Some notes on the necessity of autonomous educational practice and two concerns

Abstract

This article suggests a sophistical autonomous practice in response to Platonian Aristotelian philosophy’s domination over education. It shows the dangers of empty education in which education is reduced to schooling the perfect citizen in the image of a perfect state. An example is given in which schooling in empty education is reduced to a tool for authoritarian capitalism inscribed in the formation of the State to increase profit while undermining a democratic society. Instead, this article claims that education was introduced by the Sophists as verification of equality and will show how education works counter to anti-educational and anti-democratic tendencies of Platonian/Aristotelian discourses on education and schooling. The article identifies and develops a practice of ignorance of inequality as such inequality is inscribed in machine schooling and offers a sophistical practice instead. The article concludes by highlighting an autonomous tradition of educational practice making practice, as evident once Platonian and Aristotelian philosophy is refuted as saying anything meaningful about education.