The Teacher: the Other as the Self. On Decentred Subjects and the Teacher-Student Relation

Author(s):

Bo Dahlin(presenting / submitting)Joakim Larsson(presenting)

Conference:

ECER 2016

Network:

13. Philosophy of Education - Long Paper

Format:

Paper

Session Information

13 SES 02, Teaching, Values, Relationship

Paper Session

Time:

2016-08-23

15:15-16:45

Room:

NM-F104

Chair:

Sharon Todd

Contribution

The theme of decentred subjectivity is a significant aspect of deconstructionism, post-structuralism and post-humanism (Adams St. Pierre, 2004; Braidotti, 2011; Critchley & Dews, 1996; Semetsky, 2003). The purpose of this paper is to draw upon some of the forerunners to this understanding of subjectivity in order to develop a critical view of present educational policies, which tend to reduce teaching and learning into processes of transmitting/acquiring commodified parcels of knowledge. Furthermore, these processes tend to be depersonalised in attempts to create efficient and “teacher-proof” teaching methods, in which – ideally – the teacher’s personality has no influence, neither on the acts of teaching, nor on the learning outcomes.

The particular question that drives our inquiry has to do with the teacher-student relation: what significance can the person of the teacher have for the student’s decentred subjectivity? The answer to this question depends a lot on how decentredness as such is understood. We construct our view of decentredness by a somewhat nomadic or “rhizomatic” reading of various sources (Deleuze & Guattari, 2004). Apart from Deleuze & Guattari, these sources include the German Romantics, Nietzsche, C G Jung and Rudolf Steiner. We also sense an affinity with the notion of subjective truth in existential education (Reindal, 2013). An element in common to the Romantics, Nietzsche, Jung and Steiner is the notion of subjectivity as basically bipolar; as a relation between an ego and a “Self”, where the former is conscious and (more or less) rational; the latter unconscious, a-rational, and “higher” or “deeper” than the ego.

Method

Methodologically, we take our departure in Rorty’s (1991) account of philosophical recontextualization; i.e., the possibility to juxtapose heterogeneous theoretical and philosophical sources for mutual cross-interpretation. There are no rigid rules for what contexts can be evoked in such an inquiry, as long as the result is a coherent understanding of the sources used, and the phenomenon inquired into. However, we do not agree with Rorty’s anti-essentialist stance. We believe ideas or concepts do have “essences”, but essences are dynamic. Essences are virtual forces which means that concepts have momentum. They have the power to drive our reading, thinking, contemplation, and writing into ever new fields, in our persistent attempts to create a “plane of consistency” (Deleuze & Guattari, 2004) for ourselves. We would like to call our onto-epistemological approach one of metaphysical pragmatism. This may seem an odd couple, since pragmatism usually implies lack of interest in metaphysics. But to our mind, metaphysical currents are paramount when attempting to address the subject, especially in its state of decentredness. However, our approach to such ideas is pragmatic. We do not intend to arrive at eternal and objective truths, but at such which help us live and act – as educators but also as human beings – in felicitous, joyful and responsible ways.

Expected Outcomes

As preliminary results, we would like to emphasize the following: 1) that the meaning that students’ gather from a teacher’s oral communication of knowledge depends not only on what the teachers says, but also on what kind of existential relation the teacher has developed to the knowledge material; 2) that a student’s creative relation to knowledge demands that they appropriate the material to their own subjectivity; 3) that a teacher’s ability to facilitate this appropriation demands that they themselves have achieved it; 4) that this connection can be further enhanced if the teacher assumes the role of an ‘Other’ in relation to the student, hence decentering the student’s sense of subjectivity; 5) that the teacher can then be the learner’s ‘Other’ by virtue of representing what Jung called the archetype of the Self – a symbol of completeness and true individuality.

References

Adams St. Pierre, E. (2004). Deleuzian concepts for education: The subject undone. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 36(3), 283-296. Braidotti, R. (2011). Nomadic subjects: Embodiment and sexual difference in contemporary feminist theory. New York: Columbia University Press. Critchley, S., & Dews, P. (Eds.) (1996). Deconstructive subjectivities. Albany: SUNY Press. Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. (2004). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. London: Continuum. Jung, C.G. (1971). The collected works of C.G. Jung. Vol. 6, Psychological types. New York: Pantheon. Nietzsche, F. (2006). Thus spoke Zarathustra. A book for all and none. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Reindal, S.M. (2013). Bildung, the Bologna process and Kierkegaard’s concept of subjective thinking. Studies in Philosophy & Education, 32; 533-549. Rorty, R. (1991). Inquiry as recontextualization: An anti-dualist account of interpretation, in D. R. Hiley, J. F. Bohman, & R. Shusterman (Eds.), The interpretive turn. Philosophy, science, culture (pp. 59-80). New York: Cornell University Press. Semetsky, I. (2003). The problematics of human subjecitivity: Gilles Deleuze and the Deweyan legacy. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 22, 211-225. Steiner, R. (2004). Study of Man. General Education Course. London: Rudolf Steiner Press.

Author Information

Bo Dahlin (presenting / submitting)

Karlstad university

Karlstad

Joakim Larsson (presenting)

Karlstad University

Education