Premium
Education, Freedom, and Temporality: A Response to B iesta and S äfström's M anifesto
Author(s) -
Yun Suninn
Publication year - 2014
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 - 10.1111/1467-9752.12086
Subject(s) - manifesto , temporality , sociology , epistemology , philosophy of education , philosophy , higher education , law , political science
Since it was first published in 2011, ‘A M anifesto for E ducation’ by G ert B iesta and K arl A nders Säfström has received numerous enthusiastic reviews and been hailed as providing ‘an alternative vision for education’. Such enthusiasm, however, is perhaps not purely attributable to the substance of the text but also to the form that it adopts. In this regard, I attempt to explore what the authors refer to as the ironic usage of this genre of writing in relation to its message. The authors diagnose a problem in education related to the modern understanding of time, and they suggest an alternative ‘non‐temporality’ in which we ‘stay in the tension between “what is” and “what is not” ’. While I appreciate the M anifesto's attempt to offer criticism based on the link between freedom and temporality in education, I take issue with aspects of their analysis. I discuss temporality and freedom through a reading of M artin H eidegger in which the concept of time in education is understood in terms of human freedom as possibility.