, its first
instruction – and it is an instruction precisely because the face tells me something
that I cannot tell me myself. It is then an unmediated commandment. The command
“Thou shalt not kill!” is not mediated by the idea of the freedom of the Self as in
Fichte’s encouragement. On the contrary: Levinas depicts the ethical experience as
a heteronomy in which the command is not in continuity with the Self but on the
contrary interrupts the Self, breaks into the world of the Self and decentralizes the
subject. Unlike the “encouragement” which promotes the freedom of the Self,
Levinas examines the command that confronts me with the foreign, with “the widow
and the orphan” as he stylizes it, that is with the other in his or her vulnerability and
poverty, but by this also with the other in his or her height and demand for justice
that I cannot hide for. I cannot decline to this responsibility for the indigent, and in
this way the Self is interrupted or subjectivity is decentralized.
Levinas makes use of various concepts in order to describe this experience of
decentralization. In the present chapter’s educational-philosophical context, it is by
the hand to highlight some phrases where he marks the “Teacher’s” exteriority in
relation to consciousness and subjectivity. I take the liberty of including a
lengthy quote:
La thématisation comme œuvre du langage, comme une action excercée par le Maître sur
moi, n’est pas une mystérieuse information, mais l’appel adressé à mon attention. L’attention
et la pensée explicite qu’elle rend possible sont la conscience même et non point un affine-
ment de la conscience. Mais l’attention éminemment souveraine en moi, est ce qui essenti-
ellement répond à un appel. L’attention est attention à quelque chose, parce qu’elle est
attention à quelqu’un. L’extériorité de son point de départ lui est essentielle, à elle, qui est
la tension même du moi. L’école, sans laquelle aucune pensée n’est explicite, conditionne
la science. C’est là que s’affirme l’extériorité qui accomplit la liberté au lieu de la blesser:
l’extériorité du Maître. L’explication d’une pensée ne peut se faire qu’à deux ; elle ne se
borne pas à trouver ce que l’on possédait déjà. Mais le premier enseignement de l’enseignant,
c’est sa présence même d’enseignant à partir de laquelle vient la représentation (Levinas
1992, p. 102).
//
Thematization as the work of language, as an action exercised by the Master on me, is
not a mysterious information, but the appeal addressed to my attention. Attention and the
explicit thought it makes possible are not a refinement of consciousness, but consciousness
itself. But the eminently sovereign attention in me is what essentially responds to an appeal.
Attention is attention to something because it is attention to someone. The exteriority of its
point of departure is essential to it: it is the very tension of the I. The school, without which
no thought is explicit, conditions science. It is there that is affirmed the exteriority that
accomplishes freedom and does not offend it: the exteriority of the Master. Thought can
become explicit only among two; explicitation is not limited to finding what one already
possessed. But the first teaching of the teacher is his very presence as teacher from which
representation comes (Eng. transl. A. Lingis: Levinas 1969, pp. 99–100).
Levinas is primarily known for his thematisation of the ethical experience; but as is
clear in the quotation above, he does not exclusively express himself within the
frame of interpersonal ethics. However, if we initially stick to the ethical experi-
ence, his description seems plausible: the other awakens my attention in that she
intrudes on me in an irrefutable way. Here, responsibility has nothing to do with the
94 H. V. Frandsen
subject’s freedom. If the subject’s freedom has priority and conditions the moral
value of any action that a man can do to another man, then we have here a reverse
picture. This priority of the Self is challenged by moral experience. Responsibility
poses questions about the subject’s freedom; the distress of the other accuses my
freedom. Responsibility is experienced as something that comes from the outside
and as something that is imposed on me regardless of whether I want it or not.
Confronted with this responsibility-for-the-other, the free Self is put in a position
where it must now justify itself. In other words, the other or responsibility intro-
duces another sort of ‘height’ than the one at work in the idea of freedom. Something
is experienced as ‘higher’ than the freedom of the Self. Or expressed differently: it
belongs to the experience of responsibility that we do not ‘choose’ this responsibil-
ity; we are not asked whether we can accept this responsibility. Levinas uses the
term “election” for this situation. We are elected by the responsibility; and this
“election” is a Sinai, an exile, a separation from the usual and the familiar. Confronted
with the poor and the needy, we experience this election and this command. This is
the desert in which we may suddenly find ourselves – even if this desert is located
in a big-city metro.
This experience of a heteronomous responsibility described by Levinas is a true
break with the way of thinking that characterizes Fichte’s “Self” and his “encour-
agement for free auto-activity”. The election does something else. The picture is not
that in the first place there is this “Self” or subjectivity who then afterwards decides
to accept or reject a responsibility. The election goes in the opposite direction:
responsibility comes “first” in that it elects the Self. The Self or subjectivity emerge
as the responsible one. Subjectivity is ‘opened’ in advance by the responsibility that
announces itself. In the language of Fichte and Benner, we might say that the
encouragement for the Self urges the Self to leave itself, to step out of itself, which
we cannot do. And this is precisely one of the points made by Levinas: responsibil-
ity for the other is experienced as a demand that is insuperable.
Phenomenology of the Appeal
As stated above, Fichte’s encouragement runs into a dilemma, which is often

referred to as the pedagogical paradox: how can we pass from restraint to freedom?
But the election in Levinas also runs into a paradox, which we can formulate in the
opposite question: how can we pass from freedom to restraint or obligation? The
first paradox poses the problem of how I can be myself when I am led by the other;
while the second paradox poses the problem of how I can reach the other given
that – no matter what I do – I am myself all along.
My idea is now that both paradoxes are variations of the paradox of the appeal.
In order to explain what I mean by this, it is necessary to briefly characterize the
phenomenon of the appeal. Two traits are especially important. First, that the appeal
is pronounced in the name of someone else, and that is pretends to be sincere in this
reference to “the other”. Second, that the appeal is not heard but in the response I
give it; it is only from the moment that I give the appeal an answer I become capable
of hearing the appeal. This last trait is the paradox of the appeal.
1/ The first trait is that the appeal is addressed to me in the name of somebody
else. The appeal does not primarily consist of some new information about the
world. I am not necessarily told anything new. The appeal is first and foremost a
request and an impact. However, the source of this request or the first cause of the
appeal is withdrawn from my knowledge; the appeal’s “first cause” does not appear
to me. For instance, the appeals of The Red Cross or Médecins sans Frontières to
support people in distress (victims of a natural disaster, a war or the like) are gener-
ally supported by TV spots and advertisements on various platforms. But what they
show me are faces, faces of people that I do not know, and that I do not need to
know. It is sufficient for me to be confronted with the need and the misery. The
essential thing here is that The Red Cross appeals to me with reference to other and
to me foreign human beings, and that the appeal is addressed to me in the name of
those other people; the appeal serves another person and not the organization or the
person that actually pronounces the appeal. And together with this implicit refer-
ence to “the other” or “the foreign” follows the pretention to “speak sincerely”. The
appeal is put forward “in the name of another” and it is “sincere”: it serves this other
and unknown authority. If there were not this “sincerity in the address”, the appeal
would simply not be heard. Or rather: if I do not hear the sincerity in the appeal
pretending to serve “someone else”, I do not hear an appeal at all. I might hear yet
another advertisement or an attempt to manipulate me instead. The suspicion with
regard to this sincerity annul the appeal. But to put it short: It belongs to the appeal
to be put forward in the name of somebody else and to be sincere in this reference
to “the other”.7
This trait repeats itself if we vary the appeal to a situation in which we meet an
actual person in need who makes an appeal to me for my intervention. This actual
other person is not the appeal’s last source and cause. It might well be, that the
actual other addresses me directly, and probably desires my help, but the charac-
teristic is that this address does not happen only in her own name but – spoken or
silently – is intertwined with other names as well, for instance in the name of
God, in the name of life, in the name of humanity, in the name of justice and so
forth. Any appeal implies such implicit reference to another ultimately unknown
name who takes the position as the appeal’s last and proper source. In the final
analysis, this all means that the appeal addresses me but is simultaneously anony-
mous in its address. The last signatory, the one who at the end of the line ‘issues’
7
We might have two original ‘pictures’ of the appeal: the “Know thyself!” of the Oracle and the
fifth commandment on Mount Sinai: “Thou shall not kill!” But we also know some other appeals:
the religious “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with
all your strength”, Deut. 6,5; Mark. 12, 29–30. Or the erotic appeal, love’s supplication, the ‘poetic
imperative’ as Ricœur calls it in a discussion of Levinas and Rosenzweig: “You, love me! (Ricœur
1990, p. 405). On this subject, see further Penser la bible (LaCoque and Ricœur 1998, p. 169). But
there are others, for example the presidential appeal, for which J.F. Kennedy provides a clear-cut
example: “And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you
can do for your country!” Inaugural address, January 20, 1961.
96 H. V. Frandsen
the appeal, is a nameless and unknown authority. And so we can say that the
appeal maintains its anonymity simultaneously with its approach towards me. On
the other hand, it also seems to be valid that if I know the source of the appeal,
that is if I know the appeal’s “who is calling?” or if I know its last name, then I
am no longer the person who is affected by the appeal. I can only hear the appeal
if I allow myself to listen to it, venturing beneath its sincerity in the reference to
“the other name”, but without this other name being known or appearing to my
consciousness.
2/ Next to this feature comes the second trait, namely that the appeal is heard in
the response I give it. In order for the appeal to manifest itself, it is necessary to
find a receiver of the appeal; but the receiver of the appeal only enters the role as
receiver from the moment he or she responds to the appeal. It is important here to
be attentive to the fact that the appeal is not an object phenomenon: it does not
manifest itself ‘out in the world’. The appeal is not an object about which we can
‘know’ something, nor can it be pointed out demonstratively. Instead, the appeal is
a kind of intentionality, it is a ‘will’, and that means a ‘will’ that I ‘know’ only
insofar as I am affected by it. This ‘voice’ wants to say me something, and so I only
know of the appeal insofar as it exercises an effect on me. If I am not affected, then
I do not hear the appeal; then it has disappeared, or rather: it has never shown itself
to me. To know the meaning of the appeal or to know its ‘will’ involves the subject
accepting the appeal by responding to it; and responding to it means pronouncing
it yourself. This trait underlines that ultimately the appeal is always tied to the
singular experience: the only one who knows the meaning of the appeal is the one
who subjects himself to the appeal by responding to it, thereby expressing the
appeal himself. No one hears the appeal in the same way, no one responds to the
appeal in the same manner as anyone else. It is not a common phenomenon. We
cannot regard the appeal as a phenomenon spread out before our eyes, lying next
to other phenomena, and which we would be able to observe and examine. But the
person who responds to the appeal testifies to the appeal. It is in this trait it comes
to the fore that the appeal has to do with a height, with an ‘over me’. The appeal
opens towards the dimension of the elevated. It opens the path leading towards a
dimension that I cannot access by investigation and examination since – once
again – I cannot know anything about the appeal. I do not know it as an ‘object’,
but as a will and an address to me. I only have access to the appeal by venturing
into and under its height, or again: under its sincerity. In the appeal we are dealing
with alterity and heteronomy. The appeal is a will marked by a foreignness, but it
can be transformed into a kind of autonomy if I make ‘its’ will into ‘my’ will,
which happens insofar as I speak out and pronounce the appeal myself and in this
way respond to it.
Hence it is by my response to the appeal that the appeal is displayed: The appeal
manifests itself in the answer I give to it. It manifests itself to me in my mouth while
I speak. By responding to the appeal, I sign it with my own name. The anonymity of
the appeal allows me to take it over. Not as a piece of property, but as something I
attest to and to which I give my own name. Or in short: it is by the response to the
appeal that the subject enters into the position as a receiver of the appeal.
This is precisely the para-dox. The word para-dox is a composition: doxa signi-
fies ‘meaning’, and para signifies that it ‘runs against’. The paradox is a ‘meaning
against’, a counter-meaning or rather an intentionality that ‘runs against’ me, a
counter-intentionality. The appeal is an experience of a will, an intentionality, which
comes to me or runs against me. Unpredicted, surprising, overwhelming. In accor-
dance with the appeal, I receive a new view of the world, a different orientation: the
world is shown in a new aspect and with a different understanding of what is neces-
sary and important.8
Back to Freedom
If we now return to the concept of freedom in the light of this phenomenology of the
appeal, we see more clearly that the comprehension of freedom lying behind the
pedagogical paradox has two characteristics:
1/ One of these characteristics is that freedom seems dominated by a specific
idea that concerns the relation of the Self to the others. We can formulate it in the
way that the pedagogical paradox’s very status as a ‘paradox’ is carried by the idea
that the Self really should not be affected by others. The sovereignty of the Self is
imagined as untouchability: the inner man is supposed not to receive anything from
anybody. Freedom of the Self presupposes a rejection of any exterior influence.
Freedom is to be alone. Levinas notes that this understanding of freedom was pro-
moted already in Socrates, in the recollection (anamnesis), in that I do not receive
anything from the other which I do not have in me already.9 It seems to me that this
is very close to the understanding of freedom that induces the conception of the
educational act as a paradoxical act: the destiny of the Self is to be untouched by the
other’s influence. This conception appears to be present in Benner’s characteriza-
tion of educational practice as well: by contrast with all other fields of practice,
educational practice aims at its own termination. If it does not strive for its own
ending, it will pervert:
8
This draft analysis of the phenomenon of the appeal is not without inspiration from E. Levinas
and J.-L. Marion. In Levinas, the appeal is present in various places, but for a more thematically
concentrated place I will refer to Autrement qu’être, chap. V “Subjectivité et infini” (Levinas 1990,
p. 206 ff.), where he writes on the “testimony” (in my vocabulary: The answer to the appeal).
Regarding Marion, see his Étant donné, § 28 “L’appel et le répons” (Marion 1997, p. 390 ff.). I
have written a more in-length analysis of the appeal in “Transcendence of the Appeal – Sovereignty
of the Subject” (Frandsen 2007).
9
“Cette primauté du Même fut la leçon de Socrate. Ne rien recevoir d’Autrui sinon ce qui est en
moi, comme si, de toute éternité, je possédais ce qui me vient du dehors. Ne rien recevoir ou être
libre” (Levinas 1992, p. 34). // “This primacy of the same was Socrates’s teaching: to receive noth-
ing of the Other but what is in me, as though from all eternity I was in possession of what comes
to me from the outside – to receive nothing, or to be free” (Levinas 1969, p. 43).
98 H. V. Frandsen
… pädagogisches Handeln [ist] nur dort erlaubt, wo der Zu-Erziehende der

Fremdaufforderung zur Selbsttätigkeit bedarf, und muss Erziehung stets dort an ihr Ende
gekommen sein, wo pädagogische Fremdaufforderung zur Selbsttätigkeit in
Selbstaufforderung übergehen kann (Benner 2015, p. 95).
//
… pedagogical action [is] only allowed when the one-to-be-brought-up needs a foreign
encouragement for self-activity, and education must always come to an end when pedagogi-
cal foreign encouragement can become self-encouragement (my transl.).
The moment the Self takes over the encouragement and becomes capable of a
“self-encouragement // Selbstaufforderung”, the educator must retreat. The peda-
gogical foreign encouragement is destined to become the proper or authentic
Self-encouragement. The Self surely needs to receive something from the exte-
rior, but this is a need that is understood as provisional and one that ought to be
overcomed.
This trait of the normative self-understanding in educational practice finds its
counterpart in the trait in the phenomenon of the appeal that has already been under-
lined: the appeal is only heard in the response given by the appeal’s receiver.
2/ The second trait in the conception of freedom intertwined in the educational
paradox is tied up with the experience of spontaneity: freedom is linked closely to
the experience of being able to change something or the ability to do something
new. To learn about yourself as – at least partly – free is to experience yourself as a
being who in your actions can set something – at least partly – new in motion.
Freedom of the Self is manifest in experiences of action and performance. This
character of freedom is also clearly present in Benner’s conception of the pedagogi-
cal, and it comes to the fore in the core concept of “auto-activity / Selbsttätigkeit”.
The pedagogical practice consists in constantly paying attention to this aspect of the
pupil’s or the student’s own contribution. Benner writes:
Das Prinzip der Bildsamkeit ist … eine Verhältnisbestimmung der pädagogischen
Interaktion selbst und bezieht sich auf die Möglichkeit der Mitwirkung der Zu-erziehenden
an der pädagogischen Interaktion. … jemanden seine Bildsamkeit absprechen, hieβe ihm
sein Recht zur Mitwirkung an der Praxis und damit seine Menschlichkeit aberkennen
(Benner 2015, p. 81).
//
The principle of Bildsamkeit is … a relational determination of the pedagogical interac-
tion itself, and it refers to the possibility of the co-action of the one-to-be-brought-up in the
pedagogical interaction. … to disqualify the Bildsamkeit of someone means to deprive him
of the right to contribute to practice, thereby depriving him of his humanity (my transl.).
Without this con-tribution in the formation of ‘itself’, the child cannot become
‘itself’. This form of ‘activity’ points back to a freedom that is understood within
the horizon of free and spontaneous action. In other words: it is by acting according
to an initiative that originates in the inner Self that the freedom of the Self becomes
manifest in the world. Here freedom is the inner spontaneity of action and must
push aside the possible exterior determining factors.
This second trait of the self-understanding in educational practice also finds its
counterpart in the phenomenon of the appeal, and yet the spontaneous action here
appears in another light: by hearing the appeal and responding to it in pronouncing
it myself, I not only confirm ‘myself’ but also attest my delay in relation to the
appeal. This delay, however, is not un-freedom but an appellation I recognize by
acting according to the appeal’s intentionality. The appeal impels me to do some-
thing, to begin, to put something new in motion. In this way, we can – by virtue of
the phenomenon of the appeal – thematise a freedom that does not end up in an
isolated Self; a freedom that is manifest precisely in action but at the same time is
bound to or inspired by a relation to another. In the vocabulary of Benner: the
‘encouragement’ comes to me from the outside, thereby confirming that I am in
relation to something that is not me: I am in relation to a kind of ‘height’. Freedom
in this sense does not express my loneliness and untouched status, but expresses that
I am touched by a ‘height’, by an intentionality that is received and that ties me at
the very moment I respond to it and give witness to it in an action that I perform
myself and must answer for myself.
A Question of Horizon
After this quite short and – obviously incomplete – outline of the phenomenon of
the appeal, I would like to return to the pedagogical practice in a more delimited
sense: at the beginning of the chapter, I posed the questions relating to who does
the encouraging and who receives the encouragement. In Benner, the encourage-
ment is obviously a determination of the form of action that the teacher or educator
presents to the child. So the encouragement should be understood within the frame
of the educational action that Benner establishes, namely to encourage the child to
do something she cannot yet do and to respect the child as somebody she has not
yet become. In my opinion, there is no doubt that Benner here presents a strong
formal determination of the educational activity, a determination which intends to
uphold an open view on Enlightenment ideals and with which I find it difficult to
disagree. Furthermore, it is clear to me that there is no direct line from a Levinas-
inspired analysis of the phenomenon of the appeal to the form of educational prac-
tice. The primary reason for this is the considerable difference between, on the one
hand, the basic experience constantly present in Levinas, namely the encounter
with the indigent and the experience of responsibility’s break in to the world of the
Self; and, on the other hand, the educational practice in which the educator has a
specific assignment in relation to the individual in need of education. However, as
I have stressed, the way Benner orients pedagogy is guided by a horizon in which
the freedom of the Self is the central point of orientation. This comes to the fore in
Benner’s repeated emphasis on the student’s possibility to co-act, to collaborate.
This co-action and involvement dissolve education’s compulsory character and
confirm the educational aim of creating free individuals, a freedom that is com-
pleted in independent and spontaneous thoughts and acts. It is precisely this educa-
tion’s ultimate horizon in the isolated Self that the exteriority of the appeal and the
encouragement is able to clarify. On the one hand, the freedom of the Self is the
horizon without which educational practice cannot be conceived of in a morally
justifiable way. The one to whom the encouragement or the appeal is directed is the
100 H. V. Frandsen
free individual. But on the other hand, the encouragement for the free individual
shows that freedom is not the one and only horizon of education. This feature,
however, is not a bondage. The fact that the Self is able to receive encouragement
does not reflect a fall into unfreedom but expresses a freedom that is given a chance
to be qualified and depend, whilst the Self becomes attentive to and is awakened by
an exteriority, by something that came to the Self from the outside, that is: by a will
that came ‘from the other shore’.
References
Augustine, A. (1845). Confessiones. Ed. J.-P. Migne, Patrologia Latina vol. XXXII. http://patris-
tica.net/latina/#t032
Augustine, A. (1955). Confessions (AD 397–401). English translation A. C. Outler at https://
en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Confessions_of_Saint_Augustine_(Outler)
in die Grundstruktur pädagogischen Denkens und Handelns (8. überarbeitete Aufl.) (1. ed.
1987). Weinheim: Belz Juventa.
Fichte, J. G. (1979). Grundlagen des Naturrechts. Hamburg: Felix Meiner. (1. ed. 1796).
Frandsen, H. V. (2007). Transcendence of the appeal – Sovereignty of the subject. In Arne Grøn e.a
(Ed.), Subjectivity and transcendence. Tübingen: Mohr Sibeck.
Kant, I. (2005). Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung? (1. ed. 1783). In: Werke in
sechs Bänden, Hrsg. W. Weischedel. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft (Insel
Verlag 1954).
LaCoque, A., & Ricœur, P. (1998). Penser la bible. Paris: Seuil.
Levinas, E. (1969). Totality and infinity. An essay on exteriority (A. Lingis, Trans.). Pittsburgh:
Duquesne University Press.
Levinas, E. (1990). Autrement qu’être ou au-delà de l’essence. Paris: Poche. (1. ed. 1974).
Levinas, E. (1992). Totalité et infini. Essai sur l’extériorité. Paris: Poche. (1. ed. 1961).
Marion, J.-L. (1997). Étant donné. Essai d’une phénoménologie de la donation. Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France.
Nelson, L. (1970). Die sokratische Methode. In Gesammelte Schriften (Vol. I). Hamburg:
Felix Meiner.
Ricœur, P. (1990). Soi-même comme un autre. Paris: Seuil.
von Oettingen, A. (2001). Det pædagogiske paradoks – et grundstudie i almen pædagogik.
Aarhus: Klim.
Henrik Vase Frandsen (b. 1963) is Associate Professor at Aarhus University, Department of
Education. His research interests include phenomenology, hermeneutics, philosophy of religion,
and philosophy of education. His publications include Emmanuel Levinas og kærlighedens visdom
[Emmanuel Levinas and the wisdom of love] (2001, monography), Transcendence of the appeal –
sovereignty of the subject (2007, essay), Pædagogiske værdier og religion [Educational values and
religion] (2008, edited anthology), and L’enseignement et le Soi [Teaching and the Self]
(2012, essay).
Chapter 7
Towards Educational Justice : What
Difference Can Recognitive Justice Make?
Teemu Hanhela
Abstract The contemporary situation of Nordic school institutions reflects a

strange tension. Nordic schools are internationally rated as succeeding beyond the
average school in OECD countries, but they are unable to get actively enrolled in
their institutions a considerable amount of children and youths. The increasing
amount of youths not in education, employment or training (NEET) in Finland and
school dropout rates in Sweden exemplify this inability. These recent trends seem to
put the basic values of the Nordic model to the test. This uneasy situation provokes
this chapter to examine the theoretical grounds for the educational justice theory
that explains the process of exclusion from the perspectives of the excluded. The
first part of this chapter approaches this task by bringing forth the distinctiveness of
Axel Honneth’s recognitive justice theory: its highest value relies on the process of
undistorted growth, and by focusing on the distortions of growth, it captures the
perspectives of the worst offs. Although the recognitive justice theory offers a
salient direction for the educational justice theory to insert its essence into the pro-
cess of education and social injustice, it has its weaknesses. The second part of this
chapter analyses further Honneth’s idea of the hermeneutics of injustice, elaborat-
ing on three central problems: the sufficiency, conceptual and negativity problems.
These problems show how difficult it is to explain the tacit experiences of the
excluded and to anchor the theory of educational justice to these negative feelings.
The conclusion draws the results of this chapter, outlining how the recognitive justice
theory could be furthered with pedagogical aspects.
Keywords Axel Honneth · Critics · Educational justice · Injustice ·

Misrecognition · Recognitive justice
T. Hanhela (*)
Faculty of Education, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland
e-mail: teemu.hanhela@oulu.fi

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49524-4_7
102 T. Hanhela
Introduction
This chapter focuses on the problems of educational justice which play a pivotal
role in the Nordic model. The Nordic model is understood as a specific egalitarian
social democratic community where the state regime strives to equally guarantee
every citizen’s freedom, equality and solidarity. The principles of the Nordic model
have strong equivalences in the paradigm of recognitive justice which explains
equality and justice as the equal providence of the right kind of intersubjective rela-
tions of empathy, respect and solidarity. This chapter aims to further the principles
of the Nordic model by studying the recognitive justice paradigm and the principles
of recognition in the context of educational justice. This focus reveals how the prin-
ciples of the Nordic model are related to the crucial questions of educational justice
and how these aspects encounter multifarious challenges. Against this background,
this chapter asks what difference recognitive justice can make in the context of edu-
cational justice. Recent debates (Brenner 2008; Drerup 2016; Giesinger 2014;
Macleod 2010; Levinson 2015; Stojanov 2018) on mainstream educational justice
paradigms1 contend, among other things, that the distributive and sufficientarian
paradigms have been one-sidedly focused either on equal distribution of resources
and opportunities for education, or opportunities as a result of education. In other
words, the emphasis of mainstream educational justice theories has been either on
justice for education or justice through education, while largely neglecting perspec-
tives concerning justice in education (Hanhela 2018). This chapter amends this
critical line of thought by asserting that mainstream educational justice theories lack
the fine-grained analytical tools to analyse injustice in education. Axel Honneth’s
idea of the recognitive justice paradigm significantly contributes to this perspective.
Honneth (Anderson and Honneth 2005) claims that the recognitive justice paradigm
is ‘profoundly’ different from other justice paradigms when being capable to better
explain the daily experiences of injustice. Theorists of the recognitive justice para-
digm (e.g., Honneth 1991, 2004, 2013; Renault and Lynch 2019; Stojanov 2016,
2018) argue that recognition theory contains highly developed theoretical tools for
recognising and articulating the tacit experiences of injustice.2 This is the exact
1
This paper is influenced by Krassimir Stojanov’s (2011, 2016, 2018, cf. Kiilakoski, Huttunen &
Heikkinen, see part I; Leiviskä, see part II ) recent studies that define mainstream educational
justice theories by comprising three historically formed discourses on social justice: the distribu-
tive, sufficientarian and recognitive justice paradigms. Stojanov characterises all these strands of
justice as different kinds of egalitarianism: the distributive justice is composed of John Rawls’
(1972) and Donald Dworkin’s (2002) justice theories as ‘luck egalitarianism’, while the sufficien-
tarian account is characterised through Martha Nussbaum’s (2006), Amy Gutmann’s (1999) and
Elisabeth Anderson’s (2007) sufficientarian approaches as ‘minimalist egalitarianism’ and
Honneth’s recognitive justice paradigm as ‘respect egalitarianism’. This paper does not aim to
offer a systematic account of the different orientations of educational justice theories but, rather,
focuses solely on the recognitive justice paradigm and its implications on educational justice.
2
This focus does not exhaust the fact that Honneth’s theory has massive implementation for the
idea of justice in education. Quite contrarily, Honneth (1998, p. 706; cf. Macleod, 2010) is influ-
enced by Dewey and argues that at the centre of justice theories, there should be the supreme value
7 Towards Educational Justice : What Difference Can Recognitive Justice Make? 103
difference or critical core of Axel Honneth’s recognitive justice paradigm: to explain

justice from the point of view of the worst-offs.3 This chapter critically analyses the
suitability of the recognitive justice paradigm, explaining the experiences of injus-
tice and the positions of the worst-offs.
The focus of this chapter is acute and important for this book for two reasons.
First, the situation of Nordic school institutions reflects a strange tension. Nordic
schools are internationally rated (PISA 2015, 2019) as succeeding beyond the aver-
age school in OECD countries, but they are unable to activate a considerable amount
of children and youths to study and improve their inferior position. The increasing
number of youths not in employment, education or training (NEET) in Finland and
school dropout rates in Sweden exemplify this incapability among educational insti-
tutions (see Ahonen 2014; Kiilakoski, Huttunen & Heikkinen, in part I; Me-säätiö
2018; Statistics Finland 2018; Kolm and Svensson 2017). Thus, there is demand for
an educational justice theory sensitive to the negative experiences of the excluded
and for theories considering possibilities for inclusion. Second, in this book, the
experiences of the excluded are highly recognised. By critically studying Rawls’
political liberalism, for example, Leiviskä (see part II) explains the role of immi-
grant students in the Nordic countries. Kalisha Wills’ article (see part I) examines
the experiences of children waiting for asylum, particularly the experiences of chil-
dren in the worst situation: waiting for acceptance or denial of democratic citizen-
ship. In addition, the chapter by Tomi Kiilakoski, Rauno Huttunen and Hannu
L.T. Heikkinen (see part I) studies how young people perceive themselves, departed
from mainstream understanding, as citizens and participators in democratic
decision-making. The shared concern in these studies is how to regard the experi-
ences, positions and worldviews of the worst-offs or excluded. The first part of this
chapter approaches this concern by critically outlining the basic idea of the recogni-
tive justice paradigm. Honneth (2017a) offers the idea of the ‘hermeneutic open-
ness’ of the values of recognition. This openness also resembles the Nordic model
in which symbolic representations are understood as being continuously in the mak-
ing: contingent and unstable, fluctuating in time and space. This chapter elicits the
specific problem concerning this ‘hermeneutic openness’. The values of recognition
as well as the values of the Nordic model seem to lead to the problematic assump-
tion that, in modern societies, the central constitutive values appear simultaneously
possible and impossible (see also Bankovsky 2011).
or the ‘highest good’, which is growth or maturing. In this sense, Honneth’s theory has salutary
insights into the criticism demanding the processes of education in the centre of justice theories.
3
For clarity of the argument and consistency of this paper, these groups are called the ‘worst offs’.
The worst offs are understood similarly with Honneth (2007a, 2016a; see also Ranciére 2016) as
groups that are excluded from the political order of society. These groups are uncounted from the
dominating political order, which means there is no accepted language or category for their spe-
cific mode of existence and especially no category or language for their specific mode of suffering.
104 T. Hanhela
The second part of this chapter furthers this analysis by examining how the
worst-offs could become aware of violations of the values of recognition and related
experiences of injustice and how, by using this knowledge, they could improve their
inferior position. The categories of misrecognition are introduced as crucial tools
for perceiving the violations of the tacit norms of recognition. The last part of this
chapter introduces three related problems in Honneth’s model: the sufficiency, con-
ceptual and negativity problems. These problems also concern the values of the
Nordic model and possibly explain why the Nordic model’s symbolic representa-
tions are continuously ‘in the making’ (Antikainen 2006). The first problem asks
how to find a critical reference point not contaminated by ideological praxis.
Honneth responds to this critic by elaborating on the idea of ideological recognition.
However, this response leads to the second problem: conceptual difficulties in dis-
tinguishing the differences between misrecognition and ideological recognition or
the differences between the various forms of social pathologies. Third, the negativ-
ity problem challenges how to distinguish the productive but negatively viewed
experiences within Honneth’s model. Many educative processes are viewed nega-
tively as disturbing one’s rudimentary thinking and actions, while the categories of
misrecognition seem to ignore these negative but educative processes. This renders
the recognition theory unable to differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate
pedagogical authority.4 The results of this paper are summarised in the conclusion
by claiming that the recognition theory offers the proper direction for the educa-
tional justice theory, while the three related problems (the sufficiency, conceptual
and negativity problems) require further examination.
4
This chapter uses the terms ‘pedagogical authority’, ‘pedagogical tradition’ and
‘pedagogical thinking and action’, which are developed in the German continental
pedagogical tradition (see Benner 2005). These pedagogical dimensions cannot be
reduced to the German term ‘pädagogik’, which refers to the specific autonomous
philosophical or scientific discipline usually taught as an academic discipline at uni-
versities. The English term ‘pedagogy’ is also restrictedly understood as ‘the theory
of the methods and principles of teaching’ (Gingell and Winch 1999; Lawton and
Gordon 1996; Sinclair and Collins 1996). In this chapter, the term ‘pedagogy’ or
‘pedagogical aspects’ are understood similarly with the tradition of humanist peda-
gogics (‘Geisteswissenschaftliche Pädagogik’) which defines pedagogics as belong-
ing to the humanities as a science of the peculiar, as opposed to natural science. In
the centre of pedagogy, there is pedagogic relation, which is triangular, with a con-
flictual relation between the educator, the pupil, and culture and society. This chapter
understands pedagogical aspects and pedagogy from this wide viewpoint of humanistic
pedagogy where pedagogy and pedagogic relations refer to the intersubjective human rela-
tion, which is asymmetric, but, foremost, the relationship of love, care and trust between the
educator and the youth, the ultimate aim of which is the youth’s autonomy (for more, see
Nohl 1949; Wulf 2003).
The Idea of Recognitive Justice
Honneth (2007a, 2009, p. 189, 2010; Särkelä 2018) emphasises his theory repre-
senting social philosophy, which departs from moral (Habermas 1987; Rawls 1972)
and political philosophies (e.g. Walzer 1983; MacIntyre 2007; Raz 1988). Moral
philosophy examines the ideal principles of moral action and correct living that
guide an individual’s life, while political philosophy studies and defends the prin-
ciples of just or legitimate political arrangements for legal and political systems.
They both represent for Honneth forms of a ‘positive utopia’ (Zurn 2015, p. 94). To
avoid utopias, Honneth (2007a, 2010, cf. 2016b, p. 2) has based the recognition
theory on the concrete institutionalised values of modernism. Honneth’s (1995) The
Struggle for Recognition develops these values by interpreting Hegel’s Jena writ-
ings and the concept of ethical life. The Struggle for Recognition represents the
formal theory of a good life that is composed of three forms of recognition: love,
rights and social esteem. These values resemble with the values of the Nordic
model, freedom, equality and solidarity. Honneth conceives these values as formal
values in the sense that these values of a good life are universal, which means they
are necessary for any kind of good life, regardless of content. The values of recogni-
tion are universal, but empirically grounded and thus contingent (Kauppinen 2002,
p. 492). Honneth describes the values of recognition as the necessary preconditions
for a good life, because an individual’s intact development of self-confidence, self-
respect and self-esteem depends on these values. Honneth (1995, 2014) argues that
values of recognition are more than positive utopias, because every individual can
commit oneself to be an author and an addressee of these values for the sake of their
intact identity development and non-coercive self-realisation. Similarly, with the
values of recognition, the incentives of the Nordic welfare state model are grasped
as all-binding values from which ‘all benefit; all are dependent; and all will presum-
ably feel obliged to contribute’ (Esping-Andersen 1990, p. 169).
Honneth’s (1995) earlier works are subject-centred, while his later work,
Freedom’s Right (Honneth 2013), does not concentrate on identity, but rather on the
historicist and social theoretical perspectives, which are much more institutionally
orientated. It expands on The Struggle for Recognition by adding the idea that an
individual’s autonomy does not rest solely in psychological subjectivity develop-
ment, but requires the right kind of social institutions. Freedom’s Right historically
reconstructs modern society’s core institutions: personal relations, the market econ-
omy and democratic decision-making, which are enabling individuals autonomy
development and represent the concrete social institutions of love, rights and social
esteem.5 The connecting character between Honneth’s earlier individual-oriented
5
Honneth (2017b, p. 128) in his recent writing underlines that the difference between The Struggle
for Recognition and Freedom’s Right is that the former develops three forms of recognition, while
its updated version, the latter, has five different forms and spheres of recognition: law, morality,
personal relationships, the economy and democratic politics. Honneth (2017b, p. 128) contends
that each of these spheres assigns us not only particular social roles, but also a specific normative
106 T. Hanhela
and later institutionally oriented perspectives is that in both approaches, the social
experiences of modern subjects have irreplaceable truth-value. Deranty (2016)
points out that the normative expectations of subjects are the ground on which to
explain Honneth’s earlier idea of the struggles for recognition, as well as his later
idea about the political movements arising from the malfunctions of core institutions.
Honneth (2016a) has recently amended this idea by claiming that the ethical
values of recognition are a precondition for justified police order or democratic
decision-making. This recognitive order has not developed because of the human
anthropological desire for egalitarianism (cf. Ranciére 2016), i.e. humans’ natural
desire to be equal with all others; rather, it is the result of the process of historical
moral development and the collective learning process of late modernism (see rel-
evant critique Deranty and Dunstall 2017; Schmalz 2019). Honneth (2016a) intro-
duces three central premises that have guided the collective learning processes of
the recognitive order as follows: a) humans have the need to be included in a social
order, which is the need for recognition. This means humans have a deep-rooted
desire to be included in a social community as a member with a normative status. In
addition, b) humans have the desire for a given order to be justified. Individuals as
reasonable beings need a legitimised living order that they can freely accept. Finally,
c) humans have an existential desire not to be governed by others or by any kind of
institutionalised principles. Honneth (2016a) claims that when a group of citizens
has neglected one or all of these principles, it always leads to a collective struggle
for recognition and to societal moral developmental processes. Thus the situation of
the worst offs should be analysed via these three perspectives by observing how
much their deprivation depends on a lack of realisation of these principles. Honneth’s
(2016a) principles (a), (b) and (c) represent the essential premises of the recognitive
justice theory.
Honneth has been charged with psychologising the justice theory (Fraser 2003;
Pilapil 2011). Interestingly, Honneth (2017a) challenges Habermas’ (1987)
Knowledge and Human Interests,6 similarly by arguing that when explaining social
struggles, Habermas chooses psychoanalysis as his model. Then, the psychological
development of individuals and the presence of unconscious dependencies and con-
straints generate an internal struggle on the part of each individual that results in a
status. These ideals of a good life grant the values for individual development towards emancipated
family members, free market participants and self-aware democratic citizens.
6
Asger Sørensen’s article in this book (see part II) examines Habermas to determine the thick
concepts for democracy and Bildung and the strong transcendent values that secure democracy’s
vitality, i.e. values important for citizenship education and reproducing democracy. This paper is
influenced by Honneth and disagrees with Sørensen by claiming that transcendent values could be
replaced by the normative reconstruction of the contingent ethical values of a good life (see also
Honneth 2017a). In this task, Honneth’s (1995, 2013) recognition theory and Freedom’s Right suf-
ficiently reconstruct these values and corresponding social spheres. This paper agrees with
Sørensen that we need to examine the motivational impetus securing ‘the mood favorable to demo-
cratic values’ that can lead to expected further social and political justice, as well as the full devel-
opment of individual human beings. This chapter however suggests that an examination of the
Hegelian values of an ethical life could be more salutary for this task.
desire to be healed and liberated from inner heteronomy. Honneth (2017a) argues
that this gives the misleading impression that in cases of social dependencies and
heteronomy, the model for social struggle is captured by Habermas as the internal
or mental struggle of ‘a collective subject’ rather than struggles among different
social groups.
Honneth (2017a, cf. 2009, pp. 126–146) seems to reject the psychoanalytical
approach while arguing that there is some worth in preserving Habermas’ methodol-
ogy. The element worth preserving is the idea of a reconstructive model for critical
social theories. This model identifies idealised developmental paths that can be con-
ceived of as the actualisation of already accepted norms and that can then be used to
diagnose the deviations in developmental processes. In other words, the forms of rec-
ognition and corresponding self-relations are these ‘idealised developmental paths.’
Honneth (2017a, pp. 913–915) underlines that his model represents the Hegel–Dewey
view, where advancement is the ‘hermeneutic openness’ of the norms of social inte-
gration. This theoretical strand emphasises social conflicts emerging from the ever-
unfinished process of interpreting socially valid norms, where one-sided interpretations
of and resistances to these interpretations alternate. This however leads to the problem
where the ideals of mutual recognition seem to be simultaneously possible and impos-
sible in modern societies (Bankovsky 2012, p. 184).
Honneth’s theory does not affirm a certain type of psychological developmental
process or societal order; rather, it emphasises the idea of ‘hermeneutic openness’,
which means that recognitive order in itself already entails the possibility of reinter-
pretations and re-appropriations—the principles of recognition themselves raise the
question of how to understand them correctly (Honneth 2014, 2017a). Honneth’s
(2014) bold claim is that interpretations of the values of recognition change over
time, but what remains through history is the logic of the struggle for recognition.
This argument leaves the reader wondering why the norms of recognition remain,
while only their applications vary; is it that human historical development as the
unplanned learning process is unable to develop any other elementary ethical values
except the values of recognition? Similarly, Kauppinen (2002, p. 479) argues why
the implicit norms of recognition should be taken as the standard against which
other implicit and explicit norms are to be judged.
Honneth (2016a) replies to this critique by arguing that the developmental paths
of recognition (self-confidence, self-respect and self-esteem) are universal, and all
individuals should be able to develop them. On the other hand, these developmental
paths should not be affirmative, which means they should not affirm existing iden-
tity models, but contain potentialities to exceed these models. Dietrich Benner
(2017) criticises this view by stating that the norms of recognition are affirmative
norms and they represent the limited scope of certain preselected norms by assum-
ing a contra factual ideal and a predefined state of social freedom (see also Thompson
2018). Honneth (2016a) declares that his definitions of self-relations represent the
regulative idea, according to which we are never able to give a full factual descrip-
tion of what complete self-relation would include. A theoretical distinction between
intact and distorted self-relation must be made, although intact self-relations can be
reached only through negative or indirect access to them (Honneth 2016a).
108 T. Hanhela
The Hermeneutics of Social Inequalities
In his latest book Annerkennung, Eine europäische Ideengeschichte (Recognition: A

European History of Ideas), Honneth (2019, pp. 222–223) contends that the more
people are unconsciously affected by naturalisations, the less room there is for criti-
cising the existing social order, and that any given order of recognition must always
be analysed as to whether there are some elements that are mistakenly experienced
as nature (unchangeable), although closer inspection could reveal them as culture
(variable elements; cf. Haslanger 2012, p. 5). This argument indicates that subjects
in the context of the prevailing values and the practices of recognition as well as in
the values of the Nordic model have always limited the scope for self-criticism –
that is, the amount of legitimate reasons to be put forward; i.e., what can be criti-
cised, objected to or questioned. This idea of limited self-criticism in the relations
of recognition can be furthered by Honneth’s (2017a) recent reference to Hegel’s
(Hegel et al. 1977, pp. 111–119; Honneth 2017a) famous description of ‘Lordship
and Bondage.’ Honneth (2017a) interprets this analogue by contending that those
who benefit from the dominant interpretations of norms of recognition (represented
by the lords) tend to accept these norms as ‘in themselves’ something unchangeably
given. Meanwhile, some are forced to impugn the interpretations of these norms
(represented by the servants) because their own claims and desires are denied to
them. The ‘servants’ conceive the interpretations of norms as ‘for them’ and relate
to them with a formative and transformative attitude. Emmanuel Renault (Renault
and Lynch 2019, p. 20) expresses this in another way: that the perspective of those
who suffer injustice is always different from those who observe it at a distance. This
chapter agrees with Honneth and Renault that our perception of the world, and
experiences of injustice, depend upon our social position, our practical dispositions
and the social knowledge that goes along with them.
The crucial problem here is how the hegemonic interpretations of the prevailing
values (values of recognition and the Nordic model) can then be criticised, revised
or improved. Honneth (2007a) has underlined that the exact task of social philoso-
phy is to show the mechanisms of subjugation that make suffering groups accept,
without resistance, misinterpretations of the norms of recognition. Honneth (2017a)
clarifies that, to rupture ordinary conceptions or ‘hegemonic interpretations’, disad-
vantaged groups should draw on an intuitive kind of knowledge that is shared by all
members of society but that is not articulated explicitly by members of dominant
groups due to lack of motive. According to Honneth (2007a, p. 84), there is a call
for similar analyses that Barrington Moore (1978) names ‘the consciousness of
injustice’. This kind of analysis should identify how the forms of misrecognition, as
a negatively institutionalised moral order, have become ‘second nature’ for the
worst offs as their inner morality or as their ‘normal’ conceptions about right and
wrong. Honneth (2009) describes his hermeneutic method of the critique, aiming to
give voices to bitterness, coldness and resentment, which are caused by invariably
increasing forms of social suffering that have not yet found suitable mediums in the
present. Honneth’s justice theory aims to capture the processes that develop as if
behind the backs of our intentional actions. Then, the experiences and expressions
of injustice appear indirectly or through silent disapproval towards existing societal
conditions. Honneth (2007a, 2016b, p. 1) elicits that the addressee of misrecogni-
tion is not completely aware of the harmful actions hindering his or her self-
realisation. This is because the experiences of disrespect mediated by misrecognition
appear only through an individual’s life-historical outrage, or the widespread collec-
tive outrage that seems to lack any sense of direction or any historical sense of its
ultimate aim.
Honneth (2007a, pp. 77–78) uses one example of these ‘silent’ collective pro-
tests, where individuals participated in violent countercultural groups. When ado-
lescents are participating, for example, in neo-Nazi groups,7 they express the indirect
disapproval of existing unjustified conditions. Honneth (2010; Bankovsky 2012)
emphasises that these tacit experiences of suffering are out of the reach of Habermas’
communicative-oriented theory, as well as Rawls’ justice theory (cf. Bankovsky
2011). Honneth’s (2007a, b, pp. 63–85, Honneth 2013, pp. 21–29) position departs
from moral and political philosophy by underlining that individuals are unable by
using their rational will and decisions to grasp, analyse and explicate their inner
experiences and feelings of injustice in every case when required. It is not always a
question of whether a rational decision has been made when youths participate in
these violent countercultural groups. Rather, without proper analyses, tacit negative
feelings remain unreachable for the reasons of forms of social domination, or the
forms of misrecognition.
Honneth (2017a, p. 917) argues that the worst offs need to go through two kinds
of learning processes to make explicit and practical the knowledge of their tacit
experiences of suffering. First, these groups need to learn that any existing norm is
amenable to a range of quite different interpretations, because it does not itself
specify to whom and exactly in what way it must be applied. The ability to engage
in diversified interpretations and applications of norms requires immaterial goods,
such as education and cultural capital (Honneth 2007a, pp. 86–89). Second, the
worst offs need to develop an understanding of why based on what interests or spe-
cific interpretations are dominant within an existing social order. They need to prob-
lematise interests that are underlying in people’s attachment to the dominant
interpretations and revisit why the dominant order is bound up with dominance.
According to Honneth (2017a), these two aspects comprise the ‘emancipatory
knowledge’ that teaches the worst offs a better understanding of the dominant inter-
pretations of existing norms.
Meanwhile, Honneth defends the idea of the emancipatory knowledge that
teaches a crucial cognitive step to the oppressed to transform their tacit and implicit
knowledge into practical knowledge. It is somewhat unclear what these tacit nega-
tive experiences are, practically. The forms of misrecognition: physical abuse, the
7
Hammershøj (2009) criticises Honneth in that the cases of neo-Nazi groups illustrate overempha-
sised demands for individualisation or the pathologisation of self-realisation, which causes indi-
vidual aspirations to distinguish oneself from others, rather than a social pathology caused by a
lack of recognition.
110 T. Hanhela
denial of rights and denigration of the ways of life, on which Honneth (1995, 1997)
has theoretically elaborated, are the answer to this question. These forms of mis-
recognition represent the exact theoretical apparatus according to which the disad-
vantaged can interpret and transform their tacit negative experiences into explicit
and practical knowledge (Honneth 2017a).
At the first level of the intuitive experiences of misrecognition is the question of
bodily-centred maltreatment of a person’s physical integrity, i.e. physical abuse,
from which torture and rape are used as paradigmatic examples. Honneth (1995)
characterises this distortion of developing in early childhood in an emotionally
inappropriate atmosphere, neglecting a child’s need for love, care and empathy.
These neglecting acts disturb a child’s ability to formulate symbiotic and indepen-
dent relations with the other (the caregiver). Honneth (1995) refers to Jessica
Benjamin’s studies of sadism and masochism, depicting how a lack of love might
lead to in later life such pathologies as reflecting a distorted balance between sym-
biosis and independence in love and friendships. Honneth (1995) specifies that
physical abuse inhibits the individual from conceiving of their physical needs and
desires as a part of their own person and distorts the recognition and articulation of
these needs and desires. In this case, the individual’s ability to enjoy his or her
physical well-being is restricted, leading to a lack of confidence in the value of one’s
own needs and desires. Honneth’s examples of physical maltreatment are the types
of disrespect that cause lasting damage to the self-confidence of the subjects.
Honneth contends that physical abuse might lead to the symptoms of tacit experi-
ences of social shame and mistrust in the world and, in the worst cases, to so-called
‘psychological death’ (Honneth 1992, 1995).
Honneth (1992) characterises the second form of misrecognition, the denial of
rights, as a type of social ostracism, where the victim is structurally excluded from
possessing certain rights within society. This denial of rights affects a person’s nor-
mative understanding of him or herself, which causes a restriction of personal
autonomy and fosters in the victim a feeling that he or she has been denied the status
of a full-fledged partner in interactions. The person tacitly experiences him or her-
self as a morally incompetent participant in a group or a morally unaccountable
person. These disadvantaged individuals begin to refer to themselves as less capable
in interactions compared with others, thus harming their self-respect. Honneth men-
tions fraud, deceit and discrimination against a whole group in a legal system as
examples of this form of injustice. Honneth refers also to research examining vic-
tims of slavery, showing how the denial of rights and exclusion from society might
lead to so-called ‘social death’ (Honneth 1992, 1995, pp. 131–135, 1997).
The third form of misrecognition, the denigration of the ways of life, violates the
individual’s self-worth or self-esteem. It is the action of humiliation and disrespect,
where one or more persons are made aware that their capacities enjoy no recogni-
tion. Then, individuals will think they are regarded as publicly insignificant, invalu-
able and worthless to society, and their possibilities for self-chosen self-realisation
diminish. This insulting or degrading action leads to a loss of personal self-esteem,
where the person begins to conceive of him or herself as a being whose characteris-
tic traits and abilities are not worthy of esteem. According to Honneth, examples of
this form of disrespect vary from simple cases—for example, not being greeted—to
cases of stigmatisation that are more serious (Honneth 1992, 1997). Honneth (1992,
1995) underlines the categories of social injustice or forms of misrecognition
sketched above to offer individuals the hermeneutic tools to interpret and perceive
expressions of collective reactions to the negative feelings of social shame, anger,
offense, contempt, disrespect and disregard, all produced by society’s structural
misrecognition. It is important to note that experiences of misrecognition do not
automatically disclose the experienced social injustice, but only bear the potential
to do so. The forms of misrecognition show evidence of a failure of recognition that
is a normative reason for change; motivationally, they thrust one to seek this change
(Honneth 1992; Kauppinen 2002, p. 487).
Criticism of the Hermeneutics of Injustice
This part of the paper introduces three related problems in Honneth’s justice theory.
The first problem is called the sufficiency problem, which asks how adequate or suf-
ficient the categories of recognition and misrecognition are for the worst offs to
reinterpret dominant and unquestioned values. The second problem is the concep-
tual problem, which elaborates on the conceptual difficulties in differentiating the
social pathologies of ideological recognition and misrecognition—what is their dif-
ference? The third problem is the negativity problem, which challenges the criteria
based on which negative experiences can be interpreted objectively. There are seem-
ingly no unanimous answers to these problems. However, these three problems are
highly relevant in the context of the Nordic model. This chapter asumes that the
constant fluctuation and contingency of the values of the Nordic model could be
partly explained by actions where the democratic citizens are struggling with the
below-described conundrums.
The first problem, the sufficiency problem, states that if forms of recognition
guide the reinterpretations of dominant norms, how they can avoid solely repeating
the contents from the dominant order. This can be called the problem of value real-
ism (Bankovsky 2012, p. 185) or the problem of conventionalism. Thompson (2018;
Gunn and Wilding 2018; McNeill 2015; see also Benner 2017) expresses this prob-
lem by arguing that Honneth’s theory is too idealised. It also misses the Frankfurt
School’s invention, which has underlined that already, early childhood socialisation
processes are unavoidably embedded in a social context of norms, values and biased
conceptions (e.g. Huhtala 2018) shaping and socialising the child. According to
these critical views, protected spheres of recognition that could avoid the influence
of such norms and attitudes do not exist. Thompson (2018) contends that one can
develop racist or exclusionary beliefs about the world through the relations of rec-
ognition, love, rights and social esteem, just as well as values that are more egalitar-
ian. Honneth’s internal critique is argued too internal to the systems of society,
possessing no capacity for allowing ‘radical others’, i.e. those who refuse to recog-
nise others, to give recognition to anyone. In this sense, recognition theory seems
112 T. Hanhela
incapable, for example, of explaining xenophobia, religious privatism or ethnic par-

ticularism8 (Thompson 2018; also Schaub 2015).
Honneth (2012) replies to these critiques by arguing that forms of recognition
can be used to deliver negative contents, as Thompson exemplifies, but a distinction
must be made between ideological and non-ideological recognition. First, the dif-
ference between these two modes is that non-ideological recognition is a receptive
act, not an attributive act (see also Laitinen 2002). Recognition is a receptive act in
which we need to react in a correct or appropriate way to the evaluative qualities
(love, rights and social esteem) we have learned to perceive in others to the degree
that we have been integrated into the second nature of our life-world. Honneth
(2012, p. 81) adds that the attributive model would assign new features via recogni-
tion to others, without an internal method of criticising the appropriateness of these
added contents. Second, ideological recognition is a positively experienced affirma-
tion that encourages individuals to bear certain tasks and conditions willingly.
Interestingly, Honneth (2012, p. 86) elicits that obvious forms of discrimination
where a person or groups are denied recognition, such as racism, misogyny or xeno-
phobia, are not ideological forms of recognition, while injuring the self-image of
their addressee. To be effective, recognition as an ideology cannot exclude the
addressee, but rather should contribute to their integration. Third, ideological recog-
nition must be credible in the eyes of the addressee, which means it must apply to
‘real existing’ abilities or virtues of the addressee. Fourth, Honneth (2012, p. 88)
informs that ideological recognition must be contrastive by offering the expression
of a new particular value or special achievement for the addressee. In this case,
individuals feel distinguished in some special way. The ideological recognition aim-
ing to make the addressee willingly accept unjustified conditions must be simulta-
neously receptive, positive, credible and contrastive. Honneth (2012, p. 88) argues
that ideological forms of recognition are not an irrational system of beliefs, but
work in historical ‘spaces of reason’, rationally motivating addressees to apply these
reasons to themselves (cf. Worsdale 2018).
The critics (Thompson 2018) arguing there are no criteria to distinguish whether
recognition is used ideologically ignore Honneth’s (2012) conceptualisations
between ideological and non-ideological recognition. However, this leads to the
second problem, the conceptual problem, which asks how forms of misrecognition
are connected with the conceptual distinction between non-ideological or ideologi-
cal recognition. Christopher Zurn, (2015, p. 96) for example, argues that misrecog-
nition and ideological recognition are different phenomena, where ideological
8
Similarly, Hammershøj (2009) argues that Honneth’s analysis of social pathologies is one-sidedly
traditional and unable to capture any new pathological phenomena of self-realisation of the pres-
ent, such as depression, anorexia, new forms of selfishness, hate speech, school shootings and
terror attacks. However, Honneth’s (1998, p. 772) reference to Dewey makes sense here, because
Honneth connects the social pathologies with the socialisation processes of the social groups,
being unable to flexibly interact with other groups in society. Neo-Nazis or the robber bands of
other kinds are pathologically unable to have flexible interactions with other groups in society. An
individual’s self-realisation is only possible in groups that are enriching and being enriched by all
the spheres of social life, where the social groups can freely reinforce each other.
recognition affirms the self-conceptions of the subjects and aims to make them live
up to the values embedded in discriminatory social practices, while misrecognition
demeans a person’s self-relations and possesses no elements to make subjects will-
ingly accept unjustified conditions. Zurn (2015) argues that Honneth’s (1995) moral
grammar of social conflicts, which explains social conflicts with misrecognition, is
the distinct feature of Honneth’s analyses of social pathologies,9 such as ideological
recognition, invisibilisation, instrumental rationalisation, reification and organised
self-realisation. One critical commentator, Fabian Freyenhagen (2015, p. 137) chal-
lenges Zurn’s view by arguing that it is problematic to separate the forms of mis-
recognition from social pathologies by claiming that misrecognition is not the
ideological form of recognition.
This paper agrees with Freyenhagen (2015) that Honneth does not clarify the
connection between the forms of misrecognition and ideological recognition; for
example, how those perpetuating misrecognition are subjected to ideological beliefs
is unclear. Fraser (2003, p. 31) comments on this point quite radically by arguing
that Honneth reduces misrecognition to prejudices in the minds of oppressors. Then,
polishing these minds to overcome their prejudices seems an illiberal and authori-
tarian action (see also Pilapil 2011, p. 91).
In sum, the forms of misrecognition are socially caused and structurally deliv-
ered by society, thus representing a social pathology. Individuals can only perceive
these pervasive misinterpretations of recognition indirectly by analysing their tacit
experiences and life-historical outrage. This assumption becomes complicated with
Honneth’s (2012, p. 86) claim that obvious forms of discrimination, such as racism,
misogyny or xenophobia, are not ideological forms of recognition, while injuring
the self-image of their addressee. The ideological recognition cannot exclude the
addressee, but must contribute to their integration. This chapter’s analyses of the
forms of misrecognition show that the forms of misrecognition do not fulfil the
conditions of receptiveness, positiveness, credibleness and contrastiveness; con-
trarily, they injure the self-image of the addressee. If both ideological recognition
and forms of misrecognition play a crucial role in explaining social injustice, then
9
Laitinen and Särkelä (2019) suggest that Honneth’s negative method of critique differentiates five
social pathologies. First, the social injustice caused by the forms of misrecognition; second, the
social pathologies of rigid applications of law and moral principles (reflexive pathology) third, the
social misdevelopment that rises in the spheres of personal relations, economy and decision-mak-
ing; fourth, the diseases of society (see Honneth and Särkelä 2014); and fifth, the regression of the
social life (cf. Zurn 2015). From these five categories, social injustice based on misrecognition is
the most crucial for this paper. Kauppinen (2002, p. 488) finds differently from Honneth’s theory
active and passive forms of disrespect. Kauppinen (2002, p. 488) contends that non-recognition is
the passive failure of recognition where someone is treated as an invisible or one fails to acknowl-
edge others’ achievements, and an active type of disrespect is malrecognition, where one treats
others like animals or makes fun of others’ aspirations, for example. The categories of misrecogni-
tion contain both types, non-recognition and malrecognition, while these are both viewed as differ-
ent types of moral injuries. Honneth should specify more carefully the emotions and motivations
involved in these two types of misrecognition, as Kauppinen suggests.
114 T. Hanhela
there is a need for more fine-grained and systematic analyses between these two
types of social pathologies (see also Laitinen and Särkelä 2019; Särkelä 2018).
The third line of critique, the negativity problem, has recently been noticed in the
pedagogical tradition. Namely, Dietrich Benner (2005, 2017), the representative of
the general theory of education, pedagogic action and school theory, criticises
Honneth, arguing there is no uniform way to or consensus on interpreting negative
feelings and negative experiences. Rather, there is a diversified understanding of
negativity, according to which negative experiences cannot be interpreted either as
fundamentally positive indicators of the moral development of humankind or as
impulses enabling a collective repeal of prevailing norms. Daily discontent is not
always a matter of denied recognition (see also Fraser 2003). This can be also
expressed by the fact that historical and present experiences show that failures in the
forms of recognition do not necessarily lead to any kind of struggle, though there
would be great reasons for some individuals to start struggling for recognition
(Kauppinen 2002, pp. 489–490). Perhaps the reason for this is that even in similar
social groups with the same gender, race or socio-economic status, victims of mis-
recognition have varied ways of interpreting and responding to their experiences of
injustice. Where one misrecognised individual can actively engage in political resis-
tance, another may deny their oppression and a third may legitimise oppression as
natural or socially beneficial (Pilapil 2011, p. 83). A person’s life history signifi-
cantly influences these responses. The lifelong upbringing and education demean-
ing a person as inferior might, for example, cause them to dull their emotional
responses, leading to an inability to ‘emotionally perceive’ experiences of mis-
recognition (Kauppinen 2002, pp. 489–490). Daily discontents have a multiplicity
of motives, and Honneth does not elaborate on how an individual’s life history and
educational processes lead to varied responses to misrecognition. Benner’s critique
shows how problematic it is to interpret negative experiences solely within the
framework of the recognition theory; negativity or negative feelings are not neces-
sarily so tightly connected to violations of self-relations. For example, when a per-
son feels shame, this feeling does not automatically reveal to that person that a norm
of recognition is being violated (Benner 2017). The problem here is how the mis-
recognition can be publicly contested and verified when the experience of psycho-
logical suffering is personal (Pilapil 2011, p. 91). Fraser (2003, p. 31) expresses this
critique by issuing a radical claim that Honneth’s definition of injustice is ‘a short
step to blaming the victim’. According to Fraser (2003, p. 31), Honneth defines
misrecognition as an individual’s inner distortions, from which other individuals or
institutions are not to be blamed, but emphasis is solely on the person’s inability to
maintain a positive attitude of self-realisation (cf. Honneth 2019).
Benner (2017) argues further that the feelings of shame and negative morality
play different roles from those that Honneth attributes to these phenomena. Benner
explains that there can be pedagogically significant negative experiences rising, for
example, from feelings of shame, viewed as an inner state of mind that springs from
the violation of a norm and prevents subjects from routinely continuing their actions.
Shame has a constitutive function for the development of morality, as well as its
discontinuity. Discontinuity spurs individuals to self-problematize their knowledge

and abilities, and through this self-challenging, they become aware of their non-
knowledge and non-abilities (Benner 2017; English 2013; Dewey 1933). An exam-
ple of a productive process of this kind of denial of recognition could be the case of
a neo-Nazi blaming society for not offering recognition of his self-esteem and self-
respect when being a neo-Nazi. In this case, society’s disrespect or disapproval is
legitimate, as Kauppinen (2002, p. 489) asserts, because the neo-Nazi has false
evaluative beliefs about the value of his particular identity and self-realisation pos-
sibilities (Honneth 1998, p. 772). This example and the chapter aims to shows that
individuals need a highly developed moral education before they can become aware
of true factual and evaluative beliefs based on the forms of recognition and the val-
ues of the Nordic model. Without this education, individuals might as well interpret
all negative experiences as the result of misrecognition, being unable to make clear
distinctions (Kauppinen 2002, p. 489).
Conclusion
This chapter focused on a neglected viewpoint in mainstream educational justice

theories: social inequality. The result of this paper is that Honneth is on the right
track—justice theories need to begin from the daily experiences of injustices, or
practical feelings of justice, just as David Miller (1999) has shown. One problem
concerning this chapter and Honneth is how to avoid ‘blaming the victim’ (Fraser
2003). Honneth’s (2017a) reference to Hegel’s ‘Lordship and Bondage’ offers
ingredients to overcome this problem. In the relation between lord and servant, both
should commit themselves to the shared learning process. Honneth’s interpretation
concentrates one-sidedly on the position of the servants, or the worst offs, by exam-
ining how these groups can become aware of the false dominant norms of recogni-
tion. Obviously, it is not enough because both those in dominant and those in the
worst-off positions should cooperatively learn to change their interpretations of the
norms of recognition. The concluding argument of this chapter is that if the recogni-
tion theory is applied to the educational framework to interpret daily discontents,
the following aspects should be regarded: a) the adequacy of the categories of mis-
recognition should be critically assessed, b) more specified conceptual clarifications
should be developed between different forms of social pathologies and c) further
analyses should be assigned to clarify the distinction between the productive and
destructive negative experiences hindering the learner’s capacity for self-cultivation
and transformation (see also English 2013; Schaub 2015).
One way to improve Honneth’s theory might be to follow Benner’s (2017;
Benner and English 2004) suggestion that as soon as one reaches a new level of
knowledge through the negativity of experiences, the learning difficulties of the past
disappear from the mind. In cases of learning social customs of recognition, once an
individual learns to successfully act according to a custom, he or she begins
116 T. Hanhela
immediately to regulate his or her actions accordingly, without remembering the

perplexities and the disillusionment that were constitutive of the initial habituation
into such social practices. When individuals forget the difficulties in their past learn-
ing experiences, at the same time, their view of past learning processes is obstructed
(Benner and English 2004). Perhaps when individuals learn love, rights and social
esteem, there will be a need for more attention to be paid to pedagogically oriented
reflections on the difficulties and perplexities involved in these learning processes
than recognition theory can offer currently.
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Chapter 8
Citizenship Education and the Role
of Immigrant Students in the Nordic
Countries
Anniina Leiviskä
Abstract This chapter addresses the issue of citizenship education and the role of
immigrant students in the Nordic countries from the perspective of liberal theories
of citizenship education. Liberal approaches to citizenship education have recently
encountered rigorous critique: the critics argue that the supposedly democratic,
rational, and neutral principles and ideals associated with liberal theories are in real-
ity rooted in a particular way of life and national identity. Accordingly, inculcating
these principles and ideals in citizenship education excludes and marginalizes stu-
dents belonging to minorities, immigrant students in particular. This chapter aims to
respond to this critique by separating between two branches of liberal theories of
citizenship education, ‘patriotic’ and ‘political’. The chapter argues that while the
‘patriotic’ approach is vulnerable to the aforementioned critique, it does not apply
to the ‘political’ line of thought. Rather, the ‘political’ approach, rooted in John
Rawls’ political liberalism and the notion of reasonableness, provides a foundation
for criticizing policies and practices that marginalize students with immigrant back-
grounds. Finally, utilizing Rawlsian theory of citizenship education as a starting
point, the chapter makes some suggestions on how the status of immigrant students
could be improved in the Nordic countries.
Keywords Citizenship education · Democracy · Political liberalism · Patriotism ·

Immigration
A. Leiviskä (*)
Department of Education, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
e-mail: anniina.leiviska@helsinki.fi

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49524-4_8
122 A. Leiviskä
Introduction
As Torill Strand points out in the introduction of this volume, in the so-called Nordic
model, education has been seen as a vital pillar for nation-building, constructing
identity, and equalizing social differences. However, in the current political climate,
the idea of education as a tool for identity- and nation-building involves troubling
connotations. We have been witnessing political changes that no-one could have
anticipated at the heyday of the Nordic welfare model or at the time of the establish-
ment of the European Union. Far-right populist parties have made their way to the
official party map in many Scandinavian countries and xenophobic views are
becoming more and more common in everyday political discourse. In the current
political climate, the notion of citizenship is often associated with issues of national
identity and questions such as who can be regarded as or has the right to become a
citizen of a particular nation state, and on what terms. Against this background, the
sudden increase in the amount of citizenship education initiatives in the EU-area
also raises the question whether they are motivated by a genuine desire to strengthen
democratic values or associated with the concern for the possible deterioration of
particular national identities.
Especially in the liberal tradition of philosophy of education, citizenship educa-
tion is typically considered to be one of the most important functions of public
schooling in democratic societies. It has been widely accepted within this tradition
that maintaining a stable and just political order under pluralistic conditions requires
virtuous democratic citizens who are capable of adhering to common rules of co-
operation with other citizens having values and conceptions of the good different
from their own (e.g. Callan 1997; Gutmann 1999). Moreover, the acquisition of
democratic virtues has been understood as requiring appropriate citizenship educa-
tion. However, in recent discussions, the liberal democratic idea of citizenship edu-
cation has been subject to rigorous critique. It has been argued, among other things,
that the inculcation of specific ideals, values, and principles associated with demo-
cratic citizenship, and fostering obedience to the existing political organization,
effectively marginalize and exclude minority groups, especially students with immi-
grant backgrounds, thus making citizenship education a vehicle of discrimination.
One of the arguments presented by critics is that citizenship education masks as
‘universal’ or ‘rational’ such values and principles that are in fact rooted in a par-
ticular national identity and way of life, and which therefore serve to legitimize the
current balance of power in society (e.g. Merry 2018; Säfström 2010).
In this chapter, I examine two branches of liberal theory, (1) liberal “patriotism”
primarily represented by Eamonn Callan (1997) and William Galston (1991), and
(2) John Rawls’ (2005) political liberalism from the viewpoint of the aforemen-
tioned critique. As an example of this critique, I will particularly focus on Carl
Anders Säfström’s (2010) examination of the role of immigrant students in the
Swedish school system. Säfström’s central claim is that thinking of democracy in
terms of consensus along the lines of liberal theories of democracy is profoundly
mistaken, because this consensus in reality reflects a particular ideal of national
8 Citizenship Education and the Role of Immigrant Students in the Nordic Countries 123
identity – in this case ‘Swedishness’ and the Swedish way of life – and thus educa-
tion building upon such consensus marginalizes immigrant students who do not
share in this identity.
My argument is that although the theories in the liberal tradition of citizenship
education typically emphasize the importance of citizens’ adherence to common
rules of co-operation, the ‘political’ branch of liberalism that promotes liberal neu-
trality – or, as Victoria Costa (2009, p. 98) puts it, “principle-based” liberalism – is
far less vulnerable to the aforementioned critique than its patriotic alternative.
Accordingly, my attempt in this chapter is to distinguish between theories in favor
of a form of liberal neutrality, Rawls’ political liberalism in particular, and theories
endorsing liberal patriotism as an educational aim. Furthermore, my aim is to dem-
onstrate that the notion of reasonableness, which can be regarded as a central aim of
citizenship education in the Rawlsian tradition, is not only in sharp contrast with
nationalist values but can also be rationally justified in a liberal, pluralist context. In
other words, I suggest that in a society consisting of a multiplicity of different,
sometimes even mutually incompatible comprehensive doctrines, reasonableness is
a political virtue that cannot be disregarded without jeopardizing the legitimacy and
stability of the democratic polity. I thus argue that reasonableness should not be
seen as an arbitrary or a politically determined criterion that can be used to justify
nationalist agendas; rather, it is a criterion that can be utilized to assess and criticize
such illegitimate practices and policies mentioned by Säfström and others. Finally,
I reflect upon the role of immigrant students in the Nordic educational systems and
utilize the Rawlsian approach to citizenship education to outline some sugges-
tions on how the position of these students could be improved.
The Critique of Liberal Citizenship Education
Citizenship education has been an enduring topic of interest particularly in the lib-
eral tradition of philosophy of education. Especially since the 1990s there has been
a vast body of literature examining questions such as, what the role of schools and
other educational institutions is in the formation of future citizens of liberal demo-
cratic societies, and what the proper aims of citizenship education are or should be.
Most liberal theories of citizenship education are motivated by questions of ethical
and political pluralism and the accommodation of diversity in liberal democratic
societies (e.g. Callan 1997; Costa 2011; Galston 1991; Gutmann 1999; Reich
2008). Accordingly, liberal views of citizenship education generally include some
version of the “common school ideal” (e.g. Callan 1997; Reich 2008) according to
which public schools should prepare students for democratic citizenship in a plural-
ist society. This should be done not only by teaching students the relevant knowl-
edge and skills, but also by providing environments where they learn to cooperate
with their peers from different backgrounds. It is thus taken to be a central function
of common schools to foster a shared sense of citizenship and mutual respect among
students from different backgrounds (Neufeld 2013).
124 A. Leiviskä
Lately, however, the idea of liberal citizenship education has been challenged by
philosophers of education coming from the so-called ‘radical’ tradition of democ-
racy. Authors such as Gert Biesta (2009, 2011), Michael Merry (2018), and Carl-
Anders Säfström (2010) have associated liberal theories of citizenship education
with problematic educational policies and practices in which students in marginal-
ized positions, especially immigrant students, are further marginalized and denied
access to meaningful conceptions of citizenship by contrasting their cultural, reli-
gious and ethnic backgrounds and identities with desired ideals of liberal citizen-
ship. The primary argument presented by the aforementioned authors is that liberal
theories of citizenship education are based on politically determined, ultimately
ideological values and premises, which are merely disguised as universal or rational
principles associated with democracy and citizenship. According to these authors,
the assertion of these values as universal, objective or rational merely serves to
legitimize the inculcation of these values in future citizens and, consequently, justi-
fies the marginalization and exclusion of those students who do not share in these
values. Especially Merry (2018) and Säfström (2010) suggest that the ideal of lib-
eral citizenship underlying citizenship education initiatives is often associated with
a particular view of national identity. It is no accident, Merry (2018) argues, that
there has been a plethora of citizenship education initiatives in European democra-
cies after the recent mass-migration; in his view, these initiatives are deeply inter-
twined with the rise of right-wing populism and nationalist ideologies.
Carl Anders Säsftröm’s (2010) contribution is particularly interesting from the
Nordic perspective, as he utilizes the example of Swedish national curriculum to
discuss the issues mentioned above. According to Säfström, the so-called demo-
cratic values promoted in the Swedish national core curriculum are in reality rooted
in a particular national identity and self-understanding. In other words, Säfström
claims that when the Swedish school system declares to be fostering liberal demo-
cratic values and principles, it actually constructs a certain image of Swedishness as
a non-contestable, consensual frame of reference for a democratic way of life.
Through the assimilation of democratic core values and national identity, the exist-
ing form of schooling legitimizes itself to the extent where it becomes its own ratio-
nality and thus needs no external ground to justify its claims (Säfström 2010).
Accordingly, the school system can label as unimportant or nonexistent all voices
and forms of otherness that do not belong to the established order. Säfström’s argu-
ment is that this is exactly what happens to immigrant students within the Swedish
school system and through the implementation of the Swedish core curriculum. The
national curriculum, and especially the school subject ‘Swedish as a second lan-
guage’, is intended to socialize immigrant students to certain core values associated
with Swedishness and the Swedish society. As a consequence, the immigrant has
the option of adopting a Swedish identity or having no role or “no name”, as
Säfström (2010, p. 616) puts it, in the existing order of things. Hence, Säfström
concludes that considering consensus to be the symbol of democratic processes and
practices risks making citizenship education profoundly undemocratic or even
discriminative.
Similar interpretations have also been made of the educational systems and
national core curricula of other Nordic countries. One of these interpretations is by
Simon Laumann Jørgensen (2015) who attempts to demonstrate how nationalist
intentions in history teaching have become more and more explicit in the
Danish national core curriculum over the past few years. Jørgensen argues that par-
ticularly the newly included ‘Canon of Danish History’ expresses the idea that, for
the sake of social cohesion, it is necessary to provide the next generation with a
strong sense of ‘Danishness.’ According to Jørgensen, the Canon portrays negative
historical episodes as consequences of external enemy intrusion while positive ones
are marked by internal developments of liberation and progress. He thus suggests
that the Canon promotes an overtly positive narrative of Danish history as a progres-
sion from peacefulness and justice to an even higher degree of peacefulness, liberal-
ity, justice, and modernism through non-violent steps and peaceful revolutions. In
Jørgensen’s (2015) view, the Canon thus reflects the Danish post-9/11 climate in
which “modern protestant Scandinavia” (p. 446) is contrasted particularly with
Islamic and Middle Eastern identities in a way that is likely to widen the gap
between minority and majority students.
While representing a more cautiously critical reading of Nordic educational poli-
cies, Holm and Londen’s (2010) study of Finnish multicultural education is some-
what in line with the aforementioned interpretations. Their research on Finnish
educational policies and curricula indicates that, while multicultural education is an
overarching theme in the national core curriculum for the Finnish comprehensive
school, and the official documents are generally supportive of the immigrant stu-
dents’ integration process, on a practical level, Finnish students are not required to
develop or learn to appreciate a multilingual multicultural society. Holm and Londen
(2010) argue that the whole burden of the process of integration is thus placed on
immigrant students and no genuine learning, change or adjustment is required of
majority students, teachers or schools. Their conclusion thus is that multicultural
education in Finland is at least in some ways exclusionary and thus at risk of creat-
ing barriers and divisions that will not help integration, but instead might solidify
the perceived and constructed differences between immigrants and majority
students.
These examples indicate that there is at least some degree of consensus among
critical educational researchers that the education of immigrant students in the
Nordic countries is not currently implemented in a way that promotes equality, jus-
tice and social cohesion among citizens in the best possible way or in the way that
the ‘Nordic model’ traditionally requires. Rather, at least to some extent, education
appears to create, strengthen and reify social distinctions, hierarchies and classifica-
tions between majority and minority students and thus is at risk of resulting in
unequal treatment of minorities. From the perspective of this chapter, however, the
important question is whether the critique of these educational practices can be
justifiably extended to concern liberal theories of citizenship education or, vice
versa, when put to practice, whether these theories can be argued to result in unjust
educational policies and practices. In what follows, I attempt to respond to these
126 A. Leiviskä
questions by examining two different branches of liberal theories of citizenship

education, ‘patriotic’ and ‘political’.
Liberal Theories of Citizenship Education and ‘Patriotism’
Liberal theories of citizenship education are often divided to ‘political’ and ‘com-
prehensive’ approaches, the first being the approach that Rawls (2005, pp. 199–200)
associates with his own theory. From the viewpoint of education, the difference
between comprehensive and political liberalism is that the first presupposes a much
more robust approach to citizenship education than the latter as it demands that
students should not only be familiarized with a set of public principles, norms, and
forms of reasoning but, rather, education should instill substantive values, such as
autonomy (Neufeld 2013). However, some educational theorists argue that even
fostering comprehensive liberal values is not enough to build citizens’ faith and
attachment to liberal institutions. Accordingly, these authors, including William
Galston (1991) and Eamonn Callan (1997), suggest that citizenship education
should promote a form of patriotism, which can be defined, following Callan (2002,
p. 468), as “an active identification with one’s particular nation as a cross-
generational political community whose flourishing one prizes and seeks to
advance”.
To assess the plausibility of this suggestion, it is first important to examine the
relation between patriotism and nationalism, because the latter is often associated
with the first and sometimes these concepts are even used interchangeably. Let us
begin by summarizing what these concepts have in common: patriotism and nation-
alism share the view that nations do exist and have had a continuous historical
existence. Moreover, nationalism and patriotism also agree on the idea that the
nation is worthy of one’s special attachment to it and action on its behalf (Archard
1999). Nationalism and patriotism differ, however, in that whereas nationalism
claims that a nation should have an independent sovereign statehood and that states
are political communities being bound together by a single national identity, patrio-
tism stands for a love of one’s country involving a virtuous disposition to act in
certain, often self-denying and self-sacrificial ways on behalf of one’s country
(Archard 1999; Geller 1984). Patriotism thus typically stands for a morally prefer-
able, inclusive form of attachment to a political community, while nationalism is
often utilized to refer to intolerant and exclusionist forms of identification (Costa
2009, 2018). Victoria Costa (2018) points out that the difference between patriotism
and nationalism can also be drawn on the basis of their different objects, the object
of patriotism being an institutionalized political community such as a country, and
nationalism’s object being a group of people who share a certain sense of common
identity. However, as Costa (2009) also indicates, the differences between patrio-
tism and nationalism can easily become blurred in practice. At this point, it is per-
haps sufficient to say that the form of patriotism promoted by Callan and Galston
emphasizes the need of citizens to affectively identify with and become supportive
of their political community having a certain type of government, geography, his-

tory, culture, and other particularistic features.
Galston’s (1991) defense of patriotism is founded on the insight that educational
systems have two kinds of goals that are at least to some degree contradictory: on
one hand, schools are responsible for fostering student’s capabilities of rational
inquiry and deliberation. On the other, schools should also produce citizens who are
loyal to a particular community. Galston (1991) argues that participation in prac-
tices of rational inquiry alone is insufficient for creating attachment to one’s politi-
cal community and to the central institutions of the society – in fact, engagement in
impartial search for truth might even have corrosive effects on the socially central
beliefs that enable such attachment. Hence, Galston suggests that civic education
should focus on molding students into good citizens who are willing to support their
community and believe in the legitimacy of its social and political arrangements.
According to him, this goal is most effectively attained through rhetorical, moral-
izing history-telling that provides “a pantheon of heroes who confer legitimacy on
central institutions and constitute worthy objects of emulation” (Galston 1991,
p. 244).
Callan (1997) rejects Galston’s model of civic education as “sentimental”
(p. 106) as he thinks it sustains an unhealthy fiction of moral purity of a specific
nation, and thus largely prevents critical revision of the nation’s communal past.
Moreover, Callan also suggests that the danger in such sentimentalism is that it
regards the inherited political present as incapable of improvement, which might
result in the legitimation of present injustices. Callan (1997) further points out that
the rhetorical inculcation of a glorified national past is in sharp contrast with critical
reason and the associated civic virtues upon which the legitimacy of liberal demo-
cratic institutions rests. Accordingly, Callan own suggestion is that citizenship edu-
cation needs to foster both the engagement with one’s community and a critical
attitude towards the nation’s past. In other words, students should see themselves as
both inheritors of a particular tradition and communal past and capable of critically
revising and making the most of their tradition.
It is not difficult to see how the kind of sentimental patriotism Galston promotes
might be vulnerable to the critique presented by Säfström and others because, when
put to practice, it can easily be transformed into the legitimation of a particular
national identity. Furthermore, as Costa (2009) indicates, a deliberate distortion of
history for the sake of promoting patriotic feelings might also be harmful for the
health and stability of democratic institutions, as it provides inadequate resources
for the prevention of a dangerously uncritical support for illegitimate or unjust gov-
ernments. But is Callan’s critical, revisionist patriotism equally vulnerable to these
critiques? After all, as Stephen Macedo (2011) points out, patriotism is not neces-
sarily inherently bad or corrupted, as political communities also serve important
moral purposes. Namely, it is only via participation in political communities that we
can effectively promote just institutions that protect our own and others’ equal basic
interests. And when a community succeeds in securing legitimacy and treating all
its members fairly, that is a great moral achievement, and one that is worthy of the
128 A. Leiviskä
support of the members of the community. Accordingly, as Macedo (2011) further

points out, participation in such a project is surely a worthy human endeavor.
While it is easy to agree with Macedo, I would nevertheless like to question the
necessity of fostering identification with a particular ‘patria’ in order to attain these
desirable features of communal political existence. Evidently, we have good reasons
to be specifically concerned with the quality of the particular political community in
which we reside. Moreover, it is understandable, and to some extent justifiable, that
state-based education teaches a national core curriculum that is rooted in a particu-
lar national history and tradition. Therefore, the education of children living in, for
instance, Finland teaches them about the history of Finland – the lives of Finnish
people, the factors that shaped and made the present country of Finland, the various
constitutive periods, key events and major figures of Finnish history. In other words,
it is evident that there needs to be restrictions in terms of the curriculum and that
students, regardless of their particular background, benefit from understanding the
culture and history of the country in which they live. However, acknowledging the
need and benefits of such restrictions does not justify the conclusion that we should
foster patriotic identification with the Finnish tradition as a common inheritance and
project. Such conclusion is deeply problematic for at least two interrelated reasons:
first, it assumes that the tradition, project, history or culture being endorsed is sin-
gular. We all have several identities – we are members of nations, but also members
of gendered, racial, religious, cultural, economic, and other groups. Our nationality
is only one element of a heterogeneous identity and often our strongest allegiance
lies with other dimensions of this identity than our nationality (e.g. Archard 1999).
Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, as Säfström’s (2010) critique indicates,
our national identity today is multiple and fractured, and consists of features that do
not arise from one single tradition or collective past. Accordingly, fostering patriotic
allegiance to a shared tradition is likely to result in disregard for the equal standing
of minorities and incomprehension of their points of view. It is thus in danger of
marginalizing these minorities even if the endorsement of a shared tradition involves
its critical revision and reinterpretation.
Furthermore, it is also important to point out that an education that privileges a
‘patria’ as the source of identity and identification and claims that fidelity to it must
take precedence over all other forms of commitment, is not only vulnerable to the
kind of critique presented by Säfström, but it is also essentially illiberal. As Evan
Charney (2003) states, people may be passionate liberal nationalists or patriots, but
no liberal state or liberal theory can assume that all persons are such or should be
made such. Amy Gutmann (1996) makes a related point in her response to Martha
Nussbaum’s critique as she emphasizes that democratic citizenship education in the
liberal tradition is clearly antithetical to the kind of education that teaches students
that they are, above all, citizens of a particular nation state. As Gutmann (1996,
p. 69) states,
It is one thing to say that publicly subsidized schooling should teach students the rights and
responsibilities of democratic citizenship and quite another to say it should teach them that
they are “above all, citizens of the United States.” Our primary moral allegiance is not to
community […] our primary moral allegiance is to justice – to doing what is right. Doing
what is right cannot be reduced to loyalty to, or identification with, any existing group of
human beings.
The reason for providing this rather lengthy citation from Gutmann is that it quite
clearly indicates the difference between patriotic and political or “principle-based”
(Costa 2009, p. 98) liberalism: whereas the first stresses the importance of identifi-
cation with a particular group or community, the latter places emphasis on the ideal
of impartiality inherent to morality and justice. Accordingly, as I will argue in the
next section, citizenship education drawing from Rawls' (2005) political liberalism
is not equally vulnerable to the aforementioned critiques as its patriotic alternative.
Rawlsian Political Liberalism and Citizenship Education
John Rawls’ political liberalism is motivated by his recognition of the “fact of rea-
sonable pluralism” (2005, p. xvii) and its implications for contemporary political
philosophy. By this “fact”, Rawls refers to the diversity of “comprehensive doc-
trines” (2005, p. xvi) endorsed by reasonable persons in liberal democratic societ-
ies – a diversity that would exist even in a fully just society, and which can be
eliminated only through the exercise of political oppression. At the heart of Rawls’
theory is the idea of a public, political conception of justice on which the constitu-
tion and basic institutions of a liberal democratic society rest. Rawls’ own sugges-
tion for such conception is “justice as fairness”, which he initially developed in his
Theory of Justice (Rawls 1999), and later in Political Liberalism (2005). According
to Rawls, the political conception of justice must be “freestanding” (Rawls 2005,
p. 10, 12–13) with regard to particular comprehensive doctrines. This means that its
content should be determined independently of the doctrines affirmed by citizens,
and thus it should not favour or discriminate against any particular way of life or
view of the good residing in society. Rawls’ central claim is that for the political
conception of justice to fulfil its purpose, it must be supported by an “overlapping
consensus” (Rawls 2005, p. 144), meaning that it can be accepted by all reasonable
citizens from the perspective of their own particular doctrine. Rawls thus character-
izes the political conception as a “module” (p. 145) that is compatible with different
comprehensive doctrines and thus capable of providing mutual terms of cooperation
without undermining pluralism.
Importantly, Rawls’ political liberalism does not support pluralism without limi-
tations, but it presupposes that all citizens and comprehensive doctrines belonging
to the liberal democratic regime are reasonable (Rawls 2005, p. 49). The Rawlsian
concept of reasonableness largely rests upon what he refers to as “the criterion of
reciprocity” (p. 446, see also 49): that is, the idea that citizens are “prepared to offer
one another fair terms of cooperation according to what they consider the most
reasonable conception of political justice” (p. 446). These terms should also be such
that citizens can expect them to be accepted by the representatives of other reason-
able doctrines. Moreover, reasonable citizens are expected to act on these
130 A. Leiviskä
terms – given that other citizens will also do so – even if these terms conflict with
their private interests in some particular situation. Another virtue associated with
reasonableness is the “burdens of judgment” (p. 54), referring to citizens’ awareness
that different, equally reasonable responses can be given to complex ethical and
political issues from the standpoints of different reasonable doctrines. Accordingly,
reasonable citizens accept a constitutional democratic regime and its companion
idea of legitimate law, and they also recognize that when fundamental issues of
justice are concerned, they must justify their political claims using public reasons –
i.e. reasons that could in principle be accepted by the representatives of other rea-
sonable doctrines (Rawls 2005, p. 453). The concept of reasonableness thus sets the
limits to what kind of political claims can be accepted as legitimate within a liberal
democratic society consisting of a variety of different, sometimes even incommen-
surable comprehensive doctrines. The conception of reasonableness thus serves to
protect citizens’ right to choose their way of life without restraints other than the
equal right of other citizens.
As Rawls sees the reasonableness of citizens as a necessary prerequisite for the
existence of a stable and just liberal democratic society, the creation of reasonable
citizens is a central educational aim in the Rawlsian tradition of educational theory
(e.g. Costa 2011). As I have sought to demonstrate, Säfström and others challenge
this liberal, principle-based account of citizenship education by arguing that it relies
on a hidden nationalist strategy to mark the boundaries of the political community
and to exclude those regarded as non-members from this community. In other
words, the critics argue that the supposedly ‘neutral’ liberal principles and virtues
(such as reasonableness) are not neutral at all but, rather, derived from a particular
way of life and attached to a specific national identity (e.g. Merry 2018; Säfström
2010; see also Tamir 1993). As I indicated in the previous section, in my view, this
critique is plausible when directed to the branch of liberal educational theory pro-
moting patriotism. My argument is, however, that it does not apply to Rawlsian citi-
zenship education that builds upon the virtue of reasonableness and aims to remain
faithful to the “political” (referring to the “freestanding” ) nature of Rawls’ theory.
It is evidently true that reasonableness is a criterion that marks a democratic
community and thus also sets a limit to what kind of doctrines can and cannot be
included in this community. However, as the issue of legitimate use of political
power is at the core of democracy, establishing a democratic polity always requires
setting limits to what kind of political claims can be accepted as legitimate in its
midst. Accordingly, every democratic polity is exclusive by nature – this is what
Lasse Thomassen (2006, p. 452) refers to as the “aporetic” nature of democracy.
The difference between democratic and other forms of political exclusion is, how-
ever, that the first is not arbitrary in the sense that it would be based on some ideo-
logical or nationalist strategy. Rather, democratic exclusion is rationally justifiable.
Namely, accepting illiberal, anti-democratic or intolerant political claims as legiti-
mate within democratic processes would mean sacrificing or at least severely jeop-
ardizing the legitimacy of the democratic regime (e.g. Habermas 1998). For instance,
if nationalist, xenophobic or fundamentalist religious claims were accepted as legit-
imate within democratic decision-making, the result would be the gradual
degeneration of democratic values of equality, inclusion and tolerance. To prevent

this, a democratic polity must establish a minimum threshold of reasonableness
concerning the claims that can pass as legitimate in public, political discussion. In
this sense, reasonableness as the entry condition of democratic participation and as
an aim of citizenship education serves to protect the right of all citizens to be
included regardless of their particular comprehensive doctrine or ethnic and cultural
background as long as they fulfill this condition. Reasonableness is thus also a cri-
terion that cannot be consistently rejected by anyone who wishes not to be oppressed,
discriminated against or marginalized by the basic institutions of society.
Furthermore, as the notion of reasonableness itself maintains that any policy or
practice that elevates one comprehensive doctrine over others or fails to treat equally
all reasonable citizens and doctrines belonging to the democratic polity is illegiti-
mate, reasonableness cannot be utilized to marginalize or exclude forms of reason-
able otherness without contradicting the very content and purpose of this criterion.
Rather, it can be employed to criticize such exclusive and marginalizing educational
policies and practices described by Säfström and others.
Another, important question is whether reasonableness provides a sufficient
foundation for democratic citizenship education or does sustaining a just and stable
democratic polity require a more ‘comprehensive’ form of citizenship education, as
Asger Sørensen argues in his contribution to this volume. Or does the formation of
democratic citizens require as much as adherence to a shared ‘patria’ and tradition,
as suggested by Callan (1997) and Galston (1991)? As mentioned above, there is an
on-going discussion in the philosophy of education regarding the educational reper-
cussions of Rawlsian political liberalism. Some authors argue that creating suffi-
cient attachment to liberal institutions demands a more robust form of citizenship
education than Rawls himself would like to admit (e.g. Callan 1997; Costa 2009,
2011). Unfortunately, I cannot go into the details of this discussion in this context.
It is perhaps sufficient to say that there might be more than one possible way to
satisfy the requirements of political liberalism in terms of educational aims, teach-
ing methods and practices, curriculum content, and school organization. However,
as I have indicated above, I do not think that promoting patriotism should be
regarded as one of these ways. Although Victoria Costa (2009) argues that the status
of patriotism in Rawls’ theory is not entirely clear or explicit, I claim that the idea
of promoting patriotic values in the comprehensive school is against the overall
spirit of Rawls’ project in which the requirement of liberal neutrality is in a central
position.
In my view, citizens’ commitment to a shared constitution and to the rules of a
common public political culture primarily require reassurance that society and its
basic institutions function in a sufficiently just manner and thus succeed in treating
citizens equally. Citizens need sufficient confirmation that they are treated fairly and
equally with their fellow citizens by the institutions of the society and that they
benefit from being a part of the political community in which they reside.
Furthermore, they must also have a sense that their actions have at least some influ-
ence over the way the institutions of their society operate. This reassurance is evi-
dently not easy to establish because the workings of actual institutions are often far
132 A. Leiviskä
from ideal. Accordingly, being acquainted with existing liberal democratic institu-
tions does not guarantee that citizens develop an adherence to these institutions.
This is especially true with those citizens who are from the very beginning margin-
alized and excluded by society’s institutions because of their cultural or ethnic iden-
tity – not to mention the asylum seekers and refugees who do not even have the
status of a citizen, but whose lives are nevertheless influenced by the institutions of
the society. The experiences of these people are well described in Kalisha Wills’
contribution to this volume. In the next, final section, using Rawlsian theory of citi-
zenship education as my point of departure, my aim is to outline suggestions on how
the position of these marginalized groups might be improved in the Nordic educa-
tional systems.
oncluding Remarks: Liberal Citizenship Education

C
and the Role of Immigrant Students in the Nordic Context
For a relatively long time, the Nordic educational model was seen as a remarkable
exception among the educational systems in Western democracies: it was perceived
as being capable of providing equal, high-quality schooling to all citizens regardless
of social class, gender or geographic origin, and thus functioning as a crucial instru-
ment for social justice and security (e.g. Lundahl 2016). However, in recent decades
school segregation and differences in the quality of education between different
schools and school districts have increased rapidly in all Nordic countries. As a
consequence of increased possibilities of school choice, and the flight of middle-
class students from schools with increasing proportions of immigrant students,
schools are becoming more and more differentiated in terms of socio-economic
status and ethnic background, this eroding the previous Nordic vision of schools as
arenas of social equality. Students with immigrant backgrounds often lack the eco-
nomic and social resources for making active choices regarding their education and
thus they are those suffering the most from these changes in the school system.
In the current situation, citizenship education promoting patriotic values is most
likely to increase the sense of alienation in immigrant students and thus deepen the
gap between them and the majority students. Accordingly, I see patriotism as a
counter-productive and philosophically unjustifiable strategy for citizenship educa-
tion; one, which can be expected to weaken large-scale social cohesion and solidar-
ity among citizens rather than strengthen them. The alternative that I propose builds
upon Rawls’ notion of reasonableness. Reasonableness is a criterion that cannot be
reasonably rejected by anyone who wants to live in liberal democratic society and
maintain the right not to be discriminated against based on one’s background or the
comprehensive doctrine one affirms. I also suggest that reasonableness serves to
protect the right of all citizens to be included in the democratic polity and thus can-
not be used in such marginalizing or discriminative ways as suggested my Säfström
(2010) and other critics, at least not without contradicting the content and purpose
of the notion.
Accordingly, I suggest that Nordic societies cannot expect immigrants to endorse
a given Danish, Swedish, Norwegian or Finnish identity or an inherited tradition; no
liberal democratic society can justifiably demand that. What can be justifiably
demanded of immigrants and the majority population alike, and what should also be
promoted by citizenship education, is reasonableness. However, it is evident that
citizens can be expected to be reasonable only to a limited degree if the institutions
of society fail to treat them fairly and secure their equal status as citizens. Hence,
from the perspective of immigrant students, one of the most important measures to
foster reasonable citizenship in the Nordic countries is to terminate the aforemen-
tioned structural changes in the school systems, which have undeniably placed
immigrant students in an even more vulnerable and unequal position than before.
Moreover, the responsibility for making the school an equal setting for all students
should be distributed evenly among the curriculum, the school system, individual
schools, teachers and the majority students so that the burden of the integration
process is no longer placed solely on immigrant students.
In terms of the curriculum, I broadly share Costa’s (2009) view that educating
students about liberal conceptions of justice, the philosophical arguments that can
be provided to support them, and the way they are or should be implemented in the
institutions of the society, might be a more direct and justifiable route to foster dis-
positions associated with democratic citizenship than ‘patriotic’ education. As
Costa further points out, demonstrating to students that there are valuable normative
ideals (such as conceptions of justice) that exist to protect the freedom and equality
of citizens and that also justify the design of actual political institutions and laws,
might encourage students’ identification with these institutions, diminish their sense
of alienation in the society, and enable them to take a more active role as citizens.
Especially in the case of immigrant students, it is important to draw attention to
such laws and regulations that protect citizens against discrimination on the basis of
religion, culture or ethnic background, as well as the conceptions of justice that can
be used to support these laws. Furthermore, while citizenship education should evi-
dently foster students’ faith in the institutions of society, it should also make explicit
that it is the duty of these institutions to protect all citizens from unequal and unfair
treatment, and therefore such institutional policies and practices that violate against
commonly held conceptions of justice should not be tolerated. Accordingly, citizen-
ship education should encourage students to take part in normative assessment of
one’s society and its institutions and it should also familiarize them with relevant
ways and channels of political influencing. This should also include discussing the
significance and justification of controversial forms of political influencing, such as
political activism, civil disobedience and conscientious objection.
Moreover, despite the fact that Rawls (2005) himself limits his theory to concern
“closed societies” (p.12), in today’s globalized world characterized by phenomena
such as mass-migration and international mobility, citizenship education might ben-
efit from adopting a more cosmopolitan approach than suggested by Rawls. This
might include discussing issues of justice in terms of human rights and how these
134 A. Leiviskä
rights ought to be reflected in the constitution and laws and institutions of particular
nation states. This kind of ‘cosmopolitan’ or global approach, which is discussed in
more detail and depth in this volume by Niclas Ronnström, might be beneficial for
reducing the juxtaposition between immigrant and majority students and espe-
cially between citizens and non-citizens, including refugees and asylum seekers. It
seems that in the current situation with unforeseen number of refugees entering
Europe and the Nordic countries, maintaining a stable and just democratic society
over time cannot succeed without considering the role and rights of people who do
not yet have the status of a citizen, but whose lives are nevertheless significantly
influenced by society’s institutions, including the school system.
References
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(pp. 101–112). Dordrecht: Springer.
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Anniina Leiviskä (b. 1984) is a postdoctoral researcher in the Faculty of Educational Sciences at
the University of Helsinki. Her research interests include theories of democracy and democratic
education, educational equality and justice, and global citizenship education. Her publications
include Toleration, Liberal Democracy and The Problem of Intolerant Doctrines: The Example of
Right-Wing Populism (2020); The Issue of ‘Radical Otherness’ in Contemporary Theories of
Democracy and Citizenship Education (2018); and Contesting the Politics of Negative Emotions in
Educational Policymaking: A Case of Asylum Seekers’ School Visit Ban in Finland (2020, co-
authored with Iida Pyy and Jan-Erik Mansikka).
Chapter 9
Bildung as Democratic Opinion and Will
Formation. Habermas Beyond Habermas
Asger Sørensen
Abstract Considering citizenship education specifically in relation to deliberative

politics, first, I focus on the role that Habermas in Between Facts and Norms allots
to opinion and will formation as a kind of Bildung, emphasizing the collective
aspect of discursive formation in the state as well as in civil society. Secondly, even
though I have stressed the crucial role of deliberation in the formation to virtue, I
recognize that Habermas attempts to combine the republican call for civic virtue
with the liberal claims to have rights. Thirdly, I emphasize that also for Habermas
Bildung in some sense constitutes the truth of human being, although it is not speci-
fied in detail. Fourthly, I argue that democratic citizenship education would benefit
from a substantial notion of Bildung, but that Habermas does not support such an
argument. Recognizing that Habermas’s idea of collective formation is restricted to
providing justice in terms of politics and law, and bearing in mind the alienation in
fact produced within the multitudes of modern capitalist and militarist society, I
conclude by expressing the fear that Habermas’s account of democratic formation
will not be sufficiently attractive to contemporary democratic citizens and thus
unable to function as a normative ideal.
Keywords Deliberate democracy · Jürgen Habermas · Citizenship education ·

Bildung · Socialism
Introduction
A democratic society requires both active participation and self-restraint of its citi-
zens, and therefore democracy must be an ideal both cherished and respected by the
citizenry. To accomplish this ideal situation, one can of course take the chance and
A. Sørensen (*)
e-mail: aso@edu.au.dk

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49524-4_9
138 A. Sørensen
rely on the natural and spontaneous humanity of every single human being.
Traditionally, however, realizing a democratic republic would be taken to require
that democratic citizens are raised and encultured in an appropriate way. In a democ-
racy, citizens should thus be formed and educated in a way that differs from that of,
say, a monarchy or an aristocracy. Hence, in short: Offering its citizens a lot of
freedom, republican democracies must raise them to be virtuous. This fundamental
point was made already in the eighteenth century by Montesquieu (Montesquieu
1989, Bk. 4, Ch. 1–3), and at least since the middle of the nineteenth century, we
have examples of teachers using special textbooks for systematic education of citi-
zens to democracy, e.g. in republican France (Renouvier 1981 [1848]).
Hence, the ethical-political education of the citizens must reflect, and be ade-
quate for, the political practice of the society in question. Democracies as we know
them today cover a broad range of electoral and governmental systems. Even
restricting ourselves to Northern Europe, we recognize as democracies both consti-
tutional monarchies and republics, be their governmental system parliamentarist or
presidentialist, disregarding whether they have one, two or more chambers, their
elections being proportional or the winner takes it all, whether they call themselves
states, unions or federations, independent of the relation between the legislative
power, the judiciary and the executive etc. etc..
Democracy thus being possible in very different guises, the role and practice of
the democratic citizen must also be assumed to be different in different democratic
systems, and so must also be the ethical-political education required to become a
virtuous citizen suitable for the particular kind of democratic practice. Each specific
combination of the aspects just mentioned, and of several more, must be supposed
to require something specific of democratic citizens and their education.
Still, many discussions of citizenship education employ a rather undifferentiated
concept of democracy (see, e.g., Bridges 2014; Gutmann 2009; Halstead 2013).
And this is not just an empirical problem. Normatively democracy is also a con-
tested ideal, both in theory and in practice (see, e.g., Held 2006; Lembcke et al.
2012). Hence, to illustrate the point, a republican democracy will require something
else of its citizens than a liberal democracy. For the former, being closer to the ideal
of a participatory democracy, the normative standard for the citizens is a lot of
political activity, and here it seems reasonable for society to develop the political
skills that find such a practice meaningful and satisfactory. In contrast, in a liberal
democracy, the well-educated gentleman will leave over politics to the elected rep-
resentatives, economy to the invisible hand, and himself concentrate on business,
culture, social activities and the family. Hence, not only democracy as such, but
each kind of democracy requires its specific kind of citizenship education.
Citizenship education textbooks should therefore take seriously specifying varia-
tions of democracy, and fortunately some have in fact done so (see, e.g., Arteta 2008).
For decades, democratic thought has been inspired by Jürgen Habermas.
Educationalist have thus referred affirmatively to his ideology critique of the bour-
geois public sphere, emancipatory knowledge interests, the theory of communica-
tive action and the discourse ethics (see, e.g., Andersen et al. 2007; Benner and
Oelkers 2004; Brookfield 2005; Krejsler 2002; Masschelein 1991; Roth 2001).
9 Bildung as Democratic Opinion and Will Formation. Habermas… 139
In contrast to this widespread recognition within education of Habermas’s early

work, his mature work on the normative logic of democracy, i.e. the discourse theory
of deliberative democracy in Faktizität und Geltung (in English Between Facts and
Norms) from 1992 ((Habermas 1997) – hereafter referred to as FG), has been largely
ignored. However, in discussions of democracy relation to politics and law this
work is recognized as essential (see, e.g., Kaspersen and Loftager 2009; Lembcke
et al. 2012), and, Habermas argues, deliberative democracy implies attributing a
crucial role to the collective opinion and will formation of the citizens, i.e. a specific
kind of Bildung. Habermas thus proposes an updated notion of formation that may
be considered constitutive for collective and interactive citizenship education in,
and for, modern democratic society.
Deliberative democracy requires of the citizens to value the continued participa-
tion in reasonable discursive arguments and to respect rational decision making, i.e.
to accept and cherish political decisions that can be shown to be justified collec-
tively in relation to specified criteria, or at least to have gone through a process of
justification (see, e.g., Enslin and White 2003). Such an ideal of critically informed
democratic decision making requires, I would claim, more of the citizens than just
basic schooling and character formation, namely a continuous education of the
sense for rationality and truth as well as for justice. Relying thus on an enlightened
and well-informed citizenry, deliberative democracy can be said to imply adult edu-
cation, higher education or life-long learning.
This particular kind of democratic Bildung ideally accompanies the deliberative
decision process, the formation of opinion and wills thus taking place continuously
through rational communication. Maintaining a deliberative democracy requires a
practice where democratic citizens do not limit their political participation to simply
voting on their representatives in parliament, but also challenge these representa-
tives in their political reasoning in the public sphere, typically through various mass
media. Furthermore, among themselves ordinary citizens must continuously main-
tain the habit of being skeptical and ask for justifications, whenever there seems to
be interests of power or economy at stake. Without such continuous interactive citi-
zenship education through opinion and will formation, republican democracy will
soon degenerate.
Maintaining this democratic practice, however, is not an easy task in modern
society, nor even in the well-established democracies in the Nordic countries. As
Alessandro Ferrara recognizes, political liberals after Rawls must accept “the fact of
plurality” (Ferrara 2015) vii). Moreover, any education to a normative system of
do’s and don’ts necessarily constitutes a hierarchy of human worth and social rec-
ognition. A person who has become virtuous, even if only in some particular respect,
may claim to be a better person in relation to others, and given the alienation and
traumas produced by real life under capitalism,1 the traditions of virtuous ethical
practice are not equally attractive to everyone. Hence, in the epoch of neoliberal
1
For a critical discussion of the way alienation is dealt with by contemporary critical theorists, see
my (Sørensen 2019a).
140 A. Sørensen
global capitalism, the strategic free-rider who only considers his own selfish inter-
ests, is sometimes respected as a freedom fighter.2
Recognizing the factual plurality, and the call for “pluralism” (Ferrara 2015, 15),
political liberals typically argue that what is called for is a thin version of demo-
cratic politics based on legal and human rights, i.e. a kind of political liberalism in
Rawls’s sense (see, e.g., Hittinger 1994, 586). As I see it, Habermas’s idea of the
collective Bildung of opinions and wills reflects this line of thought, thus offering an
objectified and allegedly post-metaphysical account of democratic Bildung (see
Sørensen 2015, 263–65). Acknowledging the value and the yields of this account, in
the present analysis I will elucidate the collectivity and interactivity that Habermas
attributes to Bildung in deliberative politics. What is important is thus his ambition
to formulate a notion of Bildung that escapes the individualist and retrospective
presumptions often associated with it.
Ultimately, however, I will nevertheless suggest to go beyond Habermas’s own
explicit intentions, thus reading Habermas beyond Habermas. I will thus suggest
that we redevelop modern democratic culture through citizenship education based
on comprehensive thick concepts of both democracy and Bildung. Moreover, we
already have the fruitful and culturally very rich notion of Bildung that stems from
German idealism; as I have argued elsewhere (see Sørensen 2015, 264–67), this
notion of Bildung is implicit in Habermas’s argument already, and I believe that this
thick concept may be what contemporary democratic citizenship education needs.
My hope is thus that a collectivized reinterpretation of the classical ideal of Bildung
may benefit the realization of a republican social democracy that attributes an
important role to participation and deliberation. The determination of this demo-
cratic notion of Bildung, however, I will postpone for now.3 In the following, I will
restrict myself to arguing that this ambition is the best educational implication we
can draw from Habermas’s discourse theory of democracy.
The following discussion is divided into four parts. First, I stress that Bildung is
crucial in Habermas’s conception of deliberative democracy, emphasizing thus the
interactive aspect of discursive opinion and will formation in the state as well as in
civil society (I.). Secondly, I recognize Habermas’s attempts to combine the repub-
lican call for civic virtue with the liberal claims to have rights, intending to escape
charges of ethical closure and totalitarianism (II.). Thirdly, I emphasize that also for
Habermas Bildung is in some sense constitutive for the truth of human being, i.e.
what humans can achieve in politics and law, as well as within culture, i.e. arts,
humanities and the sciences (III.). Fourthly, I argue that democratic citizenship
education would benefit from a substantial notion of Bildung, but that Habermas
does not support such an argument (IV.). Recognizing that Habermas’s idea of col-
lective formation is restricted to providing justice in terms of politics and law, and
bearing in mind the alienation in fact produced within the multitudes of modern
See, e.g., my analysis of neo-liberalism in the Postscript of (Sørensen 2019b).

2
A first attempt is provided in my (Sørensen 2020).

3
capitalist and militarist society, I conclude by expressing the fear that Habermas’s
account of democratic formation will not be sufficiently attractive to contemporary
democratic citizens and thus unable to function as a normative ideal.
I. Bildung is Crucial for Habermas’s Deliberative Politics
Between Facts and Norms is Habermas’ attempt to extend his discourse theory to an
account of the democratic state, thus reconstructing rationally and normatively the
logic of a society that has enough social and cultural cohesion to want to settle dis-
agreements about justice peacefully through politics and law. Habermas directs his
argument against the “false realism” in politics and law, i.e. the idea that only power
and money rules the relations between human beings, thus insisting on the value of
articulating a “moral-practical self-understanding of Modernity” (FG, 11). For
Habermas, the point is that modern society makes it possible for citizens to find
societal life worthwhile as a collective project.
Moreover, within this societal framework Habermas insists that “socialism”
makes sense, namely as the “necessary conditions for emancipated lifeforms”, and
the “normative core” of this political project must be the “democratic self-
organization of a community of law” (FG, 12). As Christian Rostbøll has stressed,
deliberative democracy only becomes the final normative account of politics
acknowledging the traditional ideology critique of critical theory and the demands
of discourse ethics for a communication free of dominance and distortion (see
Rostbøll 2008, 708, 726).
Already more than two decades ago, for Habermas it was obvious that there are
serious challenges for the “established democracies” (FG 13), i.e. growing inequal-
ity, migration from poor countries, wars and ecological degradation, as well as the
deterioration of politics as such. However, this should not make us give up democ-
racy; on the contrary, for Habermas the answer “seems to be that people need more
rather than less democracy” (FG 13), this time formulating discretely his normative
ambitions under the guise of a descriptive proposition about people’s needs.
Most discussions of Between Facts and Norms have focused on law and right.
For Habermas, however, it is important to stress that law and right presupposes
legislation, and that in a republican democracy the legislation process takes place in
the parliament. The parliament is the seat of the legislative power, i.e. the place
where laws are decided. The final decision, however, is only the culmination of a
long process of communication. Hence, when the parliament communicates, what
takes place is a collective formation – i.e. Bildung – of opinion and will, and this
formation ultimately justifies and legitimates the decision.
In a modern democratic society, the political communication circuit, however, is
not limited to the parliament, but takes place at different levels of the political public
sphere, i.e. in political parties, associations, parliamentary groups and in the
142 A. Sørensen
government, all of them “influencing each other” (FG 228). Recognizing political
plurality, however, it is important that citizens also participate in forming their will
and opinion in a broader public sphere that transcends the political system, thus
expanding and controlling the parliamentary processes. This wider public sphere is
thus characterized by the informal Bildung of free and qualified opinions, preparing
and influencing “the political will formation” that aims at “legislation” (FG 211). As
Habermas argues, the institutionalized opinion and will formation is only legiti-
mate, when it opens up to the civil society and the “spontaneous sources of the
autonomous public sphere” (FG 225), recognizing ultimately the state of law as the
“realization of an association of free and equal […] citizens” (FG 226). Continued
democratic deliberations among citizens implies a life-long citizenship education
that assures the constitutive communicative power of the public sphere.
Against the political realists, Habermas insists that the communication that con-
stitutes the opinion and will formation, both inside and outside the parliament, goes
beyond mere pragmatic and technical questions about what we can in fact do.
Political communication thus also deals with what we ought to do, or should do, but
that does not mean that we can simply transfer what we know about ethics to poli-
tics and law. In particular, when it comes to Habermas, the discourse theory of
democracy is not a simple extension of discourse ethics.
Apart from the pragmatics and technicalities of power, Habermas thus insists on
distinguishing between three kinds of normative questions constitutive of politics
and law. Firstly, how the formation – Bildung – of a compromise brings competing
preferences in harmony, secondly, who we are, and what we want to do, in terms of
ethics and politics, and, thirdly, what morality tells us that we should rightly do.4
The political opinion and will formation to legislation is the result of dealing with
all of these questions, political negotiations thus forming an “aggregated collective
will”, the “hermeneutical understanding of the self” forming an “authentic collec-
tive will”, whereas the justification and application discourse in moral philosophy
forms an “autonomous collective will” (FG, 222). And none of them can “replace”
(FG 206) the other.
My point is that this complex opinion and will formation must be considered a
kind of collective Bildung in the classical sense. Opinion and will formation is not
just a causal process of social psychology, but also a process developing meaning
and sense as well as valid normative ideals. Becoming able to recognize this validity
educates citizens to understand, justify, and cherish the kind of mutual discursive
interaction that stimulates ethics and morality as well as politics and law. Moreover,
realizing these ideals is also a process that needs to be fueled by communicative
power, thus making public the law and including citizens in an active public sphere.
4
Remember that Habermas, following Kant and Hegel, use the words ‘ethics’ and ‘morality’ in an
almost inverse sense of what is usual in the Anglosphere (see (Habermas 1991), 7).
And, ultimately, this continued interactive formation cannot take place without
involving culture, i.e. art, humanities and the sciences.
II. Deliberative Democracy Transcends

the Liberal-Republican Dichotomy
The preconditions of deliberative politics are found in Habermas’ Theory of

Communicative Action (Habermas 1981/1988), where he argues that every factual
proposition presupposes ideal claims regarding truth, rightness and authenticity (see
FG 43). It is this counterfactual aspect of facticity that explains the original German
title of Between Facts and Norms, namely Facticity and Validity. Only the latter
distinction enables a radical critique of what in fact is recognized as valid and
acceptable norms, thus referring to ideal criteria for validity and acceptability per
se. The point is, however, that such validity can nevertheless be claimed to be inher-
ent in reality, i.e. facticity. Ideals are – or become – real, since we act on them.
With this complex and, some would say, dialectical idea of social and political
reality, reconstructing the ideals already there becomes a reasonable normative
approach; if societal reality was not already in itself substantially normative, recon-
structing discursively its logics could not sustain any normative conclusion.
For the mature Habermas the normative agenda is strictly political, thus provid-
ing a theory of the democratic state of law that through a rational discursive recon-
struction of the political realities can claim to have descriptive validity backing up
normative claims. As it has become common in political philosophy, he distin-
guishes between a liberal and a republican approach to politics, the former empha-
sizing individual pre-political rights of every single human being, the latter in
contrast the political rights of the citizen. We thus get a contrast between human
rights and political rights, or between negative rights limiting the power of the state
specified by law and the positive right to participate in the constitution and the
political rule of the state of law.
Hence, for republicans the legitimacy of the state does not consist in providing
laws that defend subjective human rights, as the liberals would have it, but in
facilitating an “inclusive process of opinion and will formation”, in which the citi-
zens can reach a mutual understanding about “what goals and norms may be of
common interest” (FG 329). Republicanism thus implies continuous education of
the citizenry. Still Habermas argues that republicanism is too idealist, making the
democratic process dependent on the ethical virtues of the citizens (see Habermas
1996, 283). Moreover, republicanism thus has a tendency to closure around the
citizens of a particular state, and the liberal insistence on law and universal human
rights brings this to the fore. Hence, deliberative politics recognize the value of
human rights, thus transcending the liberal-republican dichotomy, allegedly
144 A. Sørensen
retaining what is best from both of them, i.e. from the former law and right, from
the latter popular formation, i.e. Bildung.
The dialectical argument sublating the dichotomy is backed up by another simi-
lar argument, namely the reasoning behind Habermas’s philosophical claim about
the co-originality of moral and political autonomy (see FG 112). Hence, the claim
is that political rights do not only find their foundation in human rights; the opposite
is also the case. Private autonomy presupposes public autonomy and vice versa.
Democracy as the public government through laws thus implies private freedom and
autonomy, just as the opposite is the case. In other words: Positive and negative
freedom both presuppose each other.
Moreover, as Habermas argues, yet another similar argument can be made in
relation to law. Hence, is not to be understood as merely the regulation of rights and
preferences in conflict. Law is indeed about deciding in conflict, but even the most
anti-moralistic minimal conception of positive law presupposes the mutual recogni-
tion of the conflicting parties as human beings with equal legal worth and equal
rights in relation to the law. Furthermore, it also presupposes recognizing the worth
of the law per se, and, by implication, law as a valuable institution of a particular
society, in which we as human beings are recognized as citizens (see FG 117).
Developing mutual recognition among persons is an important aspect of both the
ethical-political education of human beings and a successful social and political
integration, and for Habermas this integration has a strong public aspect. Without
social and political integration in the public, we cannot recognize the other as a fel-
low member of society, i.e. a fellow citizen, and then law does not work, and neither
do rights or liberties. Hence, as Habermas argues, the objective societal law is co-
original with the pre-political subjective right, both of them mutually constituting
the other (see FG 134).
Furthermore, publicity being a transcendental condition for law and right – the
formula famously employed by Kant in Toward Perpetual Peace (Kant 2011, AA 8:
381; see also Sørensen 2017, 44–45) – public communication can be said to consti-
tute the communicative power that counter-balances socio-economical and admin-
istrative power. The public sphere is constituted by argumentative discourses
making validity claims, i.e. claiming truth and rightness, implicitly if not explicitly.
The discourses of the real existing public sphere presupposes ideal criteria, and for
Habermas the real existing public sphere is therefore destined to become critical
rather than affirmative. Moreover, through the democratic procedures public criti-
cism can become “communicative power” (FG, 364), but still public opinion and
will cannot itself rule society. The will has to be vested with institutionalized power,
enabling the realization of a state that is both necessary and legitimate.
The communicative, or discursive, power of the public sphere thus conveys
validity to law and right, both ideally, i.e. counter factually, and in real social life,
both in relation to facticity as well as validity, i.e. in a reality Between Facts and
Norms. The existence and normative value of discursive power is fundamental for
Habermas’s idea of deliberative politics, and this emphasis of discourse, and the
formation it implies, conveys a special importance to democracy in contrast to other
kinds of political governance. Habermas thus argues that democratic opinion and
will formation, i.e. BIldung, is a constitutive element in the rationalization of a gov-

ernment and administration based on law.
III. Bildung Contains an Element of Truth for Human Being
As I have related elsewhere (see Sørensen 2015, 257–58), the young Habermas
takes as his point of departure an almost classical conception of Bildung as the com-
prehensive ideal of educational formation, stressing the interest for, knowledge
about and competences in classical fine art, literature, history, music, drama, i.e. the
most traditional and elitist conception of high culture possible. His early argument
affirms the value of such culture by showing that taste, and, arguably, talent, for
these aspects of human reality can be acquired by stimulating cultural education of
children from the lower classes, and that such cultural literacy adds to the life and
career expectancy of those thus encultured. Here the ideology criticized is that of
the gifted child, namely the idea that those who end up with Bildung are especially
gifted children, and that they therefore deserve the important positions in society to
which their Bildung gives them access. Relying on sociological studies, Habermas
instead argues that, under the right circumstances, a lot of giftedness can be acquired
and that any child may therefore, under the right circumstances, obtain Bildung.
It is only later, i.e. in The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere from
1962 (Habermas 1976), that Habermas gets to the point of questioning the idea of
Bildung as in itself an ideology, stressing thus that the realization of such an ideal
presupposes the distributive inequalities of class society. Idealizing the preoccupa-
tion with these idealized issues can only take place, if leisure time is provided by the
possibility of spending accumulated material wealth. The idea of Bildung is there-
fore part of the ideological legitimation of capital accumulation and inequality,
without which the objects and practices valued in traditional Bildung would be
impossible. Accepting the Marxist critique of political economy and the critique of
capitalism, Habermas’s critique of ideology points to the material injustice presup-
posed in the development of refined tastes and manners, specialized knowledge, fine
arts and high culture in general.
Still, and this is what I keep returning too (see Sørensen 2015, 262), even when
most critical with regards to the ideology conveyed, Habermas insists that the idea
of Bildung transcends mere ideology and contains an element of truth, namely the
idea of humanity (see Habermas 1976, 65–66). Hence, the cultural qualities that the
privileges of bourgeois education enable only a few people to develop, are still
worth developing in general. These qualities are what humanity is about; if we do
not cherish the specialized sublimation expressed in ethics, arts and science, then
we are not human beings, but brute nature.
Important to mention, however, is that Habermas himself does not do much to
encourage such an interpretative endeavour. As I have argued (see Sørensen 2015,
265–67), Bildung is definitely a core element of the metaphysical philosophy of
consciousness that Habermas wants to commit to the past, just as the idea of Bildung
146 A. Sørensen
hinges on the classical philosophical anthropological idea of human being realizing

itself through work that Habermas is equally skeptical about. In both cases the
mature Habermas would insist on the post-metaphysical commitment of contempo-
rary Critical Theory, distancing himself from his own youth with Hegel, Marx and
the first generation of the Frankfurt School.5
Accepting Habermas’s argument for transforming the philosophy of conscious-
ness to a Theory of Communicative Action, what we get in Between Facts and
Norms is an idea of Bildung as transformed by the discourse theory of democracy,
thus presenting the element of truth in Bildung as the collective, and sometimes
explicitly political, opinion and will formation of the citizenry. However, the empha-
sis on legality implies a rather thin conception of politics and therefore also a
reduced idea of Bildung. Citizenship education in this reduced sense is thus thought
of as a consequence, or an integrated part, of democratic arguments, both in the
informal public sphere and in the formal legislative process, i.e. in the parliament,
and both of the processes influence the other through discursive interaction. Other
political aspects, and culture in relation to arts and humanities, are largely ignored
in this context.
Moreover, as I have also pointed out (see Sørensen 2015, 263-65), in the theory
of communicative action and the discourse theory, Bildung is objectified and thought
of mainly as a causal process, i.e. a social psychological process of formation. In
this even more reduced sense, formation simply means that something is being
formed by circumstances and conditions that can be described by the social sci-
ences, thus apparently ignoring the humanistic connotations inherited from German
idealism and romanticism. However, it is precisely those connotations that I want to
maintain, although hopefully in a version transformed into a democratic framework.
Hence, recognizing the genuine democratic aspirations of what Habermas calls
“deliberative politics” (FG 334), and accepting his intersubjective communicative
approach as in general fruitful, in his mature work I have chosen to stress what is
left of the normative content and implications of the classical idea of Bildung.
IV. Citizenship Education Needs a Thick Notion of Bildung
When it comes to democracy, what is important for Habermas is that inter-subjective

communication can be realized as communicative power through societal opinion
and will formation, i.e. a collective process of Bildung that acquires its normative
quality through the discursive and communication. This is the process that conveys
the value of truth and justice to law, or, in other words, this is how validity get into
contact with facticity. Hence, when Habermas attributes such a crucial role to dis-
course, it is not enough to think of it as a non-foundational, non-conflictual and thus
pleasant conversation among well-educated people, as Richard Rorty would prefer
5
For an account of Habermas in relation to classical Critical Theory, see section D of the Interlude
in (Sørensen 2019b).
it (see Rorty 1994, 389–94). Neither is it sufficient to have a mutually emphatic

dialogue or a factual socialization. We need a substantial idea of argumentative
discourse that is able to convey normative ideal of truth and justice, just a we need
a substantial notion of Bildung to be able to believe in the possibility of collective
enlightenment through discursive communication.
In his argument for the idea of the university, Habermas insists that Bildung must
not be separated from truth and science (see Habermas 1986, 707), and following
this lead, I believe that this classical idealist notion of Bildung is worth asserting
also in relation to democratic citizenship education. What we need for a robust
democracy is thus an idea of Bildung that is both interactive, collective and substan-
tially committed to the truth. With such an idea of Bildung through continuous col-
lective interaction, citizenship education may transcend the insufficiencies of liberal
minimalism and thinness, escaping both the limited notion of a singular formation
of each individual and the conception of the formative process as merely causal or
political in Rawls’s restricted sense.
Habermas may himself think of his democratic Bildung as rather formal and
objectivistic, and thus rather thin; however, as I see it, to make sense of Habermas’
deliberative account of democracy, one has to employ a relatively thick idea of
Bildung¸ not just in relation to politics and law, but also culture in the already men-
tioned. Hence, the idea has to be thick and comprehensive enough both to make a
difference in relation to pre- or non-democratic forms of Bildung and to make the
specific account of democracy normatively attractive in itself, i.e. intuitively appeal-
ing and worth identifying with as a resonable person.
As mentioned, however, Habermas does not do much to encourage such an inter-
pretative strategy, using very seldom the term Bildung in its classical comprehensive
sense. Hence, as he relates affirmatively that the “exercise of political autonomy
means the discursive Bildung of a common will” (FG 186). Still, Bildung appears
problematic, when a quotation of Carl Schmitt makes the parliament possibly legiti-
mate when representing “the national Bildung and reason”, unifying the “whole
intelligence of the people” (FG, 227), thus associating Bildung thorugh nation and
people with National Socialism. And when it comes to the social Bildung that is
necessary to bring us beyond “egocentrism and self-interest,” for Habermas, it is
linked closely to communitarianism that he does not support either. Finally, he
reminds about the “tension between facticity and validity” (FG 342), stressing the
political value of compromise and that deliberative legislation is not only about
securing “ethical validity of laws” (FG 344).
Distancing himself from Bildung in the classical normative and comprehensive
sense, Habermas instead attempts to establish a kind of political realism that tran-
scends the false realism of traditional political realists. The claim is that a true real-
ism can acknowledge societal realities in a very wide sense, e.g. the fact that society
is held together politically through laws compromising legitimately between moral-
ity and egoism, totality and human rights. This is where facticity and validity meet.
Hence, although Bildung in the classical sense is recognized as existing and thus
real in some sense, for Habermas, it does not call for affirmative acclamations, and
the roots of his normativity are sought elsewhere.
148 A. Sørensen
Conclusion
Deliberative politics and the discourse theory of democracy in Between Facts and
Norms takes seriously the accomplishment of the great popular movements of the
nineteenth and twentieth century, thus emphasizing the reality of public communi-
cative power and the possibilities it provides for realizing justice through a demo-
cratic state of law. Moreover, by recognizing the importance of formation,
Habermas’s discursive approach transcends many well-established reductionist
agendas in political philosophy and philosophy of law. However, as I see it, his
rational hopes for democracy relies too much on the formative potential of law,
procedural rules and arguments. Hence, even though Habermas strongly empha-
sizes the crucial importance of opinion and will formation for democratic rule, it
proves to be a rather thin idea of formation, also when compared to the idea of
Bildung that he valued himself in his early writings.
Moreover, although acknowledging the fact of plurality, as I see it, Habermas’s
idea of deliberative politics still assumes a society with a reasonable level of social
cohesion, thus having experienced a relatively successful social integration, where
the citizens mutually recognize each other, as well as a sufficient number of public
institutions, as not completely devoid of justice. As Habermas states it, modernity
means that democratic procedures cannot be sure to rely on the power of “an already
established mutual and reciprocal understanding of a customary community.” Still,
he believes democracy capable of relying to “itself” (FG 347).
The problem is, however, that since Habermas took this affirmative turn, social
realities around the globe has deteriorated. Years of proliferation of capitalism and
militarism have generated social and cultural conflicts that have left many good
people alienated and estranged in relation to their own societies and humanity in
general. Increasing numbers of people are committed to suffering and death, and
this makes a mockery out of his hopes for a democratic socialist state justified by a
common respect for the law. Modern society can, I fear, no longer rely on a common
background culture that secures sufficient mutual trust across social and cultural
conflicts, making it possible to transform conflicts into political disagreements and
legal issues. In other words: Our identities as citizens are no longer sufficiently
identical to find the common ground, or the overlapping consensus, necessary for
peaceful solutions of serious societal conflicts.
Thin, minimal or formal ideas of ethics and politics do not appear attractive or
motivating, and therefore it is difficult to claim their validity. Recognizing the
importance already mentioned of culture, this “hyperpluralism” has made political
liberals such as Ferrara consider “aesthetic sources of normativity” (Ferrara 2015,
vii). What I suggest instead, is a return to strong transcendent values based on meta-
physics that can make democracy more attractive as a comprehensive normative
ideal worthy of respect and thus possibly transgress the alienation produced under
capitalist market conditions and political liberalism.
Basically, I still think Habermas is right. We still need to make people discover,
or rediscover, the value of individual and collective self-determination, making it
manifest that democracy is not the problem, but the solution. The problem is capital-
ism, militarism, neo-liberal ideology and various kinds of religious fundamental-
ism, all of them generating violence and fear. And a substantial citizenship education
committed to deliberative democracy will be the target of these forces.
As Habermas recognized already decades ago, false consciousness and ideology
may become so powerful that dictatorships can do almost without the “protection of
the bayonets” (FG 353). The increasing deterioration of social security and predict-
ability has made many good people desperate in their claim to justice here and now,
since they have no confidence in simply waiting for things to become better. This is
an understandable reaction, since patience cannot easily be justified when economy,
ecology and peace appears to be crumbling, and basic survival is at stake. But impa-
tience and unconditional normativity is dangerous to our common future; without
some minimum of patience and mutual trust, i.e. without time and solidarity, as well
as the basics of reason and rationality, politics and law are not possible. Social soli-
darity in this sense is indispensable, and this is why we with Habermas must stress
the importance of continuing the collective Bildung of opinion and will for demo-
cratic decision-making.
In the future conceptual development of a substantial idea of Bildung to head
democratic citizenship education, it is important is to insist that normative thickness
does not imply fundamentalism or exclusiveness, as liberals have often argued. In
contrast, I would claim that such implications depend on the content of the ideal that
we strive to realize, not on its having a substantial content as such. If an ideal for its
realization depends on the existence of real human beings, being ideal as well as
material, such as is the case with democracy; then there is no excuse to accept the
demise of these beings as merely collateral damage. In other words: The problem is
capitalism, alienation and reification, not the thick notions of democracy and
Bildung.
Moreover, democracy implies not only the existence of people, but also the value
of people, and without individual human beings, there are no people. Normative
thickness means that there is something of value worth arguing for, i.e. something
that clearly goes beyond political and legal neutrality, i.e. something splendid, glori-
ous and dignified, something beyond the technicalities appealing only to the instru-
mental rationality of nerdish engineers or calculating crooks. And this is the human
being. As I have argued elsewhere, referring to Émile Durkheim, a modern demo-
cratic society implies worshipping human rights (see Sørensen 2012).
To sustain the legitimacy of democracy, we need some supplementary normative
and conceptual thickness, indicating in a more substantial manner what kind of
education human beings need according to their nature. Learning processes cannot
by themselves produce Bildung. Habermas, however, avoids the normative question
of human education as inflicted with philosophical anthropology, ontology and thus
metaphysics. But today political philosophy and philosophy of education cannot
ignore the discussion of what is good for human beings and citizens in a democratic
society. In order to strengthen Habermas’s arguments for democracy, the post-
metaphysical rhetoric of his discourse theory must therefore be discarded as mere
ideology.
150 A. Sørensen
In the argument for deliberative democracy Habermas thus seems to side too
much with the liberals, thus confiding almost exclusively in the formative potential
of civil society interaction; despite his recognition of republicanism, he does not
give much credit to the republican valuation of the state. Neither does he consider in
detail the education of future generations, although this must be considered indis-
pensable for realizing justice within social democratic states such as those in the
Nordic countries. In other words: We need to supplement and develop Habermas’s
account of democratic education with some additional thickness indicating what
kind of ethical-political education human beings need according to human nature
and what the content of this education should be to stimulate the development of a
genuine democratic culture.6
Democracy and democratic citizenship education in this strong sense are implied
by an explicit and normative commitment to the overall political norm, i.e. justice,
and justice only matters because of real living human beings, being reasonable as
well as in flesh and blood. The political ambition must be to make the normative
conjunction of democracy and justice persuasive as project of a socialist state of
law. To constitute legitimate political authority, power must make successful claims
to validity; if not, right it is only might.
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Chapter 10
Towards a Plastic Starting Point:
with Catherine Malabou
Kjetil Horn Hogstad
Abstract Sometime around 500 BCE, Heraclitus is supposed to have said that it is

impossible to step in the same river twice (Plato, Complete works. Hackett
Publishing, Cambridge, 1997, p. 120; Graham, Heraclitus. Retrieved October 20
2018, from https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2015/entries/heraclitus/, 2015).
Since then, the problem of being and change has never left Western philosophy.
Evidently important in and to education, change continues to be an important field
of inquiry. In this text, I approach the concept of change by way of an examination
of Catherine Malabou’s philosophy of plasticity. I revisit what I identify as three
main moments in her philosophy: Her re-elaboration of Hegelian time and dialec-
tics as the process through which change happens; the open potentiality of the
moment as she finds it in Heidegger; and change as driven by, and dependent on,
concepts and schematization as she finds it implied in Derrida. By setting change at
the center for what might be called her post-post-structural, materialist, yet non-
deterministic ontology, Malabou’s three moments could open up for a rethinking of
the changeable character of the Nordic model, as well as the character of ethical-
political education.
Keywords Change · Ontology · Catherine Malabou · Plasticity · Ethical-political

education
K. H. Hogstad (*)
e-mail: k.h.hogstad@iped.uio.no

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49524-4_10
154 K. H. Hogstad
Does Ontology Matter for Ethical-Political Education?
The title of this book – “Rethinking Ethical-Political Education” – situates it in

time and space as well as in a certain theme: We are invited to (re)think ethical-
political education as a spatio-temporal phenomenon. If we take this invitation
seriously we might have to accept that the various forms of ethical-political
education1 can and perhaps should be rethought; perhaps even that such a rethinking
is inevitable. We might also be reminded that rethinking something suggests that it
is time to re-engage with familiar problems but in new ways, or in other words,
re-situating the exploration of an old problem in a new time. What we are saying
seems to be that there is a tripartite complicity between time, change, and continuity.
In this text, I have chosen to focus on change. One reason is that education in many
respects purports to produce change in the student in some way, either by eliciting
it from her, by supervising change that will inevitably occur, or by causing change
in some way. Another is that the projected future changes of the society is often a
part of the political project involved in the institution of education. A third is that
both ethics, politics, and education as institutions and practices all can be thought of
as subject to and product of the changes that time and continuity allow and deny,
respectively.
The context of this book is “the Nordic model”. According to Ari Antikainen
(2006), an important trait of this model is the focus on lifelong learning. Antikainen
explains the Nordic model as based on the belief that good education and schooling
takes into account both national and current needs, and international and (so far
unknown) future needs. Central to the Nordic model is the assumption that change
will happen, both in the student, their relations; national and international condi-
tions and relations; and in the interrelations between them all (Antikainen 2006).
How can we think this change? We can say with Jacques Derrida that the meaning
of ‘change’ is constantly changing. As he argues in “Structure, sign and play”, even
the concept ‘structure’ is unstably structured. Throughout the history of the concept,
which is as long as philosophy’s, the concept has undergone constant transformation.
This leads Derrida to suggest that concepts have no solid or eternal ‘center’, but that
they are organized loosely around a space that allows the concept to remain, yet
change (2001, p. 351ff). Derrida thus presents us with the job of examining or
rethinking the concepts that we rely on. Torill Strand, in her introduction to this
book, argues that the Nordic model is one such concept. The Nordic model has
somewhat definable ‘contours’: education has potential to solve societal issues and
should be for everyone. The ‘center’, however: the details and concretizations of the
concept, is subject to continual debate, or in other words, change.
My intention here is therefore to present the problem of change as an ontological
concept in the context of ethical-political education. This does not entail neither
1
As Torill Strand mentions in her introduction, ethical-political education has worn many guises,
and still does. Some of them go by the name of paideia, Bildung, or progressive (democratic)
education.
10 Towards a Plastic Starting Point: Rethinking Ethical-Political Educati… 155
asking the question (or even a question) of ontology and attempt to bring about an
answer, but rather to elaborate how the concept itself might be formulated. Presenting
the problem of change in this way might be an intervention for a rethought concep-
tion of ethical-political education. The need for such a rethinking is found most
fundamentally in the realization that the social and environmental issues we are
facing today are, by the simple but inexorable force of time’s passing, not the same
as anything we have encountered. A more specific concern is expressed in Ole
Andreas Kvamme’s chapter in this book: The impending force and peril of climate
change. Carol Taylor’s chapter argues that we have entered a “posthuman” period,
where it is no longer possible to uphold the idea of the human as the unbound con-
troller and exploiter of the world’s resources. The natural sciences have shown us
just how complex and fuzzy the relationship and interplay between individual and
environment is, and it seems likely that this now presumably outdated idea is closely
tied to the myopic and self-centered imperialist past of the Western world.
The present text is structured around three main “moments”. These moments are
points in Malabou’s authorship where she elaborates what I identify as ideas which
are intertwined but concern different things. I am using the temporal sense of the
word “moment” deliberately because I identify them as points where Malabou’s
oeuvre itself can be read as transitions from the predicative to the speculative per-
spective. We will see in the first moment that the concept plasticity is introduced and
its relation to time and dialectics are revealed; in the second that the openness and
undecidedness that plasticity represents is thought as the perpetual origin of essence;
in the third that plasticity understands itself as a mode of thinking capable of caus-
ing change, even to change itself so as to make itself obsolete.
Having thus already in the proper Hegelian fashion paved the way for a transition
from the predicative to the speculative, let us go into the three moments in fur-
ther detail.
The Three Moments
In the first moment, I explore Malabou’s reading of Hegel as it is presented in her

work The Future of Hegel (Malabou 1996, 2005). It is centered around three con-
cepts: Plasticity, temporality, and dialectics. In this work, Malabou suggests a read-
ing of Hegel that’s different from the prevalent French reception at the time, the
interpretations offered by Kojève and Koyré. In their readings, inspired by Heidegger,
Hegel’s concept of time is seen simply as an expression of what Heidegger called
“vulgar time”, that is, the simple linear sequence of “nows” with no possibility for
deviation. In that sense, time is nothing but a realization of what must come, and
there is no room for the unexpected or freedom or agency.
Malabou’s reshaping of Hegel’s concept of time is constructed around the
concept plasticity, a concept designating the productive space between total rigidity
and total dissolution. I find that Malabou’s reading produces at least two important
results. The first is a contemporizing of Hegel, interpreting him as a thinker with a
156 K. H. Hogstad
dialectical yet non-determinist concept of time and futurity. This includes re-reading
Hegel in dialog with Heidegger and Derrida. Her engagement with Hegel opens up
for a non-transcendental, yet non-deterministic ontology. In this ontology, change
and the historization of the moment happen not thanks to an organizing principle
outside the System, but as a result of the tension between essence and accident
within. In this perspective, the question of the wholly Other “is always in fact a
question about an origin that could have been wholly otherwise”; a question which
in Malabou’s Hegel is answered by a reference to the necessary and “inherent com-
plicity” between that which is and that which could have been (Malabou 2005,
pp. 163–164).
This complicity, to Malabou, reveals the dialectic as the original ontological
principle of change: “Everything begins in the same moment, where the becoming
essential of the accident and the becoming accidental of essence mutually imply one
another. There is nothing beforehand. The dialectic is primordial, indeed, it is the
origin” (Malabou 2005, p. 164). Already here we can discern the beginning of an
ontology in which change can be seen as a central element. Her 2004 book What
Should We Do With Our Brain (English translation published in 2008) approaches
the phenomenon brain plasticity and argues that the brain is plastic in precisely this
dialectical and primordially originary fashion. Although she mentions neural plas-
ticity almost 20 years prior in The Future of Hegel, What Should We Do With Our
Brain marks what could perhaps be called her “neurological turn”, refining a critical
and productive engagement with the natural sciences (mainly cellular biology and
neuroscience) from the angle of Continental philosophy. This turn allows her to
bring Continental philosophy into a new era and read neurology as a science of
change, self-production, accident, and freedom, instead of a discourse that blocks
conversation (Malabou 2004b, 2008). But in keeping with the original problem of
this text, I will not go further into this strand of her thinking but rather concentrate
the first moment on her reshaping of Hegel’s concept of time and plasticity. The
reader should, however, keep in mind that plasticity as it will be understood after the
neurological turn takes it upon itself to both describe change as I will be discussing
it in this text – in primarily metaphysical terms – and as the gradual (self-)develop-
ment, deposition, and destruction of the body. Reading the present text in this specu-
lative way might foreshadow a potentially transformative perspective on both ethics,
politics, and education.
A second result is the introduction of plasticity as a novel approach to theory and
theorizing. This approach is connected to the development of metaphysics as
Malabou finds it in Hegel: By doing philosophy, the philosopher changes and influ-
ences the course and form of philosophy itself (Malabou 2005, p. 131ff). It is this
feature primarily that we will discuss in the latter two moments of this text.
In the second moment, we will be looking at change as the moment of perpetual
origin as Malabou finds it in Heidegger. It’s his three terms Wandel (change),
Wandlung (transformation) and Verwandlung (metamorphosis) which she sees as a
hitherto undiscovered common thread in Heidegger’s discussion of change.
The third moment explores Malabou’s relationship with and inheritance from
Derrida, in seeing the concept plasticity as capable of describing a general tendency
in science and society, as well as shaping it at the same time. In this part, she adopts,
changes and moves beyond Derrida’s concept writing. Whereas Derrida argues that
the philosopher’s job is to describe what’s going on and that change will inevitably
come, Malabou argues that the philosopher is already provoking change by describ-
ing what’s going on. Malabou thus challenges one of the main tenets of deconstruc-
tion: Even if the text deconstructs itself, the very act of deconstructive analysis is
simultaneously a cause of change. In light of this, the concept plasticity – paradoxi-
cally, as it functions as an ontological principle – itself must be seen as plastic in the
sense that it, too, will be changed and surpassed one day.
Moment I: Hegel
Catherine Malabou’s first book, L’Avenir de Hegel (later translated to The Future of
Hegel) is a radical re-reading of Hegel. It was written as an answer to what was the
current French mediations: Koyré’s and Kojève’s. Both had read Heidegger and
argue that Hegel’s conception of time was merely something “to be passed by”, and,
consequently, that he could not be thought as a thinker of future and futurity. As
Hegel’s “Absolute Knowledge” in their interpretation was nothing more than the
end point of history and the Phenomenology simply a linear developmental narra-
tive, they argued that he left no possibility for variation during the course of the
development of Absolute Knowledge. In this perspective, history and time is seen to
be locked to a one-dimensional teleological line. What is lost in the process, in
Malabou’s view, is the energy of the negative. In order to reclaim the negative and
consequently also the dialectic, Malabou re-reads Hegel from an ingenious perspec-
tive: plasticity (Malabou 1996, 2005).
Malabou observes that Hegel already uses the concept of plasticity in a way that
highlights its negative energy. In the Aesthetics, plasticity is used to describe the
“plastic arts” such as sculpting. The sculptor’s work is to extract the essence of the
sculpture from the slab of marble, and by extension Hegel applies the word “plastic
individuals” to persons from Greek mythology who have grown up to become free,
substantial, independent, self-made; essentially “what they were and wanted to be”.
Yet in spite of these characteristics, their becoming must also be understood as a
mediation between what the Cosmos supposed that they become and what they
actually became. Malabou thus sees this as a “middle term” between plasticity as
the passive reception of form by the marble and the active and self-encompassing
concept philosophical plasticity. The latter has two forms as Malabou reads it. First,
it represents the act of philosophizing in that the philosopher engages with philo-
sophical matter as it is presented to her, and causes it to change by the very act of
doing philosophy. In dialectical terms, the philosopher is in a way the locus and
origin of the negation and sublation of philosophy. Second, philosophical plasticity
is a way of conceiving philosophy’s form and “rhythm in which the speculative
content is unfolded and presented” (Malabou 2005, pp. 9–10). Hegel’s plasticity is
thus to be understood as a concept which captures several different but not competing
158 K. H. Hogstad
aspects: the reception of form like the marble receives its new form from its sculptor;
the (albeit limited) capacity of the subject to self-form; and the dialectical dynamics
of thinking.
Martin Heidegger is the one who gets to represent Hegel’s critics in Malabou’s
book. Malabou’s interest in Hegel is motivated precisely by the French interpreta-
tion of Hegel as a necessary, sequential progression towards some predefined future,
thus effectively negating the very concept of future in the process. How can we
reconcile the fact that Hegel is something like the foundation of all of the western
philosophical tradition and his concept of time being read as having no future?
Malabou’s rereading takes Hegel’s philosophical behest that one should “philoso-
phize in one’s idiom”, effectively softening and opening up Hegelian speculative
conceptuality by placing two interlinked concepts together: plasticity and voir venir.
Plasticity is the mode which controls the relation between time and the future,
she writes – something I understand to mean that plasticity is the process or dynamic
by which time and the future are turned into multi-dimensional and variable units
with a constant opening to change and accident. She writes, “Indeed, to posit the
future as ‘plasticity’ amounts to displacing the established definition of the future as
a moment of time” (Malabou 2005, p. 5). In other words, the future is not defined as
just another time like the others, but rather something which is completely open.
Drawing this contrast between “the future” and “a moment of time” means that the
future is conceptually different from moments of time. Malabou suggests also that
time is dialectical in the sense that it historicizes itself by turning future into the
now, then to the past.
This opening to the unexpected, but which is still dependent on what went before,
Malabou calls voir venir, translated into “to see (what is) coming”. As the English
translation suggests, this French idiom is used to convey that something will happen
(“to see what is coming”) and what happens won’t necessarily be a surprise, but it
might be (“to see coming”). Seeing something coming is what you do when you’re
not actually certain that’s what’s coming, while “to see what is coming” is a matter-
of-factly observation, recalling Derrida’s famous separation of futur as the pro-
grammed, foreseeable future and avenir as the future which can’t be predicted. In
the same vein, voir venir is a principle which is able to capture the open variation
that the future represents. Whereas the past is what establishes the premises of the
moment, the moment is a locus where time historicizes itself by allowing one of
several possible futures to turn into the now, then to the past.
Plasticity is in this way an ontological principle based on a certain concept of
temporality, as plasticity is defined as future, or “the excess of the future over the
future” (Malabou 2005, p. 5) – the possible variation of the suggested future. But
this variation is not infinite. Malabou explores how Hegel uses the term and discov-
ers a fundamental duality in the concept: giving shape and receiving shape. This
tension is central to Hegelian dialectics, where tension, contradictions or negation is
dissolved into sublation (aufhebung). For Malabou, dialectics is a source of energy
in a system which can’t receive anything from the outside. Dialectics itself she sees
as plastic because it constantly “makes links between the opposing moments of total
immobility and vacuity, and then links both in the vitality of the whole, a whole
which, reconciling these two extremes, is itself the union of resistance and fluidity”
(Malabou 2005, p. 12).
This implies an explicit re-elaboration of the concept of form. Malabou sees form
as a plastic unit, contrary to thought of form as the contour of matter. As Tracy
Colony points out, Malabou “envisions form itself as a site of self-dissolution and
re-generation: ‘Between the emergence and the annihilation of form, plasticity car-
ries, as its own possibility, self-engendering and self-destruction’” (Malabou 2005,
p. 193, quoted in Colony 2015, p. 104). Form, in this way, becomes its own alterity,
where the form of the past is different from the form of the now. Malabou writes,
“Form is the metamorphizable but immovable barrier of thought” (Malabou 2009,
p. 49) – thinking in forms is unavoidable, and is therefore a concept which captures
both the human and the world. Malabou suggests that plasticity is a human trait, but
also that the human is what understands the human. As we shall see later in this text,
Malabou suggests that plasticity is a concept which can be used about human activ-
ity as such – and plasticity is dependent on a concept of form.
Through this plastic re-reading of Hegel, Malabou wishes to be able to open up
to a Hegelian ontology which allows us – and Hegel – a relatively open future. And
one of the motivations for this work was, as we recall, Heidegger’s critique of
Hegel’s narrow concept of time.
Moment II: Heidegger
In a later book, Malabou writes that the reader of The Future of Hegel couldn’t
know whether the book was a reading of the development of Spirit or whether it was
a discussion of the fundamental principles of the universe. She writes, “After read-
ing The Future of Hegel, it is not clear whether plasticity is a strictly Hegelian
notion or whether it is a wider hermeneutic instrument, a smuggler trafficking
between dialectic, destruction, and deconstruction. The plasticity of The Future of
Hegel therefore lies in wait for its own future” (Malabou 2009, p. 22). What she
does in her 2004 book Le change Heidegger (The Heidegger Change) (Malabou
2004a, 2012) is therefore, first, to let Heidegger speak, and second, to connect the
concept of plasticity to Being itself. The way she does this is by “interrogating the
very concept(s) of change underlying the destruction and deconstruction of meta-
physics” (Malabou 2009, p. 26).
Malabou’s reading of Heidegger, as it appears in The Heidegger Change, follows
the same motive, approach and logic as her reading of Hegel. In the same way that
she moulds the concept plasticity into the key for reading Hegel, she turns the con-
cepts Wandel (change), Wandlung (transformation) and Verwandlung (metamor-
phosis) into the structuring concepts of Heidegger’s philosophy. These concepts are
“omnipresent in [Heidegger’s] texts” (Malabou 2012, p. 1), which to Malabou is
both a reason why the triad has been repeatedly overlooked and why they are inter-
esting to examine more closely. Heidegger’s understanding of metaphysics as a
160 K. H. Hogstad
changing form becomes the starting point for Malabou’s mediation, and she con-
cludes that Heidegger’s constant return to the idea of the primordial transformation
first of all opens up for a new Heidegger, one whose infamous anti-semitic “Black
Notebooks” are not the necessary result of his thinking (Malabou 2012, p. 273ff).
Second, Malabou’s study presents a changed Heidegger whose philosophy allows
her to claim that “ontology is nothing besides an economy” (Malabou 2012, p. 270),
and that it is the changeability of form itself which is that “everything depends” on
in terms of formulating an ontology and discussing the history and destiny of meta-
physics. Malabou’s approach is unique, Tracy Colony argues, because former read-
ings of Heidegger have been structured around ontological difference and not the
form’s difference from itself (Colony 2015, p. 105).
An example of this structure is Malabou’s close reading of Heidegger’s text
“Plato’s Doctrine of Truth”. Malabou finds that Heidegger’s reading of the allegory
of the cave represents several types of change simultaneously. First, the allegory
describes a change in the prisoners: “the change brought about in the soul of the
prisoners by their formation (paideia/Bildung)”. Second, it shows the change the
allegory itself undergoes when it shows us how Plato changes the contents of the
concept of truth. Thus the text is under two authorities simultaneously: Plato’s and
Heidegger’s. Heidegger provides a new way of reading Plato, where the very change
in the concept of truth is set front and centre (Malabou 2012, p. 55). And we should
of course also recognize that the text is now also under a third authority, namely
Malabou’s: By showing how Heidegger reads Plato, she uncovers one relation and
adds her own. The implication is of course that the present author adds their own as
well – and that the present reader does, too. Each reading adds a layer of thinking
which is itself changed and changes metaphysics. This (ex)change both constitutes
what Malabou calls a fundamental economy, as well as indicates that change pre-
cedes form and is thus originary.
The idea of change as the primordial state of form implies that essence only
come into being when change has already happened. “The fantastic” in Malabou’s
terminology is “the visibility of being granted by the latter’s molting, the visibility
of the molt of being through which being is revealed to be nothing–but its mutabil-
ity” (Malabou 2012, pp. 53–54). In other words, “the fantastic” is the state of
becoming visible only after the form has consolidated as a phenomenon of the past.
Essence then must be seen as something always already past.
In this perspective, metaphysics is also understood as a plastic form, because it
changes as philosophy develops, and because it represents a history which changes
direction but still remains consistent. And change will always be the beginning of
thinking because it, too, can only be understood when it has become visible.
Malabou explains this by marking the difference between the image and the concept:
The fantastic: the locus of originary (ex)change can only be invested with images. The
concept falls forever short of it. Because … the commencement of metaphysics–the setting
into form and on its way of the first (ex)change–coincides with the vesting of the image as
the inaugural event of being (exchanged): idea, essence, face, picture (Malabou 2012,
pp. 71–72).
Malabou’s treatment of Heidegger is radical and turns metaphysics into an instance

which is always already changing – something which paradoxically also puts
Malabou’s own ontology under debate, because plasticity as an ontological princi-
ple inevitably also becomes fantastic, that is, something which is only visible when
it has become essence. In several texts (Malabou 2007 2009), Malabou underlines
that plasticity remains nothing other than a schème moteur – motor scheme – which
will have to be replaced when its role in metaphysics is over.
Moment III: Derrida
Malabou uses the term schème moteur in texts where she discusses Derrida’s
philosophy. Let us enter into one of these discussions to clarify the term. Examining
Of Grammatology, Malabou argues that “grammatology” was never meant to be a
“positive science” and never had the possibility of becoming one. First, she points
to Derrida’s own presentation of grammatology as an impossible science, and that
Of Grammatology was an attempt to show precisely that. Second, Malabou claims
that Derrida’s concept writing constituted a paradox or logical weakness. She sug-
gests – perhaps not surprisingly – to call this paradox plastic writing (Malabou 2007).
This paradox surfaces in a discussion of how Derrida (re)defines the concept of
writing. Whereas the “vulgar” or “narrow” definition of writing is the immediate,
that is, the connection between sign and graphics, the “enlarged” definition is some-
thing that covers “‘the entire field of linguistic signs,’ which is also to say, the entire
field of human practice” (Malabou 2007, p. 434).
Defining writing as nothing more than the transformation of spoken to written
language, as a grammatology would do, would be to accept the idea that there is a
natural connection between voice and sign (Malabou 2007, p. 434) – but such a con-
nection doesn’t exist. Writing is therefore not radically different from other forms
of human signage, such as spoken language. For Derrida, language and all forms of
human practice therefore must be on the same level of logic, and therefore, writing
can no longer be seen as something radically new.
Instead of creating a new term, Derrida chooses to enlarge writing, because the
narrow concept in itself represented a radical break with what was before. “It threat-
ened the desire for living speech from the closest proximity, it breached living
speech from within and from the very beginning” (Derrida, 1998, quoted in Malabou
2007). Thus no other concept can represent a greater break with the narrow concept
than the enlarged one.
Malabou argues that the transition from “narrow” to “enlarged” writing reveals a
paradox, because it forces new questions: What allowed this enlargement? Why did
the concept allow itself to be enlarged? How can a philosopher change the meaning
of a concept? And most importantly: Can one understand the change of a concept
from a different dynamic or logic than the language’s own?
162 K. H. Hogstad
These questions, Malabou argues, suggests a different logic than the one
suggested by Derrida. She questions (and answers):
If it is true that writing comprises language in its totality, can one argue, given the extension
of the meaning of writing, that the passage from the common signification to its original
signification may also be ascribed to the work of writing? Or to the contrary, is it necessary
to think that an original modifiability, not reducible to the single operation of writing, is
initiated from the beginning as well? It is this modifiability that I call ‘plasticity’ (Malabou
2007, p. 434. Emphasis in original).
Here, too, she suggests that the form – understood here as the concept writing – has
a capacity for change which precedes the form – or concept – itself. Malabou states
that “is true, then modification, the operation of enlarging the concept of writing,
would escape the grammatological field: it would be impossible to produce, in the
framework of the science of writing, the conditions of the possibility of the plastic
re-elaboration of the concept of writing. The expansion of the concept of writing is
not necessarily, or not uniquely, a graphic gesture” (Malabou 2007, p. 435).
This is an important point for Malabou because Derrida elsewhere seems to
explain changes in language as historical movements or the coming-to-light of
always-already-there aspects of the text. Derrida famously claims that “There is
nothing outside of the text [Il n’y a pas de hors-texte]”. This is because he under-
stands language as relations of difference (différance with an ‘a’ in his terms) – a
word is what it is only because it isn’t what it’s not. As no signifier has a necessary
relation to its signified, the attempt to get to the original and originary signifier is
futile. Everything is therefore bound in context, and so there can be nothing outside
of it (Derrida 1998, p. 158). Since a signifier has a necessarily arbitrary relation to
the signified, and its meaning is dependent on the signifier’s relation to other signi-
fiers, meaning is consistently delayed and deferred. This delay and deference, which
Derrida sees as the non-centered center of the structure, is what he calls the
supplement.
To Derrida, the supplement both adds to and replaces what it is meant to
supplement. To Rousseau’s claim that writing is nothing more than a supplement to
speech, Derrida answers that “[t]he supplement adds itself, it is a surplus, a plenitude
enriching another plenitude, the fullest measure of presence. It cumulates and
accumulates presence” (Derrida 1998, p. 144. Emphasis in original). But because
the relation between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary, this presence can’t be
positive, but rather, the accumulated presence of another signifier. And so we have
come only so far as to add another supplement to the chain and no closer to
discerning the positive meaning of the sign, conceding that the supplement is both
an addition and replacement. On the one hand, the supplement is thought to add to
and enrich the original sign, thereby also increasing its presence. On the other, the
supplement is dependent on and refers to the original sign, and this relation
simultaneously constitutes a replacement. If writing is a supplement to speech, it
means that writing adds to speech by producing speech where and when there is
none. Us reading Derrida is an example of this. But by the same gesture, inherent in
the delay of the sign, writing simultaneously replaces speech because it takes the
place of speech where and when there is none: “It intervenes or insinuates itself
in-the-place-of; if it fills, it is as if one fills a void. If it represents and makes an
image, it is by the anterior default of a presence” (Derrida 1998, p. 145).
To Derrida, this continuous chain of supplements is a feature not only of writing, but of
language and thought itself. He writes, what one calls the real life of these existences of
“flesh and bone,” beyond and behind what one believes can be circumscribed as Rousseau’s
text, there has never been anything but writing; there have never been anything but supple-
ments, substitutive significations which could only come forth in a chain of differential
references, the “real” supervening, and being added only while taking on meaning from a
trace and from an invocation of the supplement, etc. And thus to infinity (Derrida 1998,
p. 159).
Moving not to infinity but one step further: the act of reading a text is also captured
inside this network of difference and chain of supplements. It is in fact not possible
neither to avoid discovering tensions like the one present in the word supplement,
nor to force the discovery: “In the deconstruction … one does not make a choice”
(Derrida 1998, p. 62).
Malabou disagrees that there is no choice to be made and argues that writing as
a concept wouldn’t have been enlarged unless Derrida was there to do the job. What
Derrida does when he enlarges writing, according to Malabou, is transforming it
into a schème moteur, or in other words:
an encounter of a pure image, that is, of a concept–here arche-writing–, or differance–with
an existent real, given to intuition … [it] is a kind of tool capable of appropriating the largest
quantity of energy and information from the text of an epoch … To summarize, the
‘enlarged’ meaning of writing is at once intuitively given and conceptually constructed
(Malabou 2007, p. 437).
A schème moteur is in other words a concept capable of meeting and absorbing the
intuitively given, in other words a concept capturing the spirit of the times. The
reason why these schème moteurs arise is that thinking functions as a “schematizing
process”. In the same way that the fantastic describes the coming into vision only
after change has happened, thinking is a synthesis of the intuitively given and the
conceptually constructed. We can only understand it after it has changed and thus
stands out for us (Malabou 2007, pp. 437–438).
And, Malabou says, what stands out for us now is a turn from writing as a schème
moteur, like Derrida described it in 1967, to plasticity as the replacement. In genet-
ics, the metaphor of the code is weakened. In neurobiology, formation, transforma-
tion and reshaping has become more important than the trace. In cybernetics, the
program is “no longer even the master word”. Everywhere around us, the graphic is
being replaced by the plastic (Malabou 2007, pp. 437–438).
If plasticity is the schema of our time, then it follows that it too will have to make
way for what comes after. Malabou’s elaboration of the concept is, as she says,
“tributary to a historical understanding and thus destined to be transformed, modi-
fied and changed. In this sense, the present explanation on the basis of plasticity is
not definitive. Plasticity, like writing, is only a supplement” (Malabou 2007, p. 441).
If change is at the heart of ontology, then what will be revealed as the essence of our
164 K. H. Hogstad
thinking today and what twists and turns it will take from here on, remains to
be seen.
What Changes?
The Hegelian, Heideggerian and Derridean moments in Malabou’s philosophy paint

one portion of the picture of plasticity as an ontological principle. Its importance is
found in its upheaval of the concept of change, which could have conceptual reper-
cussions for the whole idea of ethical-political education. As the Nordic model
incorporates an idea of ongoing change, the way change is construed should have
consequences for how ethical-political education within the Nordic model is
thought. I will outline two aspects where this might come into play: the change that
a concept undergoes, and change as that which ethical-political education in the
Nordic model might facilitate or produce.
Before I describe these two aspects, there are two facets to plasticity that should
be emphasized. One is plasticity’s incorporation of concepts into the thinking of
forms, and the other is plasticity’s implicit relationality: if form receives and donates
form, every form receives and donates form to every form.
The first aspect is that the concept “the Nordic model” itself is a changing form.
As Alfred Oftedal Telhaug points out, important features of the Nordic model have
changed considerably (2006). Yet it remains recognizably itself – form has changed
while remaining the same. Oftedal Telhaug’s study (2006) as well as others
(Antikainen 2010) show that the Nordic model has changed in a neoliberal direction
in recent history. In light of plasticity, we can think that this change is caused by
political events and currents, but also that there is at every turn a possibility to
change that trajectory. Oftedal Telhaug shows that there has been no lack of criti-
cism towards the neoliberal trend in education, and discusses whether the Nordic
model can still serve as an ideal of an educational system for prosperity and equal-
ity. He concludes by suggesting that it might (2006, p. 279). Whatever conclusion
we reach in this discussion, plasticity urges us to put in the work to keep the good
bits and reject the bad. If everything is changing anyway, we might as well influence
what we can in the way that we can.
The second aspect is that ethical-political education within the Nordic model
should incorporate form’s propensity to change and emphasize the student’s role in
inflicting change. As a contrast, R. S. Peters’s well-known metaphor of education as
the “initiation” of the children who are “barbarians outside the gate” into the com-
munity of education (Peters 2015, p. 104) can’t hold in the paradigm of plasticity.
The simple fact that the citadel realizes that there are barbarians outside the gate
will change the citadel, not to mention the multitude of changes that will take place
once the barbarians enter. Plasticity’s relational character implies that everyone can
contribute to the development of society. Ethical-political education should thus
instill in the student not only that they can contribute, but that they are always
already doing it. This responsibility should not be taken lightly.
References

Educational Research, 50(3), 229–243. https://doi.org/10.1080/00313830600743258.
Antikainen, A. (2010). The capitalist state and education. Current Sociology, 58(4), 530–550.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0011392110367988.
Colony, T. (2015). Transformations: Malabou on Heidegger and change. Parrhesia, 23, 103–121.
Derrida, J. (1998). Of grammatology (G. Spivak, Trans.). London: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Derrida, J. (2001). Structure, sign and play in the discourse of the human sciences. In Writing and
difference (pp. 351–371). London: Routledge.
Graham, D. W. (2015). Heraclitus. Retrieved October 20, 2018, from. https://plato.stanford.edu/
archives/fall2015/entries/heraclitus/
Malabou, C. (1996). L’Avenir de Hegel. Paris: Vrin.
Malabou, C. (2004a). Le change Heidegger: Du fantastique en philosophie. Paris: Editions
Leo Scheer.
Malabou, C. (2004b). Que faire de notre cerveau? Paris: PUF.
Malabou, C. (2005). The future of Hegel: Plasticity, temporality and dialectic (L. During. Trans.).
Abingdon: Routledge.
Malabou, C. (2007). The end of writing? Grammatology and plasticity. The European Legacy,
12(4), 431–441. https://doi.org/10.1080/10848770701396254.
Malabou, C. (2008). What should we do with our brain? New York: Fordham University Press.
Malabou, C. (2009). Plasticity at the dusk of writing: Dialectic, destruction. Deconstruction:
Malabou, C. (2012). The Heidegger change. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Peters, R. S. (2015). Authority, responsibility and education. London: Routledge.
Plato. (1997). Plato: Complete works. Cambridge: Hackett Publishing.
Telhaug, O., Alfred, A. M., Asbjorn, O., & Aasen, P. (2006). The Nordic model in education:
Education as part of the political system in the last 50 years. Scandinavian Journal of
Educational Research, 50(3), 245–283. https://doi.org/10.1080/00313830600743274.
Kjetil Horn Hogstad (b. 1982) is a Lecturer at the University of Oslo. His research interests
include fundamental questions in education, Bildung, plasticity, and post-phenomenological phi-
losophy. His recent publications include Can we kill the Bildung king. The quest for a non-sover-
eign concept of Bildung (2020) and Can We Build a Plastic Bildung? A Philosophical Enquiry
(forthcoming).
Chapter 11
What Is Called Thinking in Education?
Claudia Schumann
Abstract The chapter takes the problem space outlined by Martin Heidegger in his
famously controversial lecture series What is called thinking? as a starting point to
discuss which forms of thinking, which methods and bodies of knowledges in the
academic discipline of education are promoted, and which are marginalized and
devalued by narrow concepts of objectivity and rationality. I will focus on two ques-
tions in particular: Which forms of thinking do we intend to encourage and foster
through education? And secondly, which forms of thinking and knowledge produc-
tion are called for when we consider education and upbringing in the educational
sciences, and what is the role of educational philosophy in this context? Building on
Alice Crary’s work in Beyond Moral Judgment (2007), I argue that the critique of
narrow conceptions of rationality and objectivity should not lead to a dismissal of
these notions but rather to their broadening so that the cultivation of our affective
and emotional sensitivities is understood as part and parcel of developing a rational
and objective understanding of the world. Starting from such a revised conception
of rationality, I further argue that it is one of the main tasks of philosophy of educa-
tion, to keep alive the sense that it is possible and worthwhile to address the moral
dimension of education in serious and rational argument without falling prey to a
narrow focus on moral judgment nor to certain problematic forms of moralistic
arrogance.
Keywords Scientism · Critical thinking · Moral objectivism · Alice Crary · Martin

Heidegger · Educational theory · Philosophy of education
An earlier version of this chapter is published as Schumann, C. (2017). Was Heisst Denken in der
Pädagogik? In M. Spiker & Stojanov, K. (eds.). Bildungsphilosophie. Disziplin –
Gegenstandsbereich – Politische Bedeutung (pp. 243–256). Baden-Baden: Nomos
Verlagsgesellschaft.
C. Schumann (*)
Department of Education, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
e-mail: claudia.schumann@specped.su.se

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49524-4_11
168 C. Schumann
Introduction
The title of this chapter is certainly reminiscent of Martin Heidegger’s well-known

lecture series, entitled What is called thinking? And indeed, I have chosen it for this
reason. Presented at the University of Freiburg in the winter term 1951/1952 and the
summer term 1952, it was the first lecture course that Heidegger had given since
1944 and the last before his official retirement. Together with the transitions between
the courses, summaries, and comments, the lectures were published in 1954 at Max
Niemeyer in Tübingen. The text became famous above all for one particularly pro-
vocative assertion, namely the claim that: “Science does not think.” (Heidegger
2002, p. 9). This claim of Heidegger’s is probably the most well-known basis for
dismissing him as simply ‘anti-science.’ However, Heidegger in the same text
stresses immediately after that his assertion is of “anstößigen Charakter” [“a contro-
versial nature”] (Heidegger 2002, p. 9) and he asks the audience for their patience
to reflect on the sentence anyway, and on the question of what actually is disconcert-
ing about what this sentence reveals. He pursues the thought further and states that:
“Das Bedenklichste in unserer bedenklichen Zeit ist, dass wir noch nicht denken”
[“The most disconcerting thing about our disconcerting times is that we are not yet
thinking.”] (Heidegger 2002, p. 7). This points us not only to a next provocation.
Heidegger contradicts something we widely consider as a matter-of-course. He
challenges convictions that we generally take for granted. Isn’t science the place
where thinking has come to its best, where the success of modern progress through
a continuous furthering, refinement and deepening of thinking is the most visible?
Emphasizing himself that he does not speak “gegen die Wissenschaften, sondern für
sie, nämlich für die Klarheit über ihr Wesen” [“against the sciences, but for them,
namely for the clarity of their essence,”] (Heidegger 2002, p. 16). Heidegger states
that the “Nebel um das Wesen der modernen Wissenschaft” [“fog around the essence
of modern science”] (Ibid.) arises “aus der Gegend des Bedenklichsten auf, dass wir
noch nicht denken; wir alle noch nicht, der Sprecher mit einbegriffen, er sogar
zuerst” [“from the most disconcerting ground, that we do not yet think; all of us do
not yet, including the speaker, he even leads in not thinking”] (Ibid.). Heidegger
keeps his statements suspended in a paradoxical tension when he includes himself
in this state of not-yet-thinking. While asserting the obvious ‘outsider’ claim that
science does not think, by using the collective pronoun ‘we’, Heidegger actually
includes himself into those who do not yet know what thinking is. It seems that after
Heidegger we do not yet think – not although, but precisely because we think we
know what thinking is, namely that which is done by the sciences.
The considerations that I will raise in the following pages are inspired by those
interpretations of What is called thinking? which argue that Heidegger’s provoca-
tion is not so much directed against the sciences, but against specific forms of sci-
entism, and which read the book as a critique of the modern epoch, as a critique of
representational thinking, and his instance on the necessity of distinguishing
‘thinking‘from the sciences as corresponding to a distinction between being and
being represented. Particularly, I find interesting those interpretations which argue
11 What Is Called Thinking in Education? 169
that Heidegger does not consider the sciences to be intrinsically or inherently

destructive, rather the way in which the representational thinking of the sciences
precludes other ways of thinking, leads to a marginalization, displacement and
devaluation of other methodologies and bodies of knowledge which do not accord
to the standard of objectivity which dominates modern epistemology. The difficulty
for Heidegger is then not necessarily with science as such, Heidegger does not reject
the human project of trying to understand nature, but the uncritical acceptance of the
sciences’ role and function in determining modernity is what is threatening, by
thinking we already know what thinking is and perceive of thinking in narrow, sci-
entistic ways, we have implicitly stopped contemplating different forms of thinking,
and reflecting on which forms of thinking might be adequate when and where. With
Heidegger, I want to argue for holding open the question “wann es wo welcher Art
des Denkens bedarf” [“when, where, and what kind of thinking is needed”]
(Stekeler-Weithofer 2004, p. 9) and treating it as “bedenkenswert,” as worthy of
further thoughtful consideration.
The aim of the present chapter, to be clear, is not a deeper analysis and interpreta-
tion of Heidegger’s theses and arguments, which he negotiates in the lectures.
Rather, it is the problem space which Heidegger is trying to sketch there, which will
be of concern for us here. It is of interest for the discipline of education as a critical
study of human educational processes, insofar as it urges us to consider which forms
of thinking, which methods and forms of knowledges in the so-called ‘educational
sciences’ are hindered, marginalized and devalued by narrow concepts of objectiv-
ity and rationality. For this, I will focus on two questions in particular: Which forms
of thinking do we intend to encourage and foster through education? And secondly,
which forms of thinking and knowledge production are called for when we consider
education and upbringing in the educational sciences, and what is the role of educa-
tional philosophy in this context? I will argue that an engaged and rigorous aca-
demic study of the ethical-political dimension of education is possible, desirable
and necessary in the context of the Nordic countries and beyond. One of the reasons
I find for the relative marginalization of these questions within the discipline is a
misunderstanding of the critique of narrow conceptions of objectivity and rational-
ity. By reconsidering the implications of this critique, it is possible to make room for
a plurality of forms of thinking exploring ethical-political education within the
Nordic model of education and beyond.
(Critical) Thinking as a Goal of Educational Efforts
Let us begin with the first question. Within educational research and theory, and
within educational philosophy in particular, we can find extensive literature on and
a long tradition of the idea that the cultivation of critical thinking as one of the most
important educational goals. Some central considerations from Richard Feldman’s
article Thinking, Reasoning, and Education in the Oxford Handbook of Philosophy
170 C. Schumann
of Education are discussed here by way of example (Feldman 2009). They are well
suited as systematic signposts for entering into the discussion of the questions that
are of interest to us here.
Feldman first considers three possible responses as to the question of the value of
critical thinking. He argues that critical thinking should not primarily be understood
as serving to cultivate a set of reasoning techniques in the sense of tools that are
meant to persuade,1 nor should it be understood primarily as an instrument for the
“rational settlement of differences of opinion”2 in the sense of resolving disagree-
ments and establishing consensus. Rather, he sides with the third option that claims
that critical thinking is an important skill because it teaches us a “general skill con-
cerning arguments” which is a valuable skill insofar as you learn “how arguments
are formulated and assessed” and which enables us you to better assess the merits
of other arguments about other topics in the future, thus improving your “under-
standing of these other issues”. (Feldman 2009, p. 71) According to Feldman, criti-
cal thinking serves above all to improve our understanding of a situation, thus
leading us to a better understanding of the world. According to Feldman’s critical
reproach, the first two positions contain an inappropriate instrumentalization of
critical thinking. As he stresses, “popular discussion of argument, particularly polit-
ical argument, is so focused on persuasion that the goal of understanding is almost
absent,” (Ibid.) and one of the main reasons against this conception of critical think-
ing for him lies in the fact that it is then no longer suitable “for the critical examina-
tion of [one’s] own prior views.” (Ibid.) Critical thinking and good reasoning in his
opinion are primarily “potential sources of information and understanding” (ibid.,
p. 72) that encourage us to modify our beliefs in the light of good reasons, to arrive
at new rational beliefs and to discard those beliefs for which we cannot provide
good argument.
Beyond his first point that critical thinking plays a central role in education
because it provides a more precise and better understanding of the world, the second
important, and no less controversial, point which Feldman takes issue with in his
article is the question of truth and objectivity in relation to critical thinking and
argumentation. Starting with the observation that for many of the students in his
seminars on critical thinking “[making] any sense of the project of analyzing argu-
ments” (Ibid., p. 73) presents a great challenge if they do not have the impression
“that there is some truth that they are trying to reason towards,” (ibid.) Feldman
describes the difference in the students’ reactions to mere questions of taste,
factual-empirical questions and finally moral questions, in a broad sense that extends
to questions with political dimensions. Mere matters of taste appear irrelevant in
terms of critical thinking and reasoning and seem far removed from argumentation.
As Feldman writes, such questions are “not the sort of thing that is the subject
1
Some postmodern approaches could be placed here and, depending on interpretation, quite pos-
sibly also Richard Rorty’s idea of philosophy as a voice in the ongoing dialogue of mankind.
2
Here we could place approaches within educational theory which emphasize the importance of
dialogue in education, following authors like Jürgen Habermas and other theorists.
matter of critical thinking courses” (Ibid., p. 74) because – in purely subjective
questions of taste – we cannot adequately ask whether one preference is objectively
better than another. (We misunderstand the logic of our language games or our
language practice when we demand “good arguments” in a strong sense for expres-
sions of purely subjective preference, such as “I like vanilla ice cream”. It is a mis-
understanding of our practice of giving and taking reasons, if I seriously demand
that the person to whom I am speaking gives me good reasons as to why he prefers
vanilla ice cream to chocolate ice cream.)
With regard to factual-empirical questions, Feldman further describes that it is
comparatively easy for students to understand that while objective truths with regard
to these questions may be hard to get at, there nevertheless are truths to get at, and
that clearly these are topics to reason and argue about. (I will not discuss the poten-
tially problematic or naive aspects of this understanding of empirical facts right
now, just bear with me for the moment.) Feldman’s decisive observation is that the
interest of students is much lower when it comes to critically thinking through moral
questions and questioning them argumentatively, than with posed factual-empirical
problems. He stresses that questions about “what ought to be done, what is right,
what is best, or what is morally acceptable” (Feldmann 2009, p.75), i.e. moral ques-
tions which in a broad sense also include social-normative and political questions,
are not considered by his students to demand the same degree of sound reasoning
and critical thinking as factual-empirical problems. These broadly moral questions,
for Feldman, are questions which call for rational argument and critical thinking
just as much as factual-empirical questions do. He attributes his students‘relative
disinterest to the fact that, in order to want to clarify moral questions through ratio-
nal argument, one must regard them as “genuine questions to which there are poten-
tially correct and incorrect answers” (ibid.). The pitfall here lies in perceiving of
moral issues on a par with matters of taste. The problematic blending of purely
subjective taste questions with moral questions obviously implies that moral ques-
tions are negotiated at a similar level and with a similar concession to subjective
relativity, as questions of taste. In contrast, Feldman stresses that if we are con-
vinced that there is “no truth to the matter [of moral questions], if there is no objec-
tive fact, then there is nothing to argue about” (ibid.), and argues for the importance
of assuming a form of moral objectivism as a precondition to motivate rational
argument about moral questions.
The discussion of Feldman’s reflections on his experiences during his seminars
should raise two issues in particular. Firstly, it should draw attention to the fact that
we attribute an essential role to the cultivation of critical thinking in our educational
efforts, not because rational argument can serve as a functional tool for achieving
one’s own already preconceived interests or for appeasing intersubjective disagree-
ments, but primarily because it helps to provide us with an adequate understanding
of the world in which we live. Secondly, we have established with Feldman that this
consideration in relation to empirical-factual questions seems to be more easily
comprehensible for students than in relation to moral questions in a broader sense.
For empirical-factual problems, they imagine that, at least potentially, a rational
172 C. Schumann
“solution” can be found, while adopting a position towards moral problems is

understood parallel to the subjectivity of pure questions of taste and is therefore not
perceived to the same extent as belonging to problems calling for critical thinking
and rational argumentation.
Feldman himself points out that moral objectivism in the sense which he feels
we should underwrite does not imply that “moral truths are in no way dependent
on human choices and constructs” (ibid.). While I think that his article is a good
place for starting to outline the problem space, I think that his arguments for
moral objectivism are not very convincing which is certainly due to the brevity
and the introductory nature of his article. In the next section, I will present a vari-
ant of moral objectivism developed by Alice Crary in Beyond Moral Judgment
(2007) based on Wittgenstein and Austin, not only because Feldman’s own argu-
ments for a moral objectivism are kept so brief, but also because Crary’s concep-
tion allows the students’ reticence to be thought of in a different way. Rather than
a mere reduction of moral questions to questions of taste, her analysis allows to
reconstruct it positively as a critical sensitivity to misguided understandings of
moral reasoning that can result from narrow understandings of objectivity and
reason. As I will argue with Crary below, the criticism of these views must be
consistently thought through in order to be able to continue to regard moral ques-
tions as accessible to rational argument. In order to arrive at a more precise
understanding of the kind of moral objectivism I wish to put forth with Crary, I
will take a short detour and outline her conception before returning to the ques-
tion of the relation of the different forms of critical thinking we might aim at
fostering in education to the different ways in which we can critically think about
education in the educational sciences. Crary’s theory can help to shed light on a
very difficult problematic that pervades the discipline of education and which
touches more generally on the question of which modes or forms of thinking
could be called for when we attempt to think about education in the educational
sciences.
oral Thinking Beyond Moral Judgments

M
and Moral Objectivism
In a similar vein as John McDowell (1998), Sabina Lovibond (2003) or David

Wiggins (1998), Alice Crary argues in Beyond Moral Judgment (2007) that an ethi-
cal position representing both an internalism and an objectivism regarding moral
judgments is tenable. Such a position corresponds to our ordinary everyday lan-
guage understandings of moral judgments: moral judgments are not just about
expressing a subjective opinion about a problem, but, in a certain way, relate to how
things really are. In addition, however, moral judgment also seems to us to be
directly (internally) linked to our actions and our choices. It is often argued that
qualities that are both objective in a fully-fledged sense and linked directly to actions
must be metaphysically “queer” (Mackie 1977). Insofar as our subjective percep-

tion and emotions can distort our view of reality, it seems as if we have to abstract
from exactly these subjective conditions in order to understand more about the
world than how it appears subjectively to us. As Crary writes:
to the extent that we take seriously the requirement for an abstract or non-subjective van-
tage point, we seem obliged to conceive progress toward an objectively accurate view of the
world as involving a winnowing process that leaves ever fewer properties with an essential
reference to subjectivity (Crary 2009, p. 20).
Crary calls this intuitively quite plausible and also philosophically widely repre-
sented conception of objectivity a narrow conception of objectivity (Crary 2009,
p. 18) and the epistemological condition associated with it the “abstraction require-
ment” (ibid.). An objective picture of the world is thus achieved by abstracting sub-
jective characteristics that distort or alter this picture. Assuming such a conception
of objectivity, an ethics that postulates characteristics that are both objective and at
the same time internally linked to our actions (that is, subjective) would indeed
make “queer” metaphysical assertions, since these characteristics would have to
satisfy two contradictory conditions equally.
With Wittgenstein, McDowell, Stanley Cavell (1999) and other authors, Crary
shows that the traditional, narrow conception of objectivity actually “misrepresents
what objectivity is like” (Crary 2009, p. 10). The narrow view of objectivity in itself
creates contradictory conditions. Therefore, we need to develop a broader concep-
tion of objectivity. Wittgenstein’s reflections on rule-following are, as Crary empha-
sizes, not about rejecting the idea of objectivity, but about showing that the narrow
conception of objectivity is contradictory in itself: on the one hand, the question of
whether a student has understood a mathematical instruction, for example, should
be confirmed by taking into account only the basic facts, his “pure behavior”, since
otherwise we would illegitimately include subjective judgments and statements on
his part. On the other hand, we have thus set ourselves conditions which necessarily
mean that we will never be able to judge satisfactorily whether he has actually
understood our instruction, whether he has actually learnt a new mathematical algo-
rithm. Because even if he “adds 2” correctly up to the number 1000, this would not
yet be satisfactory proof of understanding, as the student could always continue
doing something different later. According to Crary, Wittgenstein shows that:
our concepts [are] essentially integrated into […] customs or practices that instill us with
the relevant sensitivities […] that our concepts, far from being instruments for picking out
contents that are independently available (as the image of an ideally rigid rail suggests), are
resources for thinking about aspects of the world to which our eyes are only open insofar as
we develop certain practical sensitivities (Crary 2009, p. 25).
Wittgenstein thus opens up for a broad conception of objectivity, which allows for
the fact that in some cases our subjective ascriptions actually distort our view of
reality, but in other cases subjective ascriptions play a necessary role “in the best,
objectively most accurate account of how things are” (Crary 2009, p. 28), so that
“the person who lacks the subjective endowments that would allow her to recognize
them is simply missing something” (ibid.).
174 C. Schumann
For our conception of ethics, such a broad conception of objectivity then has the
consequence that it no longer seems equally implausible to be both an internalist
and an objectivist with regard to moral judgments, i.e. that we can understand our
moral development equally as an appropriation “of a way of seeing things”
(McDowell 1998, p. 73) and thus objectivistically, and as an appropriation “of a
collection of motivational directions or practical concerns, focused and activated in
particular cases by exercises of the way of seeing things” (ibid.), and thus
internalistically.
Crary draws a picture of natural language “as a non-neutral, intrinsically moral
acquisition” (Crary 2009, p. 41) and defends that “learning to speak is inseparable
from the adoption of a practical orientation toward the world – specifically, one that
bears the imprint of the speaker’s individuality” (Crary 2009, p. 43). According to
Crary, language has a moral dimension throughout. Accordingly, moral differences
are not limited to the question of the correct use of moral concepts, but “proper
respect for challenges of moral conversation involves concern with nothing less
than individuals’ entire personalities, the whole complicated weaves of their lives”.
(Crary 20,007, p. 45) However, it is not the case that moral judgments play no part
at all in Crary’s ethical approach, but the basic relationship shifts. Insofar as moral
judgments articulate an already morally informed world view, and this picture can
only come about through the wider forms of moral thinking, moral judgments
already presuppose the wider forms of moral thinking. Even though Crary does not
articulate this herself, she seems to understand moral judgments as forms of (lin-
guistically) making explicit (Brandom 1994) of our already morally formed world
view. Moral judgments thus provide the (meta-)vocabulary to make the moral
dimension of our language explicit. However, it would be a mistake to limit ethics
to the study of moral judgments because then the fundamental relationship between
moral judgments and moral thinking would be turned upside down. In Crary’s
approach, ethics is characterized by the confrontation “not with judgments in one
region of language but with a dimension of all language” (Crary 2009, p. 47).
For this reason, Crary’s view of ethics is associated with a specific critique of
traditional, judgment-related ethical approaches. She calls her own approach “anti-
moralistic” (ibid., p. 48). Her main aim is thus not only to point out the inconsisten-
cies that result from a fixation on moral judgments due to the narrow concept of
objectivity, but also a critique of a specific form of moralism that is characteristic of
such approaches:
There is a moral danger inherent in insisting – say, out of respect for the narrower concep-
tion of objectivity at play in more traditional moral judgment-centered ethical theories –
that it must in principle be possible to bring our lives clearly into focus, and to act
responsibly, in the absence of any refinements of our own sensibilities or modes of response
to life (Crary 2009, p. 48).
Approaches fixated on moral judgments have from the outset a very narrow under-
standing of what it means to acquire rational moral thinking. In this way they fail
“to attend not merely to individuals’ moral judgments but to all of their ways of
responding to the world, to the entire patterns of their lives”, “the kinds of
refinements of sensibility that explorations of different modes of responses to the

world promise to foster” (Crary 2009, p. 195) and run the risk “to simply retain
[…] certain biases or forms of moral ignorance”. (Crary 2007, p. 196).
It is easy to confuse the kind of moral arrogance to which Crary refers with
another similar argument that has been discussed within ethics for some time. As
Crary points out, while different forms of criticism of impartiality or neutrality of
moral judgment emphasize the importance of emotional and affective attitudes,
some of them draw the conclusion that, therefore, moral thinking is not completely
rational. Others – like, famously, Bernard Williams (1985) – argue that subjective,
affective attitudes, propensities and sensitivities can be necessary so as to be able to
comprehend certain moral values in a rational manner.
According to Crary, the problem is that both forms of criticism are often lumped
together, overlooking the fact that the real challenge lies in the rejection of the nar-
row conception of rationality, with the majority of the critical approaches remaining
within a narrowly rationalistic framework:
These criticisms do not typically engage in a gesture of wholesale rejection of the idea,
distinctive of this conception, that our rational capacities essentially exclude our capacities
of feeling. Instead, they typically suggest that the narrower conception of rationality gov-
erns non-moral discourse and that moral discourse is anomalous in failing to be governed
by it (Crary 2009, p. 2001).
Such a narrow conception of rationality hence implies that rational reflection can
ultimately pose a threat to moral knowledge. In this way, we lose our grip on a
viable notion of moral rationality (Crary 2009, p. 204). Crary argues in no way
against the ideal of impartiality. In contrast, based on the colloquial use of the adjec-
tive “impartial”, she demonstrates how in these ordinary contexts, impartiality can
indeed be understood as “an abstraction from those routes of feeling that threaten to
distort moral judgment” (Crary 2009, p. 203). However, this should not be confused
with the much more general philosophical question, “whether every affective pro-
pensity we have as such represents a potential threat to such judgment” (Crary 2009,
p. 204). For this reason, Crary can be completely in favor of a condition of impar-
tiality insofar as this condition is connected with a broad rationalism, and she rejects
only the imperatives of neutrality which argue from a narrow conception of rational-
ity. In her view, “rational moral thought is essentially informed by and expressive of
individual’s sensibilities” (Crary 2009, p. 208) and “demands for regulating the play
of sensibility in accordance with prior moral judgments represent an unqualified
and entirely general threat to the development of moral understanding” (ibid.).
Crary argues that the narrow focus on moral judgments resulting from the narrow
conception of objectivity and the related condition of abstraction can lead to a prob-
lematic moralism. On the other hand, she argues that ethics deals not with one area
of “facts” or language, but with a dimension “of all language”. Accordingly, moral
differences are reflected not only in different moral judgments. Sensible moral
thinking is directly conditioned by and expresses our sensory, affective and emotive
perceptual abilities. In order to develop our moral thinking, we must cultivate and
sensitize these sensitivities and not, conversely, adapt them to our moral judgments
176 C. Schumann
because otherwise we run the risk of clinging on to certain prejudices and blind
spots that hinder our moral development.3
Let us summarize briefly. When Crary argues with Wittgenstein against the
abstraction requirement, as she calls it, she criticizes the narrow conception of
objectivity for distorting the view of what objectivity actually is. We must reject this
narrow view in order to arrive at a proper understanding of “our concept of (full-
blooded) objectivity” (Crary 2009, p. 22), not “to discredit the concept of objectiv-
ity per se but rather to correct what [Wittgenstein] sees as an inaccurate conception
of it” (Crary 2009, p. 25). In the broad view of objectivity that she proposes, there
is then “no longer any question of an ideally abstract standpoint from which to make
the a priori, metaphysical determination that every (even problematically) subjec-
tive property is as such disqualified from objectivity.” (Crary 2009, p. 28).
Nevertheless, she leaves room both for the possibility that some of these subjec-
tive properties are actually only purely subjective ascriptions, and for the cases in
which subjective propensities play a necessary role “in the best, objectively most
accurate account of how things are” (Crary 2009, p. 28) and those who lack pre-
cisely these propensities cannot form an objective picture of reality. Her defense of
such a concept of objectivity widened by the subjective dimension then also leads
her to a widened conception of rationality. If it is not possible
to get our minds around how things are independently of the possession of any sensitivities,
we […] make room for an alternative conception on which the exercise of rationality neces-
sarily presupposes the possession of certain sensitivities (Crary 2009, p. 118).
For example, a general appreciation of the insidiousness of sexism might be required

in order to arrive at a rational account of social reality in sexist societies.
If we now relate Crary’s reflections back to the reactions of Feldman’s students,
described so meticulously by Feldman, their reticence during the discussion of
moral questions can first be reconstructed as justified skepticism towards the kind of
moralism that can result from a narrow conception of objectivity and rationality in
relation to moral questions. However, it can now also be understood as a criticism
of such understandings that has not been consistently thought through to the end. If
we follow Crary’s view that the critique of a narrow conception of objectivity and
rationality leads to the positive formulation of a broad conception of objectivity and
3
A very instructive example of the blind spots and difficulties that a narrow focus on moral judg-
ments and the most exact possible formulation of moral principles can lead to can be found in
Kwame Anthony Appiah’s critical examination of Peter Singer’s theses (cf. Singer 1972) in Der
Kosmopolit (Appiah 2007, pp. 192–194). Appiah stresses, countering Singer, that “our moral intu-
ition is often more secure than the principles to which we refer to explain it” (Appiah 2007, p. 193)
and that very different principles can be derived from Singer’s example. The moral rigor of Singer
becomes particularly apparent when Appiah plays through other variants of the consequences that
we can draw from the thought experiment of the drowning child from what he calls the Singer
Principle. Through different contextualizations of the principle, especially in the detailed and
informed discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of different strategies to combat world
poverty, Appiah not only makes clear what it would mean to adequately do justice in practice to the
complexity of the moral questions judged by Singer according to general principles, but he also
clearly shows the paradoxical consequences that can result from a rigid moralism of Singer’s man-
ner and opposes this with a context-sensitive pragmatism.
rationality as a more adequate understanding of the idea of objectivity and rational-

ity, rather than their outright dismissal or rejection, then the attitudes of the students
can be understood against the background of their continued commitment to the
narrow view. In rejecting rationality and objectivity in relation to moral questions as
misguided, they implicitly grant the narrow view the status of an appropriate con-
ception of the notion of objectivity and rationality to begin with, thus denying moral
questions the claim to objective representation and a rational understanding of
reality.
hinking in the Academic Discipline of education

T
and the Role of Educational Philosophy
In conclusion, I would now like to move on to the question of how we think about
education and upbringing in what we refer to as the educational sciences. The thesis
here, too, is that the difference between purely subjective questions of taste and, in
a broad sense, moral questions that lay claim to objectivity and rational clarification
in relation to educational relationships, processes and institutions must be re-
examined so that thinking in the academic discipline of education is not reduced to
the empirical-factual side of education and upbringing, as in the statistics of PISA
studies or in popular empirical social research and many areas of educational psy-
chology. These problematic reductions, which arise if we consider the empirical-
factual questions to be the only ones that are and should be considered worthy of
serious (rational) study and research in the educational sciences, could then be
understood as an expression of precisely the form of “not-yet-thinking” that we
discussed at the beginning with Heidegger.
The critique of a narrow conception of objectivity and rationality, as articulated
in various philosophical schools of the twentieth century, such as hermeneutics,
critical theory, phenomenology, existentialism and deconstruction, is widely recog-
nized and accepted within educational philosophy. But one can now argue that those
educational philosophers who grasp the consequences of the critique of rationality
in the sense of a loss of our claim to objectivity and rationality in moral questions
stop halfway in Crary’s critique, namely at: “There is a moral danger inherent in
insisting […] that it must in principle be possible to bring our lives into focus”.
What is lost, however, is the second, positive half of Crary’s argument, namely that
bringing our lives into focus requires “refinements of our own sensibilities or modes
of response to life”. If we include this latter part of her argument in an adequate
manner, we arrive at a much more positive interpretation of the critique of rational-
ity of the twentieth century. We need a plurality of thinking within and about educa-
tion since educational processes have a multiplicity of cognitive, moral, social,
political, economic, psychological and historical dimensions. At least, thinking
rationally about education requires that we do not content ourselves with the repre-
sentation and analysis of the empirical-factual side of educational processes and
institutions. We can now point towards what goes missing if we follow the trend of
178 C. Schumann
perceiving of education mainly in terms of economic, psychological, quantitative

and empirical questions. It can result in the problematic neglect of a serious exami-
nation of central educational questions that concern morality (in the broad sense
outlined by Feldman). Within the academic discipline of education, we seem to
have lost the interest in serious argument about moral issues because the critique of
rationality was misunderstood in a way which leaves moral issues as mere matters
of taste, about which rational argument no longer seems possible. It is the task of
educational philosophy to adequately reflect on these normative questions, which
concern the moral, social and political dimensions of educational processes, and to
clearly differentiate them from questions of purely subjective taste, without prema-
turely fixating on moral judgments and rigid reasoning analyses and thus descend-
ing into the moralism described by Crary. I consider it to be one of the main tasks
of philosophy of education to keep alive the sense that it is possible and worthwhile
to address the moral dimension of education in serious and rational argument.
However, this requires us to revise our understanding of what the critique of ratio-
nality has to teach us. Only then will we continue to find these questions worthy of
rational argument and exploration in the future.
References
Appiah, K. A. (2007). Der Kosmopolit. München: Beck.

Brandom, R. (1994). Making it explicit. Reasoning, representing, and discursive commitment.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Cavell, S. (1999). The claim of reason. Wittgenstein, Skepticism, morality, and tragedy (2nd ed.).
New York: Oxford University Press.
Crary, A. (2009). Beyond moral judgment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Feldman, R. (2009). Thinking, reasoning, and education. In H. Siegel (Ed.), The Oxford handbook
of philosophy of education (pp. 67–82). New York: Oxford University Press.
Heidegger, M. (2002). Was heißt Denken? (Gesamtausgabe, Bd. 8). Frankfurt/M: Vittorio
Klostermann.
Lovibond, S. (2003). Ethical formation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Mackie, J. L. (1977). Ethics. Inventing right and wrong. New York: Penguin.
McDowell, J. (1998). Mind, value, reality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Singer, P. (1972). Famine, affluence, and morality. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 3, 229–243.
Stekeler-Weithofer, P. (2004). Was heißt Denken? Von Heidegger über Hölderlin zu Derrida.
Bonn: Bonn University Press.
Wiggins, D. (1998). Needs, values, truth. In Essays in the philosophy of Value. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Williams, B. (1985). Ethics and the limits of philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Claudia Schumann (b. 1980) is a researcher and Lecturer at Stockholm University. Her research
interests include questions of epistemology and social justice in philosophy of education, citizen-
ship and democracy, feminist philosophy, globalization, and cosmopolitanism. Recent publica-
tions are Becoming things, becoming-world (2020), Aversive Education: Emersonian Variations
on ‘Bildung’ (2019), Cosmopolitanism and Globalization in Education (2018), and Wittgenstein
and Philosophy of Education: A Feminist Reassessment (2017).
Part III
Chapter 12
Educational Cosmopolitanism: Education
Beyond Nationalist and Globalist
Imaginations
Niclas Rönnström
Abstract The recent turn to cosmopolitanism in the human and social sciences is
highly relevant but also challenging for national education, and in particular ethical
political education. The reason is that we can no longer think of the nation as the
centre of gravity for our social reality and co-existence, but also because it is haz-
ardous to meet global challenges with a one-sided championing of the competitive
edge of nations in the light of economic globalization. One real challenge is whether
national education in general, and ethical political education in particular, should
depart from inward nationalist views of human interconnectivity that no longer
match a social reality defined by global interconnectivity. Another challenge is
whether education should be used merely as an economic tool for the competitive
edge of nations competing on global markets. In this chapter I propose and argue for
a cosmopolitan response in national education to a metamorphosis of society trig-
gered by globalization. I suggest that a rooted imaginary cosmopolitanism is a much
needed response to global change and a real possibility in national education.
Keywords Cosmopolitanism · Rooted cosmopolitanism · Social imagination ·

Democratic education · Cosmopolitan learning · Social change
Introduction
In recent times many philosophers and social scientists have begun to talk about a
cosmopolitan turn in the human and social sciences (Beck 2006; Delanty 2009;
Kumm 2013; Strand 2010). The reason for this turn is that we can no longer think
N. Rönnström (*)
Department of Education, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
e-mail: niclas.ronnstrom@edu.su.se

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49524-4_12
182 N. Rönnström
of the nation as the centre of gravity for our social reality and co-existence, but also
because it is too hazardous merely to meet global challenges with a championing of
the competitive edge of nations in the light of economic globalization. The recent
turn to cosmopolitanism is highly relevant but also challenging for national educa-
tion, and in particular ethical political education since it addresses questions of
democratic citizenship, political participation, belongingness, identity formation
and moral commitment. Traditionally, modern education and its institutions have
been geared towards nation building under the influence of nationalist imaginaries.
However, in recent years educational institutions have been increasingly geared
towards the formation of human capital prepared for a competitive global economy,
thereby overlooking other important tasks not directly linked to economic concerns,
such as promoting democratic citizenship and political participation.
One real challenge is whether national education in general, and ethical political
education political in particular, should depart from inward nationalist views of
human interconnectivity that no longer match a social reality defined by global
interconnectivity. Another challenge is whether education should be used merely as
an economic tool for the competitive edge of nations competing on global markets.
A real challenge for proponents of Nordic models of welfare states and education
mentioned in the introductory chapter is to what extent such models can make room
for views of culture, society, politics, economy and moral commitment that are no
longer securely locked within the borders of a particular nation. Another challenge
is whether a traditional Nordic commitment to democratic life, collective agencies
and social welfare can survive or even make sense in the light of growing global
capitalism and increasing marketization championed by neoliberal movements over
the last three decades. In this chapter I propose and argue for a cosmopolitan
response in national education to a deep seated metamorphosis of society triggered
by globalization. I suggest that a rooted imaginary cosmopolitanism is a much-
needed response to global change and a real possibility in national education.
odern Social Imagination and Education in Times

M
of Metamorphosis
Jürgen Habermas’s (1987, 1998) social theory of communicative action, Ulrich

Beck’s (2009, 2016) work on reflexive modernization and societal metamorphosis
and Charles Taylor’s (2004, 2007) work on modern social imagination are my start-
ing point for a discussion of a profound social change, its relevance for education
and how this far-reaching social change has prompted a newborn interest in the old
concept of cosmopolitanism. In his social theory, Habermas (1987, pp. 135–145,
1998, pp. 215–256) put forward a view of society as meaningfully structured and
essentially communicatively constituted. He assumed that members of a society in
terms of a lifeworld could form a society by using a shared cultural bank of inter-
pretations, but also by drawing on solidarity and loyalty crucial for social integra-
tion from inherited values, norms and established patterns of social relationships
12 Educational Cosmopolitanism: Education Beyond Nationalist and Globalist… 183
and roles. However, the space for drawing on traditions, conventions and estab-
lished patterns in our dealings with the world has shrunk because much of what we
used to take for granted has lost its status as given.
In this uncertain situation the members of society have to find their way again. In
Habermas’s vocabulary, this can mean securing cultural reconstruction by means of
more reflective, dialogical, deliberative and critical behaviour and action, but also
by creating new conceptual and social resources for cultural re-construction, social
integration and identity formation. For instance, increased de-territorialization,
worldwide webs of meaning and social diversification triggered by globalization are
bringing about cultural change and new conditions for identity formation. Increased
global interconnectivity, individualization, marketization, migration and mobility
have challenged our patterns of social integration and social role functions but also
our views of belongingness, responsibility and moral obligation. In Habermas’s
(1987) words, the socio-cultural architecture of the lifeworld is changing, which
calls for cautionary use of the traditions and conventions we used to lean on,
increased reflection and deliberation but also the courage to dare to think anew.
Members of society must, in short, increasingly perceive, interpret but also reflect
on and respond to change in all aspects and dimensions of society. They are longer
able to fall back on their old habits in their daily efforts to secure the continuation
of their culture, society and identity formation (Habermas 2001, p. 155).
In this context of social change, I find the recently developed tradition of social
imagination fruitful because of its characterization of modern human interconnec-
tivity and how humans form a modern society, and I draw particularly on the work
of the philosopher Charles Taylor (2004, 2007) and sociologist Benedict Anderson
(1991). Taylor describes social imaginaries as lived and ordinary views of human
interconnectivity, co-existence and social reality among members of society. They
can start out as theories developed by a few and later evolve into lived imaginaries
among a majority if not all members of society. Taylor’s concept of social imaginary
has some family resemblances with Habermas’s lifeworld in that they are both con-
ceptualized as contexts that work as deep-seated backgrounds and normative hori-
zons of meaning that add legitimacy and justification to social practices in society.
In our everyday life they can make us aware of how we are imagined to be linked
together in society and of our normative commitments and obligations towards each
other (Taylor 2004, pp. 23–26).
However, the social imaginaries we experience as our real social reality can be
flawed and even misread our human interconnectivity, and they can run dry because
of social change so that they no longer match the social reality they are geared to.
Social imaginaries evolve and they are continuously re-imagined as they move over
time and space. Taylor has investigated modernity and the social imaginaries that
make up modern society (2004, 2007). He argues that our modern social imaginar-
ies are the offspring of an original imaginary of the modern moral order – an order
that holds members of society as free and equal rational beings committed to peace-
ful collaboration to their mutual benefit. Moreover, the modern moral order is based
on individuals, conceiving society and its various institutions as established for and
instrumental to individuals. It is this original imaginary of a modern moral order
184 N. Rönnström
that Taylor argues later evolved into our most widespread and penetrating modern
social imaginaries: the economy, based on individual agency, and the public sphere
and the democratic self-rule of a sovereign people, based on collective agencies
(Taylor 2007).
The instrumentality of the modern order, that is, that society and its institutions
are instrumental to individuals, can be differentiated because the individual eco-
nomic and the collective democratic or public agencies can play different roles in
society. The collective agencies enabled us to imagine a society characterized by
dialogue, cooperation and free horizontal modes of communication and learning.
They made us aware how individuals can participate in norm-regulated action and
collective problem-solving but also decision-making under the assumption that
society is their common concern (Taylor 2004). The economy enabled us to imagine
society made up of mutually advantageous economic transactions ordered by an
invisible hand, but also as a nexus of norm-independent processes that more or less
escape our democratic or collective influence (Taylor 2004). From the perspective
of individuals, linking into a modern society defined by modern social imaginaries
calls for different knowledge, capabilities, expectations and commitments con-
nected to the different imaginaries. Jon Elster (1986/1997) once argued that in their
roles as consumers, members of society often choose between actions that differ
only in the way they affect themselves, but in their roles as citizens they are often
asked to deliberate how states and actions also differ in the way in which they affect
others. Our collective agencies call for normative and moral commitments that can-
not easily be translated into individual consumer behaviour. They call for an
enlarged mind and some degree of impartiality, and an ability to take the perspective
of others (Taylor 2004).
The collective agencies enabled us to move beyond our present and pressing
contexts to imagining ourselves as connected to large-scale human interconnectiv-
ity. Modern social imaginaries involve one important, large-scale context of
human interconnectivity, that is, the view of the nation as the natural socio-politi-
cal organization in the world and as the centre of sociocultural gravity. Benedict
Anderson put forward an imaginary view of nations as imagined political com-
munities. He claimed that being a member or citizen of a nation presupposed the
capacity to imagine human interconnectivity beyond one’s immediate or known
social context. To be a member of a nation presupposed an imagined kinship with
people one will never meet, which meant forming imaginary relationships and
comradeships with strangers but with a far-reaching impact on one’s everyday
life. This characteristic, however, is not unique to national belongingness since
our modern social imaginaries link everyday life to larger-scale relationships and
interconnectivity that we have to imagine because we cannot really experience
them (Rönnström 2016).
The view of society as a communicatively constituted and meaningfully struc-
tured lifeworld and the view that we humans form our society as an imagined real
world are of great importance to modern education. Modern education rests on the
assumptions that it is a public good and a right. One cannot just be born into soci-
ety. One has to learn to link into a complex modern society in which its members
need to develop certain attitudes, knowledge, capabilities but also normative com-
mitments to find their own ways, to be able to function in different roles and to
meet the legitimate expectations of others. Modern education as a public good also
rests on the assumption that the complex teaching and learning required for link-
ing children and young people into society cannot be outsourced to peers and
parents. Modern educational institutions, such as schools, cannot only, on these
grounds, be geared towards skills such as reading, writing, calculating and inves-
tigating into different subject matters.
The communicatively, meaningful and imaginary character of society discussed
above is highly relevant to modern education since the latter is largely defined,
formed and legitimated in close connection to modern social imaginaries of human
interconnectivity. Modern social imaginaries define and add legitimacy to educa-
tional institutions, they shape the identities and action orientation of actors in educa-
tion and they link practices taking place in schools to larger, wider but also imagined
contexts of human interconnectivity. It is important to recognize that education as a
public good and a right depends on social imagination. This dependence is expressed
in the functions of and the expectations we place on educational institutions such as
schools – they are imagined to link individuals to society, a present to a future and
practices taking place within schools to practices outside schools. In this light, the
function of modern education and its educational institutions is to pass on to chil-
dren and young people the attitudes, knowledge, capabilities and normative com-
mitments we think they need in order to be able to link into a social reality defined
by modern social imaginaries. Moreover, the function of modern education is also
to promote the continuation of culture, society and healthy identity formation of
increasingly individualized individuals seeking to find their way in an increasingly
complex society (Rönnström 2015, 2016).
If one accepts the above description of the function(s) of modern education, one
must not only realize the complexity and the imaginary character of modern educa-
tion. One must also realize how challenging the expectations we put on educational
institutions are in times when members of society must increasingly perceive, inter-
pret but also reflect on and respond to change in all aspects and dimensions of soci-
ety. Our social imaginaries that work as a background for and add legitimacy to our
practices are challenged, and the cultural and social resources we used to fall back
on are eroded by the speed, scope and impact of globalization. Education depends
on these imaginaries and resources, but we can no longer trust that they adequately
define a social reality transformed by global change and increasing global intercon-
nectivity. Sociologist Ulrich Beck (2016) argued that we are living in times of social
or societal metamorphosis mainly triggered by globalization but also by increased
individualization.
Beck’s (2009) earlier work on reflexive modernization and the advancement of
a world risk society focused on how social change was largely caused by institu-
tional failure, manufactured risks and unintended side effects due to large scale
and uncoordinated instrumental action. He argued that far-reaching social change
was prompted by global capitalism championed by neoliberal movements. This
resulted in a transition away from nation-centred modernization to more global,
186 N. Rönnström
open but also risk-filled modernization characterized by general insecurity. This

new dynamics undermined the ability of nation states to take social control, cal-
culate risks and find solutions to problems imposed on them that showed no
respect for national borders. Modern institutions tied to the nation-states, such as
politics and education, gradually lost their status as guarantors of a common good;
they were bit by bit perceived as co-producers of risk (Beck 2009, pp. 190–195).
In Beck’s (2016) latest writings, he chose the concept of metamorphosis to high-
light the point that global change is likely to be far more thorough than most of us
have imagined. Social change mainly triggered by globalization (and our percep-
tions of globalization) can be understood as a metamorphosis of society that
changes the nature of human co-existence, challenging our being in the world and
the core institutions of modern society, such as education. (Beck 2016, p. 15;
Rönnström 2012).
Habermas’s, Taylor’s and Beck’s work on modern society and social change
mainly triggered by globalization suggests a shift in reference point in our under-
standing of modern society and education defined by social imaginaries. This shift
is that the nation can no longer be conceived as the centre of cultural, social, politi-
cal, economic or moral gravity in society and education, even if this has been one
defining feature of modernization. The world, or the world society, has taken the
form of a new reference point in society, and this is one aspect of how a societal
metamorphosis changes the nature of human co-existence. This shift in reference
point is not primarily expressed in an abstract, intellectual or virtual way; rather, it
is increasingly expressed in concrete deliberations and everyday living, thinking
and acting. This does not mean that nation-states, nations or national identities will
disappear; they are challenged but more importantly metamorphosed and de-centred
rather than ended (Beck 2016, p. 11).
It is the metamorphosis of the modern society and a growing awareness of a
shift in reference point in our social imagination that has incited a newborn inter-
est in the old concept of cosmopolitanism. New cosmopolitanisms developed in
recent years, at least in the way I think of them, are largely motivated by the
unfinished and flawed character of modern social imagination in the light of
global change. Philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah (2006) has called upon us to
develop new ideas and institutions that can help us to live as the global tribe we
have gradually become. Social theorist Gerhard Delanty (2009) has argued that
we need increased cosmopolitan imagination in research and in society at large in
our times of global interconnectivity, and Ulrich Beck (2009) stressed the need
for a critical theory for the world risk society. Political theorists Will Kymlicka
and Katherine Walker (2012) think that global interconnectivity has made some
kind of cosmopolitanism necessary. Since modern education is imagined to link
individuals to a society one cannot just be born into, we have reason to attend to
what a shift in reference point can mean for education. I believe we have compel-
ling reasons to re-imagine education in cosmopolitan terms in times of metamor-
phosis, or so I will argue.
Education Beyond Nationalist and Globalist Imagination
The human and social sciences have found a newborn interest in the old concept of
cosmopolitanism (Delanty 2012). Cosmopolitanism has a long tradition that goes
farther back in time than nationalism, with its roots in ancient Greek culture and
philosophy. During the nation- centred modernization of society it was often seen as
opposed to, or even a threat to national belongingness, national identity and the
nationalism characteristic of early modern nation building (Skrbis and Woodward
2013). This newborn interest in cosmopolitanism has evolved in a world increas-
ingly marked by global interconnectivity, individualization and global change, but
also as a critical response to the growing parochial tendency to reduce human co-
existence and interconnectivity to economic imaginaries in education and elsewhere
related to the facilitation of economic globalization championed by neoliberal
movements (Beck 2006; Rönnström 2015).
Cosmopolitanism was until recently mainly the concern of normatively oriented
philosophers within the fields of moral and political philosophy. However, cosmo-
politanism at the beginning of the twenty-first century includes empirical, analyti-
cal, critical and imaginary research in a variety of fields. Some authors think that
this renewed interest has become so extensive that it motivates talking about a cos-
mopolitan turn in those sciences (Beck 2006; Kumm 2013; Strand 2010). It is
against the background of this development that I think it is adequate to talk about
cosmopolitanism and cosmopolitan studies, since the former is no longer the exclu-
sive interest of philosophers but a rather wide-ranging response in human and social
science to a metamorphosis of society. It is also against this background I argue that
cosmopolitanism and cosmopolitan studies can be seen as part of an ongoing re-
imagination of modern society, its reference points and normative commitments,
but also its lived social imaginaries in times of global interconnectivity.
The social imaginaries approach to cosmopolitanism developed here draw on
this ongoing re-imagination. It is descriptively adequate since it is located on a level
of analysis that resonates with modern education, its traditions and institutions, but
also with their imagined functions in society. This approach is practical since it
involves descriptive, analytical and explanatory orientations as well as the recogni-
tion of normative commitments important to the metamorphosis of modern society
and education. In what follows I will develop a social-imaginary approach to cos-
mopolitanism that is educational since it takes modern education, its institutions and
practices as its primary object, and, of course, the need to re-imagine education in
times of metamorphosis. Why, then, do we have reason to re-imagine modern edu-
cation in cosmopolitan terms?
Modern education was and is to a large extent aimed at nation-building, which
roughly means making efforts to shift the loyalties among the members of the soci-
ety from their local attachments and communities to the nation as the centre of
economic, moral, cultural, political and social gravity (Rönnström 2012). In present
times when not only cosmopolitanism but also nationalism have gained newborn
188 N. Rönnström
interest, it is important to remember that nation-building is and always has been a

hard-won struggle within nation states. Nations and nation-states are not homoge-
nous entities, but during the 19th and 20th centuries efforts were made to bring
closure of states around particular nations, thereby institutionalizing connections
between a people and a territorial state (Glenn 2013). However, national loyalty was
difficult to realize since language boundaries, cultural bonds, social ties and reli-
gious life did not coincide with national territory. The inculcation of nationalism
and national loyalty was always threatened by disturbing real-life diversity, and it is
in this light we can understand nation-building as a more or less violent struggle
aimed at the unification of a diverse population.
Political theorist David Axelsen (2013, p. 463) reminds us that education and
other institutions in society still function as agents for a more or less closed nation-
alist imagination because of a nationalist bias that permeates the lifeworld of
schools: “[Children] are educated in history and culture and presented with a nation-
alist bias in all other educational subjects; they are surrounded by statues of national
heroes and street names after poets and generals of the national golden age”. The
widespread promotion of national imagination is not in itself problematic from a
cosmopolitan reference point. Benedict Anderson’s (1991, p. 6) characterization of
nationhood reveals its imaginary nature and opens up the real possibility that
national education can shift towards a more inclusive, cosmopolitan-oriented view
of nationhood. However, some nationalist and nation-centered assumptions are
highly problematic for the continuation of modern society and education in times of
global interconnectivity and interdependence.
Nationalist imaginaries and much of the curriculum in education are built on
closed territorial views on culture and identity (Rönnström 2015; Thomasson
2015). However, globalization has meant that meaning, identity and culture are
becoming increasingly detached from national territory, and this changes the condi-
tions for cultural reproduction but also for identity formation in schools and society.
Cosmopolitanism denies an assumption common to both (ethno-) nationalist and
multiculturalist social imagination, that is, that membership of a closed cultural
community constitutes a person’s identity and autonomy (Tan 2012; Beck 2005,
p. 284). Cosmopolitan imagination also affirms individualization; but it differs from
nationalism and multiculturalism because they tend to neglect individualization as
an important aspect of modernization owing to their tendency to assume that iden-
tity formation takes place in closed cultural communities in a mosaic society where
groups co-exist separated from each other (Beck 2005, p. 284). Gerhard Delanty
(2009) stresses the point that throughout the world nation-states have been increas-
ingly forced to recognize the integrity of the person as a concrete individual and not
only a people connected to a national territory as a collective entity.
Nationalist and nation-centred social imagination assumes the equation of nation
and society. In a globally interconnected and increasingly interdependent world in
which persons and organizations anywhere can affect people everywhere, it has
become increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to equate society with nations.
Society can no longer be seen as locked within nations, and nations have been
increasingly diversified due to a number of factors such as individualization, migra-

tion, refugee flows, global markets, international law, marriage and technological
development. Cosmopolitan imagination denies the equation of nation and society
similar to the description Giddens (1994) once gave nations in terms of a homoge-
nizing and totalizing social and cultural container. Cosmopolitan imagination
assumes that human interconnectivity forms a world society in which there are
many nations. This is not a trivial shift in reference point in education and elsewhere
because it places demands on how we teach and learn about society, and how we
apply many of our social concepts (See Beck 2009).
Nationalism and nation-centred social imagination often assume political and
democratic participation as low key and nationally bounded. Cosmopolitanism, in
contrast, stresses the importance of re-imagining political institutions but also the
re-vitalization of democratic participation and collective agency beyond the nation
state. Ingrid Volker (2014) argues that the public sphere is becoming increasingly
globalized. David Held (2010, p. 185) argues that our nation-centred democratic
imaginaries and vocabularies are running dry so that we are experiencing a political
paradox in that our collective concerns and our most pressing problems are becom-
ing global at the same time as our democratic resources are weak, national or local.
From a cosmopolitan point of view, it is problematic that Western democracies have
become accustomed to a view of democracy that champions low-key democratic
participation and a hierarchy of rights, giving primacy to global economic agency
rather than political self-determination (Tully 2014, pp. 31–32). A cosmopolitan
view of democracy and democratic participation takes seriously not only the trans-
national dimension of democratization in modern society but also the ways in which
citizenship rights and democratic participation are lived locally, nationally and
globally in the world society. Educational institutions are seen as agents for strength-
ening democratic imagination and participation in education and elsewhere since
this is important for the continuation of both the individual and the collective agen-
cies that make up modern society.
Human interconnectivity in nationalist imagination is often limited to national
borders, and as a consequence our moral and normative commitment runs the risk
of being reserved for insiders, or only the majority of insiders. Adrian Oldfield
(1990, p. 8) argued that nationalism tended to disqualify strangers from the modern
moral order that holds individuals as free and equal. The shift in reference point
from the nation to the world society essential for a cosmopolitan outlook denies that
the modern moral order and equal moral status can be restricted to fellow citizens
within the borders of a nation. Moreover, cosmopolitanism also denies that national
(or other social) boundaries mean principled restrictions on the scope of justice. It
rejects the communitarian premise that membership of a group or a particular com-
munity must pave the way for considerations of justice or distributions of goods
(Tan 2012). This might be counter-intuitive to nationalist imagination, which pre-
sumes that people can only meet requirements for justice if they share strong mem-
bership of a group. However, it is the shift in reference point from the nation to the
world that calls for more inclusive moral commitments, and it is the metamorphosis
190 N. Rönnström
of social reality that challenges old loyalties and relationships together with the
invented and imaginary character of nationhood that makes such a controversial
claim reasonable (Axelsen 2013; Tan 2012, Beck 2006).
In recent years our economic imaginaries have evolved from nationally-locked
views to a view of the economy as both globally integrated but also all-encompassing
(Rönnström 2015, 2016; Spring 2015; Steger 2005). In this globalist imaginary,
chiefly promoted by neoliberal movements, members of society are imagined to be
linked together in a global economy designed to produce mutual benefit on a global
scale. This globalist imaginary exemplifies a shift in reference point from the nation
to the world; it can be thought of as an all-encompassing but also reductionist imagi-
nary. The reason for this reductionism is that globalist imagination translates all or
most aspects of human life into economic vocabulary and worldviews, and this
imaginary is increasingly found in education policy, reform and practice (Rönnström
2016). However, Nussbaum (2010) believe that this globalist imagination is not a
legitimate move from a nation-centred to a world-oriented reference point; rather,
she thinks that one-sided economic thinking creates a crisis:
The goal of a nation […] should be economic growth. Never mind about distribution and
social equality, never mind about the preconditions of stable democracy, never mind about
the improvement of other aspects of a human being’s quality of life that are not well linked
to economic growth. (Nussbaum 2010, p.14)
Globalist imaginaries contribute to instrumental rationalization in economic terms.

Human interconnectivity is reduced to economic spheres of action and the people
are mainly seen as a human capital. Under the influence of globalist imagination,
the cultivation of consumerist, performative and entrepreneurial identities in educa-
tional institutions is a primary concern (Steger 2005, p. 32). Nation-states are con-
ceived of as competition-states, and their citizens should first and foremost be
developed as flexible, lifelong learners in line with the perceived demands of a
global economy (Beck 2005, p. 261). Globalist imagination is well known among
policy researchers in education (Dale 2005), and Nick Stevenson (2011) claims that
not only neoliberal but also social-democratic policymakers promote globalist
imagination in the light of the opportunities of and threats from a competitive global
economy. This means that we find ourselves in a situation where modern education
and its institutions such as schools are merely seen as economic agents and produc-
ers of human capital in relation to the global and market-oriented reference point
assumed in globalist imaginaries (Rönnström 2012, 2015; Spring 2015; Dale 2005).
However, in the light of reflexive modernization, this response to an increasingly
competitive economy also carries increased risk production.
The instrumental character of the modern moral order is based on the view that
society and its institutions, but also nature and our fellow members of an increas-
ingly globalized world society, can be seen as unlimited and morally neutral
resources for instrumentally acting individuals. This is one reason why competitive
globalist imagination produces global risk and danger, particularly since democratic
decision-making seems to be toothless with regard to the needs and rights of power-
ful economic actors (Blattberg 2012). Widespread globalist imagination raises
pressing questions of planetary survival, but also moral questions regarding the
extent to which children and young people should be linked into society merely as
human resources or capital. The primacy of the economy in education is just one
example of how schools are transformed into co-producers of risk. The social-
imaginaries approach to cosmopolitanism that I articulate here is at odds with the
current view that the economy is the only important or primary mode of human
interconnectivity in society and education. Cosmopolitanism denies the parochial
character of the globalist imaginary. The modern social imaginaries of national
belongingness, freedom, equality, the economy, the public sphere and democracy
are all important to modern society, and they are important in different ways, but it
is not possible to translate one imaginary into another without significant losses.
The social-imaginaries approach to educational cosmopolitanism that I set out to
articulate in this chapter, to sum up, involves substantial claims. It denies an under-
standing of and restricted normative commitments to: closed territorial views of
culture and identity formation; the neglect of individualization processes in society;
the equation of nation and society; democratic participation as low key and only
nationally bounded; principled restrictions on justice and moral status reserved for
some but not all individuals in society; and finally, the primacy of the economy in
modern society and education that has gradually become an all-encompassing
imaginary that distracts policymakers and educators from other important functions
than the promotion of the competitive edge of nations. In the last section of this
chapter I will briefly sketch how educational cosmopolitanism can be carried out as
an adequate response and as a real possibility in national education in a metamor-
phosing society.
ooted Imaginary Cosmopolitanism: A Real Possibility

R
for National Education?
Education in times of societal metamorphosis is a challenge for nation-states all

over the world. The linking of individuals to a society defined by social imaginar-
ies, the present to a future and the activities that go on in schools to practices out-
side schools is not only a challenge; it is also a public concern, an essential function
of and a legitimate expectation of modern education. I have argued that education
should no longer be based on inward and closed-off nationalist or problematic
nation-centred imaginaries that no longer match a social reality defined by global
interconnectivity, since this is likely to increase risk production in society. Policy
makers and practitioners in education should also no longer continue to frame
global challenges in one-sided economic globalist imaginaries because such reduc-
tionist outlooks increase risk production and frustrate a healthy continuation of a
modern society made up of individual as well as collective agencies. Education
should also not shy away from its complex functions in society by surrendering to
the transmission of natural facts, numeracy, literacy and other basic skills and facts.
192 N. Rönnström
If we make this move, we run the risk of outsourcing the task of linking children
and young people to society, to themselves, their peers and parents. It is in this
light, I argue that cosmopolitan imagination can no longer be ignored in education
and elsewhere.
I propose a social-imaginary and rooted view of cosmopolitanism as a much
needed response and a real possibility in national education (with regard to rooted-
ness, see Appiah 2006; Papastephanou 2013; Kymlicka and Walker 2012). The
fusion of ‘imaginary’ and ‘rooted’ may seem like an oxymoron at first sight.
However, it is the imaginary character of social reality that makes such a fusion pos-
sible; in short, we humans live in an imagined real world defined by imaginaries that
can start out as an idea or a theory but later evolve into a social imaginary lived
among most, if not all members of society. The imaginary and rooted cosmopolitan-
ism I briefly sketch here seeks to avoid three common objections to cosmopolitan-
ism: that it is too universal and neglects the situated nature of human life; that it is
too abstract to engage in real interplay with everyday life; and that it is a well-
intended but misguided ideal since no actual person is a citizen of the world.
The universalist objection to cosmopolitanism can be exemplified with Martha
Nussbaum’s newborn interest in the old concept from the 1990s (Nussbaum 1996).
At that time, Nussbaum put forward a view of cosmopolitanism implying that one’s
normative commitments and loyalties to the universal human community should
override one’s particular commitments and loyalties to nationhood, religion, family
or other local attachments. Moreover, Marianna Papastephanou (2013, p. 25) argued
that Nussbaum’s liberal universalist cosmopolitanism assumed a flawed view of
normative commitment and identity formation because it assumed a neat and given
concentric view in which persons enlarge their minds and de-centre themselves in
harmony with a given route from local attachments to strangers in wider, global
contexts. However, cosmopolitanism does not imply such an overriding universal-
ism, which is good because it is too demanding and not desirable; it underestimates
the importance of particular attachments for moral life and collective agency.
Cosmopolitan sociologists can also contribute to explanations of how our normative
orientations and identity formation depend on complex, de-territorialized and some-
times odd routes or processes where local, national and global aspects intermingle
and intermesh (Beck 2006, 2009).
Charles Blattberg (2012) argues that cosmopolitanism suffers from an abstrac-
tionism that is too often crowded out by pressing real life matters. In order to be a
cosmopolitan it seems that one has to unplug oneself from one’s everyday life and
plug into an abstract, detached and disembodied domain of thought and action. If
this is true, cosmopolitanism would at best be a well-intended abstraction but at
worst a deceptive and alienating imaginary since it would hardly promote the link-
ing of children and young people to our social reality. However, any social imagi-
nary needs real people, real territory and both real and imagined relationships to be
evolved, lived and learned; that is, it must be rooted. Rooted cosmopolitanism opens
up the real possibility that cosmopolitan imagination and learning can be an integral
part of nation-states, national education and everyday life in schools and society.
The reason is that rooted cosmopolitanism takes local attachments and national
membership as functional requirements for the realization of cosmopolitan imagi-

nation. Hence, rooted cosmopolitan is a stronger view of cosmopolitanism than the
weaker consistency view put forward by Osler and Starkey (2005) who argue that
there is a place for cosmopolitanism in education since nationalist outlooks can be
consistent with cosmopolitan imagination. However, consistency may fall prey for
the abstract objection.
Some critics of cosmopolitanism and cosmopolitanism in education point out
that what goes on in educational institutions must be linked to and match our
social reality, which means that they deny cosmopolitanism for the same reasons
that I affirm it (see Waldron 2003). These critics think of citizenship in a narrow
and formal sense, pointing out that citizenship (in most cases) is a legal tie between
a citizen and a nation, so talking about citizens of the world is misguided and
empty in the absence of a world state. However, this narrow and legal view of citi-
zenship is problematic since there is much more to citizenship then legal ties, as I
have argued elsewhere (Rönnström 2016); but more importantly, this objection to
cosmopolitan imagination is not relevant for the broad social imaginary and
rooted view I articulate here.
Modern national education and its institutions such as schools can function as
agents for cosmopolitan imagination and learning in at least three different ways
highly relevant for education in general, and for ethical-political education in par-
ticular. First, they can provide learning environments in which actual and imagined
relationships with other individuals and groups are developed and recognized. This
is of crucial importance because such relationships establish our understanding of
and normative commitments to other people and the claims they make on our lives,
but also the claims we make on their lives. Second, schools can form learning envi-
ronments in which our attachments and concrete and imagined relationships with
others can promote cosmopolitan imagination and learning because it is exactly
these ordinary attachments and relationships that are used to bring about cosmopoli-
tan imagination and learning. In other words, our local or national attachments,
actual or imagined, are used to motivate and embody cosmopolitan imagination
because in times of societal metamorphosis our local and national attachments can
actually require cosmopolitan imagination and learning. Third, modern education
and its institutions such as schools can secure learning environments for a healthy
continuation and re-imagination of the qualitatively different social imaginaries that
make up modern society, which means that private and public spheres of action and
individual and collective agencies are recognized.
Cosmopolitan imagination and learning in educational institutions such as
schools aim at widening cultural and epistemic rootedness. This is important for
gradually shifting the centre of cultural gravity from the nation to the world society,
and for our cautious use of concepts and traditions shaped by problematic national-
ist but also reductionist globalist imagination. Cosmopolitan imagination in schools
also aims at widening normative rootedness and moral commitments. Since living
up to our normative commitments and moral obligations requires that we actually
are motivated to do so, cosmopolitan education plays an important role in widening
our motivational and normative rootedness. Our normative commitments cannot
demand more of us than is reasonable, such as a universalism that overrides any
194 N. Rönnström
particular attachment. However, it cannot demand too little from us, so that our
normative commitments to strangers are never deliberated or acted upon.
Finally, cosmopolitan imagination and learning need institutional and curricular
rootedness since it would be wrong to outsource the widening of our cultural, epis-
temic and normative rootedness, as well as our social imagination, to individual
teachers and students in educational institutions pervaded by nationalist imaginaries
and recently by globalist imaginaries. What is at stake here is the role that modern
education is expected to play in the lives of individualized individuals responsible
for their inclusion in a society defined by modern social imaginaries, but also the
roles those individuals are expected to play in the continuation and re-imagination
of a society they at least partly can conceive of as their common concern in their
roles as collective agents and democratic participants. In a society undergoing a
metamorphosis, cosmopolitan imagination and learning should be seen as an insti-
tutional requirement in terms of ascribing meaning and adding legitimacy to educa-
tional practices. This is so because people with different nation-centred pasts now
share a common future filled with risks and opportunities on a planet, in a world
society and among people we can no longer think of as perpetual resources for
instrumental action. Cosmopolitan imagination is, therefore, of great importance to
the future of modern education in general, but to the future of ethical political edu-
cation in particular.
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Niclas Rönnström (b. 1964) is Associate Professor in the Department of Education at Stockholm
University, Sweden. His research interests are communication and language, globalization and
cosmopolitanism, leadership and school improvement, and critical theory and social imagination.
His publications include Educational Cosmopolitanism: Complex Capablities, Institutional
Requirments and a Research Stance (2019), Education and the Need for Critical Social Imagination
(2017), Education and Three Imaginaries of Global Citizenship (2016), and Educating Competitive
Teachers for a Competitive Nation? (2015).
Chapter 13
Pragmatism, Education and the Problem
of Pluralism
Henrik Rydenfelt
Abstract The concept of pluralism is of central importance in contemporary moral

and political education, where a crucial aim is to promote acceptance of the life
choices of others and to teach tolerance towards diversity of values. However, this
promotion of pluralism suffers from two immediate difficulties. Firstly, the concept
of pluralism has proved somewhat elusive, and it is far from clear that its various
uses are congruent. Secondly, there is a long-standing criticism against ethical and
political pluralism which maintains that pluralist views are difficult if not impossi-
ble to defend without succumbing to dreaded relativism. In this article, I will firstly
distinguish an educationally interesting form of pluralism and then, drawing from
thinkers in the tradition of philosophical pragmatism, attempt to meet the criticism
that such pluralism has no interesting philosophical defense.
Keywords Pluralism · Critical thinking · Pragmatism · Ethics · Education
Introduction
Pluralism concerning ethical and political opinion is the fact that different individu-
als and groups have different and to some extent incompatible ethical and political
views. While any large enough society has exhibited pluralism, it is increasingly
visible under conditions of internationalisation and globalisation. Moreover, the
widespread use of digital media, including social media, has brought into light
many profound differences of opinion within contemporary societies. In philosophy
of education – as well as in the theory and practice of education – pluralism has
been taken to incur a problem. Ethical and political views, values and standards are
relied on in any educational context. However, under conditions of pluralism, edu-
cators as well as devisers of public educational policy may easily find themselves
puzzled over to what extent to their own ethical and political views can influence the
H. Rydenfelt (*)
Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49524-4_13
198 H. Rydenfelt
content and the framework of education, and to what extent the ethical and political
development of pupils’ and students’ should be left to their own individual prefer-
ence, cultural background, families, and other social groups.
In this article, I consider two lines of response to this problem of pluralism. These
lines are based on, firstly, the educational current called critical thinking and, sec-
ondly, the notion that some values and standards of justification receive universal or
near universal support in our society. I argue that both of these lines fail to give a
satisfactory response to the problem, as they depend on curtailing the plurality of
ethical opinion. The problem of pluralism persists as long as we think that the accept-
ability of ethical views and standards in educational contexts depends on a consen-
sus over those views and standards. Next, I present an alternative view on pluralism
drawing from debates in the pragmatist tradition in philosophy. Based on the prag-
matist contention that ethical questions and problems can themselves be the topics
of scientific inquiry, I argue that pluralism appears as an important and beneficial
catalyst for doubting, justifying and revising ethical opinions. Finally, I briefly con-
sider the implications of adopting this pragmatist outlook for educational practice.
Education and the Problem of Pluralism
Pluralism, as I will here use the word, is a descriptive thesis concerning the plurality
or variety of ethical and political opinion in our societies. Pluralism should be dis-
tinguished from relativism, according to which truth, validity or correctness is rela-
tive to some feature of the believing subject – such as a point of view or a “language
game”. For the relativist, what is true from my point of view might not be true from
yours, and vice versa. While pluralism also emphasizes the difference between
opinions and points of view, it differs from the relativist view in that these differ-
ences of opinion really matter. For a consistent relativist, conflicting opinions con-
cerning relative truths do not ground real disagreement. Even if our views of, say,
ethical issues are seemingly inconsistent, we may both be right: stealing is wrong
from your point of view, but not from mine. There is no demand for “objectivity”
concerning the ethical issues at hand; ethical disagreement may be treated analo-
gously to disagreement over matters of taste. By contrast, a pluralist may and in
some cases will find such inconsistency to be troubling. When we disagree, one of
us must be mistaken. Unlike relativists, then, pluralists often find disagreements to
matter: they point to a conflict to be resolved (at least if something of practical rel-
evance depends on the issue at hand). A pluralist may think that it is an objective
matter of fact that stealing is wrong – if people disagree, one side is mistaken.
Pluralism, then, entails that there is real disagreement (about ethical opinion)
between individuals and groups in a society.
Pluralism has been taken to have important educational implications. In philoso-
phy of education, a central challenge has been to defuse the following problem: if
there is persistent disagreement with society, how are we to educate others (for
example, children) without imposing our own ethical (and perhaps political) views
13 Pragmatism, Education and the Problem of Pluralism 199
on them? This issue – the problem of pluralism, as I will call it – has commonly
been addressed under other terms, such as those of the problem of indoctrination
and ideology. The issue is not only a philosophical one: it has been argued to be
faced by many educators in different contexts. In practice, teachers face the question
of how and to what extent their own ethical views should influence, and be evident,
in teaching.
The problem is also one of educational policy. Formal education in the Nordic
countries is largely public education, and aspires to be both founded on central
democratic values and principles, but also to build tolerance and support democratic
society conceived of along egalitarian lines. For example, the Finnish national cur-
riculum for primary education is explicitly founded on some basic values, such as
respect for life and human rights, equality and democracy. At the same time, educa-
tion is to aim at supporting both tolerance and the development of the pupils’ indi-
vidual cultural identity and cultural capital. In official documents the contents and
precise nature of these values is typically left vague, and the potential clashes
between tolerance and such values is left unaddressed. In line with the “Nordic
political model”, tolerance and appreciation of the different values and cultures of
others is supposed to be the norm. However, pupils and students may support values
which directly conflict with basic democratic principles, such as equality. Both
teachers and educational policy makers may struggle with problems concerning
how much pluralism one should tolerate (or celebrate); on what basis is it justified
to pursue shared understanding in the realm of morality, and in what circumstances
is it justified to impose educators’ own moral norms and principles to students?
Philosophers of education have attempted to provide perspectives from which to
respond to the problem of pluralism. According to one line of response, as opposed
to educating (first-order) ethical and political views, educators should concentrate
on teaching good ethical reasoning – criticism and consideration of ethical views. A
central manifestation of this view is the variety of contemporary proposals accord-
ing to which the central content of education should be critical thinking. In educa-
tional contexts, we are to teach skills and attitudes which are relevant to the revision
and assessment of different ethical (and political) views. This ideal of education is
commonly connected with that of rationality: students are to be taught to criticize
their views and choices on rational grounds. A prominent example of this line of
thought is Harvey Siegel’s (1985) view of critical thinking as the skill or ability to
appropriately assess reasons and arguments by logical and epistemic criteria. In
Siegel’s view, critical thinking should be the ideal of education: it is both what edu-
cation is for, and how we should go about in educating children.
However, it quickly turns out that this approach suffers from an issue not unlike
our initial problem. The ideal of critical thinking is to develop the skills needed to
assess different views on rational criteria. But who is to set these criteria? The issue
of how to be critical – on what grounds ethical (or political) views are to be revised
and criticized – may not be any less contentious than the original question of the
extent to which one should teach one’s own values and norms to others. Indeed,
some of our most entrenched disputes concerning values and ethical issues are
grounded in disputes concerning good evidence or reasons for and against ethical
200 H. Rydenfelt
views. In educational contexts, pupils or students may be quite convinced that, say,
the teachings of their particular religion or social tradition are reason enough to hold
on to an ethical view. Is the educator to criticize such justifications?
The possibility of such criticism has not, of course, gone fully unnoted. Siegel
(1985) has argued that the whole issue arises only if our ideals of rationality are
ideology-neutral or -transcendent; indeed, the whole criticism of “ideologicality”
depends on a notion of rationality which finds ideology or pre-rational justification
of ethical and political views to be a problem. In this, Siegel is surely correct. But in
many ways, the response pushes the issue yet another step back. For by what criteria
are we to deem one or another view of good reasons as itself pre-rational or “ideo-
logical”? In many actual ethical-political debates, it is a standard charge that an
opponent’s stance is “merely” ideological as opposed to “rational”. Indeed, if we
had a robust view of “rational” criteria – a view that would be readily accepted by
all – the problem of pluralism would be rather easily dissolved: any ethical debate
could be resolved by scrutinizing different views against such criteria.
A second perspective from which philosophers of education have attempted to
tackle the problem could be called the consensus-oriented view. This view main-
tains that, while we may disagree on some ethical (and political) issues, we are at
least in the right in teaching what is commonly considered to be acceptable: the kind
of ethical views and norms – and views of ethical reasoning – which there is an
overarching consensus over. There is, after all, a wide array of ethical views which
we almost without exception subscribe to. Such agreement in opinion does not per-
tain to particular (first-order) ethical views, but also extends to some common ways
of justifying ethical views in light of shared values.
Such views come in many forms and include various refinements. For example,
in Michael Hand’s (2014, 2018) extended account of moral education, education
may rely on an “identifiable subset” of moral standards “to which more or less
everyone subscribes and for which the reasons to subscribe are compelling” (2014,
528). In particular, Hand argues, some of our values are supportive of cooperation
and diminishing of conflict, reducing the risks we face in our human condition, “our
vulnerability to one another, our limited capacity for sympathy, and a limited supply
of needed or wanted resources” (Hand 2014, 528). While Hand is careful not to give
a blanket justification for the education of existing moral codes, he argues that our
commonly accepted values counteract the potential instability of human societies.
However, such views of the grounds of ethical education, under conditions of
pluralism, easily face issues of their own. To begin with, relying on the commonly
accepted values in education may give reasonably justified starting points for teach-
ers; nevertheless, the initial concern is hardly alleviated, as the problem of pluralism
pertains to situations where values do conflict, and no consensus can be easily
uncovered. Moreover, taking some moral standards as robustly justifiable based on
their current appeal and popularity threatens – even with qualifications in place – to
hinder ethical change and improvement. While we are obviously convinced of our
current ethical views and standards of justification, history is replete of examples of
mistaken, indeed horrible ethical opinions and ways of justifying them which have
received widespread acceptance..
This concern also extends to the values and standards which currently contribute
to the sustenance of human societies. Social cohesion, stability and cooperation
may be – and are – maintained by very different understandings of basic values and
ethical justification. As a central example, even if Western societies have a special
place of pride for their achievements in democracy, tolerance and human rights,
other contemporary societies may and do strive to achieve cohesion and stability
with distinctly other means and values: authoritarian rule, lack of free speech, ine-
galitarian “caste” systems, and the like. Even if democracy and related rights and
freedoms appears as the best way to achieve cooperation and deal with human vul-
nerability to us, it may not appear so from the perspective of others. These others
may include some of the pupils and students of our contemporary classrooms, or at
least people who share their cultural heritage and background.
Why Is Pluralism a Problem?
Much more could be said of the merits and problems of these two lines of response
to the difficulties of pluralism. However, here my main interest lies in taking a
closer look at what ultimately makes pluralism such a problem when it comes to
normative – ethical and political views – in educational contexts. Generally speak-
ing, the concern with pluralism tends to begin with the observation that differ-
ences of opinion concerning ethical issues persist and cannot be easily resolved.
From this it is inferred that pluralism is a problem which needs to be somehow
tackled both in theory in practice – in the case of interest here, in the theory and
practice of education.
However, this problem of pluralism of opinion does not seem to pertain to non-
normative issues, or so-called “matters of fact”. We think it obvious that, when our
opinions sometimes differ, one side must be mistaken. Indeed, in many cases our
views might be very different, and those differences difficult to resolve. But from
these assumptions we do not conclude that pluralism in opinion is a problem – in
particular, a problem within education. Pupils and students may entertain views
concerning matters of physics, or chemistry or biology, say, or be fully ignorant of
some central theories or concepts in these fields. Their families and cultures may not
fare any better; indeed, they may entertain views which conflict with the results of
contemporary science. Nevertheless, aside some notable exceptions (to which I will
presently return), we do not shy from teaching pupils what we think is the case
concerning such facts. In particular, we do not make the inference that such teaching
risks indoctrination or is founded on “ideology”. This asymmetry, one should think,
demands explanation. Why are we not at all as concerned with educating children
about non-normative “facts” they do not necessarily agree with?
A reply which quite immediately springs to mind is that the non-normative views
we may and should teach are those that are the results of scientific inquiry: ones
scrutinized and (tentatively) validated by contemporary science. This answer seems
a natural and plausible one. Our reliance on science and the scientific method runs
202 H. Rydenfelt
so deep that, in many cases, we can hardly offer any justification to our opinions
concerning non-normative issues, other than that they concur with our current best
science. We are less certain about how to justify ethical and political views: there is
nothing that would occupy the place of “moral science” in our culture. The plurality
of opinion about ethical matters is matched by a plurality of opinion concerning
ethical standards, evidence and justification; by contrast, concerning non-normative
“fact”, we may always rely on science and its various achievements – including in
education.
Notice, however, how this response – as plausible as it is – does not (and cannot)
rest on the premise that our current best theories and other results of science, or the
scientific method, including its conception of standards of justification of theories,
receive universal or near universal support. Inevitably, both pupils or students and
their background – families, groups, cultures – are quite ignorant of many of the prod-
ucts or methods of contemporary science. In some particular cases, pupils and stu-
dents and their families or other groups may even be prepared to contradict some of
the best supported scientific theories. This has led to some well-known debates con-
cerning educating whatever lessons of science are considered to contradict the teach-
ings of religion. For example, there is an ongoing discussion, especially in some parts
of the United States, on whether evolutionary biology and our contemporary theories
concerning the origins and the age of the universe and our planet should be taught at
school at all or without presenting a “competing”, religiously motivated alternative.
But such disagreements are not, in most contexts, understood to undermine science,
or to render science-based teaching problematic or “ideologically” laden.
Rather, the problem of pluralism appears to be due to the fact that there is no
source for values and standards of justification of ethical views analogous to science
and the scientific method. In the absence of such a source, the current lines of
response to the problem of pluralism draw from the ideal of universal or near-
universal support for the ethical views or standards of rationality and ethical reason-
ing. More or less explicitly, they take agreement or (reasonable) consensus within
society to be the main criterion by which we can assess whether one or another ethi-
cal view can (justifiably) be incorporated into education, at least without consider-
able reservations or qualifications. The underlying, even if often implicit view is
that there are core values that everyone in our society could agree upon, even if for
somewhat different reasons. The response to the problem of pluralism is, then, to
curtail pluralism, at least to an extent: it is to argue that there are some values or
standards acceptable to everyone – and, hence, that those values can be relied upon
in educational contexts. As we have seen, however, this approach is vulnerable to
salient counterexamples of disagreements concerning actual educational contexts.
It is instructive to note how the issues here are related to famous attempts to deal
with what could be called the problem of political pluralism, the political analogue
of our pluralism in educational contexts. In John Rawls’s description (1996), politi-
cal pluralism is the view that, in societies with freedom of opinion, conflicting polit-
ical and ethical views will develop. In Rawls’s particular take, this development is
not due to clear fault on one or another side of the debate: pluralism is not rooted
merely in narrow-mindedness and faulty reasoning, or “solely in ignorance and
perversity, or else in the rivalries for power, scams, or economic gain” (Rawls 1996,
58). In order to overcome the difficulty of legitimizing the use of political power and
the imposing of a rule over a diverse citizenry, Rawls famously proposed that rea-
sonable citizens – despite their differing ethical opinions – can reach a consensus
concerning political principles of justice on their own, in many cases varying rea-
sons. Just as the consensus-oriented perspective attempts to find a foundation for
ethical education in the values which maintain social cohesion and cooperation, in
his account in Political Liberalism, Rawls emphasizes that shared ideals of a public
political culture can act as the basis on which to build a political conception of jus-
tice agreed upon by all (Rawls 1996, 99–101).
However, this approach suffers from the same difficulty as the consensus-
oriented view of ethical education discussed above. As Rawls’s many critics have
pointed out, it is hardly evident that any ethical or political principles are justifiable
to everyone (cf. Rydenfelt 2011a, 2013). Again, the problem of pluralism rises:
disagreement may arise concerning any issue, including the political principles of
justice themselves. The problem of pluralism persists as long as a consensus among
citizens is taken to be the (only) source for the kind of ethical and political princi-
ples which can act as the foundation of a public, political order.
Pragmatism and Pluralism
I have argued that the problem of pluralism persists as long as we, in the absence of
another source for ethical justification or validity, take a consensus to be the source
for the acceptability or justifiability for relying on certain ethical values or standards
in social, including educational contexts. Any consensus achieved or imaginable is
threatened by the potential variety of ethical views that may develop within our
societies. I will now turn to suggest that the classical source of pluralism in contem-
porary philosophy, philosophical pragmatism, can offer us an alternative perspec-
tive from which pluralism does not appear as a problem; indeed, I will propose that
pluralism can be viewed as having its own, epistemic benefits.
Pluralism, for the pragmatists, did not originally mean an approach to moral or
more broadly cultural diversity. William James (1908) used the word to characterize
his ontological stance setting against the various forms of absolute idealism as well
as mechanistic materialism of his contemporaries. But the key upshot of ontological
pluralism, for James, was ethical. Absolute idealism and materialism alike sided
with moral skepticism in failing to leave room for real improvement. Pluralism was
the ontological basis of James’s meliorism: the belief that maintains that the world
is neither the best possible (or “ready-made”) nor too evil to resist improvement.
Meliorism – as John Dewey approvingly put it – is the view that “the specific condi-
tions which exist at one moment, be they comparatively bad or comparatively good,
in any event may be bettered” (MW 12:181-2 [1920]). Already in the second gen-
eration of pragmatists, however, the notion of pluralism was used to refer to social
and societal conditions. Cultural pluralism was a term popularized by James’s
204 H. Rydenfelt
student Horace Kallen (1915), who argued against the ideal of cultural uniformity
(or “Americanization”) and maintained that cultural diversity was compatible with
national pride (cf. Bernstein 2015). Since that time, pragmatists have often been
proponents of ethical and political pluralism, advocating the view that cultural and
ethical plurality is acceptable or, a fortiori, beneficial to our societies.
However, even within the pragmatist tradition, pluralism has become something
of a contentious topic. In their provokingly titled article, “Why Pragmatists Cannot
Be Pluralists” (2005), Scott Aikin and Robert B. Talisse argue that pragmatists, long
affiliated with pluralist views, should instead adopt a more monistic view of ethics.
In order to make this argument, Aikin and Talisse distinguish three forms of plural-
ism. According to deep pluralism, the conflicts between values cannot be resolved,
as they are “built into the very fabric of moral reality” (2005, 103). By contrast, a
shallow pluralist prescribes tolerance in the face of ethical conflicts which cannot be
rationally adjudicated. Lastly, modus vivendi pluralism views society as the venue
of negotiation and occasional compromise between groups and individuals with
conflicting values. Talisse and Aikin argue that pragmatists cannot be deep plural-
ists. Pragmatists, committed to scientific inquiry, cannot rule out the very possibility
of finding a resolution or satisfactory response to some conflict in values; to do so
would be to block the path of inquiry. In turn, modus vivendi pluralism is an inher-
ently unstable view. Finally, Talisse and Aikin maintain that shallow pluralism is not
pluralism enough. The shallow pluralist, by their account, recognizes and tolerates
ethical disagreements as well as the fact that these disagreements cannot be adjudi-
cated or resolved by current means. But such a view, according to Talisse and Aikin,
is compatible with monism: it does not imply that the disagreement is permanently
intractable.
Talisse and Aikin are surely correct in maintaining that pragmatists cannot be
“deep” pluralists, in their sense of the word. Pluralism, in this sense, includes the
commitment that the conflict between values is a permanent state of affairs. But this
is a very strong commitment which appears to be difficult to defend. In particular, it
fits uneasily with the pragmatist views of inquiry and its possibilities. Critical of a
hard dichotomy between descriptive and normative questions, pragmatists – begin-
ning with Peirce – argued that normative issues can be the subjects and topics of
scientific inquiry (cf. Rydenfelt 2011b, 2015, 2019b). Peirce (1903) proposed a line
of inquiry that he called normative science, composed of aesthetics, ethics and
logic. Dewey, in turn, suggested that matters of ethics and social policy should be
subjected to experimental study which he called social inquiry (Rydenfelt 2019a,
2020). Such lines of inquiry would not get going, were we to assume that all or most
conflicts between values are permanently intractable.
The only alternative Talisse and Aikin argue is left for the pragmatist is the “shal-
low” version. It is true that this form of pluralism is compatible with a kind of
monism about ethical truth: that there may be one correct view about this or that
ethical issue. But it does not follow that pluralism of this kind has lost its bite, or
become “shallow”. Talisse and Aikin’s view of this kind of pluralism takes a decid-
edly individualistic shape. The pluralist will merely prescribe tolerance towards
others and their life choices: “those of us pursuing the good life ought not interfere
with the experiments in living others perform”, they write, “just as scientists do not
(or ought not) interfere with the experiments of their peers and competitors”
(2005, 107).
However, in construing “shallow” pluralism as mere tolerance towards the “life
experiments” of others, Talisse and Aikin miss much of its social and societal rele-
vance. Recognizing ethical disagreements as a fact of life in one’s society, but also
acknowledging one’s own limits in resolving such disagreements, points to much
more than just the initial attitude of tolerance towards those who maintain views
incompatible with one’s own; it also entails that one is prepared to attempt to justify
one’s views to various others, and also revise one’s own views in light of compelling
arguments and justifications by them. To use Talisse and Aikin’s own analogy: with
experimental scientists, divergence of opinion between inquirers points towards
problems to be solved and arguments and evidence for and against to be presented.
We not only refrain from interfering in the experiments of others, in the sense of
preventing them from testing their ethical “hypotheses” (at least without good rea-
son); when our opinions differ, we attempt to find out who is mistaken as a com-
munity of inquirers.
Indeed, when combined with the pragmatist idea that ethical issues may and
should be subjected to scientific inquiry, “shallow” pluralism turns out to be not at
all shallow. Rather, it offers a potent view of how ethical conflict should be addressed.
By the pragmatist account, inquiry begins with doubt, or what Dewey called a prob-
lematic situation: some of our beliefs are called into question, and inquiry is required
to appease this doubt by attaining a new conception or belief. Science is this process
made deliberate: the scientist deliberately attempts to revise and test theories and
hypothesis, including ones already (but provisionally) accepted. Such revision
extends to the methods and standards of inquiry itself: far from a priori certainties,
our views of justifying our view and criteria for better and worse theories and pro-
cedures are themselves the fallible and revisable results of the scientific practice.
The epistemic benefits of pluralism in light of this view are numerous. Pluralism –
precisely in its “shallow” version – entails that we do not take ethical conflict to be
(necessarily) hopelessly intractable, but nevertheless acknowledge our limited
capacity in addressing it, making necessary the consideration of the conflicting
opinions of others. As such, pluralism has doubtless epistemic benefits for the revi-
sion and improvement of ethical opinion (cf. Holma 2012). Conflicts of opinion
instigate doubt concerning one’s own ethical views; they necessitate producing
explicit justifications of one’s position, and the scrutiny of the justifications of oth-
ers; and finally, doubt and justification enable the revision of one’s views.
Conclusion: Ethical Pluralism and Education
The problem of pluralism I set out with was one concerning the acceptability of
values in education: when and how can we, under conditions of conflicting ethical
opinions and standards, rely on some of our ethical views in educational contexts?
206 H. Rydenfelt
One main line of response to the problem is the ideal of critical thinking: the assess-
ment and evaluation of different ethical views based on rational criteria. The key
problem with this response, I noted, is that it often pushes the issue a step back – to
the equally contentious issue of what the “rational” criteria are and who gets to
set them.
Another main line of response to the problem, I argued, maintains that teach-
ing and education may be founded on values and standards widely shared on our
society. This response is a close relative of the extremely influential account of
political pluralism due to the liberal political tradition, especially John Rawls’s
work. I pointed out that this line of argument, attempts to manage plurality by
curtailing it: by maintaining that some views are acceptable to everyone. From the
pragmatist point of view, however, no such argument is needed. Indeed, for the
pragmatist, pluralism appears less as a problem and more as an important catalyst
for doubt, justification and revision of ethical opinion – for ethical inquiry. Instead
of attempting to derive some ethical and political views which everyone would
rely on, the pragmatist points towards the possibility of revision and improvement
of our ethical views, and the role that conflicts of opinion have in such revision
and improvement.
It remains to be asked what the pragmatist stance would translate into within
educational practice. What and whose values can we rely on, and how? As any
reader of Peirce is often reminded, inquiry cannot begin with universal doubt. In
this, the pragmatist stance has an affinity with the consensus-oriented view: we
must begin with what we have – the values and standards we currently subscribe
to. Ethical conflict and diversity of opinion is to be taken as pointing towards the
possibility of doubting one’s views, and the need to provide justification for them;
the need to critically evaluate arguments and standards that can be presented for
and against our ethical opinions. In this, the pragmatist version has an affinity to
the ideal of critical thinking: as opposed to simply teaching particular ethical
views, we are to engage in the process of justification and revision. However, the
pragmatist view recognizes the fact that our standards of justification, argumenta-
tion, evidence, and the like, may themselves be subject to conflict and revision.
This is a central lesson of the pragmatist take on pluralism also for practical edu-
cational contexts.
Put to practice, the pragmatist idea of pluralism, then, does not entail that ethi-
cal issues are hopelessly intractable, or that we must – in the absence of ethical
inquiry – simply rely on the views commonly accepted in our society. Quite the
contrary, it maintains that revision and improvement of ethical views is possible
by way of inquiry. Nevertheless, the pragmatist view of pluralism is not limited to
mere tolerance of the conflicting opinions of others. Precisely because the prag-
matist takes improvement to be possible, conflicts become not just something to
be tolerated, but, rather, opportunities for inquiry. Pragmatist pluralism prescribes
a “scientific” attitude – openness for revision, fallibility and need for constant
justification – towards ethical opinion in any social circumstances, including edu-
cational contexts.
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Rydenfelt, H. (2020). Pragmatism, social inquiry and the method of democracy. In T. Kontinen
& K. Holma (Eds.), Practices of citizenship in East Africa. Perspectives from philosophical
pragmatism. London: Routledge.
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cation. Part two: Philosophical questions underlying education for critical thinking. Informal
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Henrik Rydenfelt (b. 1982) is Docent of Practical Philosophy and Media and Communication
Studies at the University of Helsinki. His research interests include philosophical pragmatism,
ethics, and philosophical accounts of democracy. He has published in several leading philosophical
journals such as Synthese, Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, and Metaphilosophy.
Chapter 14
Reconceptualising the Subject-Citizen
of Bildung in a Posthuman World:
Rethinking the Promise of Higher
Education
Carol A. Taylor
Abstract We are, according to Braidotti (2013, p.2), already living in a posthuman

world and this has introduced a ‘qualitative shift in our thinking about what exactly
is the basic unit of common reference for our species, our polity and our relationship
to the other inhabitants of this planet.’ This chapter considers what this qualitative
shift means in terms of reconceptualizing the subject-citizen of Bildung, and for
rethinking the promise – that is, rethinking the aims and purpose – of higher educa-
tion as a posthuman project. The central argument is a posthumanist reconceptual-
ization of the subject-citizen of Bildung is an ethical-political project committed to
combating all modes of inequality and aiming to promote more inclusive, socially
just pedagogies in higher education.
Keywords Bildung · Posthumanism · Education · Higher education
Introduction
According to Rosi Braidotti (2013, p.2), we are already living in a posthuman world.
Such a world, she suggests, entails getting to grips with some profound and ongoing
shifts in the nature of what it is to be human, the mode of the relationship between
humans and earthly others, and the condition of human-nonhuman entanglement in
global capitalist reproduction and exploitation. For Braidotti (2013, p.2), posthu-
manism has introduced a ‘qualitative shift in our thinking about what exactly is the
basic unit of common reference for our species, our polity and our relationship to
the other inhabitants of this planet.’ This shift generates some profound ethical and
C. A. Taylor (*)
Department of Education, University of Bath, Bath, UK
e-mail: C.A.Taylor@bath.ac.uk

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49524-4_14
210 C. A. Taylor
political questions central to our identities, relations and practices within the world.
This chapter takes up some of these questions in relation to a consideration of the
subject-citizen of Bildung which, I argue, needs to be reconceptualized in order to
rethink the promise of higher education as a relational ethical-political ecology in a
posthuman world.
The reconceptualization I propose is both speculative and praxis-oriented. It is
speculative in that it poses ethical questions of the future-oriented subject-citizen of
Bildung in a posthuman world in relation to three considerations: one, the role of the
human in the Anthropocene; two, the relation between humans and nature; and
three, the material nature of the webs of relations in which human, nonhumans and
nature are imbricated. This reconceptualization is also praxis-oriented in that it
poses political questions regarding the modes of citizenship required of the posthu-
man subject of Bildung. In brief, for readers within Anglophone (UK, USA and
Australian) traditions who may be unfamiliar with Bildung and its articulation as a
mode of ethical-political education, Bildung has rightly been seen as one of the
most complex words describing educational purposes and processes and one that is
impossible to translate into English (Biesta 2002a; Taylor 2017a). In essence,
Bildung refers to a reflexive process in which the individual uses knowledge
resources for, on the one hand, purposes of self-formation and self-transformation
and, on the other hand, for developing a socio-critical orientation to contemporary
social concerns and problems (Sjöström and Eilks 2018). In contemporary societies
marked by increasing risk, uncertainty, inequality and ecological depredation,
Bildung has garnered increased focus as a ‘tool to promote political education, and
foster public spirit and identity’ (Horlacher 2016, p.118), while others have high-
lighted the role of Bildung in prompting – and problematising – ethics, citizenship
and civic engagement (Taylor 2017a; Thompson 2005).
As I use it in this chapter, I situate a posthuman Bildung as a potential means to
generate more affirmative, relational and socially just modes of citizenship educa-
tion, and position this as an ethical-political educative task. In this, the aims and
principles of a posthuman Bildung align quite well with the egalitarian, democratic
ethos of the Nordic model: in particular, both offer hope for a sense of communitar-
ian effort in pursuit of a sense of collectivist social organisation that works for all.
However, it troubles the Nordic model in two crucial respects. One, the Nordic
model continues to be underpinned by a privileging of the nation-state although, as
Strand notes in the Introduction to this book, both the ‘Nordic model’ and what is
understood as the ‘nation’ are fluid and shifting concepts. In contrast, posthuman-
ism requires thinking beyond the nation, and even beyond the concept of interna-
tionally, because both of these terms continue to designate nation as a bounded
geographical terrain and politically inviolable entity. Instead, posthumanism urges
us to think in terms of the global and the planetary, in order that we may ‘(re/un)
learn how to live in ways that have a less destructive impact on the world’ (Juelskjær
2020. p.53). Two, this (re/un)learning contests human exceptionalism and requires
a radical decentring of the human. The posthuman contention is that the human is
not ontologically superior from other non-human forms of life: all matter is animate
and ontologically equal. Human being – and human learning and knowing – is, then,
14 Reconceptualising the Subject-Citizen of Bildung in a Posthuman World… 211
about recognising existence as a matter of co-living and co-flourishing in times of

urgent ecological and geopolitical concerns. These two differences trouble the
Nordic model and generate somewhat different starting points for reconceptualising
the subject-citizen of Bildung in a posthuman world.
The characterization of the posthuman subject-citizen of Bildung I propose rests
on an onto-epistemological-ethical mode of knowing-in-being, which entails
expanded potential for ethical-political modes of educative engagement, and
prompts response-ability for action in relation to global and ecological challenges.
The chapter proposes that a posthuman Bildung is essential in developing higher
education practices and pedagogies that will (a) enable us to realise creative, alter-
native possibilities for human-nonhuman becomings; (b) promote more inclusive,
socially just pedagogies in higher education; and (c) generate ways of being which
enact relationality as an ongoing orientation to the world with which we are onto-
logically entangled. As indicated above, I propose three considerations in relation to
reconceptualizing the subject-citizen of Bildung in a posthuman world. The first of
these concerns the role and responsibility of ‘Man’ in the era of the Anthropocene.
‘Man’ in the Era of the Anthropocene – Rethinking Relations
Many contemporary theorists and political commentators have suggested that we

now inhabit what has been called the ‘anthropocene’ – a new geological period in
which the impact of ‘Man’ is felt as a largely damaging force capable of influencing
all of life on earth. As Carstens (2018: p.345) explains: ‘We are now firmly and
incontrovertibly in the geological age of “man”, when various overlapping revolu-
tions (social, industrial, agrarian, commercial, etc) are instigating far greater water-
sheds than they did two centuries ago.’ These ‘revolutions’, Åsberg (2017, p.186)
points out, have resulted in ‘accumulated toxins, mountains of e-waste, acidifica-
tion, pollution, climate change, accelerated species extinction’, the results of which
have meant, according to Yong (2016, p.141), a ‘loss of wild spaces, a drastic decline
in the richness of life … a violent pulling apart of species that have been together
for millions of years.’ However, for some, the naming of the contemporary era as the
‘anthropocene’ is problematic. Feminists suggest that the word has the effect of
reinstalling ‘Species Man’ and his concerns at the centre of geological thinking
(Haraway 2016). Others draw attention to the fact that it re-inscribes a linear, pro-
gressivist way of conceptualizing history (Colebrook 2017), and that the post-
apocalyptic inflection which attends the anthropocene in popular cultural
representations (the film, The Road, is a good example here) over-emphasizes catas-
trophe and an end state for humanity.
Contesting the use of the word ‘anthropocene’ does not in any respect, however,
diminish the role of humans in causing ecological devastation for many of earth’s
nonhuman inhabitants. This devastation is well-documented. A recent report indi-
cates that humanity has wiped out 60% of animal populations since 1970 (WWF
2018), and that ‘even if the destruction were to end now, it would take 5–7 million
212 C. A. Taylor
years for the natural world to recover’ (Carrington 2018). There is, therefore, an
undoubted need for a more ecologically-oriented outlook to work against the ‘fatal
disruption of the web-work of interspecies relationships that hold together our bio-
sphere’ (Carstens 2018: p.345). Such work needs a different ethical-political
grounding than the ideologies that have led us into this state: that is, ideologies
based in capitalist, extractive and exploitative modes of use and abuse, consumption
and production, privilege and dispossession. Instead, we need to focus on the poten-
tial to develop ontological orientations founded in a fundamentally different con-
cept of humanity’s relation to other humans, nonhumans and nature. It is here where
a posthuman subject-citizen of Bildung might begin to be framed.
It is probably already clear that any worthwhile conceptualization of a posthu-
man subject-citizen is predicated on giving up some long-cherished things – things
which humanity has held close to for many years, and which have been deeply
encoded in the DNA of our educational systems since the Enlightenment. The first
of these is giving up the notion of human exceptionalism – that grand (god-given)
narrative that the earth, all its creatures, and nature ‘itself’ comprise nothing other
than resource banks infinitely available for human ‘use’ (Taylor 2016). Such a view
has been important in the centering of humans in the Enlightenment humanist proj-
ect though a teleology of human progress, development and social improvement.
Postmodern, post-structuralist, feminist and post-colonial theorists have already
done excellent work in highlighting the ways in which the Enlightenment humanist
legacy has worked by managing to install and promote the view that colonialism,
science and patriarchy are the best, most ‘natural’ ways of ordering the world and
governing its people. Their critique is valuable in showing that the ‘civilizing’ mis-
sion of Enlightenment humanism is, in fact, about normalising and generalizing the
view that a small section of mankind – white, male, European, economically privi-
leged, able-bodied – have the legitimate ‘right’ to dominate the ‘rest of’ nature,
humanity, and nonhuman ‘others’. Education has played a key role in naming, clas-
sifying and shaping those ‘others’ as lacking culture and reason, as being unci-
vilised, animalistic, emotional and immature, and therefore woefully in need of the
civilizing values that a Western education promotes. Bildung (at least in its ‘classic’
incarnations) has been intimately tied to this Enlightenment view that education is
about shaping subjectivity through modes of cultured cultivation (the promotion of
good sense, good taste) in alliance with certain attributes (virtue, free will) which
enable the person to navigate the passages between self and world more effectively.
In that sense, we can see that Bildung has always been quite a selectively, even
excluding, normative ethical-political project, aimed at promoting a particular sen-
sibility in relation to citizenship framed by Enlightenment thinking as the ability to
align oneself and one’s subjectivity with meeting the social – read anthropocentric,
classed, raced, linear, developmental and progressivist – needs of civil society
(Biesta 2002a, b).
What does posthumanism add to these debates? A posthumanist critique adds
‘Speciesism’ to the list. In this, and in line with the other critical approaches men-
tioned above it, it adds more force to the challenge that it is the ideology of human-
ism that has been responsible for the overly-restrictive narrowness of the
ethical-political project of education (Snaza 2015) and the educative narratives of

Bildung that might be subjectively activated. However, unlike those critiques which
aimed to expand education by including those othered humans, posthumanism, in
contrast, includes nonhuman others alongside and with those othered humans. This
marks a key ontological shift – a breach of the hard border that has so far divided
animals/humans/nonhumans/matter into different species categories – away from
human exceptionalism and towards a more ontologically expansive notion of sub-
jectivity (Massumi 2014). Braidotti (2013, p.26–27), says that posthuman subjectiv-
ity is ‘more complex and relational … framed by embodiment, sexuality, affectivity,
empathy and desire as core qualities.’ Posthuman subjectivity does not inhere in
individual selves, figured as containerised bodies with determinate boundaries, but
appears as a relational quality which emerges via the collective becomings of
assemblages which contain all manner of human-nonhuman-material objects, bod-
ies, affectivities and materialities. In such a posthuman scenario, subjectivity has
been radically decentred. Subjectivity, as Deleuze (1995) points out, is not even
anything to do with a person: posthuman subjectivity is a post-individual mode of
being and becoming which is conceived as emergent, processual, nomadic and rela-
tional – a matter of transversal vibrations, forces and intensities which traverse
assemblages. As I note elsewhere, a posthuman figuration of subjectivity situates
humans within a ‘flatter’ ontology and ‘reworks will, intention and causality, seeing
them not as the properties of individual bodies but as post-personal events in an
emerging confederation’ (Taylor 2017b, p.313) which includes nonhumans and the
material world as agentic forces.
This inclusiveness of the human/nonhuman/material in an expanded posthuman
ontological account of subjectivity has implications both for who/what education
might include, and what Bildung might be and become in posthuman frame. Barad’s
theory of agential realism (which draws on quantum philosophy-physics to propose
a posthuman performative account of subjectivity) asserts that in nature there are no
such thing as separate ‘things’, there is only and always material entanglement. That
is, there are no separate entities which have ‘inherently determinate boundaries.’
She says: ‘The primary ontological unit is not independent objects with inherent
boundaries and properties but rather phenomena’ whereby ‘phenomena are the
ontological inseparability/entanglement of intra-acting agencies’ (Barad 2007,
p.139). Entanglement is inherent relationality and conceptualising phenomena
(people, trees, a used tissue, a robin, cheese sandwiches for lunch, microbes, a car-
pet, a whiteboard, an iPad, a nosebleed, a discarded plastic coffee cup, a book, a
bear etc) as entangled in a worldy dance of dynamic intra-active material mattering
not only does away with traditional notions of the separability of object and subject,
it makes us rethink who/or what the ‘subject’ of Bildung might be. In other words,
if we (‘ourselves’) are not bounded individual subjects but, rather, come-to-being as
collective enunciations of zoe-techno-geo-socio-material-political human-
nonhuman assemblages that co-produce us and we co-produce in complex and
ongoing processes (Braidotti 2013), then a posthuman Bildung has to open an invi-
tation to be more curious about our more-than-human entanglements – and to take
these entanglements seriously in learning and teaching.
214 C. A. Taylor
A posthuman Bildung, then, has to be oriented to pedagogies which displace

didactic transmission in favour of attending to an emergent orchestration of hetero-
geneous elements (Gough 2004) and needs to prompt a strong sense of education
not as an individualist, competitive and cognitive pursuit but as an outward-looking,
situational, complex event in which different modes of being and knowing coexist
and collide (Taylor 2017c). This is not easy in the current performative higher edu-
cation climate but it is possible as arts-based work in teacher education by
Sidebottom (2019) and pedagogic engagements in Indigenous education by Higgins
and Madden (2019) show. There will, of course, be profound concerns emanating
from the question ‘if we give up “human” as separate from nonhuman, how do we
exist?’ (Lather and St. Pierre 2013, p.631) but the consequences of posthumanism’s
distributed ontology for rethinking the subject-citizen can be equally profoundly
beneficial when the aim is to undo some of the exclusions behind the telos of
humanism.
Blurring Boundaries – Re-working Ethical Response-Ability
Giving up the ontological distinction that underpines speciesism and accepting that

humans exist in relation on a broader, more inclusive, ontological terrain than
humanism supposes necessarily brings with it an undoing of a whole lot of other
binaries that follow this primary distinction (Taylor 2017a). The binaries I am think-
ing of are those which have, to date (or at least since the European Enlightenment),
held the human in a secure place of privilege. In posthuman thought, undoing these
binaries – nature/culture; man/woman; theory/practice, body/mind, body/brain,
self/other, emotion/reason, human/nature, human/animal, public/private – means
recognizing the extent, spread and depth of the mixings, entanglements and hybrid-
izations that human-nonhuman life are already engaged in and which, at least from
a humanist perspective, pose fundamental challenges to accepted categories of
being. Why does this matter? I answer this question by looking in this section at the
ethical implications entailed in the reconceptualization of the posthuman subject of
Bildung and how Bildung can be reframed around posthuman ethical mode of
response-ability and accountability.
Perhaps a few illustrative examples of posthumanist undoing of established
humanist binaries might help. Franklin’s (2006) work, along with work by other
feminist science scholars including Strathern and Haraway, looks at how molecular
biology, life sciences and medical advances use transgenic practices – in which
genetic material from an unrelated species is introduced into the DNA of another
species – as part of their basic research machinery. Franklin raises the point that
such biotechnological sciences produce medical advances which undo the grounds
of naturalized sex and reproduction, race, and gender. The blurring of once-sacred
boundaries is also in evident in recent research which confirms that species bound-
aries are far less definitive than we thought: evidence from the Smithsonian (2016)
shows that the human genome is 1.2% different from chimpanzees and bonobos,
about 1.6% from African apes, but that chimpanzees, bonobos, and humans all show
a same amount of difference from gorillas. A third example of hybridization con-
cerns the use of technology in educational contexts. Gourlay’s (2012, p.199) work
on digital technologies – including twitter, virtual learning, online resources, mobile
phones, laptops and other networked devices – sheds light on the ‘complex and
increasingly blurred relationship between the ‘virtual’ and the ‘material’ in the
physical university environment’, such that the nature of the lecture itself is trans-
formed from a face-to-face encounter into a radically new mode of practice in a
multiple and multivocal ‘media system’ of voice, body, technology, text and artefact.
These contemporary hybridisations align with points Haraway (1991) made
more than 25 years ago in ‘The manifesto for cyborgs.’ There, Haraway (1991) used
the figure of the cyborg in both a metaphoric and literal way to show that, in con-
temporary times, human, biological, technological and natural categories were
being indubitably blurred – a blurring which raises the question that if humans are
constituted as/in/by natural-cultural-technological hybridities, then not only what it
‘means’ to be human is in question but our ethical role as it is characterised by tra-
ditional ethics is also in question. Certainly, we have to dispense with the ethics of
humanism which, in two important, contrasting moves, (a) grounds moral concep-
tions in individual human bodies the best of whom are presumed to possess suffi-
cient reason to ‘care for’ those others less able to judge for themselves, and (b)
situates ethical judgements in an abstract and universalising rights-based discourse
extrapolated from the normatively-based outlooks and viewpoints of the ‘standard’
(male, European) political citizen without recognising that these viewpoints pay no
heed to the particular, situational and embodied contexts of non-normative bodies
(those who are women, children, Black, queer, indigenous, Roma, migrants, ani-
mals, for example) who are precluded access to this ethical-political machinery.
Thinking posthuman ethics, therefore, begins not with individualism and univer-
salism but in relationality and interdependence, and includes those othered humans
and nonhumans in the emergent ‘we’ of any ethical-political body multiple.
Embodying and enacting ethics-in-relation dispenses with the privileged position of
human separability and the universalist fantasy of distance: as Barad (2007, p.394)
writes: ‘Responsibility entails an ongoing responsiveness to the entanglements of
self and other, here and there, now and then.’ Ethics is not about knowing and
encoding more prescriptions in advance of action; ethics is an emergent process that
works via practices of mattering (i.e. agential cuts which mean that some bodies
count for more than others). Posthuman ethics is an ethic of entangled ‘worlding’
proceeding from the presumption that ethics is not about trying to see the world
from inside someone else’s shoes – which presumes individuated bodies – but from
recognising skin not as a barrier-boundary but as a porous, permeable sensorium of
connectivity with/in a universe of dynamic co-constitutive and differential becom-
ings (Taylor 2018).
The problem with the Bildung of Enlightenment humanism is that it locates
morality, as well as rational, cognitive and reflexive modes of understanding which
propel ethical action, in the ‘human,’ characterized as being distinct from ‘nature’.
Indeed, such a Bildung is intended to remove ‘us’ further and further from nature in
216 C. A. Taylor
processes of ethical evaluation. But, in posthuman times, we are not separate from
nature; we are always entangled with it in naturalcultural processes. The posthuman
point to grasp, as Åsberg (2017, p.196) says, is that ‘nothing is natural or given’
because, as Barad (2007, p.67) notes, ‘we are part of that nature that we seek to
understand.’ Human exceptionalism is again questioned: the primacy of the ‘human’
as a central category of ethical privilege is unsettled, and ethics becomes a much
more complicated endeavour, with uncertain outcomes, and no definite contours.
Colebrook (2017, p.108–109) notes that these ethical endeavours have to be based
in ‘nonlinear dynamics’ so that we might produce ‘more acute and nuanced analy-
ses that preclude any deterministic command or prediction of the future, but there-
fore necessitate more attention to the complexities and possibilities of outcomes and
futures.’ In similar vein, Haraway’s (2016, p.1) urgent challenge to us (humans) is
to be ‘truly present’ which, she suggests, is a moral imperative, given that we are ‘in
myriad unfinished configurations of places, times, matters, meanings.’
Haraway and Colebrook provide clues for rethinking the subject-citizen of
Bildung in posthuman times and provide an opportunity to think beyond and outside
dominant contemporary representations of higher education. These current repre-
sentations figure higher education as a time-space damaged beyond repair by neo-
liberal market imperatives, and represent learning and teaching – certainly in the
high student fee regimes now in place in the USA, UK and increasingly in many
other places in the western world – as being reduced to a contractual obligation
framed by input-output obligations. Posthumanist ethics conceptualize humans’
enmeshment in earth-wide human-nonhuman assemblages in ways which challenge
such an impoverished, economically-driven and marketized view of higher educa-
tion, and pose a direct challenge to the hierarchization and competition (of individu-
als, of institutions, of nations) that neoliberalism has installed as the practical space
in which higher education operates. Recasting the subject-citizen of Bildung in
posthuman frame requires attention to the ethical imperative to think individual
progress within a much wider and inclusive frame of and for social justice that
includes the human-nonhuman. Such a rethinking undoes the progressivist fantasy
of the ‘onward and upward march’ that its Enlightenment heritage has so far posi-
tioned as such a central conceptual component of Bildung, and reconceptualises a
posthuman Bildung as an educative process orientated to bringing into being, to
forming and developing, a subject-citizen who works against the hierarchies, sepa-
rations and supremacies of colonialist violence, as well as the injustices borne of
racism, classism, able-ism, and speciesism (Said 1994; Braidotti 2013). If, in specu-
lative vein, the subject-citizen of Bildung could be formed in relation to a posthu-
man ethics, then it may be possible to engage educative praxis as an ethic of nuanced,
localised, attentive and response-able human-nonhuman mutual relation in accor-
dance with our naturalcultural hybrid subjectivities, rather than as a reductive mode
of humanist separation, individualism and abstract universalism. Such an ethics
would be grounded in practices that are more humble, more halting, and more con-
crete than we have been led to believe and think ethics and morality ‘ought to’ be
(Taylor 2018) and would draw into their orbit Barad’s (2007)
ethico-onto-
epistemology, Haraway’s (2016) response-ability and Braidotti’s
(2013) affirmative ethics.
aterializations that Matter – Towards a Posthuman Politics

M
of Patchiness
The previous section outlined the need to think Bildung within a more inclusive
posthumanist ethic of mutual relation. In this section I turn to the socio-economic
contexts and relations in which educational systems operate and in which humans,
nonhumans and nature are imbricated, and consider how this produces the need to
reconceptualize the political dimension in which the subject-citizen of Bildung
operates in a posthuman world.
Posthumanism asks the question: what kind of political economy analysis does a
monist, non-dualistic philosophy entail? And, in response, suggests a need to shift
from classic sociological perspectives which focus on macro political economy and
towards the micro in order to better attend to the small-scale, everyday and ongoing
interactions, negotiations, collaborations and transactions through which differen-
tial outcomes are produced, and which work to manage social consensus or conflict.
This is not, of course, to say that the macro doesn’t exist or doesn’t matter (it does);
it is more a question of how posthumanism attends to questions of how the macro
matters or comes to matter. In posthumanism, the macro matters in particular instan-
tiations of mattering each of which differ in their unique materialization within
particular assemblages where assemblage, drawing on Deleuze and Guattari (1987),
is apprehended as open, mobile and continually shifting human-nonhuman collec-
tivities. The important point is that assemblages, in Tsing’s (2015, p.23) words,
‘drag political economy inside them.’ Three examples of assemblages of matter-
ing follow.
Example one. Corporate giants now control vast bio-engineering resources.
Vidal (2018) points out that Monsanto, the world’s largest seed company, has
recently been taken over by Bayer, the second-largest pesticide group, for an esti-
mated $66bn (£50bn) and this matters not merely because of the vast power this
economic concentration grants this new corporate multinational, but because this
merger gives it control over ‘nearly 60% of the world’s supply of proprietary seeds,
70% of the chemicals and pesticides used to grow food, and most of the world’s GM
crop genetic traits’. In Braidotti’s words, this ‘perverse form of the posthuman’
turns the ‘genetic code of living matter [into] capital.’
Example two. Barad’s (2007) account of Leela Fernandes’ analysis of the struc-
tural and ideological workings of power in a Calcutta jute mill, which resulted in
women being ejected from the workforce. Barad shows how the jute mill operates
socio-economically as a dynamically intra-active production of boundaries and
exclusions which are continually formed and remade by agential separability in an
218 C. A. Taylor
enactment of connections. Barad’s analysis entails a consideration of time-space-

mattering via the conjunction of: (a) historical practices and policies relating to the
women, working conditions and how these produce classed, raced and gendered
power fluctuations between workers and employers; (b) contemporary entangle-
ments with global capitalist modes of production which reproduce white, heterosex-
ism and man/woman, nature/culture dualisms; and (c) micro agential cuts which
enact space and time via marking women’s bodies in classed, gendered and raced
ways performatively materializing them in a deficit position. As Fairchild and
Taylor (2019, f.c.) argue, the Calcutta jute mill offers a posthuman example of how
political economy works through emergent processes which produce gendered,
classed and raced differentiations though the materialization of particular bodies
without the necessity of presuming that ‘identity’ is fixed or essentialized. In this
way a posthuman political economy moves beyond dialectic or hierarchical modes
of critique to account for the micro and situated matterings of bodies, spaces, times,
practices, doings, and actions.
Example three. Objects, bodies and spaces in education. Classrooms are an
entangled ‘mosaic’ of ‘vital matter’ (Bennett 2010, p.22) forming material assem-
blages within which learning and teaching occur as ongoing processes of mattering.
Within such learning and teaching assemblages the disposition of human (student-
teacher) and nonhuman bodies (object, things, spaces, materialities) are entailed as
productive agencies within the production of political economy of regimes of mat-
tering. As Barad’s (2007, p.170) notes, ‘bodies do not simply take their place in the
world … rather “environments” and “bodies” are intra- actively constituted.’ I have
previously explored this in relation to chairs and tables, and have shown how a
teacher’s chair ‘was no mere piece of furniture’ but was, rather:
An object with thing-power, it took its place as a material-discursive agency within a class-
room space saturated with gendered meanings. It was a seat positioned for a material per-
formative of gendered bodily power, as well as a physical location from which the teacher
could direct his gaze at his students and ensure all were looking at him at all times. [ … ]
The [teacher’s] chair-body assemblage worked to materialise what Mulvey (1975) calls the
male gaze, a visual technology of power which gave [him] visual freedom to roam over the
static bodies of the students fixed as they were behind immobile desks in unmoving chairs
(Taylor 2013, p.693).
I have also explored the vital agency of tables which do important work to produce
differentials of mattering regarding disabled bodies in a seminar room (Taylor
2017b). Chairs and tables work within the political economy of higher education to
position and co-constitute bodies as being abled or disabled by the room’s materiali-
ties. They speak of how normative presumptions regarding size, shape and mobility
of student bodies still presume an active, able, mobile body as the ‘right and proper’
occupant of the seminar room and materially denigrate those others who do not fit
this model.
How can this help us rethink the subject-citizen of Bildung in posthuman times?
The first thing a focus on materiality does is re-situate human agency alongside and
in relation to objects which also have agency – what Bennett (2010) calls’ ‘thing
power’ – and whose agency is ‘congregational’ or ‘confederate’ (Bennett 2010,

p.20) rather than a matter of individual human will. This does not suggest that the
agency of objects is ‘like’ human agency in degree or kind but works to expand
understandings of matter as having active roles in processes of power and differen-
tiation that produce practices of belonging (or exclusion) in higher education. As
Bennett (2010, p.23–24) notes:
Assemblages are ad hoc groupings of diverse elements, of vibrant materials of all sorts.
[They] are living, throbbing confederations … They have uneven topographies, because …
power is not distributed equally across its surface. Assemblages are not governed by any
central head … The effects generated by an assemblage are, rather, emergent properties.
Assemblages that materialize mattering as congregational widen the purview of

what/who matters, albeit in different ways than those above – here the focus is not
on nature or the nonhuman but on matter – and gestures to Braidotti’s (2013, p.35)
assertion that a posthuman orientation works with a notion of ‘a process-oriented
political ontology,’ in which the human is de-centred in a looser affiliative network
of human-nonhuman agencies. The posthuman, process-oriented micropolitical
ontology this gives way to – and the notion of the subject-citizen it entails – works
on the assumption that power flows work not via individual bodies, but as forces,
energies and intensities that surge and flow across bodies, things and spaces in par-
ticular moments, events and encounters. This intra-active (Barad 2007) political
economy ontology aims ‘to distribute value more generously’ (Bennett 2010, p.13)
in accordance with the agency of all involved, and moves to the forefront of atten-
tion ‘the real consequences, interventions, creative possibilities, and responsibilities
of intra-acting within and as part of the world’ (Barad 2007, p.37).
In posthumanism, then, politics is inseparable from ethics. This is important,
according to Braidotti (2013), because what passes as political economy within
capitalist conditions is actually a form of ‘necro-politics’ entailing death, dying
and destruction for humans, creatures and their habitats. To counter this, a posthu-
man political ontology has to be an affirmative ethical project which aims to resist
the violences, horrors and injustices effected by capitalist socio-economic condi-
tions. It has to be ‘based on the praxis of constructing positivity, thus propelling
new social conditions and relations into being, out of injury and pain’ (Braidotti
2013, p.129).
While this sounds fine and ambitious, it is likely that we may only be able to
enact our ethical-political activity in modes of what Tsing (2015, p.4–5) calls
‘patchiness’ – that is, in the precarious modes of living and dying which have been
forced onto both humans and nonhumans by contemporary capitalist conditions
which deny all forms of flourishing other than those which can be monetised.
Considering the state of the world as a mode of nonlinear ‘patchiness’ might, Tsing
argues, offer some insights into how we live our lives in and through ‘a mosaic of
open-ended assemblages of entangled ways of life’, which includes modes of pre-
carity which are now ‘earthwide’ conditions for both humans and nonhumans but
which are experienced differently according to gender, race, class, dis/ability, age,
220 C. A. Taylor
geography, species. The challenge is how best to engage Bildung as an ethical-

political mode of subjectivity attuned both to the ongoing tenuousness which this
political patchiness entails and the ethical staying power to remain with the trouble
of living well in such precarious times.
Conclusion
This chapter has explored how the subject-citizen of Bildung might be reconceptu-
alized in a posthuman world and how this can help us rethink the promise of higher
education. The posthuman reconceptualisation of the subject-citizen of Bildung
refuses the Enlightenment fantasy that the human is a separate (and somehow inher-
ently superior) category of being from other creatures, able to dispose of them in
accordance with his (sic) ‘will’, in favour of a more inclusive ontology of mutual
relation and mutual entanglement with nonhumans, nature and matter. This onto-
logical repositioning of humans-in-relation speaks to an urgent need to recast
Bildung in posthuman frame. A posthuman Bildung would be more explicitly ori-
ented towards modes and matterings which generate and support human-nonhuman
co-living and co-flourishing for planetary survival. The formation of the subject-
citizen of Bildung in a posthuman world would emanate from a shared understand-
ing of the entangled futures of the human and the natural and be oriented to a more
explicit posthuman praxis of human-nonhuman being and becoming. A posthuman
Bildung would prompt an educative praxis that is both an ethics and a politics of/for
flourishing in ever more precarious times. The chapter has suggested that generating
an ethically and politically-oriented posthuman subjectivity entails reformulating
Bildung through ways of entangled knowing-in-being which recognise ethics and
politics as immanent, embodied, relational and contingent. Such a posthuman
Bildung would help recalibrate modes of responsibility and accountability and
‘chasten our [human] will to mastery’ (Bennett 2010, p.15). Such response-able
modes of knowing do not, as Barad (2007) points out, come from standing at a dis-
tance but from our material engagement with the world in its ongoing differential
mattering.
In order to attend to the vulnerability and precarity that many humans, nonhu-
mans and nature now share across the planet as a result of humans’ destructive
actions, we have to re-tool the orbit of Bildung to more inclusive, ecological and
posthuman ends. We have to envisage new aims and scope for higher education and
create educative conditions for affirmative ethical-political praxis to take hold. The
devastation revealed by the anthropocene indicates this is both urgent and necessary.
As Braidotti (2013, p.129–130) explains, our shared vulnerability provides the con-
dition for an ‘affirmative ethics based on the praxis of constructing positivity’ which
will enable new social conditions and productive relations to be forged ‘out of injury
and pain’. This, I suggest, is a profound project for a posthuman Bildung. The task
going forward is to shape higher educational pedagogies adequate to the task of
forming posthuman subjectivities, so that the future can be a more socially just one
for many more of earth’s inhabitants.
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Chapter 15
Challenges and Possibilities of Media-
Based Public Dialogue: Misunderstanding,
Stereotyping and Reflective Attitude
Minna-Kerttu Kekki
Abstract This chapter discusses the problems and possibilities of media-based

public dialogue. The educational perspective is on the non-formal and informal citi-
zenship education of adults. The chapter starts by defining the kind of dialogue
suitable for pluralist democratic societies as a ‘radical’ dialogue. Then the focus
turns towards two central problems that arise from the pluralistic nature of contem-
porary democratic societies where, nevertheless, we often tend to forget the plural-
ity of our ‘normalities’ in our everyday encounters. These specific problems are
stereotyping and misunderstanding. In the end, I propose a self-reflective attitude as
a key to successful public dialogue in pluralist democratic societies.
Keywords ‘Radical’ public dialogue · Mediated encountering · Homeworld ·

Misunderstanding · Stereotyping · Self-reflective attitude
Introduction: Promoting a ‘Radical’ Public Dialogue
In the Nordic societies, many citizens, organizations, politicians, and other public
figures actively call for a public dialogue. For example, the Director General for
Finnish National Agency for Education Olli-Pekka Heinonen has publicly sug-
gested that dialogue could even be part of the government program (see Heinonen
HS 31.7.2018). At the same time, the rise of radical political forces shows that dia-
logue also is urgently needed as a channel for expressing the conflicting interests
and underlying values that could otherwise emerge into actual social conflicts.
Contemporary democratic societies consist of social groups that differ from each
M.-K. Kekki (*)

Faculty of Education, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland
e-mail: minna-kerttu.vienola@oulu.fi

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49524-4_15
224 M.-K. Kekki
other regarding their identities and values. In order the conflicting interests implied
by the differing identities not to emerge into actual social conflicts or deep polariza-
tion, the different social groups must have a way to express their interests and opin-
ions in a peaceful and democratic manner, without feeling their existence being
questioned or even threatened by other members of their society (see Mouffe 2005;
Brandsma 2017). A public dialogue could function as such a channel for expressing
the conflicting interests in a peaceful way.
In Finland, for establishing dialogue in societal discussion, the Finnish Innovation
Fund Sitra has started to foster dialogue by an ongoing project called “Timeout”
(Erätauko) that aims at providing practical dialogue tools. This and other projects of
promoting dialogue in the public sphere can be seen as non-formal and informal
nation-wide adult learning programs that aim at a self-governed democratic citizen-
ship education in practice. This form of citizenship education in the form of
learning-by-doing continues the line of rethinking the possibilities of ethical-
political citizenship education (see Strand’s Introduction). Public dialogue as citi-
zenship education does not take place in the classroom but in the middle of the very
action itself and by the citizens themselves, namely, in the public sphere as actual
citizens aiming at contributing to the ongoing public discussions. These ideas as
part of the Nordic model (see Strand’s Introduction) of non-formal and informal
education, based on the ideas of equality and inclusion, provide an applicable ideal
for other societies.
However, a public dialogue functions only if it is not done by excluding the
social groups whose basic values conflict with those of the other major social
groups, possibly viewed by the latter as ‘irrational’. During the rise of the right-
wing populism in the Western countries in the 2000’s and 2010’, other members of
the society often have had this irrationalizing attitude towards the voters of the
right-wing populists (Mouffe 2018). Indeed, it is not self-evident that a public dia-
logue could truly be inclusive and take place between social groups that differ very
much from each other. There are multiple critical voices questioning the possibility
or at least the reasonability of public dialogue. As is pointed out by one of the cri-
tiques of public dialogue, Chantal Mouffe, in a pluralist society there exist no ratio-
nal solutions for the conflict of interests found out by the means of dialogue (Mouffe
2005). She points to the theory of deliberative democracy, including theorists such
as Jürgen Habermas (1981), Ulrich Beck (1997), or Anthony Giddens (1994), in
which the public dialogue is characterized as proceeding rationally between equal
and autonomous citizens having a common aim of finding consensus. According to
her, this idea does not take into account the power relations, collective identities,
and emotions or ‘passions’ that direct the debate. Rather, as Mouffe formulates it,
this view is ‘post-political’ and leads the whole democracy in problems instead of
establishing it (Mouffe 2005). If Mouffe’s views about dialogue were right, a proj-
ect fostering societal dialogue skills of the citizens would not be a proper program
of non-formal or informal citizenship education at all.
Nevertheless, unlike Mouffe seems to assume, a dialogue does not necessarily
mean a process of rational deliberation aiming at consensus but understanding the
others’ viewpoints even if not agreeing with them. As Katarzyna Jezierska and
15 Challenges and Possibilities of Media-Based Public Dialogue: Misunderstanding… 225
Leszek Koczanowicz suggest (2015), this kind of a ‘radical’ dialogue takes into
account the natural differences of social groups and creates a reciprocal situation
and possibility for equal recognition precisely by not pushing the requirement of
consensus or common theoretical knowledge shared by all groups and parties. This
kind of a dialogue is possible also in the public sphere, if we are to remain the soci-
ety democratic. In the cases where the discussion concerns disagreements caused by
fundamental difference in values, for example, in the question of abortion, or factors
that are part of someone’s identities, finding consensus is not even a sensible option.
The possibility of public dialogue in democratic societies arises from the very
nature of democracy itself. As Mouffe herself states, a functioning democracy
requires what she calls a “conflictual consensus” on the ethico-political values of
liberty and equality for all with dissent about their interpretation. This is because a
democracy cannot treat those who put into question its very basic institutions as
legitimate adversaries (Mouffe 2005). This means that even if it is not possible to find
a consensus about some fundamental factors in our lives, we must be able to conduct
a functioning society. Mouffe’s point comes close to the Rawlsian idea of reasonable
reciprocity (here Mouffe is closer to Rawls than she admits even if their political-
ontological views are different), according to which citizens must be ready to pro-
pose and act according to shared standards of co-operation, given that other citizens
also do (see Rawls 2005, p. 49; Leiviskä Chap. 8). The Rawlsian idea of reasonable-
ness necessary for the very existence of any democratic regime also includes a “bur-
dens of judgment” (p. 54), referring to citizens’ awareness that different, equally
reasonable responses can be given to complex ethical and political issues from the
standpoints of different doctrines. Accordingly, as Anniina Leiviskä notes, reason-
able citizens recognize that they are not justified to discriminate against or exclude
from participation other reasonable citizens (Rawls 2005; see Leiviskä Chap. 8).1
This means that the existing democratic society already does require some
common basis of shared democratic values, which implies both the possibility of
and the need for a public dialogue for discussing the different interpretations of the
constitutive values of the society. In order to remain democratic without
universalizing the values and views of one group in the society, a functioning public
dialogue should include a real possibility of having chosen between clearly
differentiated alternatives and being able to discuss those alternatives (Mouffe
2005). That is, a dialogue between different social groups must be able to express
the agonistic character of the society, experienced as divided in ‘us’ and ‘them’ but
not as divided in ‘friends’ and ‘enemies’ as in an antagonistic, i.e., violently
conflicting society (see Mouffe 2005; Brandsma 2017).
In contrast to the Habermasian view, the ‘radical’ definition of dialogue takes the
differences between social groups into account and creates a reciprocal situation
and possibility for equal recognition precisely by not pushing the requirement of
consensus or common theoretical knowledge shared by all groups and parties.
1
The idea of reasonability does not refer to the Habermasian idea of rationality but is the very
condition of a dialogue, that is, the reciprocal respect and allowance of disagreement on the
interpretation and realization of the shared basic values.
226 M.-K. Kekki
Unlike in the theories of deliberative democracy, the dialogue as a mere act aimed
at understanding others does not require refusing to acknowledge the agonistic
dimension that is claimed to be constitutive of the political or societal sphere (see
Mouffe 2005; Laclau and Mouffe 2001). Instead, adopting the idea of dialogue does
not yet require adopting the ontological assumptions of post-structuralism as in
Mouffe’s theory, neither those of deliberative theory in Habermas’ work. As is
shown in Democracy in Dialogue, Dialogue in Democracy: The Politics of Dialogue
in Theory and Practice (ed. Koczanowicz and Jezierska 2015), dialogue as a prac-
tice can be developed and adopted without taking a stand on the ontological ques-
tions about the constituents of the society. Leading a dialogue does not necessarily
mean overcoming the division of ‘we’ and ‘them’ but rather recognizing the divi-
sion and encountering the ‘they’ as ‘you’ in discussion (Dybel 2015; see Jezierska
2011, p. 211). As Bart Brandsma (2017) has shown, the agonistic thought pattern of
‘us and them’ is in itself neutral and present everywhere. Thus, for the current pur-
poses, we can leave the ontological questions behind Mouffe’s and Habermas’ theo-
ries untouched and concentrate on how radical public dialogue can function as a
means to recognition and to a more just democratic society (as is discussed by
Teemu Hanhela in the Chap. 7 on Honneth).
How is a public dialogue to be promoted, then? In the everyday, public discussion
and thus also public dialogue take place in the media, which adds some challenges
to the dialogue, as the audience might be very large and the persons contributing to
the dialogue often do not meet other parties in their physical presence. However, as
the Head of Audience Dialogue at Finnish Broadcasting Company ‘Yle’ Sami
Koivisto has repeatedly emphasized in his posts in Yle’s website Näkökulma (https://
yle.fi/aihe/yleisradio/nakokulma), a dialogue, especially a public dialogue, is not an
easy task and requires some effort but is, nevertheless, doable. We just must be
aware of the challenges and the ways to deal with those challenges.
In the sections that follow, I provide an insight of the two central problems of
public dialogue in the media that arise from the pluralistic nature of contemporary
democratic societies: these are stereotyping and deep misunderstanding. Based on
the framework of contemporary philosophical research of dialogue, this chapter con-
tributes to the discussion by the means of analyzing the classical phenomenological
investigations of Edmund Husserl, Alfred Schutz, and Edith Stein, a fruitful resource
not yet utilized in the current dialogue discussion. In the end, I propose a self-reflec-
tive attitude as a key to successful public dialogue in pluralist democratic societies.
roblems and Possibilities of the Media-Based Public Dialogue

P
in Northern Societies
For the media-based public dialogue to be possible, the reciprocal communication

and the will to mutual understanding necessary for dialogue must be possible to
emerge by encountering others via media. However, the temporal distance between
the moments of contributions to the discussion together with the social differences
of the discussants increase the possibility of problems for dialogue such as misun-
derstanding and stereotyping. As recent media theoretical research suggests, we
encounter more different persons via digital media than in our face-to-face encoun-
ters (Dubois and Blank 2018). According to other recent social-psychological
media studies, while activities in social media might strengthen our own social
identity, the digital media also might result in prejudicing and stereotyping others,
instead of coming to understand their actual views and feelings (Spears and
Postmes 2015). This is because, due to the volume and the speed of the contribu-
tions to the discussions, we might not be able to engage in deep discussions with
those who do not share our views, as the views, opinions, and even arguments in
the discussion flow in a massive information flood. For making sense of the public
discussions in the society, it might be easier to think of others and judge what they
say by the means of pre-given categories in one’s social circles, possibly including
prejudice and stereotypes of others, resulting in misinterpreting what another per-
son coming from a different social group means. For example, instead of really
trying to understand a person contributing to the large discussion about feminism,
it might be easier to quickly scan the terminology the person uses and the social
categories the person belongs to and to judge the person’s contribution based on
those factors external to her actual point. Thus, while the challenges of misunder-
standing and stereotyping are not characteristic to a media-based discussion only,
they are increased by the magnitude and the speed of the media-based public
discussion.
In the following, I will first discuss the problem of misunderstanding and then
the problem of stereotyping other groups, on the level of the constitution of our
experience of normality. I will do this based on the Husserlian concepts of ‘home-
world’ (Heimwelt) and the concept of ‘types’ elaborated by Schutz. In the end,
based on the Husserlian idea of reflection, I will propose the self-reflective attitude
to provide a way to have a successful public dialogue by becoming aware of one’s
idea of normality. The idea of self-reflection is relatively absent in the current dia-
logue discussion.
Misunderstanding Others Based on one’s ‘Homeworld’
It is very human not to be aware of the particularity of one’s way of viewing the
world, but to assume one’s views and beliefs to be the right and ‘normal’ ones (a
similar point about living in the everyday is also made by Heidegger, analyzed by
Kirsten Hyldgaard in the Chap. 17). in which we live and which affects our way to
view the world and ourselves is what Husserl’s work on ‘homeworld’ and ‘normality’
(Husserl 2008). For example, a homeworld can consist of one or a few cities from a
certain perspective including certain groups of people, such as Stockholm, Malmö
and Copenhagen from the perspective of educated young adults. A homeworld
consists thus of material as well as of ideal factors: it is a geographical and
sociocultural environment. Because our homeworld is all that what we experience
228 M.-K. Kekki
as normal, the way in which our homeworld structure our everyday experience is
invisible to us. Therefore, we do not come to see the foreign homeworlds as an
‘alienworld’, equal to our homeworld, as is suggested by Husserl (see Husserl
2008), but we rather judge others coming from different normalities as if they came
from our homeworld. For example, an educated young adult from Stockholm might
not be aware of the perspective that her social-cultural environment provides and
that makes her to perceive the views of an older person from the countryside from a
certain perspective. By not understanding the context the other person is coming
from, the young adult from Stockholm might easily misunderstand what the other
actually wants to express.
Misunderstanding those coming from a different homeworld is thus partly caused
by the way we understand the world. Understanding others is based on familiarity,
that is, on something that we can associate with what we know already. This pattern
is related to a phenomenon called ‘typification’: our homeworld consists of loose
categories by which we make sense of what surrounds us, called ‘types’ (see Husserl
1952; Schutz 1971). We gain our types through our everyday experiences, relations
with others and the culture in which we live. This means that we can only associate
objects, situations and others around us based on what is normal for us.
Misunderstanding others is thus caused by typification, but in the case of misunder-
standing, the relevant types we project on others are false: we think we understand
something because there seems to be something familiar to us, but we do not notice
that the context of the original message has been different.
In our everyday communication based on our normalities and typicalities, the
general assumption of reciprocal perspectives leads us to the apprehension of
objects and their aspects known by us as if known by everyone (Schutz 1982). Such
knowledge is conceived to be objective and independent of our personal perspec-
tives, typified as ‘common-sense’. In the everyday, it is often assumed that others
perceive the world approximately in the same way as we ourselves do, which in the
most everyday cases is quite right but is problematic when assumed also of other
social groups, communities, or societies. In our everyday experiences we often just
take for granted that others understand what we say and vice versa. When they come
up with something that we disagree with or just find odd, we rather find the fault in
the other person (or maybe in ourselves) than in the difference between our
homeworlds.
Of course, we also tend to misunderstand those living in the same homeworld but
these misunderstandings are relatively easy to solve. A common homeworld pro-
vides a common ground for interaction, whereas coming from different homeworlds
even within the same society, assuming that the society is pluralistic and divided,
might mean that our experiences of a particular object have completely different
meanings for persons coming from different homeworlds. According to Stein, in the
same homeworld, we associate the words and concepts with the same contexts or
things, and we have some sort of common understanding of how to behave and what
to expect from others (Stein 1917). When we lack this common ground for under-
standing each other, we lack a common context and a common language even if we
used the same linguistic terms.
This is why creating “a common language” through a discussion aiming at

understanding the other’s views is what a dialogue coach and philosopher Kai
Alhanen has proposed as one of the ways towards a successful dialogue (see Alhanen
2019). In other words, what is needed is, as Moffe has put it, an explication of the
shared symbolic space for discussion and a basic consensus of the grounding ethico-
political principles in the society (Mouffe 2005). In this way, a space in which dif-
ferent homeworlds meet can be created. This is crucial, because, as Schutz has
argued, reciprocal understanding of some kind and communication presuppose a
minimal “community of knowledge” and a common surrounding world (Schutz
1975, p. 72). In the media-based public dialogue, this cannot be done in a face-to-
face situation equally between all the participants but must be taken care of by those
who are responsible for creating the media and the public sphere. Luckily, in times
of the more interactive digital media consisting of the social media, such as Twitter,
and the traditional media, these persons can be anyone who are willing to participate
in the public dialogue and contribute to the public discussion, as all the users co-
create the digital media (see Burbules 2016). When there is a core of familiarity in
what others communicate, every new grasp of their experiences, ideas, or feelings,
etc., without pre-given categories as prejudices and stereotypes, provides us further
possibilities of association and mutual understanding. However, the creation of
‘common language’ can be done only when becoming aware of the differences
between our homeworlds. I will come back to this in the section “The Self-Reflective
Attitude in a Radical Public Dialogue” of the self-reflective attitude.
Stereotyping Others from Other Homeworlds
As mentioned above, stereotyping is something we do passively for making sense

of our social environment, in the same way than we typify everything we perceive
around us both in our social and physical surroundings. Roughly put, typifying
means making sense of what we encounter, either things, ourselves or others. In
order to make sense of the world around us, we need to perceive things and persons
around us as being of a certain kind, as belonging to certain kinds of loose and
vague, often non-explicated categories.
Typification is based on our former experiences and our sociocultural
environment, i.e. what others tell us (Schutz 1967, 1971). In Schutz’ words, the
“constructs of typified knowledge are of a highly socialized structure” (Schutz
1971, p. 13). We acquire our types from our homeworld and typify everything based
on these types, as they constitute the ‘normality’ for us. Therefore, we also typify
others from the perspective of our homeworld. This holds also for understanding
others around us, both as groups and individuals, near or far: we must form a
construct of their typical ways of behavior, a typical pattern of their underlying
motives and typical attitudes of their personality types, in order to make sense of
their actions (Schutz 1971; see Gurwitsch 1975). If others come from another
homeworld, but we are not aware of it, we still typify them as if they were in ours.
230 M.-K. Kekki
In other words, we expect something of them based on our own normality. This is
particularly common if the society is assumed to be homogenous, as is often done
in the Nordic countries.
However, if a social group lives in an everyday environment different from ours
and we have never actually met any of them, we have no direct experiences of them.
In the Schutzian terms, this means that we have never met them as ‘consociates’ but
only as ‘contemporaries’ (see Schutz 1967, 1971). The first term refers to those who
we meet personally, even if only for a short moment, and who thus exist for us as
particular persons. The latter refers to those who only exist for us as being part of
our society but as being anonymously ‘out there’, without ever meeting them in
person. If we have never met someone from a certain social group, that group of
people remains a mere group of ‘contemporaries’ to us, and thus our types of them
are not based on our experiences of them but on the information that we get about
them from others around us.
According to Schutz, types related to persons admit of varying degrees of
‘anonymity’, i.e. being detached from the experience of that particular person
(Schutz 1971).2 As he argues, in increasing anonymization of the typifying construct
the general types supersede the subjective personal types based on the experiences
of a particular person. In complete anonymization, the individuals become
interchangeable and the general types refer to “whoever” defined as typical by the
construct. We no more can perceive a person included in the group as a particular
and unique person, but as ‘anyone’ of that group, interchangeable with anyone else
of ‘them’. Schutz calls this the situation of “increasing anonymity of the relationship
among contemporaries” (p. 17). If there is a social group of people we have never
met but have gained impersonal information of them only through our sociocultural
sphere, we construe an image of them as something we assume to know but about
which we actually have no idea. Thus, they appear to us as a group defined by
something that we believe dominates their personality and actions. If it is commonly
believed in our homeworld that a group of people, e.g. a minority or a political
group very different from one’s own, is of a certain kind, we might assume that
those traits are something that every one of them has as a defining trait in their lives.
If they are not part of our everyday social encounters, we do not associate them with
the experiences we have of our lives, that is, we do not perceive them as casual
human beings and unique persons different from each other but as a group that
differs from an ambiguous ‘us’ as a whole.
The problem with stereotypes is that they are like any other types by which we
make sense of our experiences. The difference is that we have never experienced the
lives of those we stereotype but we anyway need to make sense of them in some
way, and thus we rely on the small bits of information we have gained via media, be
it social, digital, or traditional media. When not being aware of perceiving others
2
Here I refer to Schutz’ concept of anonymity that differs from the one that Husserl uses. For
Schutz, anonymity takes place within our normality whereas for Husserl, anonymity refers to total
unknownness which can even not be known as foreign.
by stereotypes, we view the stereotyped others not as unique individuals but

superficially as representatives of the groups we assume they belong to. We thus
think we know who they are, while they actually have a different homeworld with
different social environment, views, personal histories and even values, even if geo-
graphically they would live near us in the same country or in the same city.
Viewing others through stereotypes challenges our possibilities of public
dialogue. Viewing them as representatives of their stereotyped group and not as
particular persons just coming from a social group different of ours strongly affects
the way we see them and interpret their contributions to the discussion in the media.
In other words, when stereotyping others, we project into their words something
they might not really mean, or we are not able to understand them as deeply as our
peers in our own homeworld.3
However, the problem of stereotyping might even resolve itself if we are willing
to engage in dialogue. When encountering others reciprocally in person (either
physically or in a media-based discussion), they become our consociates instead of
mere contemporaries, and thereby we have the possibility to view them as individu-
als and not as a mere group of anonymous representatives of that group (cf. Schutz
1971, 1975). This is because we can encounter others as other persons also through
media while we experience them through something they have produced, e.g. vlog
or Twitter posts, and can thereby gain an idea of their experiences (see Stein 1917).
In other words, while the digital media has increased some risks of public discus-
sions, the various media platforms especially in social media also provide us the
possibilities to come to reciprocal contacts with one another. This might require
more effort in a media-based public dialogue than in a private dialogue face-to-face
but it is nevertheless possible. For this, as I suggest in the next section, we need a
self-reflective attitude.
The Self-Reflective Attitude in a Radical Public Dialogue
As the tools for a successful dialogue, the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra proposes
reflection on the participants’ roles, on the methods of the discussion and on the
practical matters such as the place and time for the discussion. However, what is
lacking is self-reflection related to one’s social environment and personal history
influenced by that environment. The latter might be difficult to do in an ongoing
dialogue where we immediately answer to each other and thus do not always feel
that we have the moment for self-reflection. Nevertheless, in a dialogue that takes
place in the media, self-reflection is necessary. This is because understanding others
from different normalities requires a different attitude than understanding someone
3
This is a problem especially in the public dialogue where we do not have the possibility to see
each other’s bodily, e.g. facial, reactions and do not have the possibility to immediately respond to
others and correct their misunderstandings.
232 M.-K. Kekki
living in the same homeworld with us. This means that we must be more aware of
where we are coming from in order not to misinterpret others or to say something
that undermines the experiences of other social groups. In the media-based public
dialogue, there often are very many participants from different social backgrounds,
and while we cannot mutually correct each other’s misinterpretations and stereo-
types all the time because of the magnitude of the discussion, we must be careful
from the very beginning with our judgements and reactions concerning the others.
In the following, I will clarify the idea of the self-reflective attitude, based on the
Husserlian idea of reflection.
According to Husserl, the point of the reflective attitude is to make us aware of
our experiences, that is, to move from mere having of conscious experiences
(Bewußthaben) to making oneself aware of one’s experiences (Bewußtmachen)
(Husserl 1956, p. 262).4 By becoming aware of our experiences themselves and
their content, we take distance to our naïve assumptions. For Husserl, most of the
everyday we are “living in the acts” of our activities and are directed merely toward
the states of affairs being brought about by these activities, not toward these activi-
ties themselves (Husserl 1956). By turning to the reflective attitude we no longer are
immersed and carried along by our naïve assumptions; In Schutz’ words, “I step out
of the stream and look at it, or, as Dewey expresses it, I have to stop and think”
(Schutz and Embree 2011, 139).5 By turning towards our own ways of experiencing
others and the world, we have the possibility to become aware of our perspectives
and, at least to some degree, of the contingencies of our homeworld.
This kind of a reflective attitude is crucial for a successful dialogue, because a
‘radical’ dialogue aimed at understanding others requires an awareness of one’s
own perspectives and viewpoints (this is not always required if the goal of the dis-
cussion is merely to find consensus) as well as of the difference between one’s own
‘homeworld’ and those of the others’. By becoming aware of one’s own homeworld
as one normality among many, we have the possibility of coming to understand the
differences and the similarities of our viewpoints and perspectives, and thereby of
coming to the point where a dialogue is possible.
Our homeworld and types are not created in the present but are the result of our
whole lives. For Husserl, the general principle of the reflective attitude is therefore
to grasp the meaning of one’s past experiences in the present (Husserl 1976, §6).
This means moving away from taking information, values, etc. merely as they
appear to us in the present, to disclosing the various and manifold experiences and
social relations that have led to the present way of experiencing the world (Husserl
1939, §24a). We are historical beings, which means that our experiences are
4
The Husserlian idea of reflection comes close also to the Deweyan model of reflective thinking.
5
Husserl distinguishes the reflective attitude in the natural attitude and the one in the
phenomenological attitude starting with the act of epoché, i.e., the bracketing of all positing of
existence and reasonably questionable claims (Husserl 1956, p. 259). In the context of public
dialogue, I concentrate merely on the former because public discussion and thus also public
dialogue take place in our natural attitude of everyday.
‘sedimented’ including ideas and expectations based on our previous experiences.

For Husserl, this means that we bear our tradition and both personal and cultural
history in our daily lives (Husserl 1976, §15). By reflecting on our present experi-
ences and ideas, we are able to realize the types and assumptions in how we experi-
ence others. We thereby realize that much of our knowledge is socially derived and
distributed (Schutz and Embree 2011, p. 140). That is, most of our ideas about the
world is based on information that we have got from others or through their work in
a certain socio-cultural context.
In addition to disclosing the sediments of our experiences, self-reflective attitude
also makes explicit our evaluations. According to Husserl, by turning to the reflec-
tive attitude we can disclose our acts of evaluation and find out that the evaluative
predicates, such as “nice”, “beautiful”, “bad”, etc. are not found in the objects (in
the widest sense) themselves but rather in our way of perceiving those objects
(Husserl 1952, §6). By becoming aware of the distinction between the object, e.g.,
other persons, and our evaluative acts, e.g., experiencing others as interesting, we
become aware of the contingency of our evaluations: since the value of the object is
not in the object itself, the object could also be evaluated otherwise. In the context
of the public dialogue, this means that when becoming aware of our evaluative acts
on others we can reflect on those acts and detach our evaluation of others and the
others themselves. By taking a self-critical reflective attitude we can thus turn
towards our own evaluative acts and presuppositions and find out what assumptions
and evaluations are unjustified, i.e., not based on the communication with the other
but on our projections on others.
Analogously with becoming a self-conscious personal ‘I’ only in relation to the
other, we become aware of our typifications, normalities, and assumptions only
against another homeworld that we encounter as embodied in the others coming
from a foreign homeworld. This means that what enables us to adopt the self-critical
reflective attitude is the communication with others. Dialogue as a form of discus-
sion or debate is hermeneutical by nature: we come to understand others little-by-
little in the course of the dialogue, and having the dialogue in the first place opens
up the possibility to encounter others by having ourselves reflective attitudes
towards our presuppositions and assumptions. Thereby the dialogue can become
more and more successful in its course. As Aron Gurwitsch has argued, in order the
social relations to function, we must understand each other and interpret the objects
around us in a similar way, at least to the extent to which such similarity or even
identity is required for practical purposes of cooperation and collaboration
(Gurwitsch 1975, p. XXII). In the course of a dialogue, this common basis for com-
munication is created as ‘a common language’ in the sense that we can come to
realize the relevant linguistic terms and manners that we use differently and associ-
ate with different things.
In the media-based communication, especially in the public sphere where the
discussion has always already begun, a ‘common language’ cannot be created in the
beginning of the discussion but can be improved through the reflection of every
234 M.-K. Kekki
contributor when they receive others’ contributions and contribute themselves to

the discussion. In order not to misunderstand others, we need to reflect on our own
stereotypes and the ways we perceive the others’ work as well as on the terminology
with which we answer them. This means having a self-critical attitude towards our
own presuppositions, in order to ‘create a common language’ by every contributor
in their quarter. In other words, we should reflect on how to contribute to the discus-
sion in the way that would not cause misunderstandings from others’ part, based on
how they have contributed to the discussion (what terms they have used, how to
interpret their message in a friendly way, with what do we associate those persons
with and based on what, etc.).
In addition, there is also an ethical dimension in the self-reflective attitude. For
Husserl, critical thinking and responsibility require one another. The critical reflec-
tion aims at disclosing the presuppositions and uncertainties in our thinking caused
by the sedimentation of our experiences (Husserl 1976, §15). Reflecting on our own
uncertain, i.e., reasonably questionable, assumptions means to critically examine
our ideas about others and the world in more general. The critical reflective attitude
is thus necessary for a fruitful dialogue: in a dialogue, we need to take response of
how we encounter others, and in order to minimize the risk of misunderstanding we
must reflect on our assumptions about those with whom we are communicating. In
order to keep up the dialogue the parties must take responsibility for their own ideas
about others in order not to misunderstand them or express themselves in the way
that would cause misunderstandings or be insulting.
Conclusion
In this chapter, I have discussed the problems of misunderstanding and stereotyping

in the media-based public dialogue. Based on the work of Jezierska (2011) and
Koczanowicz and Jezierska (2015), I have defined dialogue as ‘radical’, aiming at
mutual understanding between social groups but not necessarily leading to or even
directed at consensus or shared theoretical knowledge. In order to lead a public
dialogue, for being able to understand each other, we should create a common basis
for the discussion, especially if we are living in different ‘homeworlds’.
I have suggested that we can decrease the two problems of public dialogue,
misunderstanding and stereotyping, by adopting a self-critical reflective attitude
towards our own ideas about others we encounter in the media. This attitude is
momentary and a break from our naïve everyday attitude towards the world and oth-
ers. In our everyday lives, we often assume that others know or at least should know
the same things that we do, and therefore in the everyday we may not consider oth-
ers to live in a different normality. By acquiring the self-critical reflective attitude,
we can remain open towards others and not unjustly project our own assumptions
and prejudices on them but instead learn about and from them little-by-little.
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Minna-Kerttu Kekki (b. 1992) is a doctoral researcher at the University of Oulu. Her research
interests include ontological questions of democracy, social encounters, constitution of experience,
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Learning through Media-Based Public Discussion: A Phenomenological Analysis (2020).
Chapter 16
The Educative Process and Its Relation
to Truth, Knowledge, Culture
and Critique: Epistemological
and Metaphysical Premises for Formation
Jørgen Huggler
Abstract Education without a commitment to truth seems to be meaningless and

raises serious questions about its legitimacy. Education is a cultural process depen-
dent on and transferring acknowledged values. However, because we need to distin-
guish between what is true and what is recognised, reflection on epistemological
and foundational issues is needed in relation to education. Thus, epistemological
questions about truth and communication, and metaphysical questions about knowl-
edge and reality, need to be raised. I draw on discussions in classical, modern epis-
temology and theories of truth, and of their relation to educational issues. In
addition, the interdependency of culture and education and their mutual relations
come up as an issue of principal importance for the foundation of both of these
relata. My reasoning relates to the philosophy of education developed by the
German philosopher Richard Hönigswald. Lastly, I discuss why truth and critique
matter for education and human life today, including ethical and political formation,
in relation to two cases, viz. the algorithms and data targeting of internet search
technology, and, secondly, the special problem of propaganda and disinformation.
Keywords Philosophy of education · Epistemology · Metaphysics · Culture · Data

search machines · Disinformation
J. Huggler (*)
Danish School of Education, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
e-mail: johu@edu.au.dk

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49524-4_16
238 J. Huggler
Introduction
The ‘death of epistemology’ seems to have become a commonplace in philosophy

of education. Gettier problems, the failure of attempts of “Letztbegründung”, and
Rortyian pragmatism seem to have undermined the reputation of this formerly so
dominant philosophical discipline (Williams 2010). However, my contribution
argues that philosophy of education without classical epistemological and meta-
physical reflection is blinding itself, in the sense of being limited in relation to
essential problems about the general philosophical foundations of education as well
as to what concerns actual urgent educational tasks.
Education and Epistemology
In a sense, my reasoning here indirectly attempts to elaborate on Bertrand Russell’s

seminal distinction between ‘knowledge by acquaintance’ and ‘knowledge by
description’ (Russell 2015, pp. 40ff.). The distinction between these kinds of empir-
ical knowledge becomes relevant due to the important distinction in philosophy of
education between first-hand knowledge and communicated knowledge. However,
my primary focus is on the connection between three different issues: formation
(“Bildung”, understood broadly, i.e. also as education), cognition and metaphysics.
Methodically, the three issues may be kept separated within different disciplines.
Nevertheless, this connection is not an external aggregation; it is a significant con-
nection that may help to illuminate the three ingredients. Formation requires the
idea of transmitting or initiation in (true) knowledge, although if it is to be legiti-
mate it also presupposes taste, empathy, morals and political understanding. Thus,
education has to be committed to truth, although it essentially is to pass on a subject
matter underlying historical changeability as well as fallibility. True knowledge is
indeed a problematic matter. The many traditional problems of epistemology con-
cern not only the validity, but also the origin of knowledge, as well as its possibility,
limits, forms and the methods leading to it. To all these problems comes the ques-
tion of the nature of truth (Runes 1942, pp. 94–96). From an educational perspec-
tive, the dependency on contexts, historical situation and the risk of error is of great
importance.
The Danish philosopher of education, Knud Grue-Sørensen (1904–1992), was
the most prominent twentieth century representative of a dominant rationalistic and
critical Norwegian-Danish enlightenment tradition in philosophy of education,
going back to Ludvig Holberg (1684–1754) and Niels Treschow (1751–1833). This
tradition unites philosophy, psychology, and pedagogical theory (cf. Winther-Jensen
1989, 2018; Oettingen 2006). In his book on “General pedagogics”, Almen pæda-
gogik (Grue-Sørensen 1974, pp. 86–97), Grue-Sørensen discussed the requirements
for knowledge, such as clarity, and the three classic demands of justified true belief
(JTB) as known from authors like Ayer (1956, p. 34) and Chisholm (1957, p. 16). A
16 The Educative Process and Its Relation to Truth, Knowledge, Culture and Critique… 239
requirement for the claim that a person has knowledge of something, let us call it p,
as opposed to just believing p, is (1) that he believes (i.e. is convinced) that p is true;
(2) that p in fact is true (i.e. that it really is, as asserted); and (3) that the person has
sufficient reasons to believe p. Grue-Sørensen emphasises that pedagogy cannot live
up to truthfulness without much uncertainty as to adequate reasoning and knowl-
edge (Grue-Sørensen 1974, p. 89; Huggler 2018). It seems to be a working condi-
tion: a teacher cannot have personal evidence for everything he teaches the students.
The teacher must build on the credibility of handbooks and textbooks. These are
often as good as his own experience, even when the results of the school experi-
ments obviously differ from the textbooks or fail to match the theoretical outcome.
In fact, this is a case for educational reflection and about learning how to reconcile
immediate experience and experience enlightened by theory.
The epistemological issues become metaphysical because the concept of truth
itself brings the question of which reality it is to which a piece of knowledge refers,
and how our access to it is dependent on that reality. This last question concerns the
structure of the knowledge-situation: what is the relation between the subjective and
the objective components? (Runes 1942, pp. 94–96). The question of consciousness
and its relation to a consciousness-independent reality has metaphysical as well as
methodological implications for education. How do we get to know the truth, and
what is it that can be passed on to others through teaching? What is the relation
between ‘knowledge by acquaintance’ and ‘knowledge by description’, to use
Bertrand Russell’s terminology? (Russell 2015, pp. 40ff.). How can teachers and
students relate to the uncertainty inherent in the knowledge being communicated?
It is an educational goal to handle and relate to uncertainty, and the need for this
is not declining. Discussions of the ‘justified true belief’ theories have shown, in
addition to arguments against the definition of the issue ‘knowledge’, that it is dif-
ficult to reach a conclusion with reasoned knowledge (Gettier 1963). Some episte-
mologists have, therefore, chosen to differentiate between different degrees of
reasoned knowledge. For example, Roderick Chisholm distinguishes in his book
Theory of Knowledge between: (1) if what you know about is true, (2) if it is evident
to a person (directly or indirectly), and (3) if it is reasonable for a person to accept.
I.e. the more you move from evidence to acceptability, the more the truth concep-
tion moves towards coherence: accepting something because it is consistent with
what you also accept (Chisholm 1966, pp. 18, 22, 41–44, & 111–113).
Grue-Sørensen’s involvement of clarity, and the question of the school teachers’
dependence on taking much for granted, implies a sense of truth that, at least in the
case of imaginary issues that do not “have a clear chance of being in harmony with
[a reality]” (Grue-Sørensen 1974, p. 92) envisages the coherence of assertions rather
than correspondence. Nevertheless, the ‘justified true belief’ aspects and correspon-
dence theory remain basic, also for Grue-Sørensen. Pedagogy needs concepts of
knowledge and truth. Teachers and textbooks should be assessed according to
whether the statements they make are substantiated, and supplied with sufficient
evidence, and whether the meaning is clear (Grue-Sørensen 1974, p. 91). Here,
“present knowledge” and “learning by rote” can mean a superficial knowledge lack-
ing connection and understanding.
240 J. Huggler
The consideration within recent social epistemology defending an epistemology

of testimony seems here to be relevant, although the overall discussion seems
highly occupied in defending a position in disagreement with epistemological
foundationalism. The discussion has an interesting educational point that in gen-
eral we base our convictions on testimony, i.e. very often from communication
from our fellows. As it has been pointed out by recent social epistemology, know-
ing due to testimony is the norm rather than the exceptional case (McDowell 1998;
Bakhurst 2013). As pointed out by Grue-Sørensen, this issue – old in philosophy of
education – is a question about the balance between personal experience and com-
municated information. Teaching must aim to provide the right balance between –
and especially the right connection between – first-hand and second-hand
knowledge, between knowledge by experience and linguistic dissemination (Grue-
Sørensen 1974, p. 94).
As mentioned in the beginning of this article, the discussions of the tripartite
“justified true belief” doctrine have already made clear that attempts of justification
seldom come to a definitive evidence.
The question of the relationship between consciousness and the consciousness-
independent reality is sometimes simply called the subject-object problem (Adorno
1997). It is impossible to separate the two parts completely. Rather, they appear to
be components of a common structure or to be dialectically linked, as some would
say. Neither the object nor the subject is pure and unchangeable, both being the
products of historical processes (Horkheimer 1970, p. 22; Adorno 1972, p. 81). It
seems me to be worrying if this historical dependency of knowing leads us to give
up the search for validity. Surely that was not the intention of Adorno when he
rejected the foundational project of epistemology (Adorno 1972). However, the
term “independence of consciousness” has to be taken with a pinch of salt; it signi-
fies just a philosophical idea or perhaps only a philosophical fiction about some-
thing “independent of” consciousness. The objective component can neither be
proven nor be given – as an object – otherwise than for a subject through specific
approaches. On the other hand, the idea of something unified seems to be an indis-
pensable reference when you consider that the different approaches and what
appears through them, in one way or another, are the different appearances or phe-
nomena of the same object. The object – when, on the one hand, separated from and,
on the other hand, considered in relation to consciousness – is both ‘Eins’ (one, i.e.
unity) and ‘Auch’ (also, i.e. multiple), to use Hegel’s terminology from the
Phenomenology of Spirit, chapter II (Hegel 1980, p. 73). However, this raises a
question about on which side we should locate the unity, and on which the multi-
plicity. The answer may turn out to be “on both”.
Richard Hönigswald (1875–1947) was a much-respected German philosopher
and a prominent representative for the German tradition of “Allgemeine Pädagogik”
(general pedagogics) (Uljens 1998, p. 47; Oettingen 2006, pp. 263–274).
Hönigswald was professor in Breslau (Wroclaw) and later on in Munich until
1933, where he, being of Jewish family, was compulsory retired by the Nazi
regime. He emigrated to Switzerland and to the United States in 1939. After the
World War II his works were forgotten. Today, a growing interest for his work has
appeared, even in a Nordic context, in particular for his contributions to epistemol-

ogy and philosophy of education.
Hönigswald’s epistemological focus on the correlation between “Ist-
Bestimmtheit” (is-determination, the determination of the object) and “Ich-
Bestimmtheit” (I-determination, the determination of the subject) appears to give a
two-sided answer to the question above. It concerns a multifaceted understanding of
educational relations between a scientifically acquired knowledge of the world and
the learning subject being a part of the world (cf. Hönigswald 1997a, p. 137;
Hönigswald 1997b, p. 230). A prominent interpreter of Hönigswald’s philosophy,
Wolfdietrich Schmied-Kowarzik, has visualised this theory of knowledge by an
ellipse with two correlated focal points. Each of the focal points relate to the whole
ellipse, but only in a unilateral way. As such, the Ist-Bestimmtheit marks out the
being of determinateness in the interdependency of method and object. The Ich-
Bestimmtheit marks out the self-presence of the subject and the presence for it of
something experienced in the interdependency of subjectivity and facticity of expe-
rience. Only in their correlation can these two focal perspectives define the main
problem of epistemology (Schmied-Kowarzik 1997, p. 22).
For instance, a crystallographer and an art historian can, dependent on their
different approaches, have deeply divergent knowledge of a sapphire gemstone.
Nevertheless, they are describing the same object. Where it (1) doesn’t seem pos-
sible to thematise consciousness and the unity of divergent knowledge without its
relation to the object, (2) consciousness seems to belong to a completely different
kind of phenomenological or even ontological reality than the physical one. We
could, I imagine, not have any divergent knowledge without the unity of the con-
sciousness. Some thinkers, such as Kant, want to point out that consciousness about
itself, a self-relation, has to be a companion to all unity of consciousness, and of
consciousness in general – both the momentary presence and consciousness persis-
tent in relation to time and to experience. This “transcendental apperception” is,
according to Kant, a transcendental condition for the possibility of experience.
However, phenomenologists and others, like Hönigswald, concerned about body
and about life, or concerned with the specific human subjectivity, point out that
consciousness, as a centre of impression and experience (Erlebnismittelpunkt),
must be concrete in a body and thus subject to all real physical, biological, psycho-
logical and historical conditions (Hönigswald 1997a, pp. 46, & 81f.). Both of these
positions appear to have legitimate points, although the phenomenological stance
definitely transgresses the Kantian point of view, where the transcendental condi-
tions for experience are strictly separated from factual experience. Thus, Hönigswald
sets forward another conception of the transcendental, viz. the whole correlative
structure of object and subject (Hönigswald 1997a, 70ff.).
I find this correlation not only central for an understanding of the subject-object
problem, but in addition, for a deeper philosophical and phenomenological under-
standing of what is going on in education.
The phenomenological approach seems to be important for education. Regarding
teaching and experience, body-phenomenology points to the time perspectives con-
nected with the concrete subjectivity: (1) it takes time to learn and understand and
242 J. Huggler
(2) learning and understanding are situated historically. A temporal perspective is,
in general, central to every understanding of objects and of consciousness, and it is,
in particular, important for the processes of education, training, study and learning.
This raises a question about the difference between knowledge in general and edu-
cation in particular. Therefore, I will now turn to Richard Hönigswald’s philosophy
of education (Hönigswald 1918).
The Interdependency of Culture and Education
Hönigswald combines Immanuel Kant’s enlightenment understanding of the

progressive relation between generations with Friedrich Schleiermacher’s romantic
emphasis on cultural transmission. Not only does it take time to form and to be
formed, but also, education is a function of time and of being in time. In principle,
it is important for an unlimited future (Hönigswald 1918, pp. 39ff., & 49), as sug-
gested in the notion of pedagogy as a generational relationship in the great progress
of enlightenment, known from Kant’s Lectures on education (Kant 1998, p. 697).
The second part of Hönigswald’s answer concern the relation between validity and
education. He writes:
No task is more important for an academic pedagogy than this meaning [of a pedagogical
relationship]; no question penetrating deeper into its essence than that about the structure of
all pedagogical activity itself and the unrejectable demands, implied by such activity.
Which conditions, which system of conditions must be considered fulfilled, where peda-
gogical influence exists as a fact? We already know it, this system of conditions. It can
briefly be summarised as the mapping [Abbildung] of validity-values [Geltungswerten] on
time. But what does that mean? It is meant to express the relationship of what is taught –
and the same applies to the substrates of education – to the act in which it is taught; to the
processes that take place in relation to this act in teachers and students (Hönigswald 1918,
p. 35; my translation).
The central phrase says in German, “Abbildung von Geltungswerten auf die Zeit”. I
interpret the insertion “the substrates of education” as meaning an optimal curricu-
lum. In a similar way, Schleiermacher and some of his followers have focused on
value-questions like: what will the older generation pass on to the next?
(Schleiermacher 2000, Vol. 2, p. 9). What’s worth passing on? How can it be passed
on? Are you entitled to pass it on? These are perspectives of the educator and the
teacher. In addition, from the opposite perspective, the perspective of the learner:
what about participation? What is worth learning? How do we come to know about
its worth? How can it be learned? How do you deal with it critically?
Here, we are back to the question of knowledge and cognition. However, we have
also taken a step forward in asking about the relations between education and cul-
ture. It is evident that formation and education cannot be reduced to the fact that
knowledge is passed on; too many other emotional, moral and aesthetic aspects are
involved. Nevertheless, the transmission of knowledge and the acquisition of knowl-
edge are central to the educational situation and its legitimacy. What, then, justifies
the passing on of knowledge, when knowledge itself is a tricky case? As a teacher,
you may doubt whether what you convey now is really knowledge. You may find
that others have doubt about it; maybe they even reject its validity. It is a hard job
here to stick to the concept of truth. You can only legitimately stick to a more or less
firm belief that what you pass on is something worthwhile in itself and at least
worthwhile for the one to whom you seek to pass it on. This calls for a distinction
between its intrinsic value and, on the other hand, the acceptance and recognition of
its value. Something is not valid (true, valuable) because it is recognised. On the
contrary, it can claim acceptance only because it is valid (true and intrinsically valu-
able) (Hönigswald 1966; Hönigswald 1918).
However, in educational situations, the question about the problematic, although
necessary transmission, has urgency. Some things are actually acknowledged as
valid and are, therefore, attempted to be transmitted in a pedagogical communica-
tion and linguistic dissemination of information and thought. The recognition of
communicated truth is, as mentioned in section “Introduction”, problematic in edu-
cation, where seeing with one’s own eyes (autopsy), and, in a wider sense, a knowl-
edge obtained through autonomous efforts, is regarded as a fundamental ideal, for
instance by authors like Rousseau. On the other hand, as imperative as it is, it is
expressed within a cultural community. Within this, knowledge transfer of what is
regarded as common goods (it may be values or information) takes place and helps
to shape students’ thinking, personality and character mediated by education and
school institutions. As pointed out by a number of educational thinkers from John
Dewey to Richard Hönigswald, culture requires pedagogy and, vice versa, peda-
gogy presupposes culture. However, it is also here that the parties divide between
the educational progressives and the pedagogical conservatives. We all love schools
as institutions that give a ballast of knowledge and orientation, but disagree on
whether they refer too much or too little to the past.
A remarkable term in Hönigswald’s authorship on philosophy of education is
“Geltungswerte” (validity-values). As mentioned above, a truth should be acknowl-
edged (valued) because it is true (valid) rather than considered as true (valid)
because it is acknowledged (valued). This raises the question about the relation
between education and truth. Education without a commitment to truth seems to be
meaningless and raises serious questions about its legitimacy. Education is a cul-
tural process dependent on and transferring acknowledged values.
It is evident that some values are in fact acknowledged as valid. Some of these
are handed down and realized as validity-values through language and thinking in
an educational process. Formation of the individual refers back to the formation of
culture. This takes place within a cultural community, which forms the pupils per-
sonality in institutions like schools through tradition of knowledge about the values
acknowledged as shared and common. It is remarkable that Hönigswald conceives
this as an ongoing concern, not only between the present generations, but also with
effects on a far future. According to Hönigswald, the task of education is fundamen-
tally and eminently a cultural task. I hold that as one of his most important and
lasting insights.
The contents of culture claim timeless value. However, culture, understood as
civilization in general rather than just any given particular culture, transforms its
244 J. Huggler
contents into a temporal process of education. Culture in this principled sense –

including science, ethics, art, politics and religion – is a presupposition of education
and the continued existence of culture is dependent on education. This means that
Hönigswald’s approach to the subject-object problem, although he claims the rights
of indisputable values, does not cut off historical, societal settings of the object,
subject or educational process. On the other hand, it means that his understanding
of the complex situations of educational praxis still emphasises the reference back
to timeless principles and values, i.e. to truth. In total, however, it gives the science
of education, viz. pedagogy, a central place and its legitimacy within culture and, in
particular, within the disciplines taught at universities. All the disciplines taught, for
instance at universities, need to be handed down educationally, and education itself
is a subject of study, legitimated not only due to improving technical skills of teach-
ing, but by its importance for culture, and here not the exclusively academic culture.
Education is legitimated by its relations to the question of truth, i.e. to philosophy,
and to validity values, i.e. to true values in a very broad sense (other aspects of
human life than cognition and academia are envisaged).
In consequence, this gives philosophy, and pedagogy as a philosophical
discipline, a critical stance to culture understood as an empirically given culture.
Hönigswald’s foundation for pedagogy is philosophy. Pedagogy cannot be thought
and understood without reference to philosophy. However, pedagogy is not applied
philosophy. The decisive foundation of philosophy is philosophy’s problematising
itself (Hönigswald 1997a, p. 10). Problematising itself, and understanding itself as
differentiated and in its relation to historical reality, philosophy cannot be complete
without pedagogy. As such, Hönigswald argues the very special position of peda-
gogy within the academic encyclopedia. It is remarkable that the perspective for
Hönigswald is emancipation: the freedom to think is the aim of philosophy as well
as education and pedagogy (Cf. Hufnagel 1997).
This, however, gives rise to a twofold point of view concerning (1) the system of
academic knowledge and (2) the system of didactics. Like many other educational
philosophers, among them Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Rousseau 1999, p. 272) and
John Dewey (Dewey 1985, p. 191), Hönigswald maintains a distinction between the
issues, which are the result of the multiple methods and their scholarly approach to
the object (System der Wissenschaft) on the one hand, and, on the other, the didacti-
cal systematicity demanded by educational aims in presenting the diverse disci-
plines to a learner (Hönigswald 1918, pp. 11–17, & 35ff.; Huggler 2016).
Hönigswald’s de facto correlation between acclaimed truth and acknowledged
values, nevertheless, seems far lesser convincing. The reason is not that Hönigswald
does not point to a fact in education, viz. that the participants in the process – in their
situation as parents and children, teachers and pupils – all take and have to take
things for granted. What may worry us in Hönigswald’s description is that the point
of maintaining the difference between truth and the acclaimed and culturally recog-
nized values seems to vanish. Recognised value seems treated as an indisputable
second-order variety of truth concerning objects of nature, law, ethics, art and reli-
gion. The critical stance is only left for the participants in academic investigations,
not for teachers or pupils (Hönigswald 1918, p. 48f.). Hönigswald may have over-
looked some crucial importance of a critical approach in education. Granted
validity-values, for instance the value of academic disciplines (Wissenschaften),
seem to be affected. Nevertheless, it is useful to remember that Emile Durkheim
also pointed out that schools in a democratic society could not deny the value of
reason, science and democratic ideas without inconsistence (Durkheim 1922, p. 62).
Even Grue-Sørensen remarks that “to discover errors and defects is not an end in
itself for critique; in contrast, it is to gain a true and correct understanding” (Grue-
Sørensen 1974, p. 397).
In contrast, on a more practical level, Hönigswald stressed the importance of
critical reflection. For instance, we have to learn to perceive phenomena – not as
how we immediately see them – but as they must be perceived post-theoretically,
i.e. as seen in the light of science (Hönigswald 1966, pp. 28–42). Without doubt,
Hönigswald had a point: a rational critique cannot begin from scratch; it presup-
poses a solid foundation of knowledge. As such, his stance is critical in a radical
way. Critique is an inherent feature of pedagogy. Nothing given is beyond reach of
critical questions. This critical attitude is important because pupils, teachers, scien-
tists, politicians and ordinary citizens all have to deal not only with truth and knowl-
edge, but with ignorance, error and falsity.
Hönigswald’s conception of validity-values seems to presuppose a correspondence
theory of truth, although he (like Grue-Sørensen) surely is aware of some of the
criticisms against a metaphysical realism that might be an easy interpretation of
“correspondence”. His epistemology described above provides a differentiated
understanding of the relata of the correspondence-relation, of the nature of the rela-
tion itself and of the problem that the object should be accessible to us and, on the
other hand, independent of our knowing. However, Hönigswald’s problems with the
validity-values might point out that he could have sharpened his point. As many
others, for instance Bertrand Russell (Russell 2015, pp. 100ff.), he wants to preserve
correspondence as definition of truth, although it cannot be used as a criterion of or
indicator of truth.
Correspondence is a non-epistemic relation: something corresponds, whether
the correspondence is known or not. In contrast, Hönigswald’s conception of
acknowledged validity-values points in another direction, viz. the epistemic concep-
tion that, and why, something is believed to be true. For then the issue turns to
another question: how do we obtain truth, if ever? How can we obtain the best pos-
sible justification of our beliefs?
hat do Truth and Critique Matter for Education

W
and Human Life Today?
The aim of education has, in general terms, been stated beautifully by Jan Amos
Comenius in 1657:
246 J. Huggler
It is the principles, the causes, and the uses of all the most important things in existence that
we wish all men to learn; all, that is to say, who are sent into the world to be actors as well
as spectators. For we must take strong and vigorous measures that no man, in his journey
through life, may encounter anything so unknown to him that he cannot pass sound judg-
ment upon it and turn it to its proper use without serious error (Comenius 1896, p. 222).
The question of what truth and knowledge matter, seems to be essential in evaluating
testimony, i.e. communicated conceptions. Here, our traditional solutions in
epistemology and truth theory, correspondence, coherence, consensus and prag-
matic usefulness sometimes seem to be a part of the problem. Therefore, if our
problem is culture industry, radicalisation, propaganda and disinformation, we have
to deal with a sort of fiction that seems to fit into coherent and consensual schemes
and contexts. We cannot come out of the impasse that truth, understood epistemic,
depends on our knowledge, which, at least in the idea of truth as correspondence,
refers non-epistemic to reality. Our epistemological inquiries can make this situa-
tion clear, but it does not tell us how to deal with our worries.
Problems of, for instance, propaganda and disinformation, can only be dealt
with in a more narrow way. Thus, we want to make clear what we do know, what we
do not know, what the function is of propaganda and disinformation, and which
educational problems that brings about. However, it is not possible to make these
clear in abstraction, and we cannot “pass sound judgment” (Comenius) without tak-
ing up the information of the diverse disciplines of knowledge and human under-
standing developed and informed by the many sciences and arts, for instance history,
geography, strategy and informational science. The different disciplines can teach
us to ask in a precise way, and their curricula offer standards for possible answers
and a foothold for a critical and sceptical stance. Thus, disciplines and their knowl-
edge, as well as didactics, are part of the solution rather than part of the problem, as
stated in the Comenius quotation above. What is, and what was fundamental in
education, will seldom undergo revolutions, although new situations may make
revisions of the basic proficiency urgent. The basic didactical questions of which
extent, selection, sequence and connection of subject-matters should be promoted
are always open.
Thus, we have now to ask comparative questions of which educational
traditions may seem to be best for a navigation in the actual stream of information.
“Basic education in the northern countries in continental western Europe has a
character which is clearly distinguished from the rationalist south but which dif-
fers from Britain and Ireland” (McLean 1995, p. 108). In particular, Nordic coun-
tries “possess a distinctive culture of schooling. Yet the variations between the
extremes of centralist Sweden and localist Denmark obscure this communality”
(McLean 1995, p. 111). What is common is, as stated by Torill Strand in the first
chapter of this volume, the strong relation between education, egalitarianism, per-
sonal development, solidarity – fit for democratic commitment and the welfare
states. However, the localist traditions for the basic school in Denmark (going
back not only to enlightenment, but also to romanticism), and the same to some
degree in Norway, giving strong influence to teachers, pupils, parents and local
authorities, have come under pressure to consider internationally comparable
curricula, testing, centralised evaluations, and more specialised teacher compe-

tences. In comparison to French and British tradition, the anti-elitist “Nordic
model” seems to be well poised for democratic challenges, although the strong
relation to national identity in Norway and in Denmark may clash with the aim of
integration of new migrant minorities. On the other hand, the demand for knowl-
edge well fit for scientific and technological developments seems to be more dif-
ficult to fulfil (Winther-Jensen 2004, pp. 153–170).
For instance, the phenomena of the easy access to and communication of data
through the internet may challenge the understanding of truth-based education
sketched above. This is a global challenge, but also an issue for the Nordic societ-
ies – with their high degree of trust in the state and of mutual trust among the citi-
zens, and high dependence on technology. It implies important issues in
ethical-political education today. Let me mention two trivial cases.
1. The algorithms of search machines and their capacity to target individual users
has already changed our life, work and the global economy. What you get out
depends on what you put into it. However, sometimes those algorithms enable
automatic computations so rapidly that they cannot be controlled. To some
extent, computer technologies have changed media and political communication
and given new chances to disseminate messages, true or false, and to single out
and uniform subcultural tendencies even by fictions that seem to fit to the experi-
ence and opinions of the addressee (data targeting).
Algorithms are unambiguous and unequivocal logical procedures, through which
specifications give effective solutions to problems, or can give very good and practi-
cally useful approximations to such; however, they are mechanical and, as such,
blind. In some internet practices, nevertheless, processing methods are not made
public. The mechanisms of information technology transform the traditional refer-
ence to truth, critical reflection and responsibility to context based big-data-
collection, or, in other words, to more or less coherent fictions, which are accessible
instantaneously. Algorithms are implemented as computer programs, which can
process huge amounts of information automatically and make a ranking of the
information, which is supposed to be relevant for the user, although it takes place
without “sound judgment” and without transparent human reasoning and reflection
through a search for concepts and concept-formation.
This technological development also rivals many forms of skills and competences.
It has changed technologies of production and of learning, and changed science
itself. Nevertheless, it does not change the need for truth, distance, critical reflection,
political and moral judgment, and personal responsibility. Education and
philosophy, being central activities of human thought and life, will remain interde-
pendent, and the need to prepare new generations for their own judgment and free-
dom will only become even greater in a world largely transformed by new
technology.
Education is a fundamental process of cultural continuity and development, and
it has truth, subjectivity and critique as its necessary references, even today.
Therefore, in my view, a discussion about Bildung today has to measure its
248 J. Huggler
standards in relation to epistemological, metaphysical and cultural issues in phi-

losophy, as well as to ethical and political issues.
2. However, the cases of propaganda and disinformation reminds us that traditional
epistemology and discussions about the theories of truth have their limitations in
respect to education. Here, a specific understanding of the mechanism and
streams of discourses and of their aims and influence, spreading fear and chaos
in a play of power, seems to be quite as important as the question about the truth
of what we are told. In a wider educational context, as well as in our life as citi-
zens in democratic societies, this, nevertheless, has still to be related to the good
old questions: what is true, and what can I know? Why do I suppose that this is
not true, and how can I detect the reason? Again, “sound judgment” must be
informed by knowledge.
These epistemic questions, and their epistemological reference to truth, are
surely of political and democratic importance today.
Conclusion
The main assertion of this article is that questions of epistemology and metaphysics
matter for the understanding of the relation between education and culture, and for
a qualification of the discussion of education today.
In order to argue that point, I referred to epistemological discussions and
discussions concerning the clarification of educational foundations, which are due
to epistemological discussions. Next, I referred to some metaphysical issues
connected with the “subject-object” problem, which, on the one hand, seems to be
modelled with respect to perception but, in the wider sense, refers to the more
general structure of the knowledge-situation. Thus, it comes to involve questions
concerning how different methods form the approach to objects, and how the
knowledge of objects refers to the conditions of experiences of the subject, being in
itself an object of knowledge, and, on the other hand, of a different phenomenological
type of reality. This seems to be important for our possibility to ask for truth, and for
judging and criticising opinions and assertions. In order to substantiate the
importance of that, the two examples of contemporary opaque educational issues
point to basic education and knowledge as the necessary resource to give means to
a critically assessed opinion.
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Jørgen Huggler (b. 1956) is Associate Professor at Aarhus University. His research interests
include the history of philosophy, metaphysics, and aesthetics. His publications include Hegels
skeptiske vej til den absolutte viden: En analyse af Phänomenologie des Geistes (1999) and about
40 articles or book chapters, such as Teodicéproblemet (2004), State, Religion and Tolerance
(2009), Culture and Paradox in Kant’s Philosophy of Education (2011), and Faith and Knowledge:
Remarks inspired by Søren Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Fragments (2018).
Chapter 17
What Causes Education?
Kirsten Hyldgaard
I have never met a star who didn’t come from the same kind of
insecurity.
It is the things that you are missing that make you a star.
It is not the things that you have. George Michael on BBC
Parkinson Show.
Abstract Two questions will be addressed: Firstly, why do universities not give
priority to education? Secondly, what is meant by university education being
‘research-based’? Qualifications and dedication as far as teaching is concerned have
never granted anyone a full professorship. Management does not consider it neces-
sary to provide “incentives” as far teaching is concerned. The psychoanalytical con-
cepts of transference and anxiety, conceived of as the cause of education, shall
suggest a possible answer to this. Education at universities is supposed to be
research-based. However, teaching at universities is commonly referred to as taking
time from research, hardly ever as something that could or should contribute to
research. Management grants sabbaticals to professors in order to give them a break
from teaching obligations, not from research obligations. To this commonly
accepted hierarchy between teaching and research, the chapter suggests a formal,
discursive answer based on Lacan’s theory of the four discourses with a focus on the
discourse of the university. A teacher does not produce new knowledge, he or she
reproduces knowledge, a teacher transfers common knowledge, the knowledge of
This chapter has previously been published in Hyldgaard, K. (2017). What causes education? anxi-
ety and the object a. In A. Bech Jørgensen, J. Juel Justesen, N. Bech, N. Nykrog, & R. Bro
Clemmensen (eds.), What is education?: an anthology on education (pp. 187–208). Copenhagen:
Próbléma.
K. Hyldgaard (*)
e-mail: hyldgaard@edu.au.dk

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49524-4_17
252 K. Hyldgaard
the Other. This might be one of the formal reasons for the low status of teaching,
that teaching is not considered a contribution to, only ‘based’ on research.
Keywords Research-based education · Psychoanalysis · Transference · Lacan ·

The discourse of university · Anxiety
Universities have suffered severe cutbacks, at least in Denmark, due to budget

reductions on public spending in general. It is not the cutbacks as such that I want
to discuss. Rather, I would like to begin with a question that has always puzzled me.
There are and have always been duties performed in exchange for receiving one’s
salary as a professor; there is something we must deliver. This much is obvious.
Both research and teaching is a must. A university professor’s duties are divided
between research and teaching. We are obliged to publish peer reviewed articles
every year. To ensure this management has introduced what is called ‘research
watch’ (‘forskningsvogtning’).
However, management also provides ‘incentives’. These are motivating influ-
ences to how we might prioritize our duties. An incentive means that management
does not stipulate what we must, rather, it encourages us to channel our energy in a
particular direction. This particular direction is not research in general; rather, man-
agement encourages us to compete for external funding. The incentive is an increase
of salary and especially prestige, i.e. full professorships.
External funding is obtained by writing applications, which is obviously time
consuming. And why is that a problem? It is not uncommon that the success rate is
under 15%, i.e. more than 85% of the applications are rejected. Consequently, we
are encouraged to attend courses where we can learn how to write successful
research applications. Not only do researchers spend time on writing these applica-
tions; researchers, who could have done research and taught students to become
researchers, are spending time in committees assessing these applications.
This represents a considerable amount of time, hence money – even if we are not
taking into consideration all the factors that cannot be measured such as the effect
of disillusion, opportunism, and cynicism.
So, why does management incite us to do this? For a very simple reason:
Otherwise we would not do it. Granted, the official way to legitimize this demand
goes that writing research applications clarifies one’s thinking and one’s ability to
communicate its point and potential so-called impact. However, the most common
complaint voiced concerns the time spent on writing research applications not hav-
ing any positive effect on research. It is not just time consuming; it parasitises on
research – and all other meaningful duties like teaching, attending staff meetings,
presenting papers at conferences, writing for and speaking to the general public.
So, to repeat, if this is the case, why does management incite us to do this? The
answer is that universities are run like any other business. These days universities
are at least semi-commercial. To be sure, universities are to a large degree sponsored
17 What Causes Education? 253
by taxpayers’ money. And is it not entirely legitimate that taxpayers have some kind
of control concerning what tax money is spent on? This rhetorical question, this
seemingly legitimate, commonsensical desire for control is also financed by taxpay-
ers’ money.
There are at least two consequences. Firstly, if it has ever made sense to speak
about freedom in connection with research, this has lost its meaning. Not even uni-
versity management decides what kind of research is desirable; the decision has
been handed over to external committees. Secondly, recognition, prestige is no lon-
ger granted to those who are supposed to be ‘first among equals’, but to those who
are ‘first’ at writing research application, i.e. ‘first’ at being successful at obtaining
external funding.
This is all well-known and has been pointed out many times. What are the con-
sequences for education and teaching?
Qualifications and dedication as far as teaching is concerned have never granted
anyone a full professorship. In other words, it is not prestigious to be a competent
university teacher. In fact, if you spend more time than what is absolutely necessary
to deliver just acceptable teaching quality you are not fulfilling the desire of the
Other, i.e. management. More than 40% of the income of Danish universities comes
from educational activities. To repeat, universities are run like any other business.
The curious fact is that nothing incites university professors to deliver more than
acceptable teaching quality, on the contrary.
Nevertheless, a considerable amount of time, hence taxpayers’ money, is spent
on ‘evaluation’ of education, on ‘quality assurance’ (‘kvalitetskontrol’), on ‘higher
education accreditation’. But, to repeat, as a university teacher you do not prioritize
your work tasks properly if evaluation of your teaching signifies more than just an
average effort.
The time you spend on teaching and coaching students is measured down to
20 min (reading 15 pages equals an hour, reading 10 pages equals 40 min, reading
5 pages equals 20 min). Whenever we are asked to do something, a conditioned
reflex is the question of how many ‘hours’ this particular task is worth. University
professors are wage earners like any other wage earner and have always been.
Arguably, we have finally caught up on wage earner behavior. A perhaps not so
paradoxical consequence is that my colleagues and I have come to consider this
time management a defense against becoming overworked, a defense against exces-
sive exploitation. With reference to the meticulous time management, it is legiti-
mate to decline a work task. It goes without saying that it is the taxpayers’ money
that is spent on the administration of this practice.
Research-Based Education
Teaching at universities is supposed to be ‘research based’. It is far from clear what

is meant by that. What is clear, however, is that we are not encouraged to discuss
this. Teaching is referred to as taking time from research, hardly ever as something
254 K. Hyldgaard
that could or should contribute to research. Management grants sabbaticals in order

to give the professor a break from teaching obligations, not from research obligations.
This is a curious fact. How can you give one toast speech after the other about the
importance of education and spend resources on accreditation and evaluation of
education when there is no prestige, no recognition of more than average teaching
effort? To my knowledge, no one has ever achieved full professorship because he or
she was ‘first’ as far as research based teaching is concerned. To my knowledge, no
one has ever – at least not officially – been fired for not being up to his or her task
as far as teaching is concerned.
As pointed out in the introduction by the editor, Torill Strand, the Nordic com-
prehensive school system, which includes university level, is considered a vital
tool for equalizing social difference. University education is not exclusively tar-
geted a socio-economic elite, at least not in principle. Only qualifications count –
in principle. This egalitarian ideology could make one expect ‘incitements’ to
focus on teacher qualifications at the university level. However, as far as teacher
performance is concerned, the only management tool is control, not incitement.
This raises the suspicion that the official egalitarian ideology, also at university
level, is what it is: ideology that covers up the lack of equality, inclusion, and
meritocracy.
I have had good opportunity to volunteer my opinion to management in the field
of university education. Why do I hardly ever, if at all, hear anyone else voice this?
There seems to be a tacit approval of the hierarchy between research and teaching
and the lack of connection between the two. Why do university professors identify
with the low status of teaching?
There should be no doubt as to the fact that it is of no concern to students whether
their teachers get their ambitions fulfilled as far as full professorships are concerned.
The problem is, however, that associate professors do what they are told. If money
and recognition pass by teaching activities we concentrate our efforts on guessing
what kind of research will obtain external funding and develop our competences on
the genre of research application writing – not teaching, not academic writing as
such, but research application writing.
It has always been a bad idea to rely on individual morals when organizing a
society. It would also be a bad idea to rely on university teachers considering teach-
ing a calling or as something that fulfills a desire for meaning in one’s work life,
which teaching undoubtedly does to many a university professor. But students
should know that if we are in a hurry to get out of the door after the lesson has fin-
ished, and if we are not always giving students our undivided attention, then we are
just trying to satisfy the desire of the Other, i.e. we do what management wants us
to do. We try to guess the desire of the Other; this is what subjects do, this is what
human beings do. We desire recognition, the recognition of the Other.
To be sure, we sometimes jokingly speak about ‘education based research’, i.e.
when we talk about our efforts to make a closer connection between the subject mat-
ter of our research and our teaching, i.e. our effort to make our work life as mean-
ingful as possible. By this we also recognize that it can in fact be productive for the
research process having to read a text to be presented in a lecture or in a dialogue
with the students and having to think through a theoretical problem to be explained
to and discussed with the students. And sometimes some of us can catch ourselves
thinking that the dialogue with students struggling to understand the subject matter
gives us a welcomed break from the tedious imaginary rivalry with colleagues for
recognition, and that it gives us a, no doubt also imaginary, sense of nothing but the
subject matter ruling the social relation. Then we wake up to reality.
What could be the answer to the fact that teaching is not recognized? A cynical
answer could be that management knows very well that standing in front of stu-
dents, seeing the expectation in their eyes, experiencing their loss of transference,
their loss of respect, the loss of imaginary recognition when we are not up to the
task is intolerable to most professors, i.e. those of us who are not completely lost to
cynicism and disillusion. Management probably knows somehow that the immedi-
ate recognition of students – and lack thereof – is enough ‘incitement’ to make us
do our job. Whereas we, to repeat, would never spend time on strategic research
application writing if we were not ‘incited’ to do so.
To be precise, it is nothing new that teaching is not considered a contribution to
research. It never has been. But why? The following will provide a formal, discur-
sive answer on the background of the psychoanalytic concept of transference and
Lacan’s theory of the four discourses.
Transference
Teaching and learning imply social bonds. This is not just a triviality. Arguably,
education is at play in any kind of social bond, but if we do not consider social
bonds in general but the institutionalized social bonds called schools and universi-
ties, i.e. something different from what goes on in sports clubs, workplaces, and
families, what are the formal conditions of teaching?
Education is a relation between a student and a teacher. This relation concerns a
so-called subject matter. The relation revolves around some ‘thing’. It is not always
altogether clear what this matter is and why the teacher is concerned with it, but
teaching needs this reference to something outside the relationship between teacher
and student in order to be called teaching. It is not enough to speak about ‘relational
competences’ or ‘learning to learn’. Teaching is a relation because we teach a sub-
ject ‘matter’ and we learn because we learn some ‘thing’. To repeat, what the ‘mat-
ter’ is, and what the ‘thing’ is, is not entirely clear. I shall return to this.
Now, students, qua students, are not supposed to know; they are supposed to be
lectured. This is the fundamental reason why they sit in the lecture room. The
teacher is supposed to know. The psychoanalytic concept of transference refers to
this indispensable and quasi-automatic mechanism.
In Freud, transference refers to repetition of infantile relations, i.e. we repeat the
emotional matrix – loving and hateful, tender and aggressive – and unconscious
conflicts with parents and siblings to future relations. In the following quote, Freud
describes transference between analysand/patient and the analyst/doctor.
256 K. Hyldgaard
In so far as his transference bears a ‘plus’ sign, it clothes the doctor with authority and is
transformed into belief in his communications and explanations. In the absence of such a
transference, or if it is a negative one, the patient would never even give a hearing to the
doctor and his arguments. In this his belief is repeating the story of its own development; it
is a derivative of love and, to start with, needed no arguments. Only later did he allow them
enough room to submit them to examination, provided they were brought forward by some-
one he loved. Without such supports arguments carried no weight, and in most people’s
lives they never do. Thus in general a man is only accessible from the intellectual side too,
in so far as he is capable of a libidinal cathexis of objects; and we have good reason to
recognize and to dread in the amount of his narcissism a barrier against the possibility of
being influenced by even the best analytic technique. (Freud 1968, pp. 445–446)
Transferred to the question of teaching, this implies that in order to learn you
need to be able to love, to be ‘capable of a libidinal cathexis’. Not everybody is
capable of loving. Narcissism, the investment of libido in the ego – the specular
image of oneself, rather than an object – can keep you in ignorance, can prevent you
from thinking. And vice versa: The students serve the purpose of preserving the
narcissistic teacher’s imaginary, specular image of unity – wisdom, knowledge, the
masterful grasp of the subject matter. Seduction rather than teaching is at play.
When this specular image of mastery is questioned, the reaction is often aggressive
retribution: typically sarcasm, ridicule, and disregard or, in a milder version, endless
speech that numbs listeners and covers up the fragile mirror image.
Lacanian psychoanalysis distinguishes between drive and desire, which may
clarify Freud’s concept of transference. When transference is both a question of the
drive – libidinal cathexis – and of desire, the question of the Other’s object, is intro-
duced. What am ‘I’, if anything, to the Other and, more importantly, what is the
Other’s object. The question of the Other’s object is vital for teaching.
Furthermore, Lacan clarifies Freud’s concept of transference by interpreting it as
being basically a love of knowledge, the Other’s knowledge: The Other is ‘sup-
posed’ to know, i.e. you do not actually know whether he or she knows; you only
suppose it; you assume that he or she knows. This is the precondition for listening,
for ‘paying’ attention. In the clinical psychoanalytic practice the analysand literally
pays the analyst to listen. This is what analysts do. They listen. To be sure, analysts
have to make a living too. However, there is also a less pragmatic reason for this
exchange of money. If the relationship between analysand and analyst is not a pro-
fessional one, something you pay for, the analysand cannot ‘pay attention’ to the
effects of the unconscious, i.e. that the emotional ties and unconscious conflicts
transferred to the analyst are in fact a repetition of infantile relations. The analysand
will keep repeating instead of remembering.
Analysts listen. Teachers speak. Students listen. Students may discuss with the
teachers, they may challenge, even fight the teacher provided they ‘suppose’ that he
or she knows what he or she is talking about. Otherwise the teacher is simply irrel-
evant. Students’ suppositions may indeed prove to be wrong, but disappointment
presupposes an initial supposition of knowledge. The analytic and the teaching rela-
tion is antinomic (Millot 1997), but what teachers can learn from analysts is how
vital it is how you ‘position’ yourself when being the object of transference. How
do you not pose as an obstacle to the students working, thinking, and learning? In
other words, how do you, as a teacher, check your narcissism?
Not all students consider you relevant. When this is the case, you stand power-
less. Often it is not a major practical problem at universities; students stop turning
up or are simply absentminded. For better and for worse, we no more control the
effect that we undoubtedly have on the other than we control our own unconscious.
The unconscious formation called transference is an indispensable condition beyond
one’s control as far as ‘relational competences’ are concerned.
However, transference is not only love of knowledge. You may also hate. If you
hate someone, you, according to Lacan, ‘de-suppose’ him or her of possessing
knowledge. He or she does not know the first thing about the subject matter – as
one’s exasperated exclamation typically goes. He or she does not ‘have it’. You do
not respect the Other as Other when you hate or despise him or her. The teacher is
a waste of time; he or she compares to waste.
This could be one of the reasons why even seasoned teachers may enter the class-
room or seminar room the first session with slight anxiety. We do not often talk
about it for obvious reasons: There is nothing to do about it. There are no guaranteed
methods, no ‘tricks of the trade’ to ensure you the wished-for result because it con-
cerns the fundamental vulnerability when confronted with the desire of the Other.
Or to be more precise, it concerns the Other as subject, i.e. when students do not
serve as backdrop for narcissistic speech. The concept of subject in Lacan does not
signify foundation but what escapes being conceived of as an object of knowledge.
The Other as subject is what potentially shatters the fragile narcissistic specular
image of yourself as teacher.
Transference is indeed a semi-automatic mechanism, also in the sense that you
cannot force it. There are typical strategies to protect oneself against this lack of
control; arrogance is one of the most common defense mechanisms. But love can
also be an obstacle. Love (and its measured versions, respect and sympathy) is
indeed a condition, but it can stand in the way of learning and thinking. This hap-
pens when focus is on the (imaginary) relation between teacher and student – the
libidinal cathexis of the other – rather than on the question of what the object of the
Other is. In this case the students cannot pay attention.
The Four Discourses
Now, if this initial, yet precarious, condition is at place how do we, the teachers,
speak in the seminar room? How do we form, uphold or disrupt the social bond
between teacher and student?
Speech in the seminar room is submitted to and formed by what Lacanians call
the discourse of the university (Lacan 1991), i.e. the discourse where you are an
agent of knowledge, where you as a teacher must refer outside yourself to the Other,
the socially accepted knowledge (Salecl 1994). To be an agent of knowledge means
among other things that knowledge is not ‘yours’, knowledge is the knowledge of
the Other, it is always ‘according to …’. A teacher’s discourse does not allow a
sentence like: ‘Because I say so’, the quintessence of failure as far as pedagogics
and education are concerned. It is an impossible sentence for the simple reason that
258 K. Hyldgaard
you refer to yourself as the master who sets the rules of the game. Referring to one-
self makes literally no sense. It is a master discourse. ‘There shall be light’ is the
first master discourse ever, uttered by God himself, and it would make no sense to
ask: ‘Why on earth should there be light?’. ‘Light’ is not just a condition but even
the nonsensical precondition for everything, it is ‘pre’ any other condition. A master
discourse makes no sense; you simply obey it or you spend the rest of your life try-
ing to figure out what it might mean, thereby producing chains of signifiers, S2,
ad infinitum.
As a teacher, you cannot bark an order; you have to make sense. And making
sense means referring to something or someone besides or outside yourself, saying
‘according to’ Freud, Lacan, this or that generally recognized authority on Freud
and Lacan … Making sense means to refer one signifier to the other, S2, in an
orderly fashion, ordered by ‘the symbolic order’. If teaching serves the purpose of
referring to oneself, the result is not teaching but seduction. Narcissism kicks in. To
repeat, narcissism does not only pose an obstacle to learning and thinking, it is an
obstacle to teaching.
A teacher does not produce new knowledge, he or she reproduces knowledge, a
teacher transfers common knowledge, the knowledge of the Other. This might be
one of the formal reasons for the low status of teaching, that teaching is not consid-
ered a contribution to research, teaching is only ‘based’ on research. In addition, this
might be the reason why it is accepted, even expected of university professors that
we deliver uninterrupted lectures that reproduce already given knowledge.
University professors can even be the object of admiration when they do nothing but
show their capacity for the encyclopedic memorizing of common knowledge; the
professor as the epitome of Mr. Know-all.
Lacan’s four discourses. Retrived October 2018 from https://clarkbeckwourth.com/index.

php/about/
The discourse of university does not produce new knowledge. This is presented
in Lacan’s formalisations where the split subject, $, rather than knowledge is at the
place of production. The discourse of university produces divided, split subjects. A
traditional way of describing teaching is as giving something, filling up the other
with your received wisdom. However, rather than installing knowledge into the stu-
dent, you either control the other in order that no lack shall present itself, or you
install a lack, i.e. you stir up desire. The latter is the basis for hysterical discourse,
i.e. discourse that challenges the master signifier, the response from the student: But
why? The ‘product’ of the discourse of the university is the split, lacking, desiring
subject. In your effort to transmit common knowledge you, at best, stir up desire,
lack of knowledge. There is indeed something the students do not yet know and,
what is more, it is something worth knowing. The student may exclaim: Yes, this is
all very well, but it only raises the question … Or: Yes, but I still don’t understand …
Why couldn’t the answer just be … And the teacher does his or her best to respond
authoritatively to this challenge – without silencing the student with aggressive sar-
casm or empty professorial speech, if he or she is worthy of the name teacher.
You respond authoritatively, when you refer to the Other, and you compel author-
ity when you, literally, do not need to compel or force the student to do anything. A
teacher can thank the work of transference for this effect. This is also what analysts
refer to as ‘work transference’.
The discourse of the hysteric is the only discourse that has knowledge at the
place of production. It is only by challenging received wisdom, the master signifier,
S1, that new knowledge is produced. You need to castrate the Other in order to pro-
duce new knowledge. You need to expose the lack in the Other, expose the holes and
inconsistencies in knowledge, i.e. the holes in the chain of signifiers. A teacher
should answer as best as he or she is capable of, i.e. authoritatively, while accepting
that he or she will never satisfy the student completely. There is always something
left to be desired – for the student to think about, work on, and question. A teacher
who is up to his or her task should be able to make room for this. Otherwise his or
her practice is literally a cover-up rather than teaching. Or to be more exact, it is
violence. Protecting authority, not letting your lack be exposed, silences students –
these endless, seemingly consistent chains of signifiers, this empty professorial
speech or, in the worst case, defensive sarcasm.
Because a teacher has to refer outside him- or herself, teaching must necessarily
be conserative or conservatory. Teaching reproduces. You cannot intentionally teach
students to be revolutionaries – if this were a desirable goal. Upbringing and educa-
tion are, as Freud also stated, conservative practices. You necessarily reproduce the
ruling ideology, the accepted, common knowledge of what is ‘reality’. But your
effect on the students, provided your position makes room for the unsatisfied hys-
terical desire, might make room for thinking, a result that cannot be controlled.
What are you teaching and what do students learn? You teach something, literally
some thing, some matter. And students, by questioning what is the matter, i.e. what
260 K. Hyldgaard
is your object of desire, may learn something. It is not entirely sure what the ‘subject
matter’ of teaching is. The notation of the object of desire in Lacan is the object a.
This is the notation that refers to the cause of desire, the question of what the object
of the Other’s desire is. Neither the teacher nor the students are the cause of learn-
ing, the object a is, the undecidable question of what the Other’s object is. The
trouble with narcissism is that it blocks and protects against this cause. To put it
another way, what exactly the students learn is beyond one’s control, no matter how
‘learning goal oriented’ one’s method might be.
So, teaching is not just a question of social relations; it presupposes an object,
something that the social bond is about, the object a. If teaching is not about, liter-
ally, some ‘thing’, the object becomes the teacher him- or herself. This is not teach-
ing, this is seduction; teachers and students lost in imaginary love. The disciples
hang on the celebrated master thinker’s every word. The disciples await his interpre-
tations instead of being put to work. Rather than seduction the teacher’s work is that
of suggestion. We suggest that something other than the relation to ourselves is
worth the while; we should divert attention away from our sorry narcissistic selves
and suggest the object instead. The trusted teacher, apparently, considers something
other than him or herself important, and what it is and why…
This is also the reason why a teacher cannot teach on the background of his or
her own texts, because in that case the teacher cannot question what (in the present
case) K. Hyldgaard’s dubious points and perspective are. Self-reference is at play.
Anxiety as the Cause of Education?
So, what makes us think, what are the conditions for thinking in the seminar room?
Why do we learn? The questioning, lacking, ‘missing’, desiring subject is the foun-
dation of thought and other human excesses. It is not uncommon to hear philoso-
phers of education claim that the desire to learn is founded in some kind of natural
curiosity; we are born with a natural instinct or capacity to learn. The present author
considers this an all too easy, even sentimental assumption. References to ‘the natu-
ral’ usually serve as a blockade against further thinking. According to Freud we
think and work because of ‘Lebensnot’ (the ‘life-essential’); we only think and
work when forced to do so. This is founded on the basic point that the psychoana-
lytical concept of drive does not equal a natural instinct. Drives are not inborn. They
come into being in connection with (‘Anlehnung’) the satisfaction of biological
needs. When hunger is satiated and thirst quenched by the Other, there is always
something left to be desired, and the drive is this leftover, this insatiable, restless
pulse seeking satisfaction by whatever means may be at hand. The assumption is
that the reason why human beings desire to learn and the reason for human beings’
excessive achievements in this respect – our constructive and destructive excesses in
general – is both the insatiable pulse of the drive confronted with the equally insa-
tiable desire for recognition and the fundamental anxiety of loss of the Other’s love
and recognition. What we ‘miss’ drives and haunts us.
So, what is the difference between teaching and education on the one hand and
learning on the other? In distinction to the concept of learning, education and teach-
ing implies a social relation, a relation between a teacher and a student, a teacher
who has an agenda, the gerundive, some ‘thing’ that should be learned. Education
means etymologically to be lead. The pedagogue in ancient Greece was the slave
who accompanied the child to school. Teachers are not masters; teachers do not pos-
sess knowledge. Teachers are and have always been slaves to the Other. This sug-
gests the low status of teaching in comparison with research.
References
Freud, S. (1968). Transference. In The Standard edition of the complete psychological works of
Sigmund Freud (Vol. XVI). London: The Hogarth Press.
Lacan, J. (1991). L’envers de la psychanalyse. Livre XVII. Paris: Seuil.
Millot, C. (1997). Freud antipédagogue. Paris: Flammarion.
Salecl, R. (1994). Deference to the great other: The discourse of education. In Lacanian theory
of discourse. Subject, structure, and society. New York/London: New York University Press.
Kirsten Hyldgaard PhD, is Associate Professor at The Danish School of Education (DPU),
Aarhus University. Her research interests are within educational philosophy, epistemology, and the
question of the philosophical implications of psychoanalysis (Freud and Lacan). Since obtaining
the position of associate professor at DPU in 2001, the implications of psychoanalysis for educa-
tional philosophy and sciences has been at the center of her work. She has published extensively in
the field of philosophy, psychoanalysis, and epistemology and has shown a particular interest in
and has written about feature films and documentaries. In addition to articles published in English,
she has edited the anthology Pædagogiske umuligheder: Psykoanalyse og pædagogik (2010)
(Pedagogical impossibilities: Psychoanalysis and pedagogics); published the monographs Det uti-
dige subject:Lacan, Freud, Sartre, Badiou, Zizek m.fl. (2003) (The untimely subject) and
Eksistenses galskab: Freudo-lacanianske tilgange til videnskab, kunst, kultur (2014) (Madness of
existence: Freudo-lacanian approaches to sciences, art, and culture); and a textbook on epistemol-
ogy (2006).
Chapter 18
Here and Now: Rethinking Philosophy
of Education
Torill Strand
Abstract The TV-series “Here and Now” (HBO 2018) may be seen as an allegory
of the current situation within philosophy of education. The main character is the
depressed philosopher Greg Boatwright, father of four: three adopted children –
from Liberia, Vietnam and Colombia – and a biological daughter, who calls herself
“the boring white chick in the family”. Raising this family was to Greg and his wife
a “great progressive experiment in diversity”. However, on his 60th birthday he
delivers a disturbingly pessimistic speech: “It all failed”. Later he confides to his
daughter: “sometimes I feel like the world’s falling apart”. Admittedly, today’s phi-
losophy of education may fall short of such a bleak description. Nevertheless, in
face of such a situation it seems pertinent to re-think philosophy of education, old
and new. The aim of this chapter is to explore to what degree Alain Badiou’s anti-
philosophy may represent a way of doing so.
In the first part of this chapter I map out the many faces of current philosophies
of education. Next, I perform a close reading of Alain Badiou’s “ethics of truths”
and “logics of worlds”. In doing so, I hope to reveal the ontological assumptions
that generate Badiou’s philosophical position. In the third part of the chapter I com-
pare and contrast Badiou’s position with some contemporary philosophies of educa-
tion. Referring to Greg’s pessimistic speech we may ask: Did they all fail?
Keywords Alain Badiou · Philosophy · Education · Conditions · Events · Truths

· Ethics
T. Strand (*)
e-mail: torill.strand@iped.uio.no

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49524-4_18
264 T. Strand
Introduction
The title of this chapter may be associated with the TV-series “Here and Now”
(HBO 2018), which can be seen as an allegory of the current situation within phi-
losophy of education in face of social and historical change. The main character is
the depressed philosopher Greg Boatwright, father of four: three adopted children –
from Liberia, Vietnam and Colombia – and a biological daughter, who calls herself
“the boring white chick in the family”. Raising this family was to Greg and his wife
a “great progressive experiment in diversity”. However, on his 60th birthday he
delivers a disturbingly pessimistic speech: “It all failed”. Later he confides to his
daughter: “sometimes I feel like the world’s falling apart”. Philosophy of education
may fall short of such a bleak description. Nevertheless we may still consider it
pertinent to re-think the potential topicality and relevance of a philosophy of educa-
tion of and for the present. The aim of this chapter is to explore a way of doing so
through a diligent reading of some of the key texts of the French philosopher Alain
Badiou, as I ask: Could Badiou represent a fruitful way of re-thinking philosophy of
education? To what degree may Badiou’s philosophy help to strengthen the poten-
tial topicality and relevance of a philosophy of education of and for today?
In the first part of this chapter I map out the many faces of current philosophies
of education. Next, I perform a close reading of Alain Badiou’s “ethics of truths”
and “logic of worlds” in order to clarify his mission of rethinking, renewing and
thereby strengthening philosophy as an academic discipline. In doing so, I point to
the ontological assumptions beyond his position and also the ways in which the
pedagogical theme is vital, constitutive, and ongoing throughout his work. Next, I
compare and contrast Badiou’s position with some contemporary philosophies of
education. Referring to Greg’s pessimistic speech we may ask: Did they all fail?
The Many Faces of Philosophy of Education
The chapters included in this volume clearly illustrates how contemporary philoso-
phy of education come forward as diverse, many-faceted and numerous engage-
ments with different issues and problems concerning both the fields of philosophy
and of education (Phillips 2010; Strand 2012). The multiple faces of philosophy of
education make it difficult to distinguish this field from other fields of study.
However, a common denominator is a strong commitment to various aspects of
education. This commitment shapes the course, topics, approaches, methods and
dissemination of the work of contemporary philosophers of education.
Philosophers of education frequently use tangible educational situations as
points of departure in their philosophical investigations. They tend to draw on their
background as educational researchers or former teaching experience in their work.
Their ways of performing philosophical analysis therefore often reveal radical
approaches and openness to new ideas. This strong commitment to education is also
18 Here and Now: Rethinking Philosophy of Education 265
seen in the fact that their work is published in a wide range of journals on educa-
tional theory, research and practice, not in philosophy journals. But even though
contemporary philosophers of education dedicate their work to the practical disci-
pline of education, there seems to be a tendency to question the social significance
of their philosophical work (Clark 2006; Smeyers 2006; Strand 2012).
Consequently, philosophy of education seems to be caught between the aca-
demic disciplines of philosophy and of education: On the one hand, it is a daughter
of philosophy, drawing from the traditional fields, approaches and methods of its
parent discipline. On the other hand, the issues studied concern processes, purposes
and ideals of educational theories, policies and practice (Curren 2007; Phillips
2010; Siegel 2009). For example, what constitutes upbringing and education (i.e.
Kirsten Hyldgaard’s chapter in this volume); what values and norms are revealed
through educational policies and practices (i.e. Ole Andreas Kvamme’s exploration
of moral education and Wills Kalisha’s analysis of immigrant policies and practices
in Norway); what are the conditions, possibilities, legitimacies, and limits of educa-
tion as an academic discipline (i.e. Kjetil Horn Hogstad’s chapter on Malabou’s
notion of plasticity and Carol Taylor’s chapter on post-humanism); and how should
we understand the relation between educational theory and practice (i.e. Henrik
Vase Frandsen’s chapter on Didrich Benner’s theory or Claudia Schumann’s excel-
lent analysis of “thinking in education”). The ambition is not necessarily to contrib-
ute to philosophy, but rather to contribute to educational theory and practice. Thus,
it may seem relevant to determine philosophy of education as a field of philosophi-
cal inquiries that “focuses upon issues arising within the domain of education”
(Phillips 2010, p. 18). However, the danger is that such a definition may conceal the
distance between philosophy and education.
In contrast to a tentative covering of the distance, Badiou points to the fruitful
gap between philosophy and real life. To him, it is exactly this distance that condi-
tions and justifies philosophy (Badiou 1992, 2001, 2006, 2011a). On the one hand,
Badiou holds that “philosophy is not worth an hour’s effort if it is not based on the
idea that the true life is present” (Badiou 2009b, p. 14). On the other hand, he argues
that philosophy should never be mixed up or confused with real life. Philosophy is
different from real life. And real life can never be turned into philosophy. Badiou
therefore maintains that a genuine philosopher commits herself to the incommensu-
rable relation between the rules of philosophy and the ordinary rules of life. Because
this relation – which is not a relation – conditions philosophy:
I insist on this point: it is not because there is ‘something’ that there is philosophy.
Philosophy is not at all a reflection on anything whatsoever. There is philosophy, and there
can be philosophy, because there are paradoxical relations, because there are breaks, deci-
sions, distances, events (Badiou 2009b, p. 16).
In other words, Badiou holds that real life always precedes and conditions phi-
losophy. Moreover, that philosophy must never be confused with or mixed up with
real life. But how may this concern a philosophy of education of and for the present?
Before exploring that question, we should take a brief look at Badiou’s philosophi-
cal system and its inherent pedagogical operations.
266 T. Strand
True Life Has to Be Present
It should be said that Badiou belongs to the group of contemporary French philoso-
phers (‘nouveaux philosophes’) who, in the wake of poststructuralism, postmodern-
ism and deconstruction, seek to renew philosophical thinking by developing a new
type of materialistic realism. This new school diverges from the preceding genera-
tion by rejecting the linguistic, textual or discursive paradigm of their predecessors
(such as Deleuze, Derrida and Foucault), rethinking the question of materiality, and
exploring the nature of change (James 2012; Hallward 2003).
Alain Badiou develops his philosophical system through three books: Being and
Event (2005b), Logics of Worlds: Being and Event II (2009a), and Immanence of
Truths: Being and Event III (forthcoming). This Being and Event trilogy is key to
his ontology, which is based on mathematical set theory. However, the three books
also reveal how his philosophy has developed, and his ontological thinking has
deepened over time. In the first book, Badiou develops his main concepts of being,
truths and event. Here he exposes an ontological (some would say a phenomeno-
logical) position, which elegantly deconstructs the idealism and romanticism in
Heidegger. Being, to Badiou, is multiple and void. There is no ultimate consistency
or unity to being. Truths, which are generic, always belong to particular situations.
However, truths – which are subjects to unpredictable events – cut through estab-
lished knowledge. Truths thus imply some kind of ‘logical revolt’ against the situa-
tion. In the next book, he attempts to describe in more detail the appearing and
disappearing of truths-in-worlds. “I insist, since this is the very problem that this
book is concerned with: truths not only are, they appear,” (Badiou 2009a, p. 9). Such
truth-procedures are immanent exceptions. In the third book (published in French in
2018), he returns to the notion of immanence. However, here he reverses the per-
spective by examining truths, not from the point of view of the worlds from which
they emerge, but from the point of view of truths themselves. Truths are existential,
ongoing and open-ended ontological operations that do not belong to any epistemic
category. It is upon this background we should read his axiom that “the only educa-
tion is an education by truths,” (Badiou 2005a, p. 14).
Badiou has not written extensively on education, but the pedagogical theme is
vital, constitutive and ongoing throughout his work (Strand 2020). In the essay Art
and Philosophy, Badiou portrays education as a transformative, open-ended and
ongoing procedure instituted by an exception, a rupture, or event. Furthermore,
Badiou’s hypertranslation of Plato’s Republic (2012a) can be taken to illustrate how
these open-ended pedagogical operations of truths-in-worlds may cultivate the
young (Bartlett 2011; Strand 2016). His conception of these pedagogical operations
are also key to the essay The True Life (2017), which is based on lectures delivered
to groups of youths in high schools and seminars, both in France and elsewhere.
Badiou’s message to the young is that “to attain the true life we have to struggle
against prejudices, preconceived ideas, blind obedience, arbitrary customs, and
unrestricted competition” (Badiou 2017, p. 8). In short, an education by truths oper-
ates through a subtraction from the state of the situation and proposes a different
direction as regards to the true life (Bartlett 2006; Heyer 2010). In sum, the inherent
pedagogical operation within Badiou’s anti-philosophy teaches the power of the
unthinkable.
Consequently, Badiou’s anti-philosophy may well inform the discussion on the
aims and mission of a philosophy of education of and for the present. So let me
provide a brief presentation of Badiou’s anti-philosophy and the ways in which he
portrays a genuine philosopher.
Badiou’s Anti-philosophy
The term “anti-philosophy,” which Badiou has adopted from Lacan (Clemens and
Bartlett 2012), has helped him to re-think philosophy, or rather the philosophical
practice, through its internal and external relations. Anti-philosophy signifies a con-
ditioned philosophical practice based on the postulate that there are truths-in-worlds,
independent of philosophy. However, to pursue “anti-philosophy” is also about sys-
tematically articulating the means of philosophy. In this way, Badiou turns philoso-
phy against itself. Anti-philosophy has three characteristics (Badiou 2011b): First,
it is a practice disentangled from any pretensions of philosophy to constitute itself
as a theory. Second, it recognizes the fact that it is impossible to reduce philosophy
to its discursive appearance. Third, anti-philosophy is concurrently destroying the
philosophical act, clarifying its noxious character, and affirming the rights of
the real.
A genuine philosopher, however, intervenes only when she sees signs in a tan-
gible situation that calls for a new problem. The pamphlet Thinking the Event
(Badiou 2009b) pictures three examples; Plato’s dialogue Gorgias, the death of
Archimedes, and a scene in Mizoguchi’s film The Crucified Lovers. Badiou per-
ceives all three as examples on philosophical situations, which for him are charac-
terized by incommensurable logics.
In Gorgias, there is no relation, no dialogue, between the two types of thought.
Badiou holds that Plato has written this dialogue in order to illustrate that there can
be two different kinds of thought, two types of thought that remain incommensura-
ble. The discussion between Socrates and Callicles amounts to a relation between
two terms devoid of any relation. Callicles argues that the happy man is one who
prevails over other’s by cunning and violence. Socrates maintains that the happy
man is the just man, in the philosophical sense of the term. But the opposition
between justice as violence and justice as thought cannot be solved by arguments,
since the arguments cannot relate to a shared value. This is not that kind of simple
opposition that can be dealt with in terms of arguments covered by a common norm.
Consequently, the discussion is not a real discussion; it is a confrontation. And in
such a confrontation, there will be a winner and a defeated. The discussion becomes
a matter of winning. The witness to this situation must decide whether to take the
side with Socrates or with Callicles. Faced with this situation one must choose
between two types of thought. Thus, Gorgias is exemplary because the dialogue
268 T. Strand
illustrates thinking as choice. The task of philosophy is here to throw light on the
fundamental choices of thought. In short, Gorgias illustrates how “a philosophical
situation consists in the moment when a choice is elucidated; a choice of existence
or a choice of thought” (Badiou 2009b, p. 5).
In the death of Archimedes, there are no common measures, no real discussion,
between the right of the state and the creative thoughts embodied in mathematics.
Badiou portrays Archimedes as “one of the greatest minds ever known to human-
ity,” an exceptional mathematical genius. Archimedes had the habit of drawing geo-
metrical figures on the sand. One day, as he was contemplating the complicated
figures he had drawn on the shore, a Roman soldier, a courier, arrives and tells him
that the Roman General Marcellus wishes to see him. It should be said that at that
time, the Romans had invaded Sicily, and that Archimedes took part in the resis-
tance by inventing new war machines. Nevertheless, the Roman soldier insists that
Marcellus wants to see him. But Archimedes doesn’t move. The soldier repeats the
message. But Archimedes still doesn’t reply. So the soldier, who probably did not
have any great interests in mathematics, shouts: “The General wishes to see you”.
Archimedes barely looks up as he tells the soldier that he wants to finish his math-
ematical demonstration. Archimedes continues his calculation. But after a while the
soldier draws his sword and strikes him down. Archimedes falls dead and his body
wipes out the geometrical figures in the sand. In this way, the situation illustrates an
infinite distance between state power and creative thinking. To Badiou, the death of
Archimedes is exemplary as it illustrates that there exists no common measure
between the right of the state and the creative thoughts of Archimedes. The task of
philosophy is to throw light on this distance.
The scene from Mizuguchi’s film The Crucified Lovers illustrates that there are
no common measures between love and life. Badiou refers to this film as one of the
most beautiful films ever made about love. The film is set in traditional Japan. It is
about a young woman married to the owner of a small workshop, an honest man,
whom she neither loves nor desires. So she falls in love with a young man, one of
her husband’s employees. But as adultery was punishable by death in that period of
time, the young couple end up fleeing to the provinces. The honest husband tries to
protect the runaways by pretending that his wife has left for the countryside.
Nevertheless, the couple is captured and sent back to be executed. Here, the film’s
final images constitute a new instance of the philosophical situation: The two lovers,
tied back-to-back on a mule, heading towards their death. Both seem enraptured,
devoid of pathos. On their faces there is simply a hint of smile. “Their faces reveal
that the man and the woman exist entirely in their love. But the idea of the film,
embodied in the infinitely nuanced black and white of their faces, has nothing to do
with the romantic idea of the fusion of love and death. These ‘crucified lovers’ have
no desire to die. The shot reveals the very opposite: “love is what resists death”
(Badiou 2009b, p. 11). This situation illustrates something extraordinary. It is an
exception, an event. Badiou holds that the smile of the lovers is a philosophical situ-
ation, since this smile is a sign of something incompatible; a relation that is not a
relation. The smile signifies that there is no common measure between the event of
love (which turns everything upside down) and the ordinary rules of life (embodied
in the city and the laws of marriage). The lovers’ smile reveals signs of an exception.
The task of philosophy is here to throw light on the value of this exception.
In sum, these three situations illustrate the three vital tasks of philosophy: To
clarify the choices of thought; to throw light on the distance between power and
creative thinking; and to elucidate the value of the exception, the rupture, the event.
To Badiou, a genuine philosopher is someone who
at a deeper level […] looks for the link between three types of situation – the link between
choice, distance and the exception. I argue that a philosophical concept, in the sense that
Deleuze1 speaks of it – which is to say as a creation – is always what knots together a prob-
lem of choice (or decision), a problem of distance (or gap), and a problem of the exception
(or event). (Badiou 2009b, p. 13)
The three stories thus illustrate how philosophy is conditioned by incommensu-

rable logics. Badiou here stages the impossible relations between Callicles and
Socrates’ ways of thinking, between Archimedes and the state, between love and
life. Each time there is a paradox, philosophy can take place: “There is philosophy,
and there can be philosophy, because there are paradoxical relations, because there
are breaks, decisions, distances, events” (Badiou 2009b, p. 16). But what may be the
vital mission of a contemporary philosophy of education, and how may this mission
be justified? It is exactly these questions Badiou helps to illuminate in his Ethics
(Badiou 2001).
An Ethic of Truth
Badiou opens his Ethics by offering a critique of “the major ‘philosophical’ ten-
dency of today”, which he sees as a mixture of philosophy and politics. Further, he
claims that the current “ethical turn” within philosophy mirrors a Kantian – more
than a Hegelian – ethics, since philosophy often comes forward as some indefinite
regulations of social life; either in terms of “bio-ethics”, “medical ethics”, or “pro-
fessional ethics” implemented by national or transnational ethical committees or
councils. Badiou characterizes such regulations as an ethic of nihilism that amounts
to “a threatening denial of thought as such” (Badiou 2001, p. 3). On the background
of this critique, he outlines a radically different ethic that refers back to particular
situations:
Rather than link the word [ethic] to abstract categories (Man or Human, Right or Law, the
Other…) it should be referred to particular situations. Rather than reduce it to an aspect of
pity for victims, it should become the enduring maxim of singular processes. Rather than
1
Badious anti-philosophy must never be confused with Deleuze’s philosophy of difference. Badiou
believes philosophy must start in historical situations and events, while Deleuze focuses on the
philosophy’s use of concepts. Badiou accused Deleuze of being a “hidden trancendentalist”.
Nevertheless, he expresses deep admiration and respect for Deleuze’s philosophical thinking:
“Gilles Deleuze: creates, by using concepts, hitherto impossible connections. He weaved thinking
like a piece of cloth – with folds and everything” (Badiou 2012b, p. 341).
270 T. Strand
make of it merely the province of conservatism with a good conscience, it should concern
the destiny of truths, in the plural. (Badiou 2001, p. 3)
Badiou names this ethic “an ethic of truth” because, to him, it is the only ethic
that enables the continuation of truth-processes. It does so by affirming the three
major dimensions of such processes: The event, the fidelity and truth.
An event is to Badiou a conceptualization of the possibility of change. The event
is unexpected and unpredictable, something that vanishes and disappears. But it
institutes a radical rupture, as it brings to pass instituted outlooks, knowledge and
opinions. An event will not in any way appear sensible in the light of everyday rules
of life or the rules that usually apply to the situation. The event strikes a radically
different logic. As such, it is an ontological “impossibility”. In this way, an event is
both situated and something that goes beyond the situation: On the one hand, the
event is conditioned by a lack – or situated void – around which a plenitude of out-
looks, knowledge and opinions circulates. On the other hand, the event carries a
radical novelty, a deep-seated change,2 a radical different logic that implies that it is
impossible to continue to practice – let us say a field of science, politics or arts – in
the same way as earlier. Fidelity amounts to the philosophers’ persistent exploration
of the situation under the imperative of the event itself. Fidelity is thus the name of
the processes of immanent and continuing ruptures. Truths (or truth procedures) are
internal to the situation and produced by fidelity: “Truth is what the fidelity groups
together and constructs, bit by bit” (Badiou 2001, p. 68).
It should be said the Badiou’s concept of truths, in plural, should thus be read in
the light of what he considers the mission of philosophy: to identify and highlight
new insights or ways of understanding that may occur in and emerge from unfore-
seen, surprising or disturbing real-worlds events. “Truths” does not belong to phi-
losophy, but rather to the worlds or practices that precedes philosophical analyses.
The mission of philosophy is just to identify and reinforce, piece by piece, the truths
that may emerge from a tangible event. Again, “truths not only are, they appear”
(Badiou 2009a, p. 42).
If we read Badiou’s Ethics in light of his two manifestos for philosophy (Badiou
1992, 2001, 2011a) it becomes evident that the problem for Badiou is that philoso-
phy seems to pretend both to be a science and an ideology. This fluctuation between
two types of discourses is due to the fact that philosophy – at least within the French
tradition of historical epistemologies – has been seen as a discursive construct; or
rather a double discursive construct that can never escape the discourse it aims to
throw light on. Evil, to Badiou, is the failure of philosophy to break off from or
escape these discourses. To him, Evil has three names: (1) To believe that an event
2
Badiou states that “an event is a real change in the sense that the existence that is only volatile
attributed to the site becomes maximum in such a way that this will be done in the next step inde-
pendently of the site. We also say that the event makes the non-existent absolute” (Badiou 2009a,
p. 585). It should be noted, however, that his term “site” has a double meaning: On the one hand it
denotes “tópos”, a term used within rhetoric to indicate general ways of thinking. On the other
hand, it denotes “space”, a term used in mathematical set theory to indicate relationships between
collections of objects or amounts (Strand 2017).
convokes not the void of earlier situations, but its plenitude, is Evil in the sense of
simulacrum, a “feel-good” image, or terror, (2) to fail to live up to fidelity is Evil in
the sense of betrayal, and (3) to identify truth with total power is Evil in the sense of
disaster (Badiou 2001, p. 71). Applied to the many faces of contemporary philoso-
phy of education, Badiou would call for a conditioned philosophy, underlining that
1. it is evil to believe that educational phenomena today assemble not the void, but
the plenitude, of earlier situations
2. it is evil, in the sense of betrayal, if philosophy of education fail to live up to
fidelity
3. it is evil in the sense of disaster if philosophers of education identify truth-
procedures with power
Badiou’s philosophy can be read as a continuation of and break from the very
tradition he himself critiques: He adopts Canguilhem, Bachelard and Althusser’s
call for epistemic ruptures. But to him, the solution is not to withdraw philosophy
from the field of politics and place it within the field of science, as his predecessors
tended to do. Nor is the solution to place philosophy within the field of politics, in
the way some of his contemporaries seem to do. Badiou rather turns to philosophy
itself as he clearly distinguishes the rules of philosophy from the discourses that are
its conditions, be it science, politics, love or art. So, let us again take a closer look
at what contemporary philosophers of education may learn from Badiou.
Conditioned Philosophy
Badiou holds that political, scientific, artistic and amorous discourses, or praxes,
precedes and orient philosophy. But philosophy should never be fused with these
conditions (Badiou 1992, 2008). However, Badiou uses the term “condition” in two
ways: On the one hand, it is the name for that which marks truth-procedures in their
compositional singularities. On the other hand, “condition” is the name for the form
or shape that creates the situation (or condition) for these autonomously operating
truth-procedures. Thus, a “condition” is or will necessarily include philosophy.
There is never an independent philosophy. Philosophy cannot think for itself. But
philosophy – and philosophy only – contains the resources to reveal and preserve
the being and appearance of truths in worlds. “In this sense the conditions prescribe,
and absolutely so, the possibilities of a philosophy’s form” (Bartlett 2006, p. 43).
Consequently, Badiou calls for a return to philosophy. His mission is to strengthen
and renew the task of philosophy: “… at least if philosophy is to count for some-
thing in life, to be something other than an academic discipline” (Badiou 2009b,
p. 12). Some may even claim that Badiou aims at moving back into Plato’s cave in
order to “return to philosophy itself” (Bartlett 2006; Pluth 2010): A philosophy of
the cave may witness an event and, if truthful to that glimpse and living up to fidel-
ity, introduce the truth by naming it in worldly situations.
272 T. Strand
Arguing against those who tend to conflate politics with philosophy and also
truth with knowledge, Badiou (2006, 2011a) contends that there is no such thing as
a philosophical truth. The purpose of philosophy is not to develop a credo.
Philosophy cannot and will not tell what particular position to take in politics or
science. Because truths are produced and continue to emerge in other, non-
philosophical spheres of life: In love, art, politics and science. However, philosophy
contains the resources to reveal and preserve the appearance of truths. In this way,
philosophy deals with logical transformations; truths as creation. But philosophy is
neither the interpreter nor mediator of truths. The task of philosophy is rather to
“examine the constitution, in singular worlds, of the appearing of truths, and there-
fore on what grounds (sic) the evidence of their existence” (Badiou 2009a, p. 9).
This distinction between philosophy and real life, in addition to Badiou’s idea of the
mission of philosophy, help to understand Badiou’s discussion on education.
Education by Truths
In a short essay – Art and Philosophy – Badiou formulates his axiom that “the only
education is an education by truths” (Badiou 2005a, p. 14). An education by truths,
according to Badiou, operates through a subtraction from the state of the situation
and proposes a different direction as regards to the true life. The pedagogical effect
of truths-in-worlds or truth-procedures, however, is conditioned. First, by finite con-
ditions, which are the truth-procedures emerging within the field of science, art,
politics or love. Second, by an infinite condition, which is Truth, or the way in
which philosophy identifies, articulates and affirms truths-in-worlds by thinking
them together. Education is thus part of a triadic knot: condition – philosophy – edu-
cation. Badiou’s notion of education has therefore a distinct form, very different
from the forms inscribed in and represented by the current state.
In Art and Philosophy Badiou explores this concept of education in relation to
one of its finite conditions, namely art. This is actually the only text in which Badiou
addresses education as education. He here claims that artistic apprenticeship is a
key to education. To him, art “is pedagogical for the simple reason that it produces
truth and because ‘education’ has never meant anything but … to arrange the forms
of knowledge in such a way that some truths may come to pierce a hole in them,”
(Badiou 2005a, p. 9). The fact that Badiou considers art as a truth procedure sui
generis, both immanent and singular, makes it impossible to think the triadic knot
of art, philosophy and education through a didactic, romantic or classical schema.
A didactic schema is problematic because it reflects an idea that art is incapable
of truth: Here, truth is conceived external to art. This schema reduces art to a means
of achieving an external goal. The didactic schema turns art into an instrument, a
device to “shape” the students within an already given template, or an apparatus for
“educating” the public. Consequently, within this perspective, the control of art
seems vital. Because “… if the truth of which art is capable comes to it from out-
side – if art is a didactics of the senses – it follows, and this point is crucial, that the
“good” essence of art is conveyed in its public effect and not in the artwork itself,”
(Badiou 2005a, p. 3). Therefore, within a didactic schema, the norm of art turns out
to be education, and the norm of education philosophy. In other words, art and phi-
losophy are here both considered instrumental to education.
A romantic schema opposes this idea. However, Badiou questions how this
romantic schema glorifies art: The romantic schema makes art absolute, as art alone
is capable of truth. Thus, art itself educates. Art completes what philosophy can
only point at. Consequently, the romantic scheme is dealing with the truth of an
artwork, never truths-in-worlds – which may be quite different from what the art-
work itself exposes. Truth is immanent, but never singular. In other words, the
romantic schema relates to art as if art represents the truth itself without regard to
the situation.
The classical schema mirrors an idea that art has a therapeutic function. To
Badiou, this schema is problematic since “art must be liked because “liking” signals
the effectiveness of catharsis, the real grip exerted by the artistic therapy of the pas-
sions,” (Badiou 2005a, p. 4). A classical schema delegates to art a public service to
capture, mirror, and shape communal desires and ambitions. Consequently, the rela-
tion between art and education can be described in terms of ‘Bildung’, or cultiva-
tion. A classical schema thus limits art to those aspects recognized as meaningful.
Moreover, it reduces philosophy to aesthetics.
In short,
Didacticism, romanticism, and classicism are the possible schemata of the link between art
and philosophy – the third term of this link being the education of subjects, the youth in
particular. In didacticism, philosophy is tied to art in the modality of an educational surveil-
lance of art’s purpose, which views it as extrinsic to truth. In romanticism, art realizes
within finitude all the subjective education of which the philosophical infinity of the idea is
capable. In classicism, art captures desire and shapes [éduque] its transference by proposing
a semblance of its object. Philosophy is summoned here only qua aesthetics: It has its say
about the rules of “liking”. (Badiou 2005a, p. 5)
Didacticism permeates the public use of art; romanticism reveals itself as pure
promise, while classicism reduces art to a service to psychoanalysis. To Badiou,
these three schemas distort the relation – or rather “non-relation” – between art and
philosophy, with the ugly consequence that the pedagogical theme collapses: “None
of these schemas operates a pedagogical form that is both singular and immanent”
(Bartlett 2006, p. 53). Badiou’s ambition, however, is to rescue the pedagogical
function of art. He thus proposes a fourth schema based on the consideration of art
as a truth-procedure sui generis:
Art itself is a truth procedure. Again; the philosophical identification of art falls under the
category of truth. Art is a thought, or rather, the truths that it activates are irreducible to
other truths – be they scientific, political, or amorous. This also means that art, as a singular
regime of thought, is irreducible to philosophy. (Badiou 2005a, p. 9)
What art educates for is nothing but its own existence. The pedagogical theme is
simply a question of encountering that existence. Philosophy’s task is to unveil
artistic truth-procedures in their very being. In this way, philosophy becomes the
go-between in the encounters with artistic truths, because philosophy has the power
274 T. Strand
to point to the configurations of these truths, reveal their thinking subjects, and help
to distinguish truth from opinion.
Badiou’s undeniably novel position on the triadic knot of art, philosophy and
education firstly recognizes art as a genuine truth-procedure; secondly refuses to
mix philosophy up with these truths while similarly pointing out that philosophy is
duty-bound to make truths-in-worlds manifest; and thirdly claims that the only edu-
cation is an education by truths. In short “education amounts to nothing more and
nothing less than establishing the effect of an encounter as a transformation,”
(Bartlett 2006, p. 55). However, what is it that is being transformed?
The question is pertinent, since Badiou certainly does not speak about an educa-
tion by the state. An education by the state would simply just perpetuate, replicate
or reproduce the norms, laws, procedures and worldviews already contained by the
situation. An education by truths, by contrast, is a transformative, open-ended and
ongoing procedure instituted by an exception, a rupture, or event. The ambition is to
nurture a subject of and to truth. Such an education does not follow any curriculum
or pre-established methods in its promotion of ontological awareness, curiosity and
search for non-knowledge.
What one must be able to require of oneself, at the right time, is rather the capacity for
adventure to which ontology testifies, in the heart of transparent rationality, by its recourse
to the production of the absurd; a detour in which the extension of their solidity may be
restituted to the equivalence: ‘He shatters his own happiness, his excess of happiness, and
to the Element which magnifies it, he rends, but purer, what he possessed’. (Badiou
2005b, p. 254)
In sum, an education by truths transforms the thinking subject. Such an education

operates through a subtraction from the situation and proposes a different direction
in regards to the true life. In other words, an educated subject is subtracted from any
concept of the situation, and may next contribute to a radical transformation of the
world. Badiou’s hyper-translation of Plato’s allegory of the cave is an illustrative
example (Badiou 2012a).
An Illustrative Example
When Badiou states that “the only education is an education by truths,” it is exactly
this notion of education he illustrates by his hyper-translation of Plato’s Republic
(Strand 2016). Plato’s Republic treats the topics of morality and justice, but also
other issues, such as education, politics and images of the good. In chapter nine,
Socrates portrays “a situation which you can use as an analogy for the human condi-
tion – for our education or lack of it,” (514a). The allegory tells a story of prisoners
chained to the wall of a cave since early childhood. Their legs and necks are fixed,
so they are forced to look in one direction only. However, a fire behind their backs
throws shadows on the wall in front from the people, puppets, objects or animals
passing by. The prisoners have never experienced life outside the cave, not even
realized that they are inside a cave, so to them these shadows constitute reality.
Badiou transforms this allegory to a fable of a movie theater: “I’ll try to paint you
a picture, with shadow and light intermingled,” Socrates says (Badiou 2012a,
p. 212). The fable tells a story of a gigantic movie theater, a full house of “tens of
thousands of spectators” chained to their seats and with rigid headphones covering
their ears, holding their heads in place. The audience gazes at an enormous screen
in front, which goes all the way up to the ceiling. Behind them there are huge pro-
jectors throwing a white light and shadows of “a chaotic parade” on the screen. The
colorful parade consists of a myriad of characters, such as puppets, robots, animals,
soldiers, gangs of youths, cultural consultants, turtledoves and scythe-bearers that
shout, sing, dance, play or just move silently along a wooden walkway in front of
the projectors.
Next, we are asked to imagine that a member of the audience is forced to stand
up, turn his head and look at the light. The sight hurts his eyes, so his impulse is to
turn back to his seat. However, “a bunch of tough guys” violently forces him to
leave the movie theater through a small side door, enter a muddy tunnel, and climb
up into the open air. “At first he is blinded by the glare of everything and can see
nothing of all the things about which we routinely say: “This exists, this is really
here,” Badiou 2012a, p. 214).
After being used to the light, he enjoys the reflection of flowers and trees in the
water, before he eventually finds pleasure in the flowers themselves. As the night
falls, he lifts his head to the sky and sees the moon and the stars. “Finally, one morn-
ing, he sees the sun, not in the ever-changing waters, or in its purely external reflec-
tion, but the sun itself, in and for itself, in its own place,” (Badiou 2012a, p. 214).
Plato suggests that the freed prisoner “feel happy about his own altered circum-
stances,” (516c) and Badiou that “he is glad to have been forced to leave,” (Badiou
2012a, p. 215).
The allegory pictures a move away from illusio (illusion), beyond doxa (com-
mon beliefs) and towards noësis (insight, wisdom or knowledge of the good). We
may label this process paideia (Jaeger 1973), Bildung (Humboldt 1993) or simply
education. The allegory carries three dimensions that together portray this educa-
tional process: The situation, the event and the subject. The situation is the movie
theater or “the cave of illusion,” in which the artificial images and the shadows of
the simulacra are taken to signify the world. The event is the unexpected turning of
the head; the unpredictable and violent enforced escape; the surprising ascension
into the open air; and the experience of the sun and the beauty of the objects of the
world outside. The subject is a thought-process that gradually unfolds the imports
of the event by addressing the whole situation and unfolding the infinity of the truth
exposed by the event.
Badiou’s fable shows that education is simply about directing, or re-directing,
thinking towards truths. Socrates sums up: “education isn’t what some people claim
it is” (Badiou 2012a, p. 218). Education is not a question of a lack of the capacity of
sight. It is neither about a lack of the capacity of knowledge. Every subject has such
capacities. Education is rather about turning the subject into the right direction. “So
education isn’t a matter of imposing, but rather of orienting: It is a technique of
conversion…” (Badiou 2012a, p. 218).
276 T. Strand
In sum, Badiou portrays education as a “reorientation” and “incorporation into a

truth”. Thought has its own power, which it can never lose. However, whether
thought is useful or useless, constructive or destructive, valuable or damaging
depends on the direction in which that power is turned.
Badiou’s Call
To sum up, I have here pointed to Badiou’s overall ambition of rethinking, renewing
and thereby strengthening philosophy as an academic discipline. His rethinking of
the status of the immanent real goes well with his ambition to make sense of the
potential of radical innovations in, or transformations of, any given situation.
“Understood in this way, and only in this way, philosophy really is that which helps
existence to be changed” (Badiou 2009b, p. 13). Moreover, I have pointed to the
way in which Badiou sharply rejects the current tendency to create philosophical
credos: Philosophy is different from real life. And real life can never be turned into
philosophy, because to him, real life always precedes philosophy. So, Badiou’s call
is for philosophy to respond to real life situations through a diligent, meticulous and
non-dogmatic engagement with incommensurable aspects of the material world.
But then again, to what degree do current philosophy respond to what is going
on? The reality of today is that young Europeans, including Nordic youths, grow up
in a globalized world marked by economic inequalities, epidemic threats, climate
change and an uncertain future. Youth revolts, emerging fascism and a democratic
recession may indicate that the societies’ social contract is put to test. But what kind
of philosophy carry a potential to respond well to this situation? To what degree
may Badiou in fact offer a philosophy for the present? In addition, does his philo-
sophical system carry a potential to strengthen the topicality and relevance of a
philosophy of education of and for the present? It seems like an impossible dilemma,
on the one hand, to claim that philosophy carry the potential to help existence to be
changed and, on the other hand, to claim a sharp distinction between philosophy and
real life.
The Timeliness and Relevance of Philosophy of Education
It may seem contradictory that Badiou sharply rejects the tendency to create philo-
sophical credos, as he himself has published no less than two philosophical mani-
fests and several polemical writings on the (missing) timeliness and relevance of
philosophy. In all, it appears that Badiou – and even philosophy itself – is sur-
rounded by a number of contradictions and dilemmas: Badiou’s ambition is to
return to, restore and enhance traditional philosophy while also strengthening its
timeliness and relevance. He clearly takes a stance against the current tendency to
engage in polemic philosophy, while he at the same time publishes polemical texts;
He portrays a genuine philosopher as one who constructs her own problems, while
he at the same time advocates a first and conditioned philosophy. An obvious
dilemma is how it is possible to be rooted in tradition while simultaneously wanting
to radically renew it. It is exactly this dilemma Badiou discusses in his somewhat
overlooked essay “What Is a Philosophical Institution?” (Badiou 2006).
In this essay, Badiou addresses the dilemma by introducing the metaphor of a
theatre. Philosophy is a theatre containing a myriad of voices, discourses and truth
procedures. It is a tragic theatre, because conflicting events, polemical scenes, and
separate subjects are taking place. It is also a comic theatre, as grotesque figures like
the sophist, the anti-philosopher, the reactionary, the obscure or the ideologue are
here being divulged. The theatre is huge, with numerous scenes, multiple actor
groups and myriads of spectators, as Badiou’s doctrine of a conditional philosophy
allows for several stages and multiple groups of actors. Armed with this doctrine
and Badiou’s concepts of event, fidelity and truth, it is possible to re-read the history
of philosophy, reorganize it on the basis of various configurations of truth proce-
dures, and point out how these truths are more or less recognized by earlier philoso-
phers. This “history of truth procedures” (which should not be confused with a
person’s history) is to Badiou a history of ideas that next generates more scenes,
involving several groups of actors and affects more spectators. Consequently, it
becomes clear that to Badiou, the genuine philosopher is not a lone actor in the
desert of theories. On the contrary, the genuine philosopher is a sophisticated artist,
a scientist at the edge of madness, an amorous lover, and a socially engaged human
being surrounded by – and interacting with – diverse actors and deeply committed
and involved individuals. Philosophy is a diverse, varied and rich engagement, in
which the mission is to see the situation (the world), appreciating the unusual, and
asking new questions.
Philosophers of education are invited to participate in this theatre. The commit-
ment concerns the incommensurable relationship between philosophy and educa-
tion, in which a productive thinking emerge in the distinction between the rules of
philosophy and the (educational) discourses that condition philosophy, whether it is
about art, science, love and politics. The task of philosophy of education is to read
the truth procedures emerging from these four discourses, and point to their educa-
tional potentials. Philosophy of education must think that which is impossible to
think within the given categories of the discourses. This can happen through a thor-
ough reading of the situation (the world), by appreciating the unusual, and by asking
new questions.
References
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Torill Strand (b. 1957) is Professor at the University of Oslo, Department of Education. Her
competencies range from meta-theory to social epistemologies, educational philosophy and the-
ory, cosmopolitanism, and semiotics. Strand has written and edited numerous books and special
issues and published widely in international journals. Recent publications are Alain Badiou and
Education (2020), Reification as a forgetting (2019), “I create silence”: Revisiting the ancient
dispute between poetry and philosophy (2017), and Cinema, Philosophy and Education
(forthcoming).
Name Index
A Canguilhem, G., 271

Apple, M., 50 Castoriadis, C., 2
Adorno, T.W., 240 Cavell, S., 173
Agamben, G., 81 Chisholm, R., 239
Al-Kubaisi, W., 71 Comenius, J.A., 246
Althusser, L., 271 Costa, V., 123, 126, 127, 129–131, 133
Anderson, B., 183, 184, 188 Crary, A., 7, 172–178
Antikainen, A., 4, 5, 104, 154, 164 Curren, R., 265
Appiah, K.A., 186, 192
Apple, M., 50, 57
Austin, J.L., 172 D
Axelsen, D., 188, 190 Delanty, G., 181, 186–188
Deleuze, G., 213, 217, 266, 269
Deranty, J.P., 106
B Deranty, J.-P., 106
Bachelard, G., 271 Derrida, J., 7, 49, 76–79, 82, 154, 156, 158,
Badiou, A., 8, 9, 264–277 161–163, 266
Bankovsky, M., 103, 107, 109, 111 Descartes, R., 92
Barad, K.M., 213, 215–220 Dewey, J., 3, 6, 115, 203–205, 232,
Beck, U., 36, 181, 182, 185–190, 192, 224 243, 244
Beckett, S., 81, 82 Durkheim, E., 149, 245
Benhabib, S., 49, 56, 62
Benner, D., 6, 88–92, 94, 97–99, 107, 111,
114, 115, 138, 265 E
Bernstein, B., 50, 57 Elster, J., 184
Biesta, G., 14, 124, 210, 212 Esping-Andersen, G., 4, 105
Bottici, C., 2, 4
Braidotti, R., 209, 213, 216, 217, 219, 220
Brandom, R., 174 F
Brandsma, B., 224–226 Farthing, R., 15, 33, 36
Brundtland, G.H., 48 Feldman, R., 169–172, 176, 178
Ferrara, A., 139, 140, 148
Fichte, J.G., 89–94
C Foucault, M., 80, 266
Callan, E., 122, 123, 126, 127, 131 Frandsen, H.V., 6, 265

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49524-4
280 Name Index
Fraser, N., 106, 113–115 Koselleck, R., 2

Freud, S., 255, 256, 258–260 Krejsler, J.B., 138
Kvamme, O.A., 6, 49, 155, 265
Kymlicka, W., 3, 186, 192
G
Gadamer, Hans.–G., 50, 72
Galston, W., 122, 123, 126, 127, 131 L
Giddens, A., 189, 224 Lacan, J., 9, 255–260, 267
Grue-Sørensen, K., 238–240, 245 Lawrence, D.H.R., 78, 79
Gutmann, A., 122, 123, 128, 129, 138 Leiviska, A., 7, 103, 225
Lévinas, E., 75
Lovibond, S., 172
H
Habermas, J., 7, 37, 39, 105–107, 109, 130,
138, 140–150, 182, 183, 186, 224, 226 M
Hand, M., 200 Malabou, C., 7, 154–164, 265
Hanhela, T., 7, 102, 226 Marshall, T.H., 3
Haraway, D.J., 211, 214–217 Masschelein, J., 138
Hegel, G.W.F, 105, 108, 115, 146, McDowell, J., 172–174, 240
155–159, 240 Merry, M.S., 122, 124, 130
Hegna, K., 5, 18, 24 Mouffe, C., 224–226, 229
Heidegger, M., 7, 8, 74, 155–161, 168, 169,
177, 227, 266
Heikkinen, H.L.T., 5, 39, 103 N
Held, D., 3, 138, 189 Nussbaum, M., 128, 190, 192
Herbart, J.F., 89, 91
Herder, J.G.v, 6
Hogstad, K.H., 7, 265 O
Holberg, L., 238 Oelkers, J., 138
Hönigswald, R., 240–245 Oettingen, A.v., 87–89, 238, 240
Honneth, A., 2, 3, 6, 7, 26, 31, 38–40,
102–115, 226
Horkheimer, M., 240 P
Horlacher, R., 4, 210 Papastephanou, M., 50, 56, 62, 192
Huggler, J., 8, 239, 244 Peirce, C.S., 204, 206
Humboldt, F.W., 2, 275 Phillips, D.C., 264, 265
Husserl, E., 226–228, 232–234 Plato, 2, 6, 8, 160, 266, 267, 271,
Huttunen, R., 5, 38, 39, 103 274, 275
Hyldgaard, K., 9, 227, 260, 265
R
J Ranciere, J., 103, 106
Jaeger, W., 2, 275 Rawls, J., 103, 105, 109, 122, 123, 126,
James, W., 203 129–133, 139, 140, 147, 202, 203,
Jezierska, K., 224, 226, 234 206, 225
Renault, E., 102, 108
Ricoeur, P., 50, 59
K Rönnström, N., 8, 184–188, 190, 193
Kant, I., 2, 6, 89, 90, 92, 144, 241, 242 Rorty, R., 146
Kaukko, M., 5, 34–36, 41 Roth, K., 138
Kekki, M.-K., 8 Rousseau, J.-J., 6, 89, 162, 163, 243, 244
Kiilakoski, T., 24, 30, 32–34, 39, 103 Russell, B., 238, 239, 245
Koczanowicz, L., 225, 226, 234 Rydenfelt, H., 8, 203, 204
Name Index 281
S Taylor, C.A., 2, 8, 155, 210, 212–216,

Säfström, C.A., 122–124, 127, 128, 130–132 218, 265
Said, E., 216 Thomas, N., 30, 32, 38
Schleiermacher, F., 242 Treschow, N., 238
Schmied-Kowarzik, W., 241
Schumann, C., 7, 8, 265
Schutz, A., 226–233 V
Siegel, H., 199, 200, 265 van Manen, M.,
Smeyers, P., 265 72, 73
Socrates, 97, 267, 269, 274, 275 van Manen, M.A., 73
Sørensen, A., 4, 7, 131, 140, 144–146, 149 Volker, I., 189
Stein, E., 226, 228, 231
Stilma, L., 67
Stojanov, K., 102 W
Strand, T., 3, 4, 9, 14, 48, 59, 122, 154, 181, Walker, K., 186, 192
187, 210, 224, 246, 254, 264–266, 274 Wiggins, D., 172
Straume, I., 2 Williams, B., 175
Wills, K., 6, 7, 103, 132
Winther-Jensen, T., 238, 247
T Wittgenstein, L., 172,
Taylor, C., 4, 38, 182–184, 186, 218 173, 176
Subject Index
A 224, 225, 229, 230, 232, 234, 238–242,

Actions, 35–37, 39, 46, 49, 50, 55, 62, 68, 247, 248, 253, 254, 256, 257, 260, 266,
82, 90, 91, 93, 94, 98, 99, 104, 105, 271, 273–275, 277
109–111, 113, 114, 116, 126, 131, 138, Beliefs, 2, 4–6, 14, 68, 111–113, 115, 127,
143, 146, 172, 173, 182–185, 190, 154, 170, 203, 205, 227, 238–240, 243,
192–194, 211, 215, 218, 220, 224, 245, 256, 275
229, 230 “Bildsamkeit”, 88, 91, 98
Active citizenship, 3, 30 “Bildung”, v, 2, 7, 8, 137–150, 209–221, 238,
“Aletheia”, 8 247, 273, 275
Algorithms, 8, 173, 247
Allegory, 160, 264, 274, 275
The allegory of the cave, 160 C
Ancient Greece, 9, 261 Carbon footprints, 53–56, 58, 59, 61
Anecdotes, 72 Chains of significance, 258, 259
Anthropocene, 46, 210–214, 220 Changes, v, 5–8, 11, 14, 31, 32, 40, 46, 60, 98,
Anti-philosophy, 9, 267–269 107, 111, 115, 122, 125, 132, 133,
Antiquity, 8 154–164, 182, 183, 185–188, 200, 247,
Anxiety, 74, 257, 260–261 264, 266, 270
Appeals, 6, 77, 87–100, 200 Children, 6, 9, 15, 30–32, 34, 37–40, 60, 69,
Arenas of participation, 5, 31, 36, 37, 39, 40 76, 81, 90, 91, 98, 99, 103, 110, 111,
“Arrivant”, 77–79 128, 145, 164, 185, 188, 191, 192, 198,
Asylum seekers, 6, 35, 68–69, 71, 72, 77, 199, 201, 215, 244, 261, 264
79–82, 132, 134 Children’s parliaments, 32
“Aufforderung”, 88, 90, 91 Citizenship
Authenticity, 92, 143 activities, 15, 17, 23, 25
Auto-activity, 90, 98 education, 7, 13, 22, 25, 122–134,
138–140, 142, 146–147, 149, 150,
210, 224
B skills, 17
Beings, 7, 17, 23, 31–34, 37–39, 41, 46, 47, Civic education, 14, 15, 17, 22, 61, 127
54–57, 61, 70–77, 79–83, 90, 91, 95, Civic engagement, 5, 14–22, 24, 25, 210
96, 98, 102, 103, 106, 110, 111, 114, Civic knowledge, 15–17
115, 126, 128, 129, 131, 132, 138–141, Civic participation, 16–21
143–146, 149, 150, 158–160, 163, 168, Civilization, 243
173, 183, 184, 186, 189, 190, 210–220, Civil society, 36, 38, 39, 140, 142, 150, 212

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49524-4
284 Subject Index
Classicism, 273 Democratic formation, 141

Climate change, 47, 60, 155, 211, 276 Democratic iterations, 49, 55, 56, 61
Cognition, 238, 242, 244 Democratic life, 32, 182
Collective enlightenment, 147 Democratic obedience, 14
Conditioned philosophy, 271–272, 277 Democratic opinion, 7, 137–150
Conditions, 31, 33, 34, 49, 56, 58, 69, 74, 77, Democratic recession, 1, 276
82, 93, 94, 109, 112, 113, 122, 130, Democratic values, 106, 122, 124, 131,
131, 141, 144, 146, 148, 154, 162, 173, 199, 225
175, 183, 188, 197, 200, 203, 205, 209, Democratic will formation, 3, 6
218–220, 239, 241, 242, 248, 255, 257, “Demos”, 3
258, 260, 265, 271, 272, 274, 277 Denial of rights, 110
Conflicting opinions, 198, 205, 206 Denigration of the ways of life, 110
Continental philosophy, 156 Denmark, 5, 15–22, 87, 246, 247, 252
Conventional citizenship, 5, 15 Desires, 3, 69, 75, 81–83, 95, 106–108, 110,
Cosmopolitan imagination, 8, 186, 188, 122, 161, 213, 253, 254, 256, 257, 259,
189, 192–194 260, 268, 273
Cosmopolitanism, 8, 182, 186–189, 191–193 Desire to learn, 260
Cosmopolitan learning, 192–194 Dialectics, 36, 37, 40, 155–159, 218
Critical cosmopolitanism, 49–50, 52, 54, 61 Dialogues, 5, 147, 184, 223–227, 229,
Critical hermeneutics, 50, 52, 59, 61 231–234, 254, 255, 267
Critical reflections, 54, 234, 245, 247 Didacticism, 273
Critical theory, 50, 141, 146, 177, 186 Dignity of the child, 31
Critical thinking, 15, 25, 169–172, 198, 199, The discourse of the hysteric, 259
206, 234 The discourse of the university,
Critiques, 9, 14, 50, 60, 61, 106–108, 111, 257, 259
112, 114, 122–130, 138, 141, 143, 145, The discourse theory of democracy, 142,
159, 168, 169, 174, 176–178, 212, 213, 146, 148
218, 224, 238–248, 269, 271 Discursive communication, 147
Cultures, 14, 23, 24, 31, 41, 70, 71, 77, 108, Disengagement, 19, 36, 37, 39, 40
127, 128, 131, 133, 138, 140, 143, Disinformation, 9, 246, 248
145–148, 182, 183, 185, 187, 188, 191, Disrespect, 109–111, 115
199, 201–203, 212, 214, 218, Distrust, 36
228, 238–248 “Doxa”, 97, 275
Curiosity, 260, 274 Drives, 256, 260
D E
Danish, 7, 17, 18, 25, 58, 60, 125, 133, Eccentric cosmopolitanism, 49
238, 253 Eccentric selves, 56–57, 61
Death of epistemology, 238 “Educare”, 9
Decision-making process, 32 Education, v, 2, 4–9, 13, 14, 16–18, 22–25, 30,
Deconstruction, 157, 159, 163, 177, 266 31, 33, 34, 40, 47–49, 52, 59, 61, 69,
Deliberative democracy, 7, 139–141, 143–145, 79, 88–91, 98–100, 102, 103, 109, 114,
149, 150, 224, 226 115, 121–134, 138–140, 142, 143,
Deliberative politics, 7, 140–144, 146, 148 145–147, 149, 150, 154, 156, 164,
Democracies, 2, 3, 8, 13, 14, 16, 18–20, 167–178, 181–194, 197–206, 210,
23–25, 30, 32, 40, 122, 124, 130, 132, 212–214, 218, 223, 224, 238–248,
137–141, 144, 146–150, 189–191, 199, 252–261, 264–266, 271–277
201, 224–226 Educational cosmopolitanism, 8, 181–194
Democratic citizenship education, 7, 128, 131, Educational justice, 7, 101–116
140, 147, 149, 150, 224 Educational paradox, 88, 89, 98
Democratic culture, 33, 140, 150 Educational philosophies, 6–8, 85, 87,
Democratic education, 150 169, 177–178
Subject Index 285
Educational theories, 7, 130, 170, 265 Fidelity, 128, 270, 271, 277
Education by the state, 274 Finish educational policy, 24
Education by truths, 115, 266, 272–274 The Finnish Youth Barometer, 32, 40
“Educere”, 9 Finland, 5, 15–22, 24, 25, 30–37, 40, 103, 125,
Egalitarian ideology, 254 128, 224
Ego, 256 Finnish, 5, 7, 17, 18, 20, 25, 30–35, 125, 128,
Eidetic reduction, 72 133, 199, 223, 224, 226, 231
Emancipatory knowledge, 109, 138 Folk-Bildung, 31
Empathy, 102, 110, 213, 238 Formations, 2, 7, 9, 98, 123, 131, 137–150,
Encouragements, v, 6, 75, 87–100 160, 163, 182, 183, 185, 188, 191, 192,
Engagements, 14–21, 24, 26, 35–37, 39, 40, 220, 238–248, 257
46, 48, 127, 156, 211, 214, 220, 264, Forms of thinking, 7, 8, 169, 172
276, 277 Free auto-activity, 87–100
Enlarged thought, 49, 55 Freedoms, 4, 7, 16, 70, 71, 87–100, 102, 105,
Enlightenment, 2, 90, 92, 99, 212, 214–216, 107, 133, 138, 140, 144, 155, 156, 191,
220, 238, 242, 246 201, 202, 218, 244, 247, 253
Environmental and sustainability education,
48, 49, 54, 61
Environmental ethical values, 45–62 G
Epistemic assumptions, 2 “Geltungswerte”, 242, 243
Epistemologies, 169, 238–242, 245, 246, German idealism, 90, 140, 146
248, 270 Gettier problems, 238
Equality, 4, 5, 7, 25, 89, 102, 105, 125, Global challenges, 5, 182, 191, 247
131–133, 164, 190, 191, 199, 224, Global interconnectivity, 182, 183,
225, 254 185–188, 191
Errors, 238, 245, 246 Globalizations, 47, 48, 182, 183, 185–188
Ethical, 2, 9, 47, 49, 52, 54, 57, 76, 93, Global markets, 182, 189
105–107, 123, 130, 139, 140, 143, 147, The good society, 2
172, 174, 197–206, 209, 210, 214–217, Greek mythology, 157
219, 220, 225, 234, 248, 269
Ethical justification, 201, 203
Ethical-political education, v, 1–9, 14–16, 25, H
26, 138, 144, 150, 153–164, 169, 179, Hate, 257
182, 193, 194, 210, 247 Hegelian dialectics, 7, 158
Ethics, 46, 48, 58, 93, 138, 141, 142, 145, 148, Hegel’s concept of time, 155, 156
154, 156, 173–175, 204, 210, 215–217, Hegemonic imaginaries, 52
219, 220, 244, 269–271 Hegemony, 50, 57–60
Ethics of truths, 264 Hermeneutic openness, 103, 107
European Union, 30, 122 Hermeneutics, 51, 72, 108–115,
Events, 7, 74, 79, 82, 128, 160, 164, 203, 213, 159, 177
214, 219, 265–271, 274, 275, 277 Heteronomy, 92–94, 96, 107
Exclusions, 69, 110, 124, 130, 214, 217, 219 Heterotopia, 80, 81
Existentialism, 177 Higher education, 8, 18, 22, 139,
Experiences of injustices, 102–104, 108, 209–221, 253
114, 115 Homeworlds, 227–234
Horizons, 82, 89, 92, 98–100, 183
Hospitability, 73
F Host, 69, 71, 73, 76–79, 83
Fallibility, 206, 238 Human agency, 32, 218, 219
Falsity, 245 Human educational processes, 169
Families, 5, 17–19, 24, 32, 38, 55, 57, Humanism, 212, 214, 215
60, 138, 183, 192, 198, 201, Human rights, 20, 30, 31, 70, 133, 140, 143,
202, 240, 255, 264 144, 147, 149, 199, 201
Far-right-populist parties, 122 Humiliation, 38, 110
286 Subject Index
I Knowledges, 7, 14–18, 22, 24, 25, 55, 56, 59,

“Ich-Bestimmtheit”, 241 60, 62, 72, 79, 92, 95, 104, 106,
Identities, 2–4, 6, 7, 17, 24, 33, 37, 38, 48, 108–110, 115, 123, 145, 157, 169, 175,
78, 105, 107, 115, 122–128, 130, 184, 185, 210, 225, 228, 229, 233, 234,
132, 133, 148, 182, 183, 185–188, 238–248, 254, 256–259, 261, 266,
190–192, 199, 210, 218, 224, 270, 272, 275
225, 227, 233, 247 “Kratos”, 3
Ideological recognition, 104, 111–113
Ideologies, 5, 50, 57–61, 112, 124,
138, 141, 145, 149, 199–201, L
212, 254, 259, 270 Lacanian psychoanalysis, 256
The ideology of humanism, 212 Lacan’s theory of the four discourses, 255
Ignorance, 175, 202, 245, 256 Law, 30, 58, 70, 92, 93, 130, 139–150, 189,
“illusio”, 275 244, 269
Immigrants, 7, 18, 22, 48, 69, 70, Learning, 23, 36, 40, 106, 107, 109, 115, 116,
72, 81, 122, 124, 125, 125, 139, 149, 154, 174, 184, 185,
132–134, 265 192–194, 210, 213, 215, 216, 218, 224,
Immigrant students, 7, 103, 121–134 239, 241, 242, 247, 255–258, 260, 261
Immigration, 34, 73 Liberal theories of citizenship, 123–129
Immigration policy, 71 “libidinal cathexis”, 256, 257
“Incorporation into a truth”, 276 Libido, 256
Inequalities, 141, 145, 210, 276 Lived experiences, 6, 69, 71, 72
Initiation, 164, 238 Living democracy, 14
Injustices, 102, 108–115, 127, 145, 216, 219 Logics of worlds, 266
Inquiries, 71, 73, 127, 198, 201, 204–206, Love of knowledge, 256, 257
246, 265 Loves, 38, 57, 105, 110–112, 116, 126, 243,
The International Civic and Citizenship 256, 257, 260, 268, 269, 271, 272, 277
Study, 14, 17 Loyalties, 3–6, 48, 129, 182, 187, 188,
The International Civic and Citizenship Study 190, 192
2016 (ICCS 2016), 15, 16,
19–21, 23, 25
“Ist-Bestimmtheit”, 241 M
Marginalized students, 124, 131, 132
Marketization, 182, 183
J Marxist critique, 145
Jurisgenerativity, 49, 61 Master discourse, 258
Justice, 7, 40, 55, 56, 60, 93, 95, 102, 103, Materialities, 213, 218, 266
115, 125, 128–130, 132, 133, Media-based public dialogue,
139–141, 146–150, 189, 191, 8, 223–234
203, 216, 267, 274 Meritocracy, 254
Justice for education, 102 Metaphysics, 148, 149, 156, 159–161,
Justice in education, 102 238, 248
Justice paradigms, 102, 103 The migrant young, 34
Justice theories, 102–104, 106, 108, 109, Migrant youths, 34
111, 115 Migration, 1, 77, 141, 183, 189
Justice through education, 102 Minorities, 16, 24, 33, 34, 71, 122, 125, 128,
230, 247
Misogyny, 112, 113
K Misrecognition, 104, 108–115
Kantian paradox, 6 Misunderstandings, 8, 169, 171, 223–234
Kantian position, 56 Moral education, 5–6, 45–62, 115, 200, 265
Knowledge by acquaintance, 238, 239 Moral judgments, 49, 55, 56, 172–178, 247
Knowledge by description, 238, 239 Moral objectivism, 171–177
Subject Index 287
Moral philosophy, 48, 49, 105, 142 Paradoxical relations, 265, 269
The more-than-human world, 50, 51, 53, 55, Participation, 5, 13–26, 30–41, 127, 128, 131,
57, 61, 62 137, 139, 140, 189, 191, 225, 242
Muslims, 71 The participation imperative, 5, 30–41
Mutual recognition, 107, 144 Patriotic citizenship education, 7, 126, 129,
132, 133
Patriotism, 122, 123, 126–132
N Pedagogical practices, 73, 88, 89, 98, 99
Narcissism, 256, 258, 260 Pedagogies, 6, 8, 87–89, 99, 211, 214, 220,
Narratives, 72, 125, 157, 212, 213 239, 242–245
National education, 5, 182, 188, 191–194 Pedagogue, 9, 261
Nationalist imaginaries, 182, 188, 194 Peer-groups, 37
Nation-building, 4, 122, 182, 187, 188 Peer relations, 36, 39
Neo-Nazism, 112 Phenomenology, 94–97, 157, 177, 240
Non-action, 37 Phenomenology of practice, 71, 72
Non-knowledge, 115, 274 Phenomenon of the appeal, 89, 94, 97–99
Non-participation, 19, 35–37 Philosophies, 2, 3, 5, 7–9, 38, 46, 87, 105,
Non-place, 80 108, 109, 129, 143, 145, 146, 148, 149,
Non-western representations, 6 154, 156, 157, 159–161, 164, 187, 198,
The Nordic model, 1–9, 16, 25, 26, 31, 48, 59, 203, 217, 238, 241, 244, 247, 248,
102–105, 108, 111, 115, 154, 164, 169, 264–274, 276, 277
210, 211, 224 Philosophy of education, 9, 122, 123, 131,
Nordic schools, 103 149, 169–170, 178, 197, 198, 238,
Nordic teachers, 15 240–243, 264–277
The Nordic welfare state model, 4, 105 Physical abuse, 109, 110
Nordic youths, 1, 5, 6, 16, 24, 25, 276 Plasticity, 155–159, 161–164, 265
Norms, 2, 6, 8, 14, 16, 81, 104, 107–109, 111, Pluralism, 8, 33, 123, 129, 140, 197–206
114, 115, 126, 139, 141, 143, 144, 146, Poems, 67, 73, 78
148, 150, 182, 199, 200, 240, “polis”, 2, 3
265, 267, 273, 274 Political attitudes, 32
Norway, 5, 15–22, 24, 48, 52, 58–60, 67–83, Political citizenship education,
246, 247, 265 17, 224
“nouveaux philosophes”, 266 Political engagement, 15, 22, 24–26
Norwegians, 6, 7, 17, 18, 20, 23–25, 46, Political liberalism, 103, 122, 123, 126,
48–50, 52, 56, 57, 59, 68–71, 77, 133 129–132, 140, 148, 203
Political literacy, 17
Political participation, 5, 14–19, 24, 25,
O 32–34, 37, 40, 139, 182
Objectivity, 7, 169, 170, 172–177, 198 Political philosophies of the West, 6
Onto-epistemic imaginaries, 7 Political skills, 138
Ontological, 2, 154, 156–158, 160, 161, 164, Political socialisation, 17, 25
203, 212–214, 220, 226, 241, The political sphere, 15, 33, 34, 39
264, 266, 270 Political trust, 16
Ontological awareness, 6, 7, 274 Politics, 14–16, 24, 25, 33, 36, 40, 89,
Ontological shift, 213 138–143, 146–149, 154, 156, 182, 186,
Ontologies, 149, 154–156, 159–161, 163, 213, 217–220, 226, 244, 269–272, 274, 277
214, 219, 220, 266, 274 Politics of silence, 36
Post-colonial, 212
Posthuman Bildung, 210, 211, 213, 214,
P 216, 220
“Paideia”, 2, 160, 275 Posthuman ethics, 215, 216
Paradoxes, 6, 87–90, 94, 97, 161, 189, 269 Posthumanism, 8, 209, 210, 212–214, 217,
The paradox of the appeal, 94, 95 219, 265
288 Subject Index
Posthuman world, 209–221 Rooted cosmopolitanism, 192

Postmodern, 25, 33, 170, 212 Rooted imaginary cosmopolitanism,
Postmodernism, 266 8, 182, 191–194
Post-structuralism, 226 Rortyian pragmatism, 238
Post-structuralist, 212
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), 75
Post-truth society, 8 S
Pragmatism, 5, 8, 197–206, 238 School community, 32, 37
The problem of pluralism, 8, 197–206 School dropout rates, 103
Propaganda, 9, 246, 248 “Scheme moteur”, 161, 163
Psychoanalysis, 106, 273 Scientism, 168
Public dialogue, 223–227, 229, 231–234 Seduction, 256, 258, 260
Public schooling, 122 “Selbsttätigkeit”, 88–90, 98
Pupils, 23, 98, 198–202, 243–246 “Selbstwirksamkeit”, 87–100
The Self, 7, 49, 56, 57, 71, 80, 89–94, 97–100,
142, 212, 214, 215
R The states, 3, 4, 31, 38, 39, 78, 79, 81, 102,
Racism, 112, 113, 216 140, 142, 143, 150, 160, 219, 232, 247,
Radical dialogues, 8 266, 268, 269, 272
Radical public dialogue, 226, 229, 231–234 The symbolic order, 258
Rationality, 7, 75, 124, 139, 149, 169, Self-confidence, 38, 39, 105, 107, 110
175–178, 199, 200, 202, 225, 274 Self-esteem, 16, 38, 39, 105, 107, 110, 115
Rawlsian model, 7 Self-formation, 210
Reasonableness, 7, 123, 129–133, 225 Self-reflective attitude, 8, 226, 227,
Reasonable reciprocity, 225 229, 231–234
Reception centers, 69, 70, 72, 74, 75, 80, 81 Self-respect, 38, 39, 105, 107, 110, 115
Recognition, 5, 7, 31, 37–41, 102–108, Self-transformation, 210
110–116, 129, 139, 150, 187, 225, 226, Shame, 38, 110, 111, 114
243, 253–255, 260 Silences, 35, 82, 259
Recognitive justice, 101–116 Situations, 1, 5, 6, 9, 35–37, 47, 48, 50, 52, 56,
Reflexive methodology, 50 57, 68, 70, 73, 75, 79, 82, 89, 91, 94,
Reflexive modernization, 182, 185, 190 95, 103, 106, 130, 132, 134, 137, 170,
Refugees, 35, 68–71, 132, 134, 189 183, 190, 200, 205, 225, 228–230, 238,
Relativism, 8, 198 242–244, 246, 264, 266–277
Reorientation, 276 Social change, 14, 182, 183, 185, 186
Representative democracy, 31, 32, 34, 36, 40 Social cohesion, 125, 132, 148, 201, 203
Republicanism, 143, 150 Social contract, 1, 276
Research-based education, 253–255 Social differences, 4, 48, 122, 226, 254
Residence permit, 70, 72, 81, 83 Social imaginaries, 183–187, 191–194
Respects, 30, 31, 55, 68, 88, 99, 102, 123, 139, Social imagination, 182–186, 188, 189, 194
148, 154, 174, 186, 199, 210, 211, 248, Social inequalities, 1, 108–111, 115
255, 257, 260 Social institutions, 24, 105
Rights, 2, 4, 15, 22–24, 30, 31, 34, 38, 39, 48, Social integration, 107, 148, 182, 183
56, 62, 70, 78–81, 90, 98, 102, 105, Socialism, 141, 147
108, 110–112, 115, 116, 122, 128–132, Social issues, 14, 24, 25
134, 140, 141, 143–145, 148, 150, 171, Social media, 8, 25, 33, 36, 197,
184, 185, 189, 190, 198, 200, 201, 212, 227, 229, 231
218, 224, 227, 228, 240, 244, 267–269, Social participation, 4, 33
274, 275 Social pathologies, 104, 109, 111–115
The right to be heard, 30 Social relations, 9, 32, 50, 232, 233, 255,
The right to participation, 30 260, 261
Romanticism, 146, 246, 266, 273 Social significance, 265
Subject Index 289
Social welfare, 4, 182 Trusts, 5, 16, 25, 36, 39, 67, 68, 148, 149,
Socialization, 147 185, 247
Solidarity, 4, 48, 59, 102, 105, 132, 149, Truth-procedures, 266, 270–273, 277
182, 246 Truths, 8, 9, 14, 68, 74, 79, 127, 139, 140,
Solipsism, 6 143–147, 160, 170–172, 198, 204,
Spaces of participation, 40–41 238–248, 266, 269–275, 277
States, 3, 4, 23, 30, 31, 36, 38–40, 46–48, 54, Truths-in-worlds, 266, 267, 271–274
58, 69, 75, 77, 90, 107, 111, 114, 122, Typologies, 16, 18
126, 128, 134, 138, 141, 143, 144, 148,
150, 160, 168, 182, 184, 186, 188, 189,
193, 202, 204, 211, 212, 225, 240, 246, U
268, 272, 274 Unaccompanied asylum-seeking girls, 34
Stereotyping, 8, 223–234 Unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors, 6
Struggle for recognition, 38, 105–107 Unaccompanied minors, 35, 67–83
Students, v, 6, 7, 15–20, 22, 24–26, 34, 35, 40, The UN convention on the rights
45–62, 98, 99, 122–128, 132–134, 154, of the child, 30
164, 170–173, 176, 177, 194, 198–202, UNESCO, 49
204, 216, 218, 239, 242, 243, 252–257, United Nations, 30, 46–48, 56
259–261, 272 University education, 254
Students’ situatedness, 62 Unpolitical young people, 36
Subjectivities, 89, 93, 94, 105, 172, 173, 212, Utopias, 4, 50, 59, 60, 80, 105
213, 216, 220, 221, 241, 247
Subjects, 5, 23, 37, 46, 49, 60, 89–91, 93, 94,
96, 106–108, 110, 113, 114, 124, 154, V
158, 170, 185, 188, 198, 204, 206, 210, Vague, 8, 199, 229
213, 214, 238, 240, 241, 244, 248, Vagueness, 71
254–257, 259, 260, 266, Validity-values, 242–245
273–275, 277 Values, 2, 5, 6, 8, 14, 16, 18, 25, 38, 39,
Sustainable development, 6, 46, 47, 49, 52, 46–51, 53, 55–58, 60–62, 90, 94,
53, 55, 61 103–108, 110–113, 115, 122–124,
Sweden, 5, 15–22, 24, 103, 246 126, 131, 132, 139–141, 143–149,
Swedish, 7, 17, 18, 22, 25, 48, 122–124, 133 170, 175, 182, 197–206, 212,
219, 223–225, 231–233,
243–245, 265, 267, 269
T “Verwandlung”, 156, 159
Teachers, v, 6, 15, 24, 46, 51–56, 58, 59, 61, The virtuous citizen, 2
77, 79, 90, 93, 99, 125, 133, 138, 194, Voices, 34, 35, 37, 51, 75, 76, 79, 96, 108,
199, 200, 214, 218, 239, 242, 124, 161, 215, 224, 254, 277
244–247, 253–261 “Voir venir”, 158
Teachings, 14, 15, 25, 26, 46, 52, 93, 97, 123, Vulnerability, 75–77, 93, 200, 201, 220, 257
125, 131, 185, 199–202, 206, 213, 216,
218, 239–241, 244, 252–256,
258–261, 264 W
Thinking, 2, 3, 7, 9, 22, 37, 73, 77, 94, 104, Waiting, 6, 34, 67–83, 103, 149
122, 155, 156, 158–160, 163, 164, “Wandel”, 156, 159
167–178, 186, 190, 209–212, 214, 215, “Wandlung”, 156, 159
232, 234, 243, 252, 255–260, 265–270, Western images, 6
272, 274, 275, 277 Western thought, 92
Tolerance, 131, 199, 201, 204–206 World risk society, 185, 186
Transference, 255–257, 259, 273 Writings, 51, 72, 90, 105, 148, 157,
True knowledge, 238 161–163, 185, 186,
True life, 265–267, 272, 274 252–255, 276
290 Index
X Youth group, 32
Xenophobia, 112, 113 Youth participation, 5, 30–37, 40
Xenophobic views, 122 Youth policy, 30
Youths, 1, 5–6, 11, 13–26, 30, 32–35, 37, 40,
70, 71, 103, 109, 146, 266, 273,
Y 275, 276
Young citizenship, 5, 22–26 Youth’s citizenship, 15
Youth councils, 32, 33, 36 Youth studies, 5, 30–41

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Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education 16

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/8638

ISSN 2214-9759 ISSN 2214-9767 (electronic)

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020

1 Rethinking Ethical-Political Education – Beyond

Part I Youths in a World of Change

Part II Educational Philosophies, Old and New

8 Citizenship Education and the Role of Immigrant Students

Part III Rethinking Ethical-Political Education

Abstract Ethical-political education is an area of continuous disputes and conflict-

Keywords Ethical-political education · Citizenship education · Democracy ·

Young Europeans, including Nordic youths, now grow up in a globalized world

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 1

policy-­makers tend to portray ethical-political education as a remedy. But is it nec-

Ethical-political education is an area of continuous disputes and conflicting beliefs,

The Nordic Model

As this book is a collection of chapters written by Nordic authors, it is not far-­

education mirrors a social democratic ideology of inclusion, equality, progressivism

Youths in a World of Change

Educational Philosophies, Old and New

realities. Schumann thus questions the forms of thinking encouraged by contempo-

Rethinking Ethical-Political Education

Again, are there prospects of a fruitful rethinking of ethical-political education in

propaganda and disinformation – Huggler demonstrates ways in which truth and

Antikainen, A. (2006). In search of the Nordic model in education. Scandinavian Journal of

Keywords Youth · Citizenship · Civic participation · Civic engagement ·

Young people’s participation in democratic processes and their socialisation into

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 13

 ociological Perspectives on Young People’s Civic and Political

socio-­political self-esteem, interest and emotional commitment today, and their

 revious Research on Social Policy Participation

 ivic engagement and Participation Among Youth

Young Citizenship or Citizens in the Making?

albeit marginal, images of spectacular youth cultures and opposition or radicalisa-

level of engagement displayed by the students. Finally, teaching ethical-political

Tomi Kiilakoski, Mervi Kaukko, Rauno Huttunen,

Abstract In this article we analyse the concept of participation. The analysis is

Keywords Participation · Recognition · Youth studies · Migrant youths · Politics

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 29

Introduction: The Emergence of the Concept of Participation

Empirical Viewpoints on Participation: Levels and Arenas

engagement and disengagement should not be misinterpreted as passivity, mirror-

Conclusion: Spaces of Participation

Ways of promoting participation of the young reveal how societies understand

Thomas, N. (2007). Towards a theory of children’s participation. International Journal of

Keywords Environmental and sustainability education · Moral education · Moral

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 45

Introduction and Global Context

In autumn 2016, I observed Norwegian tenth grade students in a moral education

 he Emergence of Environmental Ethical Values Within

Since the Industrial Revolution in late eighteenth-century England, the human

human beings, and the more-than-human3 world—are expressed in numerous UN

The National Context

Moral Education and Environmental Ethical Values

Ethics or moral philosophy as a normative discipline is concerned with clarifying

environmental ethical values in Australian curriculum (De Leo 2012), supplemented

Theoretical Considerations: Critical Cosmopolitanism

From 9 September to 14 October 2016 I observed a tenth-grade class in moral edu-

Duration (minutes) Part

Awareness of Consumption Patterns

The Exercise of the Carbon Footprint Rule

classroom atmosphere. Saba contributes to this by contextualizing the issue at stake

positioned in the center of concentric circles. Relationships to geographically dis-

In recontextualizations involving educational structures, ideology makes an impact

1 Rethinking Ethical-Political Education – Beyond

8 Citizenship Education and the Role of Immigrant Students

policy-makers tend to portray ethical-political education as a remedy. But is it nec-

The Nordic Model

As this book is a collection of chapters written by Nordic authors, it is not far-

Youths in a World of Change

Educational Philosophies, Old and New

Rethinking Ethical-Political Education

ociological Perspectives on Young People’s Civic and Political

socio-political self-esteem, interest and emotional commitment today, and their

revious Research on Social Policy Participation

ivic engagement and Participation Among Youth

Young Citizenship or Citizens in the Making?

Introduction: The Emergence of the Concept of Participation

Empirical Viewpoints on Participation: Levels and Arenas

Conclusion: Spaces of Participation

Introduction and Global Context

he Emergence of Environmental Ethical Values Within

The National Context

Moral Education and Environmental Ethical Values

Theoretical Considerations: Critical Cosmopolitanism

Awareness of Consumption Patterns

The Exercise of the Carbon Footprint Rule

Final Discussion and Concluding Remarks

Receiving the Young Asylum Seekers

The Norwegian Context

Waiting, Worrying, Lingering on

Paradoxical or Delayed Welcome?

Host Not Ready?

Hospitality Must Be Meant

Being Absent Present

A World We Rather Not Be in

Encouragement for Free Auto-activity

The Idea of Recognitive Justice

The Hermeneutics of Social Inequalities

Criticism of the Hermeneutics of Injustice

The Critique of Liberal Citizenship Education

Liberal Theories of Citizenship Education and ‘Patriotism’

Rawlsian Political Liberalism and Citizenship Education

oncluding Remarks: Liberal Citizenship Education

I. Bildung is Crucial for Habermas’s Deliberative Politics

II. Deliberative Democracy Transcends

III. Bildung Contains an Element of Truth for Human Being

IV. Citizenship Education Needs a Thick Notion of Bildung

When it comes to democracy, what is important for Habermas is that inter-subjective