“Nothing is allowed to remain outside, since the mere idea of the “outside” is the real source of fear.” So, argued Horkheimer and Adorno (2002, p.11) more than half a century ago. Unfortunately, their somewhat polemical statement has not lost its actuality.

The modern desire for control is still alive – also in the area of education. We are facing a situation within education today that is moving in the direction of attempts to bypass that which is outside and random to the planned and to what can be measured through immediate evaluations. The compulsion to systematize and categorize in such way that all features of educational activities can be understood and held accountable to generally accepted frames of reference and evaluation, is undoubtedly welcomed in today’s education. As a university and university college lecturer for twenty years, I realize that more and more time is used on planning, mapping, measurements and evaluations – grounded in the idea that ‘nothing is allowed to remain outside’.

It is in the context of this search for certainties and order the idea of ethical anarchy has been introduced in philosophical discussions on education. It seems as if the task of bringing this idea into these discussions, has been to welcome that which remains outside the dominant way of thinking. It is therefore difficult to criticize the idea of ethical anarchy when it is related to these discussions, since the idea has mostly just been used as a sign; representing and welcoming something other. Nevertheless, this paper explores challenges and dilemmas of ethical anarchy in the area of education.

Various philosophers have been used in educational discussions on ethical anarchy. The paper focuses on discussions inspired by Emmanuel Levinas’ ideas of responsibility as anarchy. In Otherwise Than Being, Levinas emphasizes that the relationship with my neighbour is “anarchically a relationship with a singularity without the mediation of any principle, any ideality” (Levinas, 1997, p.100). Thus, in the frame of Levinas, ethical anarchy seems to be a kind of pure relationship to the other that signifies beyond ‘any principle, any ideality’. It is arguably the case that despite a myriad of interpretations of Levinas’ ethics, it still remains a mystery as to what this means.

The paper explores two approaches to ethical anarchy – both inspired by Levinas. The first approach: Ethical Anarchy as Mystery,is related to Levinas’ mysterious dimension in the infinite responsibility for the other. The mysterious dimension is connected to the others’ Otherness and to the saying. The others’ Otherness and the saying can never be pinned down. Nevertheless, this mysterious dimension remind us of ”the trace and enigma of absolute alterity: the Other”, to use Derrida’s (1986, p.413) words. The second approach: Ethical Anarchy as closeness and sensuality, is related to receptions of Levinas inspired by the French psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva’s (1999) analyses of how meaning is created in the dialectic between the semiotic and symbolic (see for example Todd, 2003a; 2003b).

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