Res gestae and/or gestures? Philosophical-educational notes on a(n alleged?) paradigm shift

After outlining his general theory of gestures as an “interface theory” synthesizing different disciplines, Vilém Flusser (1994) portrays a complex regime of relationships between a general theory of gestures and the philosophy of history. On the one hand, they may be considered as synonymous but, on the other, the former is a denial of the latter, insofar as it “would play the role of philosophy of history in a «post-historical» situation” (p. 230). In the proposed paper, I will first examine this regime of relationships as a possible paradigm shift from the modern stance – embodied in the philosophy of history as a model of thinking of the human condition and subjectivity – to the view that Flusser endeavours to inaugurate. In this undertaking, I will establish a dialogue between his conceptual device and Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht’s (2014) idea of the demise of the modern chronotope linked with “historical thought/consciousness” and with a hermeneutical/meaning-making posture. I will, then, investigate to what extent Flusser’s view of gestures as “expressions” of Gestimmtheit is companionable with Gumbrecht’s reflection on the materialities of meaning and Stimmungen. And, finally, I will explore whether the post-historical condition that Flusser evokes in connection with the emergence of a general theory of gestures is related to the “broadness of the present” and the “presentification” that Gumbrecht (2004) indicates as characterizing our contemporary condition. In reference to the Deweyan principle, according to which there is no better way to assess what is living in a philosophical controversy than to investigate what the educational implications of different philosophical positions are, I will develop my inquiry at the crossroads of philosophy and educational theory and in the perspective of a question: if the philosophy of history model arguably shaped the modern view of education as a kind of development and progress and as a meaning-making activity, how and to what extent does embracing the Flusserian tenets about gestures as attuned to a post-historical situation reverberate on our ways of understanding and practising education? What – if anything – is lost in this ‘translation’ from one horizon to another?