Beautiful Risk of Education by Biesta Gert J. J

Author:Biesta, Gert J. J.
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-317-26330-2
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

EMANCIPATION AND ITS PREDICAMENTS

The concept of emancipation has its roots in Roman law, where it referred to the freeing of a son or wife from the legal authority of the pater familias, the father of the family. Emancipation literally means “to give away ownership” (ex: away; mancipium: ownership). More broadly it means to relinquish one’s authority over someone. This implies that the “object” of emancipation, that is, the person to be emancipated, becomes independent and free as a result of the act of emancipation. This is reflected in the legal use of the term today, where emancipation means the freeing of someone from the control of another, particularly in the form of parents relinquishing authority and control over a minor child. In the seventeenth century, emancipation became used in relation to religious toleration, in the eighteenth century in relation to the emancipation of slaves, and in the nineteenth century in relation to the emancipation of women and workers. The Roman use of the term already indicates the link with education, in that emancipation marks the moment when and the process through which the (dependent) child becomes an (independent) adult.

A decisive turn in the trajectory of the idea of emancipation was taken in the eighteenth century when emancipation became intertwined with the Enlightenment and enlightenment became understood as a process of emancipation. We can see this most clearly in Immanuel Kant’s essay “What Is Enlightenment?” in which he defined enlightenment as “man’s release from his self-incurred tutelage” and saw tutelage or immaturity as “man’s inability to make use of his understanding without the direction from another” (Kant 1992 [1784], p. 90). Immaturity is self-incurred, Kant wrote, “when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without the direction from another” (ibid.). Enlightenment thus entailed a process of becoming independent or autonomous, and for Kant this autonomy was based on the use of one’s reason. Kant contributed two further ideas to this line of thinking. First of all he argued that the “propensity and vocation to free thinking” was not a contingent, historical possibility but should be seen as something that was an inherent part of human nature; it was man’s “ultimate destination” and the “aim of his existence” (Kant 1982, p. 701; my translation). To block progress in enlightenment was therefore “a crime against human nature” (Kant 1992 [1784], p. 93). Second, Kant argued that in order for this “capacity” to emerge, we need education. In his view the human being can only become “human”—that is, a rational autonomous being—“through education” (Kant 1982, p. 699; my translation).

Kant’s position clearly presents us with a set of interlocking ideas that has become central to modern educational thinking and that has had a profound impact on modern educational practice. Kant assumes that there is a fundamental difference between immature and mature beings and that this difference maps onto the distinction between childhood and adulthood. He defines maturity in terms of rationality—the (proper) use of one’s reason—and sees rationality as the basis for independence and autonomy.

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