Philosophy of Education as an Exercise in Thought: To Not Forget Oneself When ‘things Take Their Course’

Starting from a distinction between a critical and an ascetic tradition in philosophy and taking into account their different stances towards the present, the article proposes a practice of philosophy of education within the ascetic tradition. In this tradition, the work of philosophy is in the first place a work on the self — that is, putting oneself to ‘the test of contemporary reality’ — implying an enlightenment not of others but of oneself; however, of oneself not as subject of knowledge, but as subject of action. Putting oneself to the test is, therefore, an exercise in the context of self-education. The article indicates how this exercise can be described as an exercise of/in thought, how it has to be conceived not as a private matter but as a public gesture and as a condition for a truth-telling that is in the first place illuminating and inviting. In order to do so, the article first recalls how Hannah Arendt describes her own work and how this indicates what kind of philosophical practice is entailed in the ascetic tradition. In line with this description, a topical example (i.e. the films of the Belgian Dardenne brothers) is offered of how educational philosophical research in this tradition is carried out today. And, finally, it is clarified how this relates to a proposal for doing ‘empirical’ philosophical research and for creating laboratories. What is proposed is a meditation on the phrase ‘transformation of the educational system’, paying attention to the sense of the words, and showing what the desire for educational change can reveal. After explaining to what extent ‘educational system’ is a quasi-oxymoron, the meaning of ‘transformation’ has to be compared to those of revolution and utopia. The claim to be transforming the educational system is an attempt to adapt education to social and political situations and constraints. The case of the Langevin-Wallon project in France, which was never applied, helps when wondering what has to be adapted to what. What sort of reciprocity is there between school and society? The organisation of knowledge itself can be submitted to a transformation. Jeremy Bentham's Chrestomathia expresses such a conception through an unheeded and somehow utopian project. The desire for something new is in itself problematical, and the very fact of it being new cannot be an aim.