p4c after auschwitz: on immanence and transcendence in education

Abstract

In this paper, I provide a response to papers that were written in response to the keynote I presented at the 2017 ICPIC conference in Madrid and to the written version of this keynote, published in this journal. I try to clarify what was ‘at stake’ in the paper, namely an attempt to respond to Adorno’s question about the (im)possibility of education ‘after Auschwitz,’ and highlight that the main theme underlying my arguments concerns the difference between immanence and transcendence and how this ‘reflects’ upon education. I try to show why (the possibility of) transcendence matters, educationally and for our existence as subject. I try to clarify that the interest in what it means to exist as subject and what education may have to do in relation to this is not meant as another normative blueprint for education but rather tries to engage with the ‘experience of freedom,’ the experience that we can act and can act differently. And I try to clarify that all this is not an attempt to determine what the subject is, but an attempt to come to terms with the question -- which is there for each of us – as to what it might mean to exist as subject.