Thinking About Education With Jacques Rancière
In the last decade or so, considerable attention has been given by educational theorists
to the works of Jacques Ranci re. Most commentators on Ranci re's educational thought,
which is based on the writings of Joseph Jacotot, believe that it provides us with a novel way
of thinking about emancipatory forms of education that can serve to confront the forces of
oppression, inequality, nihilism, and compliance we find ourselves confronted with today.
The general purpose of this study is to assess whether and, if so, to what extent this belief is
justified. This task is approached by taking up and testing out Ranci re's adventuring method
of contingency, which is interpreted to be a form of education and a form of research
simultaneously. Style is a central aspect of the argumentative force of Ranci re's approach.
Following this, a characteristic of the thesis is the development of three stylistic forms of
writing: connecting scenes, spiralling, and weaving. The point of departure for the adventure
is Ranci re's book The Ignorant Schoolmaster. This book then functions as a portal into the
world of Ranci re's works as a whole, which in turn function as a portal to the world beyond
Ranci re's works yet implicitly present in those works. In order to test the educational value
of the adventuring method, an attempt is made to understand Ranci re's works. Reflections
on this process further allow for the development of a way of thinking about research
adventures as a form of education. The argument made in this thesis lies partly in its aesthetic
and stylistic force, but several conceptual claims are also developed. One claim entails the
problematisation of the dichotomy between will and intelligence maintained by Ranci re.
Another claim is that the concept of emancipation - which is fundamentally political in
nature - is not applicable to education. As an alternative, a way of thinking about education
is developed, infused by a reading of Spinoza's Ethics, as sensible configurations of space
and time which urge children to persevere and increase their power to express and to think
under the mark of equality. Two notions play a central role in these configurations:
fascination and the demand to persevere. The first is developed through the reflections on
the thesis' adventure and coupled to Ranci re's understanding of the will as a power to be
moved. It is a way to think the self, that is, the will, as fundamentally relational in nature.
The second relates to Ranci re's notions of unconditional exigency and equality of
intelligence. A prevalent interpretation of that latter notion is problematised in the
observation that understanding Ranci re cannot be done without having prior knowledge
and understanding. Finally, the concept of the weight of words is developed as a
reformulation of Ranci re's reading of Aristotle's distinction between expression and noise.
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