Reason, Culture and Education

In: Wittgenstein-Studien: internationales Jahrbuch für Wittgenstein-Forschung, Band 8, Heft 1

Abstract

AbstractOn the basis of first a critique of Bakhurst view on (respectively) the notion of "the space of reasons", "second nature" and "formation", and second, Wittgenstein's view on culture and education, I go into details about how one might apply Wittgensteinian thought within a new assessment of education, seen as a matter of "taking steps" within a toolbox or platform generated by forms of teaching. Invoking Kierkegaard, I conclude that the educated person does not incarnate "an absolute difference" in relation to non-educated beings. The educated person is instead the embodiment of "a difference", that is, of an individuality. Education is not taking the individual from A (barbarian state) to B (better having than not having); it is providing the platform for the possibility of the actuality of somebody's "being at B". The argument is: Teaching gives different individuals the same such platform but each person appropriates the platform differently to the effect that the actuality of being "at B" is different from person to person.