The “Lengthy Affair” of Mytho-Poetic Education: Plato’s Myths, Heidegger’s Hermeneutics, and Learning with(out) Violence

Abstract

This article retrieves ancient and modern perspectives on the status and role of myth in education by revisiting Plato’s critique of myth in the light of recent scholarship and spotlighting Plato’s so-called “allegory of the cave,” particularly the latter’s (in)famous interpretation by Martin Heidegger. Reviving the question of myth in the philosophy of education through engaging Plato and Heidegger’s mythical elements, the paper provides a more extensive background to recent deliberations on mytho-poetic curriculum theory and the hermeneutics of education.