Meaning constitution in education

Piotr Szybek, Lund University

Paper presented at the 5th European Conference on Educational Research (5th annual confer-ence of the European Educational Research Association), Lisbon, Sept. 11-14, 2002

Contents

ABSTRACT.........................................................................................................................................................2600 WORD SUMMARY.....................................................................................................................................2INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................................................4

Why talk about meaning?................................................................................................................................4METHOD................................................................................................................................................................4

A short description of the meaning constitution process.................................................................................5Unveiling the process of meaning constitution...............................................................................................7

VALIDITY OF THE DISCLOSURE OF MEANING CONSTITUTION.............................................................................10MEANING CONSTITUTION AS MODALITY OF HUMAN EXISTENCE........................................................................11

Human existence as being responsive...........................................................................................................12Human existence as taking pleasure.............................................................................................................13Human existence as beginning......................................................................................................................15

EDUCATION AS MODALITY OF HUMAN EXISTENCE.............................................................................................17The unity of education and the commission of education..............................................................................18Whose world is opened in education?...........................................................................................................22Knowledge and power...................................................................................................................................24

REFERENCES:......................................................................................................................................................26

ABSTRACT

Education is in the paper construed as a process by which human beings, interacting with one another, arrange and furnish the world in which they live. The process springs from a background, and is leading toward a range of possibilities. Thus knowledge is here linked to power, as the elucidation of a background leads to an acquain-tance with new potentialities of being. This leads us to seeing the process as an unending quest, originating in an “immemorial past“. The discussion is abutted in Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology, Lévinas’ phe-nomenology of the human person’s constitution as an ethical subject, and Hannah Arendt’s construal of the indi-vidual as a subject of political action.

600 WORD SUMMARY

Wolfgang Klafki (1963, 1991) is discussing overriding educational objectives in a way which corresponds partly with the discussion led by Dewey (1997). Klafki describes education as a process whereby the human existence in a world is developed. This discussion is in the paper abutted in the phenomenological thinking of Husserl, Merleau-Ponty and Lévinas, and in the philosophy of Hannah Arendt. All these authors focus the problem of hu-man existence as an existence in the world.

Specifically, the question of meaning comes to the fore. This issue is taken up also by authors not affiliated to the phenomenological tradition, as Englund, Östman, Roberts and Säfström, working in the neo-pragmatist tradi-tion. The point these authors make, is that it is impossible to trace the educational process to a given origin, and that the Deweyan focus on experience leads to a view of the process as divergent, which makes us stress differ -ence rather than the reproduction of an identity.

The attempt made here, drawing upon the Husserlian concept of meaning constitution, is to show education as a process, which is issuing from certain preconditions, and leads to something becoming thinkable, expectable and thus possible. Meaning constitution is the constitution of a range of possibilities (Husserl 1976), charac-terised by a certain “style“ (Merleau-Ponty 1973). The process is hidden for the persons performing it, and it can be unveiled by a reflection set off by a “question of origin“ (Rückfrage). This unveiling cannot ever be regarded as final (Ströker 1978, Marx 1987).

In the educational context the question arises what makes persons start constituting meaning. This is adressed by Lévinas, who sees it as “being waken up“ by an exteriority. This is tantamount to starting a new event, and is embedded in a “wakefulness“ contrasting to the “somnolescence“ of the normal life. Learning could thus be seen as presupposing something – positioned as an exteriority – breaking the routine of everyday, culturally embed-ded life. This exteriority is, in the first hand, manifesting itself in contact with other people (and it can be sup-

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posed to manifest itself whenever something is personified, as many non-human entities are in fairy tales, myths and poetry).

The awakening has a primarily ethical aspect, and thus valuing is not just an arbitrary companion of know-ing, but it appertains to the latter’s very preconditions (Lévinas 1981). Lévinas sees also the unveiling of mean-ing constitution as embedded in a “wakefulness“ – and thus endowed with ethical aspect (something which is prefigured by Husserl).

As the human person is learning, i.e. approaching the object which makes up the matter of her/his response to the “awakening“, and letting the object be endowed with meaning, s/he enters a process which precedes her/him, and is leading to consequences s/he cannot take stock of without consciously undertaking to work on it. Such work, undertaken in a “wakefulness“ must lead to an appraisal of the possibilities opened by learning. This ap-praisal in turn must lead to decisions concerning the actualisation of the potentialities revealed by reflection. Thus we arrive to the conclusion, that in “wakefulness“ human subjects can form their world.

Hannah Arendt is telling more about it (Arendt 1963, 1998). Formation of the world occurs in action. Apply-ing Lévinas’ categories to Arendt we could say that action is set off by subject being awakened by exteriority. Now, any human is exterior to each other, in the sense that s/he provides an “interruption“ of her/his counter-part’s process of putting knowledge to knowledge (the knowledge thus amassed, by assimilation, constitutes an identity, the “same“) (Lévinas 1981). The “wakefulness“ is manifested what Arendt calls “action“, and what is characterised by (1) the constitution of a “new order of things“ (breaking up, interrupting, routines) (2) the emer-gence of new possibilities (thus power is generated, and in Arendt, power acquires an aspect of being related to freedom). This is, according to Arendt (1963, 1998) manifested in some historically known occurrences, like the Athenian democracy, or the first stage of the American revolution. The acting subjects constitute a common world, accessible to all, and where all are empowered to shape it, in the course of concerted action. Such subjects are citizens, and their world is a democracy.

Summing up, seeing – and performing – education as meaning constitution can lead to the strengthening of education as a process leading to a democratic world.

References:Arendt. H. (1963) On revolution. New York: The Viking PressArendt. H. (1998) The human condition. Chicago: Chicago University PressDewey, J. (1997) Democracy and education. New York: Free PressHusserl, E. (1976) Experience and Judgment. Evanston: Northwestern University PressKlafki, W. (1963) Studien zur Bildungstheorie und Didaktik. Weinheim: BelzKlafki, W. (1991) Neue Studien zur Bildungstheorie und Didaktik. Weinheim: Belz Lévinas, E. (1981) Otherwise than Being, or Beyond Essence. The Hague: Martinus NijhoffLévinas, E. (1998) From consciousness to wakefulness: Starting from Husserl. In: Of God who comes to mind. Stanford: Stanford University PressMarx, W. (1987) Die Phänomenologie Edmund Husserls. München: W.FinkMerleau-Ponty, M. (1973) The Prose of the World. Evanston: Northwestern University PressStröker, E. (1978) Husserls transzendentale Phänomenologie. Frankfurt: Klostermann

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Introduction

Why talk about meaning?The paper focuses meaning in connection with the direction of understanding, communication etc. Consider that in French meaning is le sens, which also means “direction“. Thus meaning appears in connection with aims and aiming at goals. We talk of something pertaining simul-taneously to perception and expression, thus action.

The central aspect of educational processes is that perception of something leads to action, and that this is not a matter of simple (effective) causality. The phenomenological perspective, applied here, permits to make visible the role played here by the individual, his or her making sense, and the role of the background against which sense is being made.

We can thus make it possible to discuss educational goals, educational policy i.e. general features of educational phenomena – at the same time we are able to get hold of their singular, particular aspects.

Such aspects have been the focus of the German Bildungs-tradition. The paper offers a way to see these aspects in the same context as the more instrumental aspects. A possibility is to start from Klafki’s definition of Bildung as opening up (Erschlossenheit) of the individual’s world for that individual – understood as the objective of the process of Bildung as well as its modality. This opening up is necessarily accompanied by the opening up of the individual for the world. We have here a focus on the human beings way of existing in the world, and thus the objective and the main modality of the educational process is identified as an objective and a modality of human existence. The process of meaning constitution – as it was re-searched and described by Edmund Husserl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Martin Heidegger and Emmanuel Lévinas – is one where human existence is being vested with possibilities. This is happening as this existence is a being in and for the world (au monde, as Merleau-Ponty puts it), the world thus being the backdrop of the process, as well as backdrop of human existence. This makes out the objective of the paper: to characterise the process of meaning constitution, touch upon the possibilities of its unveiling, and show what prospects for educational science are opened by knowledge about meaning constitution. Specifically, the relevance of a descrip-tion of human existence in the world, of a “worldliness“ as backdrop of action, for the ques-tion of goals and aims would be interesting.

MethodThe phenomenological method used here is that of transcendental phenomenology, i.e. the un-veiling of the process of meaning constitution.

This is the meaning of what Heidegger writes in §7 of Sein und Zeit (Heidegger 2001), when outlining the phenomenological method he himself is using in that work. For this pur-pose he focuses the meaning of three concepts: what is method, what is a phenomenon and what is logos. He then gives the pre-conception (Vorbegriff) of phenomenology, i.e. speaking of phenomena.

Heidegger’s description of the concept of method in the context of scientific knowledge production (Erkenntnis) is focusing the distinction between Handgriffe (tricks of trade, also: handling and managing a tool, which makes the person using a method be able to perform in a detached, uncommitted way) and the movement of approaching things themselves (Heidegger 2001, p. 25).

The particular method here is going to focus phenomena. Phenomena, Heidegger points out, appear by not showing themselves. He gives as example the phenomenon of illness, which appears by not showing itself, but rather is disclosed by looking at what is showing it -

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self in its stead, so to speak, i.e. the symptoms. Thus we don’t see “flu“. What we see is: run-ning a temperature, having headache, sneezing etc.

This is the traditional concept of phenomenon, Heidegger points out. It can be brought one step further. As we speak of symptoms we already envisage the illness. It is brought to the fore, thematised – from the outset. However, it is possible to make something appear, become a theme, even if it was not so from the outset. When this thematisation is proceeding from what is showing itself, it is phenomenology. Thus, phenomena in the phenomenological sense would have to be unraveled from what is showing itself – rather than from what we know in addition to what is showing itself. Speaking of virus could be called for by such a knowledge which is brought from outside of the things themselves1. An example can not be given here – a fortiori – since no thing is appearing. Only if a concrete sick person would speak to me, would I get a possibility to confront those things I could approach and in this approach get the opportunity of disclosing phenomena.

Finally, logos is connected to speech. It is making manifest the matter that is brought up. Heidegger draws on Aristotle, who discusses how speech (apophansis) makes its matter, “what is spoken about“ accessible to the listener. The point of departure is how this appears to the one talking, and it is this, the actual content of speech, which is the ground on which the operation of making something accessible, i.e. logos, is unfolding itself. Talking is, Heidegger says, a letting-see (Sehenlassen). It is an effort of making something visible, which otherwise would not be. This something is already present – it is not made up from thin air.

This can be summed up: We can let something be seen, which is not showing itself. We do it on the basis of how it

is appearing when we make an effort to make it visible. This is the content of speech, albeit not manifestly so (as “illness“ is the content of speaking about “fever“, “sneezing“ etc.) the described activity is phenomenology. Using it to produce scientific knowledge is to make it a method.

Heidegger’s description has points in common with the critical method of Kant (here I fol-low Hannah Arendt’s account of it, Arendt 1982) . As Arendt points out, something important has occurred in Plato: it was the introduction of a novel style of communicating knowledge. Rather than proclaim, as has been usual with the Pre-Socratics, Plato is trying to account for the process of arriving to a conclusion from a set of assumptions (which are, too, accounted for). He is thus making this process accessible for the reader/ listener, which makes the latter a potential participant of the process of knowledge production. This amounts to letting some-thing be seen, namely knowledge. Kant is taking it further. The placing of the reader in the role of participator constitutes his critical method. Thus he writes in a letter “…thinking [rea-sonable objections] over I always weave them into my judgements, and afford them the op-portunity of overturning my most cherished beliefs“ (as quoted in Arendt, 1982, p. 42).

The interaction with the reader which Kant thus brings to the fore is the basis of the valid-ity discussion which will conclude the section on method.

A short description of the meaning constitution process. Heidegger talks about the phenomenon being shrouded, veiled (verdeckt). To make a phe-nomenon appear, to make it accessible in speech, one must actively unveil it.The Husserlian phenomenology is the point of departure for Heidegger in Being and time. This phenomenology has however progressed considerably2 since the works Heidegger is quoting there, and the foremost result of this development was the description of the process

1 On the other hand, modern science is founded in what is showing itself, in our experience. Cf. Husserl 1950a and 1970, for an exhausting account, and Szybek 2002, for an account which is placing it in the context of edu-cation.2 The question in which respect this was due to Heidegger exceeds the scope of this paper.

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of meaning constitution and the means of its unveiling. This development is for instance de-scribed by Elisabeth Ströker (Ströker, 1978). Talking about meaning in terms of content con-stituted in the act of experiencing could make the readers (and has done so) meaning as some-thing static, having been accomplished once and for all. The evolution in Husserl’s writings is connected to the clarification of this misunderstanding: meaning is never fully accomplished. The process of meaning constitution never stops. This is due to the way in which meaning is constituted.

The pivot of the process is its temporality. The matter of what is said “now“ has some logi-cal presuppositions, something which is taken for granted, and which we have the right to take to take for granted. There is thus always already some meaning which precedes the meaning of what is uttered. It must be already there, or what is uttered will not be understood. It is pre -ceding it in a way similar (but not identical) to that of a logical assumption having to precede a conclusion. Human thinking is a sequenced process, so there will, eventually, be a temporal-ity, a before and an after.

before what is said now after

has a genesis points somewhere(can be understood thanks to some presuppositions)

(is a presupposition for understanding something)

Figure 1Passive genesis of meaning.

But it is not so simple: when I say “the ball is rolling“, you must understood “rolling“ in the same instant you hear about the ball. The presupposition is that you are already acquainted with rolling objects.

This is perhaps best visible in Husserl’s text on the origin of geometry3. The theorems of geometry have been formulated and proved thousands of years ago, but this accomplishment can be repeated over and over – re-enacted. In this re-enactment, when a student is learning how to prove one of them, the “logical past“ necessary to make sense of the theorems thesis has to be present.

There is also a “logical future”: what has been said leads somewhere. It becomes, itself, a presupposition for understanding something. Again, there is on one hand the sequentiality leading to ordering of before, now and after, so that we have to wait for the “after“ – on the other hand there is the circumstance that the consequences are present the moment something is uttered. If we return to the context mentioned before, a person proving a theorem has no idea about the consequences the theorem might have. The fact is, however, that the potential of achieving many things, of making them existing actually is already there. Let us think our-selves back to Greek antiquity. Little did Archimedes know about what modern shipbuilding would achieved. Yet the possibility of making ships of steel has been there, ever since his the-orem has been formulated.

The meaning constitution process is thus a process by which meaning comes ”from some-where” (has a genesis, a history) and ”points somewhere”. That latter circumstance might be quite obvious for any person acquainted with French, Italian, Spanish and other related lan-guages. In those languages the word for ”meaning” (sens, senso) also designates ”direction”.

Nothing would be possible to be understood if it was not for the synthesis of what is being said at the moment with what has been said before, and with what is made expectable after it

3 Husserl, 1954, 1970 Appendix III (On the origin of geometry).

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has been said. Such a synthesis is performed without any active effort on the part of the acting and perceiving subject. Therefore it has been called passive synthesis by Husserl (Husserl, 1950 and 1973). This passive synthesis achieves the formation of a common background of what is happening now with the states preceding it, and the states which become expectable, once the event occurs.

Meaning constitution is started by human subjects “looking in some direction“4. This is al-ways done when there is a definite object in sight (a real, or an imaginary one). So, the whole attention is devoted to that one object. This is what makes the process of meaning constitution veil itself. There are certainly psychological and neuro-biological aspect to it, which cannot be treated here. The point is that neither the presuppositions of making sense of the objects, nor the consequences of this making sense are paid any attention to5.

Consider a thought experiment. A pen is lying on the table before person B. Person A asks B for the pen. B complies. Now let us assume that A had lost the ability of performing passive synthesis. A would then say: “You are not giving me the pen I asked for. It is situated here. (points at the table, puzzled by not finding the pen situated there) Instead you give me a pen situated here“. B would understood nothing.

This is so, since A would be able to see the movement of the pen between two points as a only as a sequence of discrete states, with the pen occupying different points with different co-ordinates, and so nothing would indicate to A that it is the same pen all along. Whereas B is automatically, without having to be aware of it (i.e. passively), synthesising the various state into one process. By belonging to this process the pen would be constituted as the same all the time – and B would not notice it, hence the bewilderment experienced at A’s objec-tions.

So, in order to see something “as something“ it is necessary (and sufficient) to provide something which can function as the point of departure, and something which can function as point of arrival. Between those points a vector is constituted, as it were, and it can be pro-longed “back“ and “forth“, toward more fundamental presuppositions and more distant conse-quences. This would mean that there is no definite point of departure (foundation) and cer-tainly no end to the process of meaning constitution. There are, of course beginnings, but these can be shown to have presuppositions, thus to be founded themselves6. This means that the important thing is not the hypothetical origin of the vector, or its hypothetical end, but the direction itself.

Unveiling the process of meaning constitutionThe point of departure of the process of meaning constitution can be inferred. One can infer what the presuppositions must be to make sense of something. Let me quote from earlier work, which quite exhaustively describes a procedure of making the process of meaning con-stitution visible. (Sages & Szybek, 2000)7. A student is writing about an alien “crashing right 4 This is the meaning of the concept of “intentionality“ (cf. Ströker, 1978, Marx, 1987 and Patočka, 1998)5 Gurwitsch has been trying to describe it using the concept of the field of consciousness, which has a centre, and a perifery . Cf. Gurwitsch, 1982.6 Consider, for example what Karl Marx writes in the first section of The 18th of Brumaire about the old being used to make something new: “The tradition of all dead generations weighs like an Alp on the brains of the liv-ing. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes…“ 7 This procedure is also underlying a number of works on work psychology: Sages, 2001; Sages, Backman & Garmer, 1996; Sages & Hensfelt Dahl, 1996; Sages & Jakobsdóttir, 2000; Sages, Jakobsdóttir & Lundsten, 2001; Sages, Jeppsson & Persson, 1996; Sages, Lundsten, Andersson, & Histrup, 2001 and is supported by a software: Sages, R. & Johansson, C. R. (1997-2001).

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in the middle of the classroom“. The presuppositions of this constitute the intentional struc-ture, and the modalities of appearing. Thus:

meaning unit pure meaning modalities intentional structure

3. right in the middle of the classroom

"right in the mid-dle of the class-room"

a. signitive/ per-ceptive

b. certainty

there is "classroom"; "classroom" can be spaced; it has a center and peripheries; this happened in a classroom; it happened in the center of it (rather than in the peripheries)

Sages & Szybek, 2000, p. 166

Here the following can be observed:

Something which at the first glance appeared to be a very simple meaning (con-cerning something happening in the middle of the classroom) shows itself (as re-sult of the passive synthetic activity enabling its formulation) to mean something very complex: It is a description of a classroom’s spatiality and the way the text positions an event in this spatiality. (…)

Sages & Szybek, 2000, p. 166

“we get at the classroom as intended, in two different meaning units, as "where X. is crashing" and as "something with a center and peripheries". (May be as be-coming what it is, acquiring meaning, not by what it is in any kind of absolute meaning, but by the kind of events it allows to happen (Husserl, 1973).)

(…) The event of [the alien’s] landing transforms spatiality previously ex-perienced as classroom into spatiality where dramatic crashes can occur. The re-sult is that "classroom”, as a space has no identity of its own. Whatever its iden-tity, it is always created by the events occurring there."

Sages & Szybek, 2000, p. 169

This is, NB, an inference on what is made to appear when what is showing itself is made the point of departure. If other data were obtained, where something else would be showing itself, that would give the possibility to make something else appear.

Now, I would like to direct the reader’s attention toward the words “… acquiring meaning,

not by what it is in any kind of absolute meaning, but by the kind of events it allows to hap-pen“. What is disclosed is a range of possibilities (Spielraum der Möglichkeiten, cf. Husserl 1948, 1976). By having disclosed the intentional structure we gained access to a surplus of points of departure, since all the “partial intentions“, which are the presuppositions of the manifestly intended object, can each give rise to a meaning constitution process their own. Knowing this, we can also arrive to consequences which are not obvious when we thematise the manifestly intended object alone.

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Figure 2Intending an object generates a surplus of meaning

The procedure outlined above consists in (1) disclosing a background which is necessary for a portion of a text being meaningful (“what is necessary to presuppose in order that the text makes sense?“) and thus (2) acquiring the possibility of seeing more consequences than just the one envisage when focusing the intended object.

It can be remarked here, that Ricoeur (Ricoeur, 1978, 1986, 1986a) links this to the ques-tion of ideology. The question leading back to the logical presuppositions, the Rückfrage, helps us to arrive to the foundations of what is proposed, situated in the background of any-thing that can be proposed at all, i.e. the “life-world“. NB: since the process of meaning con-stitution can be prolonged ad infinitum (Ströker, 1978; Marx, 1986), so can the Rückfrage. This is the work that Husserl has initiated, enabling us to look at the background of scientific knowledge in the world which human beings inhabit with their experiencing bodies. Ricoeur points out the parallel with the work initiated by Karl Marx in German Ideology, which amounts to disclosing the background of propositions in the praxis human beings perform by means of their bodies.

Let us perform such a procedure, looking at praxis. A comic by Scott Adams can provide the opportunity.

Figure 3How could Dilbert be more helpful?

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Looking at the presuppositions of Dilbert’s presentation one must notice that, since there are things Dilbert’s company doesn’t do, there is a possibility of doing things. This activity is there, in potentia. Becoming aware of it, knowing it to exist in the range of possibilities, cre-ates the possibility of making it exist in actu, by thematising that as a problem and solving it. So, a person carefully listening to Dilbert and making an effort to make the matter of what he says appear, would be able to propose changes in Dilbert’s company.

Validity of the disclosure of meaning constitutionWittgenstein (1993) remarks about propositions being claims – about not only the state of things (“what is the case“) but also, even mostly, as what we all see the things at hand, about “what is the matter“. The acceptance of these claims as valid is the precondition of any inter-action which, like speech or action, is focusing things. To be able to speak one to another, or perform an action together, we must have an agreement as to what we are talking about and what we are working with and working on8.

Speaking of “what is the matter“ is congruent with the phenomenologists’ “research pro-gram“, as it could be characterised by Patočka’s dictum about the commission of phe-nomenology not being to determine what things are, but how they work (Kohák, 1989). Thus Wittgenstein’s remarks are meaningful in a context where the constitution of “what is the matter“ and “as what we see it“ is analyzed.

Wittgenstein is placing the question of validity in the context of praxis, of the possibility to communicate in an intelligible way, so that action might be performed together with other people. Thus, a work which “lets something be seen“, i.e. makes some meaning emerge, is valid if it permits other people to see something they can make the matter of discussion they can share, or action they can perform.

Now, Hannah Arendt is taking up the problem in her book on Kant (Arendt, 1982). It has been mentioned earlier how the critical method coincides with the unveiling of meaning con-stitution. The gist of it is the very quality of making meaning accessible that Heidegger men-tions. One can thus say that this is a development of the critical method – notice also the anti-ideological potential, which Ricoeur is pointing at.

Arendt (1982) is pointing out how Kant is linking judgement, abutted in a singular case, to thinking, which is generalization. Kant avoids here to speak of the singular case as a case of application of a law, as we can speak of throwing a ball as an application of the laws of grav -ity and dynamics. Such treatment obliterates the singular character of the event. Instead he speaks of the singular case being an exemplar. “Courage is like Achilles.“ (Arendt, 1982, p. 77). This means that we have to explore what Achilles did, and in the resulting account we can experience Achilles as courageous. We thus see his courage show itself. We then can make his courage appear as a modality existing in a range of possibilities, where it is possible to be courageous.

This means that we unveil the process of constitution of the meaning of courage. Merleau-Ponty describes a similar occurrence in The prose of the world (Merleau-Ponty, 1973) by the episode of Renoir painting the sea, and using the experience of the “sea water blue“ to paint water in a brook. Which Merleau-Ponty explains thus: “…each fragment… evokes all sorts of variations and thus teaches, beyond itself, a general way of speaking.“ (Merleau-Ponty, 1973, p. 63). Compare this to Kant’s description of the procedure of validation of judgements: (1) “…comparing our judgement with the possible rather than the actual judgements of others…“ (Kant, quoted in Arendt, 1982, p. 71) – this is the exploration of a range of possibilities. (2) To find an expression which is recognisable, and thus communicable. (3) “Be in agreement with oneself“ (ibid.) – this is the link to one’s own experience. We see that it is the “style“ of “how a thing works“ which is the pivot, precisely as with Merleau-Ponty and Husserl. As

8 This discussion of validity is based on a text by Roger Sages in a book on validity which is forthcoming.

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Arendt points out “In Kant, the story’s or event’s importance lies precisely not at its end but in its opening up new horizons for the future“ (Arendt, 1982, p.56)

To sum up, to validate is to unveil the constitution of meaning. It is this which is letting see – to be precise, letting other people see – what the matter is with something, and thus gives them the opportunity to continue the meaning constitution, to uncover new possibilities, and thus prepares the ground for making something actual, i.e. tangibly present. This concept of validity is not pointing back, but forward, to the future constituted by the active reader, who is thus being made a participant of the meaning constitution initiated by the research text (for in-stance this paper).

This paper is thus aiming at a description of the relation of the concept of meaning consti-tution and education which can be used by others in making something tangibly present.

There is something to say on the modality of reading this paper, the “how“ of lettings the matter of the paper appear to oneself. Kant is linking the discussion on validation of judge-ments to his critique of experiencing something as beautiful (Arendt, 1982). This experience is characterised as taking pleasure in beauty. Thus, Kant is grounding exemplary validity in the modality of experiencing which we call “taking pleasure“ – and which means a range of possibilities, from children romping in the sea, on a sunny beach, to the utmost suffering a hu-man being can experience.

An experience becomes worth something, writes Kant (quoted by Arendt, 1982, p. 74) be-cause of the prospect of “general communicability“9. So, generalisation means two things: (1) there is an experience which can be communicated, and (2) there is an effort of making it communicable (by making the matter of experience accessible, i.e. letting see the others what was experienced). I would add here that there is some reason for addressing the others. There is a responsibility involved here. The other is given something10, i.e. the content of my experi-ence is supposed to be gift. The least that can be expected from me is that I can vouch that it is worth something to me.

In the context of my communication with reader this means that I wish the matter of the paper to show itself in a way which is pleasant: moving, funny, exciting – rather than dry and tedious. Similarly I want the reader to make something appear, that will enable her/ him to ac-complish something which is pleasant to others, his/ her colleagues, students, the public. More of this will be said in the next section.

Meaning constitution as modality of human existenceIn the section on method I remarked that the process of meaning constitution is pointing in some direction. Direction means movement. Patočka (Patočka, 1998) makes Aristotle’s con-cept of movement (kinesis) the point of departure to explain meaning constitution. The conse-quence of this is that he in this way he brings in finality (final causes)11, the “in order to….“ which is distinguishing human action from natural occurrences.

This means that intending and object, directing one’s attention so that something will show itself, is linked to (1)an aim which is pursued (so that a goal is reached), and (2) a purpose be-ing linked to the origin of the process.

In the preceding section I mentioned how Kant linked judging – pertaining to cognition – to taking pleasure. The link between knowledge and pleasure can be explored more exten-sively drawing on modern phenomenology. Emmanuel Lévinas is posing a question which turns out to be a Rückfrage. He asks about the validity of morals. This uncovers a wholly novel range of possibilities in which the constitution of the meaning of morals appears against

9 Note that Kant is here disengaging value, as performing an activity being worth something, from utility.10 This will be elaborated in the next section.11 A crucial quality of movement, in Aristotle, is its causality, which has four aspects: efficient, material, formal and final.

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the background of responsivity as the modality of being human which is grounding meaning, cognition, identity. Thus, it turns out that ethics (or the background of all possible moralities) is preceding cognition. This is important here, since the basis of meaning constitution is hu-man subjectivity, and Lévinas arrives to a completely novel description of this subjectivity.

Human existence as being responsiveThe description of human existence, of being human, is performed by Lévinas in two moves, two major works, to which his other writings are subsidiary. These are Totality and Infinity (Lévinas, 1969), where he pursues the Rückfrage about the validity of morals and Otherwise than being… (Lévinas, 1981) where the Rückfrage is about communication taking place be-tween humans, rather than ignoring one another.

If one were to try to show the results of the process by which Lévinas is developing his thoughts one could say the following: the human being stands out as a being which can an-swer. This is possible, because that being also stands out one who hearkens to calls, and can-not help doing it. Observe: hearkens, which marks “hearkening“ as an activity different from “hearing“. The latter has a matter which is perceived , which is the content of communication. So, the human propensity to communicate is grounded in the human inability-not-to-hearken.

This means that before12 communication is conceivable, a relation must be established be-tween the two parts, who are going to communicate. The relation is asymmetric. There is one pole, which is in a passive mode, a recipient of a call, and there is the other pole, which is the one from which the call is issuing forth. The receiving pole of the relation is, by her13 inabil-ity-not-to-hearken, forced to react. The reaction constitutes an answer. The other pole, the one “calling“ stands out, against the backdrop of the relation, as a persecutor. He is following the recipient pole, until she14 answers.

It slowly becomes visible that here we have the matter of a Rückfrage: how is it possible that we can conceive of “God“? The above mentioned seems to be the set of logical presuppo-sitions for the notion of God being understandable. Moreover, it becomes plausible to main-tain that we had to invent Him15. Lévinas is here not trying to prove that God exists, rather that as we humans are made up, thinking and talking of Him is inevitable. The crucial point is that the “pole of calling“ is not anything that is already known: if we see the relation of call-ing and hearkening as logically preceding the matter of a response, then it also must logically precede any matter of speaking and thinking. This means that hearkening to a call precedes anything which can be conceptualised. Nor can it be identified as already known, or not yet known, but made known by distinction from other things. Thus, the Hegelian picture of the growth of knowledge, toward a totality encompassing all being (the encyclo-paedia), has to be modified. There is this that always already stands outside of anything knowable. Given this, we see that a thought of a God just had to come to our mind16.

Two things are starting to emerge as crucial: (1) the pole of calling is completely different from anything. What is hearkened to is the call of the Other. We can talk of an alterity. (2) the ensuing response originates in hearkening, and this means a modality distinct from just “hear-ing“. It has already been mentioned that hearkening does not have an object in the sense of an

12 “before“ in the logical sense, not temporal.13 it will presently become clear why I write “her“ and not “her/ his“.14 it will presently become clear why I write “he“ and not “s/ he“.15 And that we just had to make God a male. It does seem that for Lévinas the primitive quality in the human per-son is all that which our culture has packaged into the word “female“ (and made into a hump burdening half of the population). Lévinas is using the Hebrew Bible as a point of reference, and if we do the same, we can find in the Song of songs a correspondence with the relation depicted above: the whole human race being represented by a woman, thus the “female“ element made into the quality distinguishing humanity – and the “male“ element reserved for the “extranatural Being“.16 cf. Lévinas, 1998

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object of cognition. There is more. One hearkens in order to obey, and the inability not to do it is here bound to anything we give a response.

The whole meaning of hearkening is that the call is eliciting a response, makes it inevitable – and the response has a matter, it is speech, or, at least it is possible to describe it, translate it into speech. So, the Husserlian intentionality, intending of objects, which constitutes a con-tent, the whole process of which is described above (in the section on meaning constitution) is set off by hearkening to a call. This is described in Lévinas, 1998a.

This constitutes the meaning of alterity, the Other. When we perceive, it is because some-thing is calling for our attention, and it does so in its capacity of the Other. This is setting off the processes of meaning constitution, and since such a process is veiling itself, we never no-tice that the alterity was calling out from the pedestrian thing before us. What we do see is our thoughts, and these revolve around the idea of God. One could say that alterity is, as it were, leaving traces everywhere.

This picture is used by Lévinas to describe communication. One can say that when we read a letter, we are concerned with the matter described there – but we have also to do with some-thing which is the trace of our friend. Since all that comes to mind is a “God“, we bundle up all this and make it into a figure which we put in charge of the world, pulling the strings in the manner of a puppet master, who lodges himself behind the scene. This god, who inhabited the world behind the scenes is dead. Nietzsche proclaimed it, and Lévinas is acknowledging it (Lévinas, 1981). What we are facing, is the alterity calling out of every being and calling for our response.

The relation which grounds our responding, and thus all meaning constitution, has the quality of obeying a call. This makes the call a commandment, and the matter of the response acquires thereby a character of finality: it is given “in order to“. Thus the teleological, final, character of our thinking and our actions.

Human existence as taking pleasureHeidegger has described our existence in terms of (1) the inevitable death expecting us, and (2) the ensuing care we devote to our being (Heidegger, 2001). This makes all things we en-counter be constituted as gear for having something done. The founding relation to our sur-roundings is thus handling it.

Lévinas contests it (Lévinas, 1969). The founding relation to our surroundings is according to him taking pleasure: basking in it, bathing, biting into it. Eating would be, according to Heidegger, directed at staying alive. According to Lévinas it is directed at savouring and be-coming pleasantly full.

Human existence takes place somewhere – and that somewhere is called The world. It is a place, but that is not all. It is a place to live in. It is the background of human living. For Husserl (cf. especially Husserl, 1948, 1950a, 1970 and 1976, also Marx, 1986 and Ströker, 1978) living in the world is the background of our knowledge, the ground from which mean-ing originates. The view on the origin of meaning is changed in Lévinas, and the view of the world is accommodated to these changes.

The world is a home. This means that it is the place which is fit for us to live, where we can take pleasure of our surroundings. It means also that it is a place that can be left – and re-turned to. Leaving the home and returning to it are connected to what is there outside. Taking pleasure has a reverse: a bodily being that can take pleasure can also suffer. These two things belong to the same range of possibilities. This means that when we build a home, we do it in order to shield us from the raging elements17 and to store provisions against future needs, caused by scarcity.

17 The concept of “element“ is important to grasp the meaning of taking pleasure in Lévinas, cf. Lévinas, 1969.

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Issuing from the home is in Lévinas (1969) connected to fetching supplies, and in Lévinas, (1981) to responding to a call. Fetching constitutes the human being not as a looker, but as a grasper and grabber. The interaction with surroundings, founded here (as in Karl Marx) in material needs, encompasses also cognition. These things are related: securing material needs depends on making the surroundings known. Just the activities of furnishing and enlarging the home have a cognitive aspect. A part of this furnishing and enlarging is our knowledge pro-duction.

Note here that this leads to the possibility of handling knowledge as a transportable thing: it can be reified, and turned into a commodity. The parallel with Marx stands18. But – it can also be given as a gift. This is connected to another aspect of the home: it is a place where a guest can come, and be admitted or not. The function of home is that it is providing time: its existence and existence of supplies stored in it constitute a deferment of the moment when the elements will get us and make us suffer. This is the time for taking pleasure, and it is mea-sured. Now, by admitting an other, this time is given to him/ her/ it, and this is as if one gave the other the bread from one’s mouth – that which one would savour oneself, and which is measured. Communicating is also a gift of time. Rather than bask in the elements (i.e. the pleasant part of them, walled off inside the home) I give a response to the other. And, as mentioned before, I cannot help it.

Now, that makes something appear. The existence of a human being acquires modalities which make Lévinas call it a being-for-the-other and make it more incisive using the metaphor of a hostage.19 This constitutes human subjectivity in a novel way. The meaning of it is here that the human being is subjected to not being able not to respond, thus to being for the other, thus to being forced to decide whether admit him/her/it to one’s home, and in any case, always to making a gift of one’s attention and admitting the other into one’s awareness. Nothing of it, Lévinas underlines (1969, 1981) would be possible, if the human being was not a creature capable of taking pleasure.

The aspect of grabbing, defending and excluding is connected to what Hobbes called “the war of all against all“ and which in Mészáros (1970) view is an exhausting description of hu-man existence. However, Hobbes was writing “The Leviathan“ in order to find an alternative to that situation, and the alternative was peace. In Lévinas (1969) the alternative is embodied in the metaphoric description of the human being as a hand. Giving was already mentioned. Now we can note that the hand can caress.

The hand, going out to fetch, does not have access to a definitive and complete knowledge of the world. The epistemic aspect of this is “groping“ a modality of knowledge production indicating uncertainty and hesitation. Caress is the ethical aspect of this. It is stopping short of transgressing a border. The first is, that the existence of a border is implied. Ego stops some-where, and that is where the other begins.

To resolve the metaphor: the call of the Other, approaching things as traces of alterity, makes us stop short. The progress of our exploration, our grasping and grabbing of the outside is halted. Communicating is such a stopping short. It is a possibility of a new beginning. Knowledge production starts, and it has two ethical dimensions: (1) being a gift to the other (or a commodity), (2) respecting the distinctive (special, individual) character of the other part, entering co-operation with the other part (or rather subordinating the other part to what is special for ego, obliterating the distinctions). Knowledge production thus moves within a range of possibilities where there can be war or where there can be peace. To all this, our ca-pability of taking pleasure is foundational.

18 On knowledge as commodity cf. Mészáros, 1970 and Beach, 199919 Lévinas is on the whole known for incisive metaphors.

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Human existence as beginningHannah Arendt is describing the human being as a creature capable of beginnings. We can start something new, which has never been seen. If her description of this are read by a phe-nomenologically informed reader, the accomplishment of beginning can be clearly let seen as related to the description of the process of meaning constitution by Husserl, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. One has only to look at her preface to Between past and future (Arendt, 1954) where she quotes a parable of Kafka which is describing the temporality of human existence much as it is depicted in figure 1 in this paper (Arendt, 1954, p.7). This is connected by her to something that goes on between people – action.

In Human condition (Arendt, 1998) action is described as the fullest form of human exis-tence in its active aspect (as distinguished from the contemplative aspect, which she acknowl-edges, following Thomas Aquinas). Action is taking place between human beings, who pur-sue a common cause. The matter of that cause is not given beforehand, it is rather constituted in their communicating with one another. In the course of action something is proposed by someone, which amounts to holding out a prospect of something to others. This is a promise, and there is a substantial chance that the one proposing is wrong, and that the promise will be broken. If the others do not forgive it, action will end.

This can be expressed in terms of Lévinas’ description of human subjectivity: action can only take place if people respect the alterity, the otherness of one another. Every subject is subjected to the responsibility for a common quest, and it is being-for-the-other as founda-tional modality of human existence which makes people undergo this.

There is one more reason for people not only being subjected, willy-nilly, to this responsi-bility, but also wanting it. Arendt gives some examples. One is the French résistance during WW II, another is the American people during the few years preceding and immediately sub-sequent to their being independent. Arendt shows them as taking pleasure of being able to perform action together (Arendt, 1963). Why can that be so? A possibility is to see action as caress.

Action, as Arendt is using the word, is political action. It is: talking together, talking through public matters, important for everybody. It is to be distinguished from any activity where verbal communication is superfluous. Such activities help to enlarge and maintain the world, as home – but political action in Arendt’s meaning creates it anew.

It is this which is typically human. An animal is capable of great achievements in preserv-ing life and prolonging it over considerable spans of time, by reproducing behaviours, produc-ing offspring etc. Humans alone are capable of innovation. The interesting thing is that this is not only exceptional individuals who can be thus creative, by a performance of the contempla-tive aspect of human existence.

The amazing thing is that completely mediocre or even underachieving individuals can participate in this, once it has been launched. The political actions Arendt mentions – the American revolution, the Hungarian revolution 1956 (she would have recognised the pattern in the Polish revolution 1980/ 81 and 1989) have been started with the participation of very ordinary people indeed, and if they petered out it was not because of cognitive shortcomings of participants – or lack of geniuses. What ended them was care for the morrow.

Arendt refers to Thomas Jefferson and his frustration with the article of the American con-stitution which guarantees everyone’s right to a “pursuit of happiness“ (Arendt, 1963). It is on the public scene where happiness is found, not in private enterprise, in political action and not in amassing riches. That latter is something which squirrels, magpies or bower-birds can do just as well, the former is what is really human.

So, the enjoyment of political life, public responsibility, is an enjoyment of being human. The persons participating in this give – together – birth to the world, which is no poetical li-cence. Hannah Arendt says this:

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“Only where things can be seen by many in a variety of aspects without changing their identity, so that those who are gathered around them know they see sameness in utter diversity, can worldly reality truly and reliably appear.“ and “Being seen and being heard by others derive their signifi -cance from the fact that everybody sees and hears from a different position. This is the meaning of public life…”

Arendt, 1998, p. 57

Let us see: two things appear – “being seen and being heard by others“ and…. “everybody sees and hears from a different position“. Again, this is caress – proximity to the other person, rather than avoiding, and acknowledging differences, borders between people – alterity of the Other. One could also say that the meaning of public life is the creation of a common weal, building a common home in action (Arendt is abutting this in an interpretation of historical events, notably the American and French revolutions, cf. Arendt, 1963).

The renewal can be said to be a re-definition, seeing things in a new light – which means that on the basis of what is there the participants let something be seen. A thing is seen “by many“ and they “…know they see sameness…“ which means an effort to let something be seen.

How is this threatened? By trying to subsume differences into a pre-given Design. Firstly, this is annihilation of singular characters. In the common home, the common weal, the partici-pants are not strangers, but they are separate individuals. They are constituted so in their tak-ing responsibility for the public space they share, and for the speech they share. They co-oper-ate – but each thinks for himself, and does her/ his best to think well.

Arendt contrasts it to the social life (Arendt, 1998). Sociality, embodied in a collective, dif-fers from the body political by the absence of the need of reproducing it. The body political has to be re-created constantly by its participants taking responsibility for the shared space and above all, the shared speech. Members of a collective do not have to talk. They even do not have to trust one another, since if they do not talk, there is no possibility of deceit. There is, though, a possibility of breaking the (unwritten and unmentioned) rules. For this reprisal is forthcoming, but in fact even this rule-breaking can be seen as an ordered activity reproducing sociality. One has only to think of the descriptions of the functioning of socialities by Goff-man (1968) or Laing (1971).

Participants of the public action do need a private sphere, which is respected. They have boundaries, each of them, and they have to be inviolable, or public action deteriorates. This is so, since everyone has to be able to think for her/ himself, to maintain one’s singular position, the existence of which is the condition for the existence of the public sphere. It is not only im-portant to respect different positions, and make them inviolable, it is also important that ev-eryone take responsibility for one’s thinking – which according to Husserl is the condition of making sense (Husserl, 1969).

This connects to another aspect of a Design breaking up action. There is no more need to let something be seen, to engage in thinking of what the meaning is, which would reveal new possibilities. This is the somnolescence which Lévinas mentions, and which is interrupted by meeting alterity (Lévinas, 1998a). On the other hand, immersion in the fixed rules of the De-sign blocks off alterity, and secures a complacent sleep.

Another thing which breaks up action is, as mentioned before, care for the morrow. It is the situation of scarcity. This can be a scarcity on a scale where people starve to death, children die of diarrhoea, and their parents of tuberculosis. This can also be a scarcity where not every-one owns a car, and not every family can afford a holiday trip. The motto of American politics is pursuit of happiness, and a happiness which is one’s own. In Lévinas’ sense this is a strike against the foundations of human existence. That is being-for-the-other, i.e. one’s responsibil-ity is directed towards providing something for the others. Arendt is stressing the importance of the private sphere, but that is necessary as the base to go out from and return to, and never

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an end in itself. Care for the morrow implies an existence which consists of prolonging and maintaining life, and a life consisting only of this is not the full human existence. For such an existence Arendt has the term “animal laborans“ (Arendt, 1998), the toiling beast.

So, political action in Arendt’s sense has as pre-condition solving of social unjustice, liqui-dation of disease – or else a resolution to perform in defiance of scarcity. The problem is that if the construction of a public space, where political action can proceed is not made top prior-ity, making the need to preserve life step back (thus containing consumption), than consump-tion will expand ad infinitum. To wit, if my family does not own a car, I feel unhappy. Private pursuit of happiness means exactly this expanding consumption, which makes the private ex-plode like a super-nova.

Now it can clearly be seen that Arendt’s “political action“ is not what we call politics, on the contrary, politics in the “vulgar“ sense is something completely different, and maybe even its antithesis. In Arendt’s action trust is necessary, and putting things to the others must be done with complete sincerity. The manipulation known from everyday politics is thus impos-sible. Moreover, everyday politics in the “vulgar“ sense is hinged on taking sides. In Arendt’s politics everyone stands for her/ himself, and everyone strives to serve the common weal, not just one’s own crowd. Everyday politics in the “vulgar“ sense is rather a sociality, where a Design is promoted. This is the order of a Hobbesian kind, where the war of all against all is the measure. In such a reality, individuals have to be kept in check, and not allowed to freely exercise their initiative. Thus, the public space where action is possible seems to be one of those places where alterity leaves its trace, and where peace prevails.

To sum up, public action proceeds from the background of being-for-another. From this background something is started and leads to change in this very background. Thus we are talking of possibilities to act and change the world by making sense in communication, i.e. we have arrived to the matter of educational objectives..

Education as modality of human existenceAs the point of departure Klafki’s definition of Bildung has been chosen. This is the opportu-nity to remark that a historical or other analysis of the concept of Bildung or Klafki’s theories. The aim of the paper is to look into possibilities of talking about educational objectives, and specifically against the backdrop of human existence in the world. For this it is sufficient to let the reader see what the matter is of which Klafki is writing, i.e. to see what can be made to appear on the basis of what he makes to show itself. In short – to unveil the meaning constitu-tion of Klafki’s writing about opening up the world.

The context in which Klafki is writing this is an essay where he discusses “formal“ and “material“ Bildung (Klafki, 1963). The former is whatever is happening to the learner when s/he is studying. How does math, gym etc. change students? What is laboratory doing to fu-ture science teachers? The latter is the question whether the knowledge of the laws of physics and mathematical methods and skill at playing tennis are good things in themselves. There is thus the question what is more important: the process or its products?

Klafki arrives to the following conclusion (in which I translate the word Bildung as “edu-cation“):

Education we call that phenomenon, in which we directly recognise the unity of the objective (ma-terial) and the subjective (formal) aspect; be it by our own experience or in the understanding of other people. The attempt to verbalise the experienced unity of education can succeed only by means of a dialectic. Education is opening up of a reality of things and of the mind to a human be-ing. This is the objective or material aspect. At the same time, however, this means opening up of this human being for the reality which is his or her. This is the subjective or formal aspect in the “functional“ sense, as well as in the sense of learning and devising methods.

Something analogous is valid for education as a process. It is the essence of processes in which contents of a reality of things and of the mind are opened up. Such a process is, if seen from the

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outside, nothing but opening oneself up, or being opened up for these contents and their context as reality20.

Klafki, 1963, p.43

I would like to make several things appear here, which may be veiled wholly or partly. One of these is the focus on the human individual, who is the subject of education. This subject is re-maining in a subject-object relation with the outside world. This according to Klafki’s under-standing, and given his care to fit into the tradition he criticizes, it must be the same for other scholars who represent it. Interestingly enough, the dialectics he constructs is superseding this relation. The result resembles the view of objectivity in Husserl, where the object is that which the subject is intending.

The relation subject-object is here internal, i.e. its terms are determining one another and their meaning is constituted in the relation21. Thus there is no “subject“ per se. A lamp is an object of my looking at it – which makes me the subject of this looking. This implies a certain relativism, in the sense of being endowed with a certain meaning. The lamp is for me “the lamp which is lighting the room“. This is in no way precluding other possibilities, of having a different meaning for other people. This leads us to the relativity of curricular contents. Writ-ing something in a curriculum in no way ensures that students will learn something rather than something else.

The subjectivity of the learner is thus appearing. This has been explored by Lévinas: we have to do with a grasping and grabbing creature, and on the other hand – a creature caressing its surroundings. The world is being opened – as a storehouse might be opened, or as a flower-garden. At issue is here what the learner decides to do with the thus opened world. This might depend how s/he is opened up for the world. Is her/ his being for another permit -ted to manifest itself or not22? What is helpful and what is an obstacle for this?

The unity of education and the commission of educationKnowledge is a component of meaning constitution. Lévinas points out that the word “being“ in Heidegger should be read as a verb. It is describing the process of being, the activity, the events connected with it etc. Similarly, the components and aspects of being, like knowing. To focus on knowledge as product is to veil its character as product – and this opens for com-modifying it, its becoming nothing but a thing which is detached from its foundation in the fi-nality of human activities. The latter, as it was stated above, with reference to both Kant and Lévinas, is abutted in taking pleasure in being.

Knowledge as commodity is not good for pleasure any more. It is fit for sale only. The question arises whether it is not to turn education into a massive confidence game to hold out the prospect to people of being able to buy something valuable for the knowledge they ac-quire. This is discussed, for instance, by Mats Alvesson in an article on “educational funda-mentalism“23 (Alvesson, 1999). Alvesson is a professor of management which makes the mat-20 Bildung nennen wir jenes Phänomen, an dem wir – im eigenen Erleben oder im Verstehen anderer Menschen – unmittelbar der Einheit eines objektiven (materialen) und eines subjektiven (formalen) Momentes innewerden. Der Versuch, die erlebte Einheit sprachlich auszudrücken, kann nur mit Hilfe dialektischer Verschränkungen gelingen: Bildung ist Erschlossensein einer dinglicher und geistiger Wirklichkeit für einen Menschen – das ist der objektive oder materiale Aspekt; aber das heißt zugleich: Erscholssensein dieses Menschen für diese seine Wirklichkeit – das ist der subjektive oder formale Aspekt zugleich im “funktionalen“ wie im “methodischen“ Sinne.

Entsprechendes gilt für Bildung als Vorgang: Bildung ist der Inbegriff von Vorgängen, in denen sich die In-halte einer dinglicher und geistigen Wirklichkeit “erschliessen“ und diesere Vorgang ist – von der anderen Seite her gesehen – nichts anderes als das Sich-Erschliessen, bzw. Erschlossenwerden eines Menschen für jene Inhalte und ihren Zusammenhang als Wirklichkeit.21 on internal relations in the context of learning cf for instance Ekeblad & Bond, 1994.22 in later writings Klafki is addressing the issue of responsibility – cf. Klafki, 199123 which unfortunately only is available in Swedish.

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ter interesting. His criticism is directed at a belief that education will solve the society’s prob-lem, and notably (at the time his article was written) unemployment. The only result of the ex-pansion of education24 is, as Alvesson states, an inflation (in monetary terms) of a university degree. Holders of these degrees might, in a not so remote future, find themselves in the same situation of unemployment in which holders of a high school diploma are now. What then? Provide access to post-graduate studies for 50% of all B.A.s?

There is no ambition in this paper to claim that solutions are forthcoming. As has been stated before, the ambition here is to unveil some things which might be veiled, and among these can be what use we might have for education. It is rather clearing the ground for a dis-cussion, than trotting out solutions, which is the objective here (cf. the section on validity in this paper).

Such a ground is to look at the way knowledge and education are connected with human existence, and what range possibilities this implies. As it is mentioned earlier in this paper meaning constitution is taking place as a being-in-and-for-the-world (être au monde). Its be-ginning has a background in a “past immemorial“, of a meeting with alterity. Thus meaning has two aspects: it is a response, to a call, and being a response it has a content.

The temporality of the meaning constitution process has as a consequence that the content is, potentially, never finished. It may seem so, when the process is interrupted, say, by an au-thor’s death – or more trivially, by a lesson having ended. Nevertheless there is always a pos-sibility to continue, to introduce new things, in which the style of the “original“ will be present.

The temporality of the meaning constitution process has another aspect. Since the origin is founded in a past immemorial, it is always present. These two aspects are the phenomenologi-cal foundation of what Arendt is saying about the beginnings (Arendt, 1954, 1963 and 1998). She quotes Plato’s saying “For the beginning, [arché, which is by Husserl and other phe-nomenologists translated as “origin“] because it contains its own principle, is also a god who, as long as he dwells among men25, as long as he inspires their deeds, saves everything“ (Arché gar kai theos en anthropois idrimené sozei panta) (quoted in Arendt, 1963, p. 214 – note her interpreting what a beginning is: it “contains its own principle“). The “inspiration of deeds“ has the two aspects mentioned above: the “push“ for doing comes from the meeting with al-terity, and the matter of what is done is constituted by passive synthesis, from an existing set of logical presuppositions.

Klafki’s postulate of “opening up“ (Erschlossenheit) constitutes education as a person’s modality of existence, of being in and for the world. The meaning constitution leading to an “understanding of being“ (Heidegger, 2001) can be seen precisely as such opening up. This means that the degree and qualities of education can be expressed as the degree and qualities of how being is understood. This latter is by Ricoeur described as incorporating the newly won meaning in one’s praxis (Ricoeur, 1991). The educated person is thus changed by the ap-propriation of the content s/he has understood.

Knowledge is grounded in a relation to the world, which has ethics as primary modality – this is the conclusion from Lévinas’ exposition of the origin of the origin of meaning constitu-tion (so to say). What consequences does it lead to, in the context of education? An educated person as a moral person? Knowledgeable and responsible. The “and“ implies that a separa-tion is not impossible.

Opening the world can mean different things. It could be an opening for exploitation. Pre-senting and producing commodified knowledge in education would disengage knowledge from responsibility. The call of alterity would be suppressed. a “no“ to responsibility is the

24 in Sweden, the social-democratic government is currently setting the goal of providing higher education for 50% of every age group leaving high school.25 she means “ human beings“

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logical alternative of “yes“ and thus both operate in the same range of possibilities, they be-long to the same meaning constitution.

How can it be performed, to achieve an understanding which does not lead to an “ethically positive“ being in and for the world?

To get a hint of these let us look at a distinction which Arendt is introducing, the distinc -tion between pity and compassion.

For compassion, to be stricken with the suffering of someone else as though it were contagious, and pity, to be sorry without being touched in the flesh, are not only not the same, they may not even be related. Compassion, by its very nature, cannot be touched off by the sufferings of a whole class or a people26, or, at least, mankind as a whole. It cannot reach out farther than what is suffered by one person and still remain what it is supposed to be, co-suffering [my italics].

Arendt 1963, s. 80

Here, Arendt comes close to Lévinas’ concept of substitution, a modality of human being for the other. The concept of substitution can be illustrated by the following quotation from a novel by the Swedish writer Kerstin Ekman27. The heroine of the novel, Hillevi is skiing to a place where an evil man has died, who harmed many, and whose last achievement was to set fire to Hillevi's house and her husband's store. After this he huddled up in a lonely cabin, and froze to death.

It was here he lay down. His life ended next to a rugged rock-face.The last he did before he went over the lake was evil. He probably wanted its consequences

to be still worse. So it affected us real hard. So the children were hurt. So Trond and I would be at a loss what to do to their hunger.

To die in such bitter cold couldn't be anything like falling asleep. It was something else. What it was, she would never get to know. Not even here, in this place.

The lice.She got to think of them. How they must have crawled away. They crawled out of the hair

and over his cold forehead when they left him.When she went outside the round moon was bleaker than before. Like bone.The frontal bone of an animal.A God without providence28, without compassion. Who let life end in cold and evil.

She was tired, she went slower on her way home. [the sun rose] (…) She went laboriously, in her own traces. The sky was white. It was so big, too big for her. The thought did not come at once, but slowly.

What if it is I who should be eyes for this blind animal?Ekman 1999, 297f

Hillevi is articulating substitution, she experiences herself as substituted for “the merciless an-imal“, filling the space she experiences as empty. This experience is preceded by the experi-ence of a wrong being done, of something as wrong rather than right, evil rather than good. “Experiencing as empty“ the “space“ where a God should dwell, to provide for us, Somebody has to put this right29, and there is no one around except the person who experiences this – Hillevi.

The description which is emerging is given by Lévinas. Hillevi might say: it is “as if“ Something called out, calling me. I respond. One could venture saying, that the characteristic

26 Arendt addresses here communist and nationalist revolutionaries, the quotation being from her book “On revo-lution”27 God's compassion (Guds barmhärtighet), Ekman 199928 Ekman lets words play here in Swedish, and the same can be done with the word providence. Pro-vidence, de-rived from the same root as “vision“, is implying a “looking forward“. 29 restore the ruin, cf. Beach,1999a.

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trait of this is the structure of human experience. It is a process which has a background as a structural requirement. This background is that a human person primarily experiences her/ himself as being called, and that the person cannot help answering. Lévinas is acknowledging the possibility of answering “no“ – but this is – nevertheless – an answer. One cannot not an-swer.

The whole being for the other, with substitution as its aspect, presupposes being affected, and this is only possible when a person is exposed, when there is nothing to shield her/ him from the possibility to either enjoy or else suffer. This is a concrete re-formulation of “open-ing up“. Being a “stand in for God“, as it is developed, for instance, in Ekman’s novel, resem-bles a police officer being a stand in for Justice. Without her/ his responsible doing her/ his duty “Justice“ would remain but an abstract concept.

Compassion is a response gived to a concrete person, only so it is meaningful to speak of co-suffering, says Arendt. To describe the meaning constitution in this response we can use Husserl’s reclamation of the Cartesian cogito, as:

Likewise the multiform acts and states of emotion and of willing: liking and disliking, being glad and being sorry, desiring and shunning, hoping and fearing, deciding and acting. All of them – (…) – are embraced by the one Cartesian expression, cogito 30.

Husserl, 1982, p. 54

Husserl means that perception results in a plenum (Fülle) (Husserl, 1954, 1970). The plenum, the “full perception“ of an object (the full set of modalities of appearing characterising the meaning constitution) is possible to be qualified – limited. An example, in the field of science education is described in Szybek (2002):

A student (here called “Arash“) is asked by the teacher to describe what happens when a piece of plastic is heated in Bunsen burner. The following exchange takes place.

Teacher: Arash, can you describe what happened with the red piece of plasticArash: It burned. It started to smell. It got black. We couldn’t bend it.Teacher: You couldn’t bend it. It was not formable.

Szybek, 2002, p.541

The student is expressing a plenum, the teacher is limiting it. This means that one’s opening up for the world can be qualified – by qualifying the plena of perception. Here, a quality was pointed out as relevant, and several others as irrelevant. The “crisis“ of the European sciences, which Husserl describes and deplores in his book (Husserl, 1954, 1970) signifies, in educational terms, that the content constituted in science, and offered as educational content, is manipulated so that knowledge is cut off from the possi-bility to enjoy or suffer, and thus from the responsibility, which would have accompanied it, if it were not for the manipulation. That is, if the person being educated would be permitted to understand her/ his world fully – thus being enabled to give responses adequate to the call of alterity.

The described incident is just one of many similar described in research in science educa-tion. Östman, analyzing Chemistry school books, describes how “a companion meaning“ is constituted in them, which is similar to the exposition given here (Östman, 1998). Östman pointed out how this constitutes a socialisation into future practice. This is conceivable, given passive synthesis – the range of possibilities being shaped in education, the set of precondi-tions for future acting is determined.

30 Ebenso die vielgestaltigen Akte und Zustände des Gemüts und des Wollens: Gefallen und Mißfallen, Sich-freuen und Betrübtsein, Begehren und Fliehen, Hoffen und Fürchten, Sichentschließen und Handeln. Sie alle (…) umspannt der eine Cartesianische Ausdruck cogito.”, Husserl, 1976a, p.50

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Similar processes in civic education, history etc. would encompass other mechanisms. These subjects are treating about situations involving real people, and thus it means that sim-ply manipulating accounts is not enough. Besides, a manipulation like that which “Arash“ had to swallow would not be credible if the account involved was about people. The manipulation would have to involve that which Arendt is pointing out: To make whole classes or people, or, at least, mankind as a whole the object of the account, rather than concrete human beings.

In both cases we have ideology production, rather than a description referring to actual hu-man lives, and thus possible to affect the person to be educated.

Whose world is opened in education?Earlier in the paper the problem of relativism was raised. This is a problem for the curriculum writer, and for any teacher who cares about a knowledge that can be communicable. How to overcome this? A public space where discussion will take place, and the teacher will be plead-ing for some aspects being important, can be considered as a possibility.

As the reader may recall it is only in action, taking place in such a public space, that a valid knowledge about the world, providing access to it, can be constituted – according to Arendt. It is the participation of many, on equal terms, that makes it possible for all to see a “sameness in utter diversity“. Let us repeat: (1) participation and (2) on equal terms.

This means that we see, if not the possibility to make it real, than a possibility of thwarting it. As was pointed out in the case of the Dilbert comic, to see what is not there gives a possi-bility of acquiring it – restoring it31. If you placed your car in a parking lot, and then don’t see it there, you don’t just perceive an empty space. You perceive a stolen car. We could say that somehow the public space has been stolen. If it has been stolen, it can be restored.

There are testimonies to the fact of the demolition of the public space. As witness we can take Klafki himself, who all the time is writing of the individual who is the object of interest. This is characteristic of the whole field. Another example is the Swedish national curriculum, and notably its concretisations, the subject matter curriculums, which state goals in terms what an individual student has to know.

How, than, can the public space be demolished? We see a possibility of a lever: goals of the curriculum, grades, the testing system geared to this. All this is aiming at underlining indi-vidual differences, but not in any way as individual positions in a shared space. Rather, every-body is thought to occupy a space of one’s own, and treated as if s/he was in no communica-tion with other students.

Leif Östman and the author of this paper are jointly presenting a paper in another session in this conference. It describes the process of writing a Science curriculum in Sweden. An effort was made there to introduce goals which would enable a school practice where individuals would stand out as co-operating subjects, in communication one with another. The reception was that of a something wholly exotic, hence hardly acceptable.

Why is it so important to atomise the student group in the way it is done by tests and grades? There are interpretations of it (cf. for instance Beach, 1998) which stress the function of the school system as an instrument of reproduction of class differences rather than educa-tion. One could also place it in the context of students’ plans for the future. Ericson and Ellett discuss how “… the eduationally-based, meritocratic social and economic system may be ac-tually forming student preferences…“ (Ericson & Ellett, 2002).

The educational system is geared to producing “manpower“ (or womanpower, for that mat-ter). The students know this full well, and they try to get good marks in, say biology, because they expect this to qualify them to be dentists – a lucrative career. This makes the whole dis-cussion on biology as developing this or that quality (i.e. on its formal educational aspect) or representing this or that quality in itself (the material educational aspect) completely superflu-

31 This, again, touches the formulation used by Beach, 199a.

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ous. The student is not interested in either of them, in fact in any aspects of the subject matter whatsoever. The subject has a purely instrumental value.

The situation in higher education is not dissimilar. We have a study from the Open Univer-sity (Beaty, Gibbs and Morgan, 1997), which shows how a large portion of undergraduates in an English university is uninterested in the subject matter they study. All this is possible to be interpreted in terms of commodified knowledge – and in Arendt’s terms it means that the open space of action has decayed (or being destroyed), to give way to work.

The process has, according to her account, to start with opening…

…a gulf between the two modes of action…. “beginning“ and “achieving“… [in order] to make sure that the beginner would remain the complete master of what he had begun, not needing the help of others to carry it through. In the realm of action, this isolated mastership can be achieved only if the others are no longer needed to join the enterprise of their own accord, with their own motives and aims, but are used to execute orders, and if, on the other hand, the beginner who took the initiative does not permit himself to get involved into action himself. To begin… and to act… thus can become two altogether different activities, and the beginner has become a ruler…

Arendt, 1998, p.222

This implies a well-defined design, owned by the “master of the beginning“. The begin-ning has to be present, in order for the meaning constitution taking place. But is there not a contradiction? The studies cited above both testify to the students bringing in their own mo-tives and aims! The lack of interest, one could say, only applies to the subject matter, which appears as arbitrarily chosen, a dead tradition – whatever. Consider, however, the background of the motive and aim connected with becoming a dentist or a computer specialist. At issue are pre-defined qualifications, which the student can influence as little as s/he can influence the subject matter, formed as it is by tradition.

The students are choosing uniformity, of their free will. “Little boxes…“ as Peter Seeger sang, back in the ’60s. The American dream is that of a successful pursuit of happiness, and this has been connected with and made dependent on a successful fitting into pre-defined pi-geon-holes on the labour-market. Arrived there, the student finds her/ himself “used to exe-cute orders“. The reader can help her/ himself to the description of reality by Scott Adams, for a change32.

Note that all this starts with the motives and goals being geared at the care for the morrow. It is the management of life, its prolongation and preservation, which is the lever to destroy action. Action lives by its participants enjoying participation in a common project. It has something to do with the dilemmas Dewey is discussing (Dewey, 1997) when he deplores the individual not being able to find her/ himself in her/ his work. As Arendt is pointing out (Arendt, 1998) it is not possible to find oneself in one’s work, since the mastery of the begin-ning is always outside of one’s reach, and one either finds oneself, inevitably, taking orders – or else finds that giving orders does not lead to any of the design being realised, since the or-der takers do not care about it (since they do not find themselves in it).

It seems that some activity could be directed at finding some kind of interstices, where no order giving masters of design lurk, and organise action around some focus. How this is done is for the community organising that action to decide – any advice given here would be, a for-tiori, giving orders, rather than inviting to action.

Knowledge and powerAnother aspect of “world-openness“ can emerge if we link the concept of meaning constitu-tion to the concept of knowledge, the activity “to know“. To know, one could suggest, is to be able to make something happen. This presupposes (1) the creation of a range of possibilities,

32 http://dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/. Access it any time.

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so that the matter of the events (that which will happen) will come into existence in potentia. Then, (2) intending some object makes it become vested with meaning, according to the pos-sibilities implied by the background which is available. This object is then made known to the subject, who intends it. Knowing about it might, however, not necessary mean that the back-ground is known – it is veiled, and has to be unveiled. This makes the surplus of meaning known (the result itself does not have to be a complete description of the background). The fact of the very existence of the surplus of meaning is what makes the consequences differ from our plans. We never are in possession of the complete knowledge of the background of what we are saying and doing, and thus of the conceivable consequences. So, when we enact something, we may end up with something else, or something in addition to what we focused as our "plan", or "script“.

However, the very possibility to make something happen, is an aspect of knowledge. There is an ability to move around in the range of possibilities, to grope for meaning, and this ability is depending on the existence of a background, of something always already being the presup-position of what is said or done. It is this which gives everything belonging to the range of possibilities a certain style, which marks out the various moves around the range of possibili-ties. It is this which makes something known “as“ something.

Thus knowledge, both as “knowing that“ and “knowing as“ and “knowing how“ is con-nected with a range of possibilities, with a potential, and producing knowledge means to pro-duce a potential.

It is this potential which enables signs to be recognized as such: by being known as signs, artefacts can guide action. This enables us to link the phenomenology of meaning constitu-tion to Vygotsky’s theory of knowledge production. Basing on that theory Raeithel (Raithel, 1996) describes the functioning of language and other “tools of communication“ as (1) having a tangible presence, recognizable to the actors, and (2) capable of interaction with the actors as thinking beings (as we can re-interpret Raeithel’s mentalistic vocabulary). Both these cir-cumstances are dependent on signs being “known as something“, i.e. appearing in a range of possibilities which had emerged in the course of a meaning constitution which had been going on before.

The concept of the “zone of the proximal development“ can be linked to this range of pos-sibilities. Introducing Vygotsky here is introducing an understanding of intending objects as an activity, and one that may be called for by interaction with other persons, as described by Engeström, 1996.

To know is thus to be able. The possibilities constituted as meaning is constituted mark the range of power of the subject of meaning constitution. To say this, one has to conceive of power as “possibility of…“, which is covered by the Latin word meaning power – potentia. Compare the French “pouvoir“. To know is thus to gain power. This is to be distinguished from “control“ which is linked to certainty, as single way, a single course of proceeding. So described control is, in fact, the antithesis of power. The surplus of meaning in a range of pos-sibilities generates alternatives, whereas control limits one’s possibilities to the single course of proceeding one happens to choose. Cf. here the discussion Arendt leads (1998) (also cf. Szybek, 2002) of how power (as access to possibilities and alternatives) dwindles when action is dominated by the obsession with knowing its results from the outset.

A case of this is described by Foucault in L’ordre du discours (Foucault, 1982). Participa-tion in a discourse limits one’s possibilities. There is something which is defined as possible to be said, which be implication, points out things impossible to be said. Something is “truth“ and “knowledge“ while something, a fortiori, is “madness“. Thus the range of possibilities is controlled, by whoever the order of the discourse puts in charge of it. This can be described as rules. the thought occurs, if this is not a possible view on the “lower part“ of the interac-tions showed in Engeströms model of an activity system (Engeström, 1996). There is a com-

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munity where a discourse is led, and the division of labour may, for instance, parallel the divi-sions of roles in the discourse. It might even be so, that the latter follows the former, and springs out of it.

Figure 4

Structure of an activity system, after Engeström, 1996.

The description of knowledge which emerges here is one in terms of power and control. There is an option for more exact knowledge, generating more control – and less power. There is also an option for a knowledge which is more bound to the singular, than to the general, and does not permit deduction. The master(s) of design, like Plato, whom Arendt sees as the one to have showed the way, are orienting knowledge production according to the first option, while choosing the second option seems to be paralleled by letting the design go.

The relation of this to labour division is discussed by Arendt – we have the masters of de-sign, and we have all the rest, who are reduced to taking orders. Foucault is positing the con-trol of the discourse, i.e. maintaining labour division and rules in a co-operation of the ruler and the ruled. Maintaining a discourse seems not to clash with the interest of the one sub-jected to it (Foucault, 1982).

Thus, the lack of openness, the movement of dodging exposition to alterity is not just the mark of the oppressor – we are all of us responsible. This makes us realise the difficulties of educational change, especially of changing the conditions of education, like curricula.

But – do we have a choice?Acknowledgements: The author wishes to express thanks to Leif Östman, who opened my eyes to the connection of knowledge and morality, and Roger Sages, who opened my eyes to what has to be let be seen.

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