Openness, newness and radical possibility in Deweyan work: a response to Jasinski

Abstract

In his article Potentialism and the experience of the new, Jasinski argues for the use of a potentialist approach in education by relating it to a line of thought that starts with Dewey and is fulfilled by Agamben and Lewis. Although the reading that Jasinski offers on potentialism is interesting, his understanding of Dewey is problematic. In this paper, I argue that much of what Jasinski claims as worthy of pursuit in education is already contained in the Deweyan questions of newness, openness, and radical possibility. Even the Agambenian notion of ‘coming community’ falls under a Deweyan understanding of society and democracy, which, in Deweyan thought, always exist in suspension and connectedness. Given such premises, the idea of education that emerges from Deweyan thought is that of a leap. The question regarding what education is and entails is left radically open by Dewey, for education belongs to the not-yet.

Keywords:

• Openness
• possibility
• Dewey
• Agamben
• potentialism

Notes

1. Regarding this issue, see Jackson’s analysis of the ‘qualitative immediacy’ of experience ([1994] 1995, 194–195).

2. For more on this topic, see Wilshire (1993), Garrison (1997) and d’Agnese (2016).

3. For more on the relationship between Dewey and Heidegger, see Troutner (1969), Rorty (1976), Margolis (2010), Quay (2013), Rosenthal (2010), and d’Agnese (2016).

4. Because of the space limitations and aims of my paper, I cannot adequately explore Lipman’s understanding of Deweyan thought and its use in P4C. However, to advance my hypothesis, Jasinski’s interpretation of Dewey is clearly influenced and somewhat framed by Lipman’s ‘community of inquiry’ (Lipman, Sharp, and Oscanyan 1980). If my argument makes sense, it is unsurprising that the output of what I observe as a restriction of Deweyan work involves two fundamental concepts – that is, inquiry and reflective thought – which produces a further narrowing down of Deweyan thought in which Dewey is depicted as concerned with only one understanding of experience, namely, the scientific understanding.