Premium
Postmodernism: a ‘Sceptical’ Challenge in Educational Theory
Author(s) -
Ramaekers Stefan
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
journal of philosophy of education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.501
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1467-9752
pISSN - 0309-8249
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9752.00300
Subject(s) - skepticism , postmodernism , sociology , philosophy of education , epistemology , educational research , philosophy , higher education , psychoanalysis , pedagogy , psychology , law , political science
Recently several educational theorists have argued for the incorporation of a scepticism of a postmodern kind into educational theory and into educational research more specifically. Their understanding of postmodernism in terms of scepticism harbours much potential, but to avoid confusion and misunderstanding it is of importance that the ‘scepticism’ associated with postmodernism is distinguished from traditional philosophical scepticism, be it as part of the very process of theoretical scrutiny or as a challenge towards its results. In this paper it will be argued that the interest of postmodernist ‘scepticism’ lies not in a quest for ever more certainty but rather in the way it moves beyond both foundationalism and philosophical scepticism. This will be elaborated from the point of view of a Wittgensteinian understanding of theoretical scrutiny (as found in On Certainty). This opens up the possibility of shedding light on postmodernist ‘scepticism’ in educational theory in terms of an aesthetic distance towards what is reflected upon.