What Is Called Thinking in Education?

Abstract

The chapter takes the problem space outlined by Martin Heidegger in his famously controversial lecture series What is called thinking? as a starting point to discuss which forms of thinking, which methods and bodies of knowledges in the academic discipline of education are promoted, and which are marginalized and devalued by narrow concepts of objectivity and rationality. I will focus on two questions in particular: Which forms of thinking do we intend to encourage and foster through education? And secondly, which forms of thinking and knowledge production are called for when we consider education and upbringing in the educational sciences, and what is the role of educational philosophy in this context? Building on Alice Crary’s work in Beyond Moral Judgment(2007), I argue that the critique of narrow conceptions of rationality and objectivity should not lead to a dismissal of these notions but rather to their broadening so that the cultivation of our affective and emotional sensitivities is understood as part and parcel of developing a rational and objective understanding of the world. Starting from such a revised conception of rationality, I further argue that it is one of the main tasks of philosophy of education, to keep alive the sense that it is possible and worthwhile to address the moral dimension of education in serious and rational argument without falling prey to a narrow focus on moral judgment nor to certain problematic forms of moralistic arrogance.