An Odd Coupling: Nietzsche and W.E.B. Du Bois on 21st Century Philosophy of Education

Charles C Verharen

doi:10.1007/s11217-021-09799-0

Abstract

This essay contrasts Nietzsche’s remarks on elite education with W.E.B. Du Bois’ demand for democratized education. The essay takes their remarks as springboards for a twenty-first century philosophy of education rather than an historical account of their philosophies. Both thinkers cultivated Kant and Hegel’s dream that the spirit of freedom guided by reason would unite all the world’s peoples. Both held that education was key to realizing the dream. Their judgments about qualifying for education separated them. Nietzsche insisted that only the elite should receive the fullest measure of education. Du Bois believed that in the future virtually every human being would receive a university-level education. The essay’s principal point is to show how contemporary technology can make Du Bois’ dream a reality. An African philosopher’s working model demonstrates a path to universal university education.

Highlights

Anticipating the African working model for a “united college and vocational school” described in the essay’s section, Du Bois’ reformed university would graduate alumni “who can think clearly and function normally as physical beings; who have a knowledge of what human life on earth has been, and what it is ; and a knowledge of the constitution of the known universe” (1973, 76)
An African philosopher, Godfrey Nzamujo, stands as an example of those “others previously missing in philosophy.”
Nietzsche continued that theme in the Gay Science, and made it the primary focus of part III of the Genealogy of Morals

Summary

Introduction

Anticipating the African working model for a “united college and vocational school” described in the essay’s section, Du Bois’ reformed university would graduate alumni “who can think clearly and function normally as physical beings; who have a knowledge of what human life on earth has been, and what it is ; and a knowledge of the constitution of the known universe” (1973, 76) The curriculum for such a university mirrors the curriculum that Nietzsche proposed for training students to achieve the synoptic vision characteristic of philosophers. “Variation,” Darwin’s evolutionary engine, “[s]uddenly...arrives on the scene in the greatest fullness and splendor...and the individual dares to be individual and to stand out.” That same “‘individual’ stands there, compelled to a legislation of his own, to his own arts and wiles of self-preservation, self-enhancement, self-redemption” (Beyond Good and Evil 2014/1886 [262], 176–177, cited in Jonas and Yacek, 147)

An African Working Model for a Democratized Philosophical Education

Conclusion