doiSerbia

Philosophical education as a dysfunction of society

Krstić Predrag (Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, Belgrade)

This paper tries to extricate philosophical education from the restrictions of social and school systems and to commend some independent and subversive views. This is to be accomplished through a conceptual dissection of the term ‘education’. On the one hand, there is education seen as transmitter of the tradition, where to be educated is seen as being able to fit into an established community. There is also another education to which the authority of tradition is a permanent target of resistance, always trying to undermine any educational uniformity. This second history of education, genuinely philosophical, is radically opposed to the history of institutionalized mass-education. However, intention of this paper is not to proclaim this as an "alternative" model, or to build it up as a new mythology. On the contrary, it is being written as a history of continuous subversion. Viewed from this vantage point, autonomous philosophical education is not a subsystem of a social system. This education has itself as a measurement, and always resists the wider community (the environment) that has accidentally befallen it. Its honor is exactly in this attitude of resistance, in being watchful against any conscription and integration. Understood in this manner, philosophical education is not a useful "implemented" function of society, but is rather its dysfunction.

Keywords: education, society, philosophy, school, enlightening