In this paper, I address Biesta's notion of world-centred education via a special focus on the school as a site of teacherly gestures. To begin with, I interpret 'world-centredness' -- qua that which goes 'beyond learning' -- through a deployment of tenets from Arendt and her appropriation of Marx's and Heidegger's motifs. Within this horizon, I…

This paper extends well-established arguments for the liberal potential of vocational education by advocating for the "necessity" of craft learning in a liberal education curriculum. The case for the necessity of craft learning in liberal education is established in two parts, the first looking toward Aristotle and the second toward…

The perennial debate regarding the relative usefulness of various forms of knowledge, especially between the theoretical and practical and the intellectual and moral, lies at the heart of education in both past and present times in both the West and China (de Bary, 1988, 2004, 2005, 2015). Neo-Confucians remain relevant in the 21st century and can…

In this paper, my aim is to reintroduce and reclaim the concept of civility for the ongoing debates on democratic education within the Arendt-inspired philosophy of education. I juxtapose a prominent interpretation related to theories of radical democracy and radical democratic education, referring to Gert Biesta's work, which amends Arendt's…

John Dewey wrote widely about education and educational philosophy and it follows that there is a plethora of secondary source material addressing those large topics. Dewey spoke about the roles of the teacher (educator) and student (pupil/child) and their general relationship, yet there is a gap in scholarship addressing exactly what the nature…

Many arguments for education's autonomy put forward a repeated yet undefined claim that there is an identifiable, dividing line between education and its outside, and that it is within the distinct contours of "the educational" where the nomos of its autonomy lies. Approaching this claim from a literary perspective, I conduct a critical…

"Speculative Realism in Environmental Education and the Philosophy of Education" was a joint research symposium for the networks on Environmental and Sustainability Education (NW 30) and Philosophy of Education (NW 13), held at the European Conference of Education Research (ECER), 25 August, 2023, in Glasgow, Scotland. The symposium…

This article is a quick inquiry into the quest for knowledge. Preliminary steps include the idea of light as it was promulgated during the period of Enlightenment, followed by the relevant role played by education, and then focusing on the passion for knowledge, as it is found in major literary and philosophical works. Curiosity and…

What can one person teach another about living meaningfully? Recent discussions about the relationship between education and finding meaning in life have tended to focus on institutional and curricular matters and, as a consequence, have sidelined the importance of the vocation of teaching. Drawing on Raimond Gaita's philosophy of education, I…

Calvino's apology of multiplicity starts with the exposure, revealed by his take on typically modern novels, of some fundamental contradictions underlaying the modern quest for knowledge, which are definitely not alien to our day education. Then, when Calvino goes on to explore how twentieth century literature transcended those difficulties, he…

Of all possible future directions for analytic philosophy of education, few are as overdue as thoroughly confronting the legacy of colonialism and the postcolonial moment. Rightly credited with establishing the credibility and standing of philosophy of education, by 1980, analytic philosophy of education was the dominant though not unchallenged…

There has been an excellent series of formative articles centring on Bernard Stiegler (1952-2020) as an inspiration to pedagogical thought; this is a summative article written from the perspective of after his death. Stiegler argued that education is ontologically crucial to human development, wherein "technics" or the…

Should education serve external goals, or should it be non-instrumental? In this paper, I recognize a tension between these two views with respect to the question of the end and the means in education, and I suggest conceptual and practical ways to handle this tension. The paper comprises two parts: the first part discusses the problem, and the…

This article is part of a special issue which builds on Italo Calvino's memos for the next millennium. More specifically, this paper gives an educational reading of the quality of exactitude. This quality is at the heart of what education is all about, viz. learning to give an adequate response to what things in the world demand of us -- students…

When confronted with the ineffable, poets turn to metaphor. Similarly, philosophers of education often employ metaphors and analogies to explain the functions of education (e.g., schools are families, machines, prisons, etc.), and, more specifically, the role of educators. Teachers have been described as prophets, liberators, and midwives, which,…