Philosophy and the crisis of education: between Arendt and Rancière

Abstract

On one hand, this article states that the current and ongoing crisis of education arises from the need to resolve the tension between the principle of equality (expansion, in democratic countries, of access of all citizens to all the levels of education), and the principle of merit (application of criteria of objectivity in degree completion programs, particularly at higher education levels). On the other hand, a comparative analysis of two philosophical texts focused on education – ”The Crisis in Education”, included in Between Past and Future, by Hannah Arendt, and Le maître ignorant by Jacques Rancière – will be used to test this hypothesis: that a certain way to understand education, predominant in many of the approaches characteristic of classical philosophy, not only do not allow to face appropriately a solution to this crisis, but even could end up being counterproductive.