Session Information
Session 3B, Radical Emancipatory and/or Negative Pedagogies: Common Grounds and Differences
Papers
Time:
2005-09-08
09:00-10:30
Room:
ENG
Chair:
Bo Dahlin
Contribution
This paper considers the role of teleology and essentialism in philosophy of education and takes as a starting point Israel Scheffler's rejection of essentialism in his book, Of Human Potential (1985). Scheffler, who is one of the founders of analytical philosophy of education, states in Of Human Potential that our educational thinking is still influenced by teleological and essentialist assumptions, which should, according to Scheffler, be rejected in light of new (scientific) understanding of human nature. Scheffler argues that teleological understanding of human nature is a historical residue of Aristotelian metaphysics and should not have any role in today's educational thinking. The danger of essentialism, as Scheffler sees it, is that it allows educators and policy makers to escape their responsibility to give everyone the best possibilities to realize their potentials, because they assume that each person has her own essential nature which strives to realize itself and which, to a great extend, defines what one can be and what one, in any circumstances, will be. In this paper I consider the possibility of wholesale rejection of essentialism in philosophy of education and argue that the whole project of philosophy of education collapses with the rejection of teleological understanding concerning human nature. I do not defend, nevertheless, the version of essentialism Scheffler criticizes in his book. On the contrary, I entirely agree with Scheffler about the harmfulness of this kind of cultural, racial, or individual essentialism and do not present any argument defending essentialism of this sort. Scheffler's argument applies, however, against any teleological understanding of human nature, and it is therefore worth assessing, if any kind of essentialism is defended in educational thinking. In my analysis, I conclude that Scheffler's argument is not necessary to accept, but is, on the contrary, based on premises that can be justifiably criticized. I also present two illustrative examples in contemporary philosophy, where teleological arguments are used in moral philosophy and in philosophy concerning human nature: Nicholas Rescher as a philosopher, whose interpretation of human nature is closely related to Aristotelian essentialism; and Alasdair MacIntyre as a philosopher, who explicitly challenges the possibility of ethics and philosophy about human nature without teleology. Moreover, I argue that in light of Scheffler's philosophy on the whole, not even Scheffler himself construes his educational philosophy without essentialist understanding of human nature, even though he naturally construes it without the particular kind of essentialism he is criticizing in Of Human Potential.
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