On the (Im)Possibility of Education for Leisure in the Times of "Total Work"

• In Event: Moscone Center West Roundtable Session 6
  In Roundtable Session: Philosophical Critiques of Contemporary Trends in Educational Policy and Practice

Abstract

I argue that education for leisure is possible only if the transcendent background to both leisure and work is critiqued and rejected. Specifically, leisure can be achieved through a radical secularization of the idea of work as a vocation.
First, to explore the possibility of educating in a leisured way, I aim to reconstruct the concept of leisure in antiquity – scholé - focusing on Plato and Aristotle’s view of the relation between means and ends that the concept entails. Then, reading in Josef Pieper’s essay Leisure: the Basis of Culture, I focus on leisure's connection with contemplation, receptivity, and transcendence, and address the contemporary challenge of defending leisure in a society dominated by the idea of ‘total work.’

Author

• Oded Zipory, University of Dayton