Conference Agenda
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13 SES 06 A
Paper Session
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13. Philosophy of Education
Long Paper Sublating the School: Aufhebung and the Dialectic of Innovation and Critique Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain Presenting Author:Education finds itself in a state of tension between the pursuit of constant innovation and the critique of everything related to school, seeking new spaces even from a kind of “critical nostalgia”. In both cases, education appears as a field of symbolic and ethical dispute between this constant gaze toward the future and the critique of the established order. The school and its functions shift in meaning within a context where cognitive capitalism encompasses constant updating and a sense of urgency, while deconstructionist epistemologies disrupt this temporality. Both forces reconfigure education, polarizing its signifiers and, in many cases, preventing its reflection from within the educational field itself. In the knowledge society, it is said that studying contents is not necessary anymore. All the information is on the internet and schools should prepare to develop skills to select the information that is true. This worldview articulates a technocratic view of education that influences ideas such as the roles of the teacher and student, and the curriculum. The relationship between learning, information, and knowledge generation in the global and digital society has articulated a hegemonic educational paradigm based on learning (Biesta, 2016, 2022a; Delahunty, 2025). This way of understanding learning is not achieved through the classic conception of the acquisition of content, but rather through the formation of a new citizen with a positive attitude towards lifelong learning (Lengrand, 1970; Kinnari et al., 2025). At the same time, these discourses critique schooling for its connection to traditional education and excessive authoritarianism. Deconstruction was introduced by Jacques Derrida and it has transcended the boundaries of philosophy extending to other fields such as education (Silverman, 1989). In Pedagogy, a paradigm of critique emerges through the philosophy of education, using an epistemic and hermeneutic approach (Mariani, 2022). This redefinition of education and its study coexist with the constant production of knowledge by cognitive capitalism. In this context, educational theory finds itself immersed in internal tensions and contradictions. This tension introduces a hegemonic vocabulary and practices but simultaneously presents itself as an alternative to the inherited system. Given this situation, we ask ourselves: Where does the new educational vocabulary come from? How does criticism of schools influence the performance of their functions? How can we defend an idea of education if we discard its very language? To answer these questions, we will first consider the idea of innovation in a competency-based paradigm introduced within a context of cognitive capitalism, secondly, the ideas of deconstruction that have introduced a critical perspective in education. We can find an example of these tensions in Spain, where some Secondary School Teachers have begun theorizing in education about simple binaries beyond innovation and critique in educational discourses. To try to address this dichotomy, this paper aims to use Hegel’s concept of Aufhebung as a transformative conservation to rethink education, neither as a synthesis of the established order nor as a total negation, following the proposal of post-critical pedagogy. Here we propose that we can clearly study a third way of thinking education (Biesta, 2022; Thoilliez, 2021, 2025). When education has forgotten its own vocabulary (Hodgson et al., 2022a) it is always changing its normativity but, at the same time, is reproducing hegemonic values from other fields of knowledge such as the economy agenda. Therefore, the importance of defending forms of thinking education from the pedagogical field (Gil Cantero, 2023; Thoilliez, 2023; Biesta, 2022b). A sublated (aufgehoben) philosophy of education neither blindly innovates within the existing structure nor romantically dismisses all structure but radically re-imagines the purpose and form of “educating” from a higher vantage point. Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used All the information is on the internet and schools should prepare to develop skills to select the information that is true. This worldview articulates a technocratic view of education that influences ideas such as the roles of the teacher and student, and the curriculum. At the same time, these discourses critique schooling for its connection to traditional education and excessive authoritarianism. This tension introduces a hegemonic vocabulary and practices but simultaneously presents itself as an alternative to the inherited system. Given this situation, we ask ourselves: Where does the new educational vocabulary come from? How does criticism of schools influence the performance of their functions? How can we defend an idea of education if we discard its very language? To answer these questions, we will first consider the idea of innovation in a competency-based paradigm introduced within a context of cognitive capitalism, and secondly, the ideas of deconstruction that have introduced a critical perspective in education. This tension between innovation/criticism or future/past aligns with how educational practices and discourses construct temporal pedagogical orientations and how these temporal framings shape ethical and educational responsibilities toward future generations in the framework of ECER 2026 conference on Knowing and Acting: The changing conditions and potentials of education research. This study follows the methods of the Philosophy of Education, which should not only determine the truth but also serve as guidelines for addressing specific questions related to the subject of research (Heyting, 2001). Following these disciplines and in line with the objectives of my research, a hermeneutic heuristic and literature review has been carried out. That is, through reading and reviewing the literature, an interpretation of the texts has been conducted. Throughout this work, the goal has not been merely to compile and reproduce the ideas of other authors in a college-like manner, but rather to present them in an organized and thematically structured way, incorporating interpretation and critical reflection through new emerging questions. This process, which involves the art of interpretation (Hovey et al., 2022), requires detailed reading and writing. In that act, two aspects converge: on one hand, the essential prior knowledge of the work’s subject that the performer must interpret, and on the other, the necessary relevance of both the work and the performer within a broader context. Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings Educational discourse is, nowadays, highly polarized, caught between constant criticism of tradition and an obsession with innovation. However, these are two sides of the same coin. Although current educational discourses focus on greater technification of education and innovation, we can also find a more critical vision, from a look at the past and of deconstruction. The role of innovation and the obsession with novelty, as Brailovsky (2019) & Quilabert et al. (2023) point out, is frequently based on simplistic oppositions between the new and the traditional, the open and the closed, the innovative and the obsolete. These oppositions trivialize the complexity of educational phenomena and hinder a rigorous analysis of the proposals being implemented. While, on the one hand, discourses, policies, and practices are obsessed with the new and the future, criticisms, on the other hand, focus on the negative aspects that education has reproduced, as well as the excess of authoritarianism and structural violence. This temporal view of what education should be or what it has been creates a tension that generates distrust and instability in its very redefinition. In both cases, there is no consensus because the language of education itself dissolves. There is no normative framework regarding what is pedagogically desirable; in other words, we often forget to think about what education is. Throughout this article, the aim has been to maintain a deconstructive stance on education, or an Aufhebung. That is, not one of destruction or deconstruction of the educational phenomenon, but neither of reproducing everything inherited. This intermediate approach, proposed in the Manifesto for a Post-Critical Pedagogy without falling into constant utopianism or nostalgia, is what invites us to think about education from an educational perspective (Hodgson et al., 2020b). References Arendt, H. (1968). La crisis en la educación. En, H. Arendt (1996). Entre el Pasado y el Futuro. Ocho ejercicios sobre reflexión política (pp. 269-301). Península. Biesta, G. (1998). J. J. Deconstruction, justice and the question of education. Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft 1 (3), 395-411 Biesta, G. (2004). Education after Deconstruction. In J. D. Marshall (ed.), Poststructuralism, Philosophy, Pedagogy (27-42). Kluwer Academic Publishers. Biesta, G. (2009b). Witnessing deconstruction in education: Why quasi-transcendentalism matters. Journal of philosophy of education, 43(3), 391-404. Biesta, G. (2010). ‘This is My Truth, Tell Me Yours’. Deconstructive pragmatism as a Delahunty, T. (2025). The convergence of late neoliberalism and postpandemic scientific optimism in the configuration of scientistic learnification. Educational Review, 77(7), 2327-2349. Derrida, J. (1983). Letter to a Japanese Friend. In D. Wood & R. Bernasconi (eds.) (1985), Derrida and Difference (1-5). Parousia Press. Gil, P. (2018). Schola Delenda est?. Apostroph. Gil Cantero, F. (2018). Escenarios y razones del antipedagogismo actual. Teoría de la Educación, 30(1), 29-51. Hegel, G.W.F. (1966). Fenomenología del Espíritu (Trad. Wenceslao Roces). Fondo de Cultura Económica. Hegel, G.W.F. (2013). Ciencia de la Lógica (Trad. Augusta Algranati & Rodolfo Mondolfo). Editorial Las cuarenta. Hodgson, N., Vlieghe, J., y Zamojski, P. (2017). Manifesto for a Post-Critical Pedagogy. Punctum books. Hodgson, N., Vlieghe, J., y Zamojski, P. (2020). Manifestations of The Post-Critical: from shared principles to new pedagogical paths. Teoría De La Educación. Revista Interuniversitaria, 32(2), 13–23. Mariani, A. (2022). La deconstrucción en pedagogía: Una frontera teórico-educativa de la posmodernidad. Octaedro. Oliverio, S. (2019). An edifying philosophy of education? Starting a conversation between Rorty and post-critical pedagogy. Ethics and Education, 14(4), 482-496. Schildermans, H., Vlieghe, J., & Wortmann, K. (2024). Post-criticality and the pursuit of an empirical philosophy of education: epistemology, methodology, ethics. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 58(6), 929–939. Thoilliez, B. (2019). Vindicación de la escuela como espacio para el desarrollo de experiencias democráticas: aproximación conceptual a las prácticas morales de reconocimiento y respeto. Educación XXI, 22(1), 295-314, Thoilliez, B. (2021). Conservar, legar, desear. Prácticas docentes edificantes para restaurar el carácter público de la educación. Revista de Educación, 395, 61-83. Wortmann, K. (2019). Post-critical pedagogy as poetic practice: Combining affirmative and critical vocabularies. Ethics and Education, 14(4), 467-481. 13. Philosophy of Education
Long Paper The Ethics of Well-Being in Education: Dark and Bright Sides of Individualism GFU, OsloMet Presenting Author:Long paper, see attachment Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used Long paper, see attachment Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings Long paper, see attachment References Long paper, see attachment | ||