Pre-Conference Graduate Student Workshop: Theses/Sentences on PES

“The essence of philosophical intervention is affirmation.”

Alain Badiou

Pre-Conference Graduate Student Workshop

Theses/Sentences on PES

PES Memphis 2015 Philosophy of Education Society Annual Meeting

What kind of ‘learned society’ do we have, and what kind do we want and need as philosophers of education?   What does it mean to make philosophy of education, and how does, can and should PES support us in that work?

1. PES should be a place where first philosophy can educate us. (Duarte, 1/28/15)
2. PES should provide the space and infrastructure for philosophers of education to perform the theoretical, strategic, and organizational work required to fight to not only defend philosophy of education, but advance the position of the discipline at the level of the school and society. (Ford, 2/2/15)
3. Philosophy of Education should be the practice of inclusion of pressing issues of our times alongside with reflexive/rigorous analysis on them, as opposed to (some might say medieval) exclusionary philosophical scholasticism. (Noroozi, 2/8/15)
4. PES should not be afraid of love. The love of wisdom and the blessed life and the world have always been integral to philosophy, across chronological and phenomenological space and time, and this is what educates us. PES does, can, and should support its members to be educated by the lovecraft of philosophy. (Rocha, 2/14/2015)
5. Along the lines of #2 and #3 above, PES should engage dialog about the relationship between philosophical practice and praxis, both at the level of the school and with regard to education more generally. (Fisherman, 2/14/15)
6. The Philosophy of Education Society aims to illuminate both the theoretical and applied phases of any inquiry, and then deploys these insights into the concrete problematic-situation that precipitated that inquiry. Such a project is ambitious and needs an engaged, thoughtful, committed, and audacious community, one that can keep the scope of its project(s) as large and meaningful to our experience as possible. (Kramer 2/17/2015)
7. PES should be a place of thinking rather than a place of thought. (Lewis 2/18/2015)
8. To what extent do we “make” philosophy and to what extent do we “discover” it, or does it discover us?  I hope PES can be a place where wisdom and education are received/encountered in the context of a certain friendship. (Bertucio 2/18/2015)
9. PES takes place within territories marked and sustained by capitalism, settler-colonialism, and imperialism. It has an obligation to participate in struggles to dismantle/overthrow these systems.. (Ford, 2/18/2015)
10. Like the broader society in which we exist, our society actively participates in exclusionary processes along the lines of nationality, race, gender, ability, and sexuality. Recognizing that this will be so as long as these systems of oppression structure the broader society, we nonetheless must take whatever steps possible to minimize our participation in these exclusionary processes. This includes, but is not limited to: (Ford, 2/18/2015)
11. PES should be a place that listens (Furman, 1/19/2015).
12. Our current “learned society” is in many ways far from being an educated society. This is particularly in light of the move toward claims to expertise and authority and away from the struggle and rigour for knowledge. In the philosophy of education, we, none of us, can be experts. From this place of non-expertise we can make rather than just imitate or reproduce philosophy of education. (McCabe, 2/19/2015)
13. While various philosophies of education aim to emancipate learners from different forms of oppression, philosophizing education tends to be a practice of the academic elite. Philosophers have been stalwart in sharing ideas with and garnering input from academic publics, but efforts to exchange knowledge with non-academic publics should be redoubled (van den Berg, 2/23/2015).
14. PES should be a place where we learn to question what has become comfortable and where we practice attention to our immediate experiences, whether in dialogue together or through interaction with what is around us in our everyday lives. It is a place where we learn and practice thinking, where thinking is active attention, questioning, and reconstruction. (James, 2/23/2015)
15. PES should be vigilant of its time with any forms of educational practice that are commonly understood or accepted without questioning. (SunInn Yun, 3/1/15)
16. Educators of philosophy of education facilitate the individual’s exploration of self subjectivity to develop tools with which to adapt to and operate within the world. This view may be fostered through facilitating democratically refereed participatory forums. (Attwood, 3/1/15).
17. To make philosophy of education should involve the questioning of current institutional practices and the possibility of moving outside these practices. As philosophers of education, we hold a responsibility to identify social injustices and actively work toward educational systems that combat systems of oppression. (Lussier, 3/1/15)
18. Logic, analysis and critique have always been the stalwarts of philosophy, but while this trinity can transform the way we think, it does little to open us to being touched and educated by the world. In a time where it is becoming more and more clear that the way we relate to the world around us is deeply unsustainable, unjust and likely suicidal, PES should support us in exploring educational pathways that lead us to profound changes in our being in the world, rather than merely in our analysis of it. (Suša, 3/1/15)
19. PES should be an “audacious community” (#6) that embodies and exemplifies the excitement, joy, and exuberance that can and should be part of educational experiences at any level. (Jasinski, 3/4/15).
20. PES is a space that supports and facilitates the philosophical study of education and schooling. It should be a place where budding and established philosophers are nurtured, recognized, and challenged. Making philosophy mandates that we engage in conversation. It does not mean that we must all engage in the same conversation, or with the same voice. I hope that PES is, above all, a community. (Deane, 3/4/15).
21. Making philosophy of education, and therefore PES, should be fun. (Pope, 3/8/15)
22. PES should be a space for dialogue. (Davis, 3/10/15)
23. If we are going to make something at PES, perhaps Nietzsche should be passing out hammers at the door.  
24. PES should be a space in which we acknowledge that philosophy is hard. (Dorosz, 3/10/15)
25. PES should work to bring philosophy onto the ground--to make philosophy the ground. (Longa, 3/10/15)
26. PES is the formal banding together of the common pursuit of concerned scholars toward the possibility of a better or clearer philosophy of learning. (Holland, 3/10/15)
27. PES should provide the auspices for a robust, intellectual agon. (Yacek, 3/11/15)