| dc.description.abstract | In this thesis, I explore the question of what Biesta’s idea of education as subjectification consist in when it is seen in light of its examples. I first present my theoretical approach as belonging to philosophy of education and as related to philosophical hermeneutics. And, because I understand my methodological approach and my theoretical framework as being interrelated, I explore Lyons’ and Korsgaard’s theoretical insights in how examples were used and how they are still used today in relation to education. Drawing from Lyons, I explore the ideas of examples used as instantiations of particular claims and as being in excess in relation to what they exemplify. And drawing from Korsgaard, I examine three different ways in which examples can be used in relation to education: First, examples can be used to gain understanding of a particular phenomenon in studying instantiations of some of its features. Second, examples can be used as “entryways” arousing the student’s curiosity for understanding complex subject matters. And third, examples can work as prompting emulation through the admiration of exemplary persons as well as being used in the formation of educational judgment. From this exploration, I outline three hypotheses about Biesta’s use of examples: (1) examples are instantiations of particular features of education as subjectification, (2) examples do not instantiate particular features of education as subjectification. On the contrary, they are always betraying what they exemplify, they show the reader how education as subjectification happened in a particular and unique way in the past. And (3), examples are rhetorical tools that guide the reader towards a particular axiomatic interpretation, which could foreclose different ways of thinking about ambivalent phenomena. In the second part, I present Biesta’s idea of education as subjectification as it appears in his work with an emphasis on how it is presented in his latest book: World-Centred Education. Then, I examine some of the criticisms that Biesta’s idea of education as subjectification has been exposed to. These criticisms are oriented toward the normativity and elusiveness of Biesta’s idea, the oversimplifications that Biesta’s framework seems to imply, and the imbalance in the importance of the world and the self in the idea of education as subjectification. In the third part, I propose to analyze the seven examples of education as subjectification as they occur in Biesta’s latest book. I thoroughly describe the context in which those examples occurred and, when it is possible, I gather information on the original context the examples have been taken from. I supplement this description with insights from Lyons’ seven characteristics of examples which allowed me to go more in depth about the different aspects of the examples used. Finally, I discuss the three research questions that this thesis is concerned with in light of the analysis of the examples: (1) What roles do examples have in Biesta’s latest book? (2) What are the relationships between the examples and what is exemplified? (3) What are the implications of the examples used for education as subjectification? This discussion leads to intricate interrogations about what education as subjectification consists in. I suggest that seeking to understand education as subjectification through an analysis of the examples that are used brought a layer of complexity to Biesta’s own account of education as subjectification. I suggest that the examples used have a rhetorical power which could conceal disputable premises and partial descriptions of reality, which could lead the reader to take the examples as commonsensical and simplify complex realities. I also explore the idea of examples as inviting reflections from the reader, an idea that I moderate by the fact that the contradictory elements of the examples are left out. Yet, I also suggest that some other examples worked as openings due to their lack of expressive references to something tangible and unequivocal. Then, drawing from Lyons’ and Korsgaard’s theoretical insights, I propose to describe the relationship between the examples and what they exemplify as a relationship between instantiation and excess. Indeed, I point out that some characteristics of the examples used are in tension, even sometimes in contradiction with what they were supposed to exemplify. Here, I argue that the analysis of examples could raise deep questions about what Biesta’s idea implies. On the one hand, I explore the idea of the internal tensions between the different examples and claims as potentially constitutive of education as subjectification. If education as subjectification is approached as something unreproducible and unforeseeable, as something that is given here and now, then some examples could be seen as representing education as subjectification in the only way they can, with all their excess and contradictions. On the other hand, I suggest that other examples lead to deep interrogations about the clarity of some of Biesta’s general claims about education. Examining those claims through the prism of exemplification allows me to explore the tensions between what we say, how we say it, and how we show it. In Biesta’s text, I underline that the meaning and implications of ideas such as “reality check” and “external control” become unclear, and that it raises questions about Biesta’s understanding of freedom. | eng |