Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Subjectivity as the Purpose of Education and Teaching

  • Published:
Studies in Philosophy and Education Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In his book “World-Centred Education,” Biesta discusses two themes fundamental for the emergence of subjectivity as a desirable existential humane state of being and for an education that aims to achieve it. The first theme is about freedom and the importance of distancing education and teaching from any act of objectifying students. The second theme concerns the world, its limitations on freedom, and its central role in educational events, which aim to help students fulfill their subjectivity. However, when he analyzes three historical cases to conceptualize and demonstrate his ideas regarding subjectivity and education as subjectification, Biesta seems to focus more on the role of the first theme than the second. This imbalance does not give the world the proper place Biesta’s theory itself inspires to provide, as first and foremost expressed in the book’s title. This article proposes an alternative reading of the book’s theory regarding subjectivity, freedom, the world, and their interrelationships. The suggested reading gives the world a more central role in the emergence of events of subjectivity without harming freedom and thus changes how we can analyze the three cases and how to understand and generate education and teaching aiming at subjectification.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Biesta prefers the term “subject-ness” over subjectivity in order to prevent a reading of it as an epistemological category, which overlooks the existential meaning of being a subject. I, too, intend that meaning, but I also interchangeability use the term “subjectivity,” which is more prevalent in the discourse.

  2. See also Kant’s idea in Critique of the Power of Judgment of a potential outlook of an object as beauty and perfection without having a prior concept or an external purpose but rather with an internal purpose (Kant 2001, e.g., p. 111); and see Gillis (2016) on the influence of Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment on Arendt.

  3. Again, the long seminar that exposed her to the activist world and her awareness of previous cases of the refusal of the driver’s demand to move back do not in any way weaken the fact that she saw it by herself.

  4. For example, in the Meno (Plato 1967), before trying to define what a form is, he asks Meno to follow his definition and see what he thinks of it; in the same dialog when he talks with Meno’s boy, Socrates draws the length – the answer – of the lesson he teaches the boy, and urges him to see the correct answer by himself and to point at it. Additionally, in Republic book two, Socrates points to the healthy and just city (polis), the same city Glaucon named in contempt a city of pigs.

  5. E.g., in the above situation with Glaucon, where Socrates goes on to find the justice in the pompous and luxury polis.

References

  • Arendt, Hannah. 1994. Understanding and politics (the difficulties of understanding). In Essays in understanding 1930–1954, ed. Jerome Kohn. 307–327. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co.

    Google Scholar 

  • Arendt, Hannah. 1958/1998. The human condition. Chicago: The University of Chicago.

  • Arendt, Hannah. 1954/1961. The crisis in education. In Between past and future 173–196. New York: The Viking Press.

  • Biesta, Gert. 2010. Good education in an age of measurement: ethics, politics, democracy. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Biesta, Gert. 2014. The beautiful risk of education. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Biesta, Gert. 2016. Reconciling ourselves to reality: Arendt education and the challenge of being at home in the world. Journal of Educational Administration and History 48(2): 183–192.

  • Biesta, Gert. 2022. World-centred education: a view for the present. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • David, A. A. 1954. Introduction to talks to parents and teachers by Homer Lane. In Lane, Homer. 1928/1954. Talks to parents and teachers. 5–16. London: George Allen & Unwin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dewey, John. 1956. The child and the curriculum; the school and society (combined ed). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dijkman, Beatrijs. (2020). “What is this asking from me?” an extended review of the rediscovery of teaching by Gert J. J. Biesta. Transactional Analysis Journal: New Perspectives in Educational Transactional Analysis 50(1): 93–100

  • Gillis, Donald. 2016. Visiting good company: Arendt and the development of the reflective practitioner. Journal of Educational Administration and History 48(2): 148–159.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Halbertal, Moshe. 2003. On the holy and the borders of artistic and linguistic representation. In Borders of sanctity, eds. Emily D. Bilski, and Avigdor Shinan. 30–34. Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House (Hebrew).

    Google Scholar 

  • Harris, Sam. 2014. Waking up: a guide to spirituality without religion. New York: Simon & Schuster.

    Google Scholar 

  • Huemer, Michael. 2008. Ethical intuitionism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kant, Immanuel. 1790/2001. Critique of the power of judgment. (Edited by Paul Guyer; Translated by Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  • Kennedy, Bart, F. 1974. Whitehead’s doctrine of eternal objects and its interpretations. In Studies in process philosophy 1, eds. C. Robert, and Whittmore. 60–86. Netherlands: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lane, Homer. 1928/1954. Talks to parents and teachers. London: George Allen & Unwin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, C. S. 1944/1974. The abolition of man. New York: Harper Collins e-books.

  • Morgan, Marie. 2016. Hannah Arendt and the ‘freedom’ to think. Journal of Educational Administration and History 48 (2): 173–182.

  • Parfit, Derek. 2011. On what matters: volume 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Plato. 1966. Apology. In Plato in twelve volumes vol. 1, translated by H. North Fowler. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0059.tlg002.perseus-grc1:17a

  • Plato. 1967. Meno. In Plato in twelve volumes vol. 3, translated by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0059.tlg024.perseus-eng1:70a

  • Plato. 1969. Republic. In Plato in twelve volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D7%3Asection%3D523c

  • Roth, Wollf-Michael. 2011. Passibility: at the limits of the constructivist metaphor. London: Springer.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Segev, Arik. 2018. Worthy leisure education: teaching here and now. Research in Education 100(1): 97–113.

  • Segev, Arik. 2019. Rationale for moral education: a reading in Plato’s Republic. Interchange: A Quarterly Review of Education 50(1): 39–56.

  • Segev, Arik. 2023. Secularism and the right to spirituality: Work, leisure, and contemplation. The International Journal for Religion and Spirituality in Society 13(1): 99–115.

  • Shafer-Landau, Russ. 2003. Moral realism: a defence. Oxford: Clarendon.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Shapiro, Shauna, L., E. Kristen, Richard C. Lyons, Britta Miller, Cassandra Butler, and Vieten. Philip David Zelazo. 2015. Contemplation in the classroom: a new direction for improving childhood education. Educational Psychology Review 27(1): 1–30.

  • Sheldrake, Philip. 2007. A brief history of spirituality. Oxford: Blackwell.

  • Stern, Robert. 2012. Understanding moral obligations: Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tamboukou, Maria. 2016. Education as action/the adventure of education: thinking with Arendt and Whitehead. Journal of Educational Administration and History 48(2): 136–147.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Theoharis, Jeanne. 2013. The rebellious life of Mrs. Rosa Parks. Boston: Beacon Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Funding

No funding was received for conducting this study.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kaye Academic College of Education, Be’er Sheva, Israel

    Arik Segev

  2. Sapir Academic College, Sha’ar HaNegev, Israel

    Arik Segev

Authors
  1. Arik Segev
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Arik Segev.

Ethics declarations

Competing Interests

The author has no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

Additional information

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Segev, A. Subjectivity as the Purpose of Education and Teaching. Stud Philos Educ 43, 269–287 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-024-09936-5

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-024-09936-5

Keywords

Search

Navigation