From the “technical definition of education” (Dewey, 1916: 82) in "Democracy and Education" to the invocation of “the need of a theory of experience” (Dewey 1938a: 11 ff.) in "Experience and Education", the notion of experience is the very hinge on which Dewey’s educational theory seems to turn. And yet, in 1951, in the preparation of a new edition of Experience and Nature, Dewey considered changing Experience into Culture in the title lamenting that he had been “hopeful that the word ‘Experience’ could be redeemed by [being] returned to its idiomatic usages” (Dewey & Bentley, 1964, p. 643). Richard Rorty (1982) exploited this confession to invite us to do away completely with the notion of experience, important as it has been for classic pragmatism in general, and Dewey in particular. Indeed, with a grain of simplification, one can interpret this gesture of deletion as one of the main axes of Rorty’s neo-pragmatism (Bernstein, 2010; Jay, 2006). In this paper, I would like, instead, to engage with the concept – Nature – that both Dewey and Rorty left untouched by afterthoughts or criticisms, by exploring what (educational) pragmatism looks like once we address education via Nature-experience. In this endeavor, the key will be the establishment of a dialogue with Latour’s (2015) recent reflections on the New Climate Regime and, more generally, his idea of a politics of nature (Latour, 2004, 2018; see also Serres, 1992). Pivoting on the question of Darwinism (Dewey, 1909; Latour, 2015, Serres, 2016) and the issue of time as a fundamental trait of ‘things’ (Dewey, 1938b; Latour, 2015), the inquiry here developed will culminate in a revisitation of the notions of educability (Dewey, 1928b) and “the social” as “the inclusive philosophic idea” (Dewey, 1928a), that Dewey fine-tunes at the intersection of metaphysical, scientific and political reflections (in a quasi-Latourian manner). Precisely in these notions, I will argue, some limitations of the Deweyan approach and the need for its reconstruction through a dialogue with Latour may come to the fore. The aim is that of contributing to the endeavor to re-define what being ‘capable of education’ in the New Climate Regime means within an inclusively social “world” (to adopt a key concept of Latour). In this horizon, in the place of the typically Deweyan dyad democracy (as “a mode of […] conjoint communicated experience” (Dewey, 1916: 93) and education, the ‘Latourian-Deweyan’ structural coupling of the politics of nature and education will be investigated (by contextually exploring if this coupling substitutes for the former or if it is rather a radicalization of it).

Educability and the Metamorphic Zone. Reconstructing Pragmatism in the New Climate Regime / Oliverio, Stefano. - (2020). (Intervento presentato al convegno Educational Theory Summer Institute 2020 "The Art of the Possible. On Pragmatism’s Potential for Making Futures in Troubled Times" tenutosi a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (via Zoom) nel 2-4 agosto).

Educability and the Metamorphic Zone. Reconstructing Pragmatism in the New Climate Regime

Stefano Oliverio
2020

Abstract

From the “technical definition of education” (Dewey, 1916: 82) in "Democracy and Education" to the invocation of “the need of a theory of experience” (Dewey 1938a: 11 ff.) in "Experience and Education", the notion of experience is the very hinge on which Dewey’s educational theory seems to turn. And yet, in 1951, in the preparation of a new edition of Experience and Nature, Dewey considered changing Experience into Culture in the title lamenting that he had been “hopeful that the word ‘Experience’ could be redeemed by [being] returned to its idiomatic usages” (Dewey & Bentley, 1964, p. 643). Richard Rorty (1982) exploited this confession to invite us to do away completely with the notion of experience, important as it has been for classic pragmatism in general, and Dewey in particular. Indeed, with a grain of simplification, one can interpret this gesture of deletion as one of the main axes of Rorty’s neo-pragmatism (Bernstein, 2010; Jay, 2006). In this paper, I would like, instead, to engage with the concept – Nature – that both Dewey and Rorty left untouched by afterthoughts or criticisms, by exploring what (educational) pragmatism looks like once we address education via Nature-experience. In this endeavor, the key will be the establishment of a dialogue with Latour’s (2015) recent reflections on the New Climate Regime and, more generally, his idea of a politics of nature (Latour, 2004, 2018; see also Serres, 1992). Pivoting on the question of Darwinism (Dewey, 1909; Latour, 2015, Serres, 2016) and the issue of time as a fundamental trait of ‘things’ (Dewey, 1938b; Latour, 2015), the inquiry here developed will culminate in a revisitation of the notions of educability (Dewey, 1928b) and “the social” as “the inclusive philosophic idea” (Dewey, 1928a), that Dewey fine-tunes at the intersection of metaphysical, scientific and political reflections (in a quasi-Latourian manner). Precisely in these notions, I will argue, some limitations of the Deweyan approach and the need for its reconstruction through a dialogue with Latour may come to the fore. The aim is that of contributing to the endeavor to re-define what being ‘capable of education’ in the New Climate Regime means within an inclusively social “world” (to adopt a key concept of Latour). In this horizon, in the place of the typically Deweyan dyad democracy (as “a mode of […] conjoint communicated experience” (Dewey, 1916: 93) and education, the ‘Latourian-Deweyan’ structural coupling of the politics of nature and education will be investigated (by contextually exploring if this coupling substitutes for the former or if it is rather a radicalization of it).
2020
Educability and the Metamorphic Zone. Reconstructing Pragmatism in the New Climate Regime / Oliverio, Stefano. - (2020). (Intervento presentato al convegno Educational Theory Summer Institute 2020 "The Art of the Possible. On Pragmatism’s Potential for Making Futures in Troubled Times" tenutosi a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (via Zoom) nel 2-4 agosto).
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11588/815118
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