Towards a philosophy of education built on fragile parts: Technological rationality and knowledge of pathos

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to examine the relationship between education and technological rationality from the perspective of the philosophy of education, and to show that while education is deeply related to technique, skills, or technology, it can never be reduced to technical knowledge, and that there are things in education that overflow technical knowledge. I will here ask why there is something in education that overflows technical knowledge — I will define it as knowledge of pathos — and why it is necessary to redefine the meaning of education in terms of knowledge of pathos. In order to address this issue, I will first examine the relationship between technology and transcendence in the world of education in Kei Hachiya’s Education and Transcendence. Second, I will show that recent outstanding theoretical achievements of Japanese philosophers of education — Satoji Yano’s Education from the Perspectives of Gift and Exchange, Yasuo Imai’s Medial Perspective on Education, and Tsunemi Tanaka’s Clinical Theory of Human Becoming — are all located within the problematic area of ‘technology-pathos-education’. Finally, I would like to propose a ‘philosophy of education built on fragile parts’, with a view to redefining education through the knowledge of pathos, paying attention to the experience of pathei mathos and the opportunity of weakness in the philosophy of education.

Keywords:

• Knowledge of pathos
• technological rationality
• the transcendental world
• pathei mathos
• weakness and fragility

Acknowledgements

This paper is an English-language rewrite of part of the following paper, which was originally published in Japanese: Fumio Ono, ‘Kyoiku ni okeru Gijyutsu eno Toi to Pathos eno Toi [Questioning Technology and Questioning Pathos in Education]’, in H. Morita and Y. Matsuura (eds.), Questioning Education and Pedagogy Now (Tokyo: Toshindo, 2018), pp. 268-310 (Japanese).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Unfortunately, this paper does not have space to examine the various discussions on technology in modern Japan—for example, the philosophy of technology by Kiyoshi Miki, Jun Tosaka, and Hiroto Saegusa, the theory of technology by Mantaro Kido, the practice of the "Research Society in Education Sciences," the "technology debate" between Mitsuo Taketani and members of the Society for the Study of Materialism, Yoichi Mukouyama’s movement to make educational technology legal, etc.

2 It is not possible here to examine what variations on the ideal of ‘reconciliation of nature and technology’ are being produced today, when technology is so deeply embedded in everyday life. P.-P. Verbeek examines the relationship between technology and ethics from the standpoint of the fundamental interpenetration of humans and technology, from a non-humanistic perspective (Verbeek, 2011). There are also examples of finding a kind of technological mediation within life itself, such as Kitaro Nishida’s "historical body" and Motomori Kimura’s "technological body" (Nishida, 1948; Kimura, 1940).

3 The word "En (縁)" (translated as links in this paper) is originally a Buddhist term, derived from the Sanskrit word pratyaya. In a broad sense, it refers to causes in general and all conditions, and in a narrower sense, direct or internal causes (hetu) are those that cause results, while indirect causes that assist these causes from the outside are called "En (縁)" (Nakamura et al. eds., 2002, p. 94). In Japan, it is commonly used as a general term meaning human connections, mysterious encounters, fortune, destiny, etc.

4 The "theory of human lifecycle as an arch-bridge" is an idea that Akira Mori developed on his deathbed: "A human life is like building an arch bridge from this bank to the other bank, little by little" (Mori, 1998, p. 208).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Fumio Ono

Fumio Ono, Ph.D., is a professor at Doshisha University, Kyoto. He specializes in philosophy, Jewish thought, and philosophy of education. He is the editor in chief of the E-Journal of Philosophy of Education (International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan). E-mail: [email protected]