Conference Agenda

For at least half a century the educational objective of critical thinking has been one of the most discussed themes in philosophy of education, and the already extensive literature on it continues to pile up. According to the received understanding of this epistemological phenomenon, critical thinking is an aggregate of two mutually supporting components, both of which collect smaller constitutive elements under their umbrellas. The first main component brings together the epistemic and logical skills needed to assess the quality of evidence and the validity of arguments. The second main component is a constellation of intellectual attitudes, mental dispositions and epistemic virtues, which guide and define the normatively proper use of the aforementioned skills. The internalization of critical thinking skills gets us only halfway to our goal, as a critical thinker must also use her abilities actively and in the intended spirit.

This latter half in the account of critical thinking is sometimes given the name critical spirit in literature (Passmore, 1967; Siegel, 1988). When compared with the skills-component, however, it has fallen seriously behind in terms of the scholarly attention it has attracted. Moreover, in addition to being under-researched in philosophical theory, the critical spirit has also been largely overlooked aspect in practical critical thinking pedagogy, as textbooks and tests on the subject often place a one-dimensional emphasis on being skilled in the use of critical thinking tools—assessing the credibility of pieces of evidence, examining the validity of arguments and so on. Symbolically, it is telling of this situation that Harvey Siegel (2017), perhaps the single greatest exponent of the philosophical foundations of critical thinking, has regretted that he has not for his part been able to advance our understanding of the critical spirit.

This state of affairs is unfortunate, as cracking the puzzle of the critical spirit can arguably even be regarded as a decisive question for successful critical thinking education. Everyday phenomena such as growing political polarization and the rising popularity of conspiracy theories demonstrate that many people flounder precisely in the active and consistent application of their thinking skills (Burbules, 2022). Moreover, certain empirical studies (e.g. Arum & Roksa, 2011) on the development of critical thinking skills among university students seem to indicate that the current critical thinking instruction does not facilitate the successful acquisition of this educational objective. One possible explanation for these sobering results is that the teaching of critical thinking has not successfully developed the critical spirit of these individuals.

In this presentation I aim to take at least some small steps in improving our understanding of the critical spirit. In my analysis of the situation philosophical research on this topic has been held back by the separation of philosophical inquiry on the one hand and empirical psychological research on the other (Pettersson, 2020). Philosophers working on critical spirit have remained at a metaphorical and everyday level when describing the challenges of applying critical thinking skills in practice. However, deep down these problems are fundamentally of psychological nature, so empirical psychology research can help us not only to better understand the nature of these phenomena, but also to develop pedagogies that mitigate the issues here. More specifically, various forms of biased thinking are a clear challenge that critical thinking education should focus more on. This requires developing the critical spirit in a direction where we understand its basic elements, such as the epistemic virtue of open-mindedness, within this psychological framework.

This paper explores educational strengths and weaknesses of Hartmut Rosa's sociology of resonance. It investigates how the concept of resonance can be understood in the light of non-affirmative approaches to education, focusing on Dietrich Benner’s non-affirmative theory of education. The paper provides an educational and critical revision of Rosa’s theory of resonance, performed in three steps. First, I summarize Rosa’s theory of resonance by introducing and discussing its central components and how it has been developed by other scholars. Second, I present the outlines of a non-affirmative theory of education, through a discussion of its main concepts, i.e. Bildsamkeit and Summons to Self-activity. Finally, I suggest that the notion of a spectrum, of resonance allows for both affirmative and non-affirmative experiences of resonance. This creates a possible link between non-affirmative approaches to education and Rosa’s sociology of resonance.

Rosa's notion of resonance is an attempt to formulate a dialectic counterpart to alienation, the mode of relationlesness that is produced by the accelerating logics of modernity. Resonance, defined by Rosa as a relation of relatedness, describes what it is that connects humans with the world, what it is that situates them in the world and, what it is that enables them to navigate in the world. Bildung, according to Rosa, is deeply connected with resonance as it occurs when a relevant domain of the world starts to speak to us, when it addresses us as subjects capable of transforming ourselves and our surrounding context.

At first glance, it seems as if educational relationships could be described as relations of resonance, as Rosa describes them, as they both concern some kind of transformative exchange between subjects and their surrounding world. However, a major difference is that the transformative relation in the concept of resonance does not have a mediator; it is a direct and unmediated relation whereas the educational relationship contains someone or something that educates. Thus, a theory of education needs to conceptualize both Bildung (close to Rosa's definition of resonance), and Erzieung (the result of an intergenerational relationship between past and present).

A non-affirmative approach to education contains fundamental educational concepts that bring dimensions to the educational question that are not evident or accounted for in Rosa’s theory. The specificity of this approach is that it defines a specific domain of co-existence, or field of praxis, that contains that which we think of as educational; that is educational encounters, actions, and processes. A field of praxis is characterized by a specific socio-phenomenological class of interpersonal actions and interactions constituted by specific principles that make it distinguishable from other fields of praxis (such as e.g. Politics, Work, Religion). Education as a field of praxis is constituted by two principles that are both relationally oriented, the principle of Bildsamkeit, and the principle of a summons to self-activity. These principles are not derived from empirical "reality", nor are they normatively conditioned as educational "ideals". Rather they are part of a general understanding of what it means to be human among other humans, specifically the idea that humans develop their subjecttivity in a world of other humans. While the principle of Bildsamkeit concerns the child's opportunities to take part in the world (and about society's enabling of this participation), the principle of a summons to self-activity concerns the adult generation's ways of pointing out matters of concern and inviting the younger generation into a self-active involvement with these matters, i.e. the matters of the adult world. Thes principles are categorically different and form the basis of two fundamental and dialectical relationships that together constitute educational praxis..

Bildung is an influential concept in educational thinking, particularly in the Nordic countries, and has even found its way into the OECD learning framework (OECD, 2019). In such frameworks, however, the concept may often be defined in rather abstract terms, for example: “Bildung includes knowledge and skills plus something more” (OECD, 2019, pp. 111–112). This offer limited guidance on how Bildung can be taught in practice. To address this issue, a clearer understanding of what kind of knowledge can support Bildung is needed. This paper explores that question.

The paper argues that Charles Taylor’s theory of expressive language entails a conception of the kind of knowledge that may foster Bildung. This connection between Taylor’s theory and the Bildung tradition is neither superficial nor eclectic. Taylor explicitly grounds his position in the Romantic period and, more specifically, in the theories of language developed by Humboldt and Herder (Taylor, 1985a, p. 10) - figures central in the Bildung tradition. Thus, Taylor’s theory and this tradition share a common historical-conceptual root. Developing this link may help articulate a clearer concept of knowledge for Bildung.

Bildung and alienation

The connection between the Bildung tradition and Taylor’s expressive theory of language can be clarified through the concept of alienation. Even though Bildung is understood in different ways, a closer examination of the German tradition shows that the concept is structured by a set of ideas that give it a clearer core: Hegel defines Bildung as Erhebung zur Allgemeinheit and Herder as Emporbildung zur Humanität (Gadamer, 1990, pp. 15, 18). Both definitions refer to a movement away from a natural state of immediate desires and needs toward a more general, humanly mediated standpoint on oneself and the world - for example, viewing oneself or the world from the standpoint of culture, language, or history, or through another human being, as in Hegel’s concept of recognition. These descriptions can be linked to the concept of alienation (Entfremdung). As Gadamer writes: “Damit ist klar, dass nicht die Entfremdung als solche, sondern die Heimkehr zu sich, die freilich Entfremdung voraussetzt, das Wesen der Bildung ausmacht” (Gadamer, 1990, p. 20). Bildung thus concerns a process of becoming “at home” in the world by appropriating, identifying with the world. This longing for unity, the overcoming of alienation, between humans and the world is precisely what Taylor identifies as central to the Romantic movement to which Herder and Humboldt belong (Taylor, 1979, pp. 1–14). Thus, there is a conceptual link between Bildung, alienation, and Taylor’s expressive theory of language.

Crucially, the link between Bildung and alienation makes clear that Bildung concerns the relation to existential meaning, a central theme in Taylor’s expressive language theory. An alienated world lacks direction, and the alienated self lacks values and purposes with which to identify. As Rahel Jaeggi argues in her study of alienation, humans are existential beings confronted with “practical questions” about how one should live and what kind of person one wants to be (Jaeggi, 2014, pp. 57, 156, 164). To realize a human form of life – to find answers to such questions – humans must have access to a world that contains sources of meaning, values, and purposes that they can identify with or “appropriate”:

“… this process of working away what is alien must at the same time be understood as an appropriation of the world. The fact that this appropriation is conceived of as practical activity is made manifest in the concept of Bildung …” (Jaeggi, 2014, p. 205).

Thus, Bildung consists of processes of appropriation that disclose the world as a place in which meaningful lives may unfold.