Bernstein and the Kantian antinomies of reason

In this paper I draw inspiration from Slavoj Žižek’s (1993) deployment of Kant in his analysis of ideology in order to show that Basil Bernstein’s theorising of education, specifically concerning the universal-particular dialectic, entails a series of discursive gestures that might productively be described in terms of Kant’s antinomies of reason. The inscription of discursive resources akin to the Kantian antinomies in Bernstein renders the theory necessarily open despite its apparently totalising intent. I believe that the approach used here is more productive than engaging in the polemical bating and name calling that often emerges in discussions of relativistic versus universalist approaches to the production and uses of education theory.