Philosophy and Its Relation to Other Disciplines in Derrida’s Writings on Education

Abstract

Derrida's writings on education, most of which are gathered in Du droit a la philosophie, form a rich and multifaceted body of work.1 In these writings Derrida covers a wide range of topics related to the teaching of philosophy, including the appropriate age at which should be learned, the relation between philosophical teaching, educational institutions, and the State, the links between and national languages, the position of both within and outside the University, and the role of means-ends thinking in philosophical research, to name just a few. Those of us interested in education in thus have much to learn from this resource, and I would advocate strongly for a closer engagement with it than is currently the case.2In this essay I pursue this engagement by following one thread of thinking in Derrida's education writings, namely his attempts to transform how is conceived, paying particular attention to the role played in this transformation by Derrida's rethinking of philosophy's relation to other disciplines. My task is complicated somewhat by the fact that has more than one referent in these writings. In texts related to Derrida's involvement in French education debates of the 1970s, refers for the most part to philosophy in By contrast, in other texts, notably those associated with the College International de Philosophie, the term transcends this national boundary, signaling a broader European anchored in Kant. This duality means there is no single transformation of taking place in Derrida's work, and the content of these referents also poses challenges of translation for those, like myself, working in other institutional contexts, who still want to learn from what Derrida has to say. Nonetheless, these challenges are not insurmountable, and my wager is that Derrida's new understandings of philosophy, specifically as they developed through rethinking philosophy's relation to other modes of inquiry, can provide inspiration for our own attempts to defend and transform philosophical education.One constant across Derrida's work is that is never spoken of as eternal or unchanging, as something that transcends time. Rather, for Derrida always appears in institutional forms-with institution understood broadly, covering practices, traditions, and organizational bodies-and among these forms, one to which he refers frequently is the of in France. Now to speak of this in the singular is to some extent misleading. Philosophy in France is constituted by multiple institutions, in multiple areas of society, containing multiple divisions. Philosophy is taught in the lycees, in the universities, and in the grandes ecoles, and philosophical research is supported in many of these establishments, as well as at the College de France and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. Philosophy also appears in the French public sphere at a level perhaps greater than in any other nation, with a presence across the media and a publishing industry that addresses a large public outside the academic world.Nonetheless, this complex multiplicity is given some measure of coherence due to its being organized around a focal point, the class in the lycee. Philosophy has long been a central feature of the baccalaureat, and, even as its presence has been reduced over time, it remains a required course across the general and the technical streams of the certificate today. This presence in the lycee curriculum has important practical consequences for everywhere else in France. The fact that studying in the grandes ecoles and universities might lead to a specific profession at the end-that of becoming a lycee professor-helps sustain enrollments in the subject. This in turn supports positions for those teaching in higher education. …