This article highlights the educational and the aesthetic significance of the subject matter (i.e., "the third thing") in the relationship between teacher and pupil. This, through a reading of two texts, one written by the 19th century educationist and German philosopher Johann Friedrich Herbart, and one written by the contemporary…

There is growing interest in epistemic injustice and its connection to education. However, the relation between social studies and epistemic injustice has not yet been adequately explored and this topic has been given insufficient attention by social studies educators. But it is regarded as an important resource for students who are socially…

In this paper, I will establish a conversation between Rorty and the recent proposal of post-critical pedagogy. The assumption is that through this dialogue some tenets of the latter could find a Rortyan redescription that avoids the risk of 'metaphysical' formulations, whereas Rorty's ideas can increase in their relevance with respect to…

The argument of this article assumes that religious literacy is urgently needed in the present geopolitical context. Its urgency increases the more religion is viewed in opposition to criticality, as though religion entails an irrational and inviolable commitment, or leap of faith. This narrow view of religion is reinforced by certain rather…

In this paper, Thompson engages the fact that educators perceive themselves to be faced with an apparent dilemma regarding racial identity education. On one hand, their political obligations may incline them to teach racial identity so as to avoid reifying the reality of a racialized system of power. On the other hand, honoring their epistemic…

There seems to be an overall agreement that parents "qua parents" are, almost by definition, in need of support and hence that there is always a "parental deficit". In order to help parents out many initiatives are taken, predominantly drawing from a technical conception of parenting. This particular conception defines the…

Despite their strong spatial connotations, nearness, remoteness and distance are terms discussed in Martin Heidegger in connection to technology, interpretation, difference and lived time. In this paper, I investigate the nature of nearness, the possibility of its elimination and the meaning of such contingency "via" Bernard…

This article seeks to elaborate the step of epistemological affirmation that exists within every movement of learning. My epistemological method is rooted in philosophical hermeneutics in contrast to empirical or rationalist traditions. I argue that any movement of learning is based upon an entry into a hermeneutical circle: one is thrown into, or…

There is an increasing interest in publications about the sources of meaning in life; books about the art of living are immensely popular. This article discusses whether one of the ancient predecessors of current "art of living" theories, the Stoa and more particularly Seneca, can be of interest to educators today. Seneca's explicit writings on…

Beyond a monolingual mentality and beyond the language that is typically observed in the prevalent discourse of education for understanding other cultures, this article tries to present another approach: Stanley Cavell's idea of "philosophy as translation." This Cavellian approach shows that understanding foreign cultures involves a relation to…

This article is the author's response to a paper presented by David Bridges. Bridges' central question: "Is there something exclusive and superior about insider understanding which the outsider cannot understand?" is indeed not only crucial to the contexts he explicitly deals with, i.e. religious understanding, ethnographic research and…

In education issues to do with insider and outsider understanding arise in debates about religious education and about certain areas of research, and in argument about education for international understanding. Here I challenge the dichotomy between insider and outsider, arguing that a more collectivist view of human identity combined with…