Ausgabe 1, Band 2 – September 2006.

Education, freedom and responsibility for the world

Vanessa Sievers de Almeida

A post-graduation research (still in progress) in Philosophy of Education, Faculdade de Educação – Universidade de São Paulo

According to Hannah Arendt educating means introducing children into a world which precedes them and will continue after them – a world constructed by our work and constituted by our action. How can we conceive education in such a way as to face this responsibility?

This research first approaches Arendt’s view on education (The Crises of Education, in Between Past and Future) and discusses some concepts that are particularly relevant in her reflection, such as: natality, public space, common world, authority and action. It seeks to show that Arendt focuses on an education for action and freedom, although she refuses an education through a pseudo-freedom in the educational realm once this sphere doesn’t represent the public space.

Secondly the research reflects on the importance of an education for thinking – a correlation that the author herself didn’t establish, although she dealt with both education and thinking at different points. We will approach Arendt’s concept of thinking (The Life of Mind) and discuss possibilities and difficulties which result when we focus on thinking – an invisible mental activity in solitude – as an “object” of education.

vanessa.sievers@terra.com.br