Opening, Benjamin Constant
Moral chronicle : Where does classical education lead?, Anton Tchekov
Anton Chekhov was born in Taganrog Azov in a poor environment near the lake; his father ran a small grocery store but it went bankrupt, forcing the family to emigrate to Moscow. He was a violent and tyrannical man who beat his children but he wanted to give them a good education. So the boy attended high school, managed to finish his studies and won a scholarship to go to medical university. It was during this period that in order to earn some money he offered newspapers short stories, drawn from his humorous and sarcastic observation of everyday life. The following story is among his earliest stories: his treatment of the examination in Greek has lost none of its relevance.
Notion : Archaeology, Luca Paltrinieri (Paris 8 University)
After recalling the variety of meanings of the concept in Foucault, the article returns to its previou use, first in Kant in the sense of history of the archè of philosophy, then in Martial Guéroult with the idea of dianoematic but also in Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, Sartre and Canguilhem, Freud and Levi-Strauss …, Foucault is in a sense the heir of this multiple inheritance but he also innovates radically emphasizing the concept of a « horizontal » archeology that is a « science of the archive ».
Report: Distances, Mediations
Presentation, Alain Vergnioux (Université de Caen)
The challenge of faith: reason as foreign to itself, Roger Monjo (Montpellier 3 University)
By using the term post-secular society to set contemporary times in an historical perspective, marked by a return to religion, does Habermas basically affirm a failure, at least provisionally, of the secularization process that has affected Western societies since the beginning of modern times? Or does he not rather draw attention to a kind of deepening of this movement by going beyond the bounds of reflection, characterized by a re-organization of the relationship between faith and reason? But in this case, what now is the status, scope and legitimacy of the principle of secularism which marks a culmination point of the history of modernity?
To live as a stranger in the world?, Eric Dubreucq (University of Franche-Comté)
A perspective from archaeology on individuals from abroad who, over the centuries, have settled in in our culture discloses three main strata. The first two are present in the controversy between Plotinus and the Gnostics and are opposed to the valorization of the foreigner who rejects the host culture and seeks salvation in a separate community. This is where the individual lives in a world organized by an aspiration to an existence in an ideal and universal community, basing it on a full and complete existence. To this ancient problematization in the beginning of modernity comes Pascal’s notion of the individual astray, that is to say, the internalization of « estrangement » of human nature as a condition of one’s place and presence in the world. In this new relationship with oneself, the archaic opposition of the separate community and the universal community gives way to the assumption of foreignness constitutive of individuals inhabiting a common world.
In search of the reasons for the other, Christine Bouissou (Paris 8 University)
This text is a reflection on the issues of empowerment vis-à-vis the normative roots of otherness in symbolic spaces. The study focuses on a radio report in which young women, living in the Greater Paris suburbs, introduce themselves and speak of their lives. One might first respond simply to the anecdotal dimension but another kind of response is possible. Supported notably by the philosophical work on the relationship of childhood to the contemporary world and by the psychoanalytic and literary approach of J. Kristeva in particular. The analysis presents some directions about how we can understand and help emancipation, by the work of psychic questioning and of challenging the semantic standards that the subjects, in this case women, have authorized. Mobility, psychic plasticity are signs of internal strength, allowing a relaxed normativity, a non-dogmatic reason but embedded in a collective and integrative otherness /adversity.
School education from the perspective of families, Vincent Lorius
Families are often considered complainers and/or intrusive by those who work in schools. The author tries to understand how to overcome this dualism that puts parents at a distance from the school and then proposes an argument in three stages. Why does school education today leads inevitably to resistance by educators to the diversity of educational ideas held by families? Then using letter XXX of Les Lettres Persanes of Montesquieu, he successively defends two ideas (1) the importance of an imaginative approach to the relations between school and parent (2) the possibility of a minimalist professional ethic, based on of avoidance of harm as a condition of cooperation with parents. The thesis is that neither the school’s origins (which developed by keeping parents at a distance) nor the dominant paradigm of making families adhere to school procedures will conduce to closing the gap between the points view of family and school to provide best educational outcomes for young people.
When care draws together what competence separates in education, Pierre Usclat (Université Catholique de l’Ouest)
This article offers a critique of teacher professionalization that current official texts define through the prism of competence. This criticism highlights the separation and distancing of the teacher and the student as part a rationalizing process. An ergological approach to the educational situation makes clear that the teacher and the student display their close relationship despite the discrepancy in respect of the rules to which they are subject. This raises the question of a pedagogy focusing on what they share, in the presence of each other and sensitive to the uniqueness and difference of each that links them in the four phases of an activity of caring.
Studies : The « epistemic virtues »: a problem area for educational sciences, Sébastien Charbonnier (Lille 3 University)
For twenty years, a new field of problems has been emerging in Anglophone philosophical research: the epistemology of virtue (virtue epistemology). It concerns the problem of the personal qualities needed to arrive at truth, or at least to engage in an intellectual search. This intersection between epistemology and ethics bears directly on educational and pedagogic issues. It deploys a real conceptual treasure that research in educational sciences would benefit from using: a number of false problems and sterile debates collapses when epistemic issues and ethical issues are no longer considered separately. These are a person’s rational understanding of an idea (the epistemic) and the emotional and affective conditions that allow a favorable disposition for learning. These assume an ability to be surprised, patience to listen to others, etc (the ethical).
Studies : Dialogues of personalization. Thoughts on on education based on the work of Philippe Malrieu, Sylvain Fabre
Reading the work of Philippe Malrieu illuminates the educational dynamics by showing the double logic of socialization and of personalization. For the author, the the individual develops under the double effect of biological and social influences, and the unification of these influences makes up the person. The role of conflict and the importance of emotions are recognized as resulting from these tension. If conflict can inhibit development, it can also serve as a source of joy based on the discovery of the possibilities opened up by culture, and on the feelings self-empowerment. In this process, the school occupies a specific role, complementary to that of families. By combining psychology and philosophy, by a « psychology of philosophy », the study helps to clarify the meaning of the activity of teaching, allowing an understanding of the singularity of situations with regard to educational goals.