The existential turn in philosophy of education: In defence of liberal autonomy

Abstract

Abstract In recent years, there has been a marked shift in concern among some philosophers of education from political transformation to personal transformation. In the past, critics of liberalism, both egalitarian and communitarian, promoted political, social, economic and educational reform—but always subscribed to the freedom of the individual, the sovereign subject, to seek fulfilment. Now, influenced by an existential turn in the work of Heidegger, Sartre and Levinas, which originates in Hegel's dialectic of freedom, and postmodernist notions of transgressive self-creation, proponents of personally transformative education call for a decentring of the egoistic self so that we might recreate ourselves as ethical beings whose unconditional obligations are to ‘the other’ in a shared world. However, this vision of idealised existential subjects stripped of contingent worldly attachments and selfish egocentric impulses, enjoying idealised ethical relations and what I term ‘existential freedom’, is radically undetermined. It could only be achieved if individual wills were merged into a collective will or consciousness, and personal autonomy was eliminated. Meanwhile, crucial educational and political questions concerning how the practical affairs of autonomous individuals—real people—should be managed in a liberal democracy, and how young people should be educated for responsible citizenship, are neglected (at least among those influenced by the existentialist turn), as the formative and socialising functions of education are undermined. I conclude that the existential turn towards personally transformative education leads us nowhere.