Philosophy of Education and Cultural Geography: Some Ethical Insights From Nonrepresentational Theories

• In Event: Constructing the Subject: Youth, Listening, Schools

Abstract

This paper explores ethical insights that are raised when we put philosophy of education into conversation with “non-representational theories” that have been developed recently by geographers in the UK. This paper is organized around three philosophical issues: subject & object; past & present; uniqueness & repeatability. Ethical implications include problematizing both logical empiricism and social constructivism, evacuating the subject/object split, negotiating interactions of past/present/future, and recasting the relationship between uniqueness and repeatability in educational projects. Related to both Dewey’s and Rancière’s projects of emancipation, non-representational theories do not constitute a method, but they do invite educational philosophers to think as if, which is an act of creation on a material plane in the present.

Author

• Lynn Fendler, Michigan State University