The Psychologization of the Human and Curriculum Subject: The Philosophical Roots of an Emotional Epistemology

• In Event: Knowledge and Cognition

Abstract

A greater psychological focus on emotional well-being has emerged in social and education policy in growing numbers of countries, leading to new interventions, diagnostic and assessment measures. This paper explores the ways in which contemporary preoccupation with emotional well-being and its underlying images of the human and curriculum subject create an ‘epistemology of the emotions’. In a context where developments discussed in the paper are largely unchallenged, philosophical critique combined with sociological and political insights offers a powerful counter to images of the human subject which have become heavily psychologised. Despite being highly unfashionable in philosophical, sociological, political theory, I argue that a humanist view of human subjectivity challenges this epistemology

Author

• Kathryn Ecclestone, University of Birmingham