A key problem for our times is the global ecological crisis. Ecosocial bildung theory has been emerging in Finland to meet the ecological crisis in educational practice (see Salonen & Bardy 2015). Ecosocial philosophy of education (EPE) is, however, yet to be developed. We develop the basic premise of EPE: extending ethical care and responsibility to what deep ecologist call “the community of all living beings” (Seed et al. 1988). David Abram’s (1996) notion of more-than-human world helps to clarify this point of departure. Human beings have acted upon the presumption of human supremacy and human separateness from nature. Consequently, we have disregarded the wellbeing of the more-than-human world and our entanglement with it (Pulkki et al. 2017).
As a consequence of its basic task of extending ethical responsibility to the more-than-human world, EPE is concerned with the formation of moral subjectivity in education. Gert Biesta (e.g. 2010; 2016) shows that, as an aim of education, subjectification — that is, ‘becoming-subject’ — is not reducible to socialization into existing cultural practices or to qualification with skills needed in vocational life. In line with Levinas, Biesta further argues that subjectification is only possible in an encounter where one is urged into action by a responsibility towards Other that, ontologically speaking, precedes the ego.
In this paper, we consider Biesta’s understanding of subjectification in the context of ecosocial philosophy of education from two perspectives. First, life-affirming attitudes, emotions, thoughts and so on are conducive to ecological actions while indifference to life is conducive to ecologically harmful action (Orr 1994; Pulkki et al. 2017). The formation of opinions related to humans and the more-than-human world is, therefore, of vital importance for ecosocial change. Consequently, we concentrate on the phenomenology of opinion formation. How does one form opinions about the world? We argue that the Finnish word for opinion, “mielipide”, entails a fundamental lesson for understanding subjectification from the ecosocial perspective. “Mielipide” (opinion), consist of two words: “mieli” and “pide”. “Mieli” refers to “a mind” while “pide” refers to “something that is held”; opinion (mielipide) thus literally translates as “something that the mind holds on to” — a ‘holding-on’ of the mind. These ‘holding-ons’ develop in the course of socialization and might prove to be an asset or an obstacle to experiencing the ethical call of the Other and more-than-human world.
Second, deep ecologist Arne Naess (2008) has developed the idea of ecological self, which means a self that identifies not so much to one’s narrow self-interest, but to the ecological whole a self is necessarily a part of. Ecological self entails a wider set of identifications than one’s narrowly conceived self-interest. Identification with the opinions that are adopted in socialization to the western worldview and its foundational assumptions, such as the separateness of human beings from the rest of the nature, form a major obstacle for identifying with the ecological whole. By identifying to a host of living beings in one’s surrounding ecosystem and habitat, a person can adopt more ecologically affirmative opinions. Engaging with Naess’s concept of ecological self allows for a broadening of horizons for Biesta’s work, which is mainly concerned with human Others. In other words, ecosocial responsibility for human beings is situated within the same continuum as responsibility towards the more-than-human world and its other inhabitants. Identifying with the ecological whole or with the “community of all living beings” (Seed et al. 1988) we can reconnect with our responsibility for the world we too are dependent of.