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Papers by Graham Giles

Educational Philosophy and Theory, Mar 2014

This study is a philosophical inquiry into the ethical conditions of modernity as these bear upon... more This study is a philosophical inquiry into the ethical conditions of modernity as these bear upon, and are expressed in, the educational project. In modernity, the ethical is assumed as both a juridical proceduralism (of codes of ethics for teachers, or of a broader legal context) and a moral result (of presupposed good and evil, vested in categories like humanity, liberalism, or difference). When ethics are assumed as completed in the form of codes or ideals, that is, as present and already acted upon, there remains little of an ethics of justice in the ancient sense of the pursuit of the right way to live. Supplanted by imperatives of management and morality, the ethical conditions of living are no longer vital to education. The problem is ontological. The revitalization of the ethical in education requires inquiry into the logics of being. These logics are widely implicated and thus the resources for this inquiry are necessarily historiographical, critical, and speculative. These are deployed in this study in three thematic movements: First to the question of education’s ‘emplacement’ within the modern ethos, or ‘of what’ is educational thought a consequence in the modern ethical settlement; second, how may this be seen to be expressed as ethical thought in contemporary educational discourse; and third, and on the basis of the previous two, to the question of how it may be possible to re-think education ethically. The modern ethical topography is articulated as an oscillation among the ontological forms of conceptual realism (the constructivist procedure of the adequacy of thought to being) and those of ethical idealism (the transcendental production of what cannot be thought). Expressed as ethics of phronesis (practical wisdom) and alterity in educational thought, these are contested on the basis of generic ontology, or that of immanent infinite multiplicity, toward a subjective ethics in education—one that refuses the idealist corruption of the ‘object’ where ethics are concerned. To do so, I propose to educational thought a concept of truth elaborated at the intersection of mathematical formalization (à la Badiou) and comic realism (à la Zupančič).

Conversations on Curriculum and Pedagogy, Oct 2010

Conversations on Curriculum and Pedagogy, Apr 2010

Educational Insights, 2010

This thesis brings the work of twentieth century political philosopher Hannah Arendt to a conside... more This thesis brings the work of twentieth century political philosopher Hannah Arendt to a consideration of educational thought. It argues for and seeks to demonstrate ways in which Arendt’s oeuvre provokes and vitalizes educational thought as it concerns pluralism, ethics, democracy, knowledge, meaning and critique. In seeking “new landscapes to think from” for education, it invites Arendt’s phenomenological recovery of the political, the public realm, to disturb particular forms of thought that give shape to contemporary education. It specifically engages the problematics of modernity, in its expressions as the liberal self, instrumental rationality and alienating structures of authority. The author argues that these reiterate the bankruptcy of meaning which Arendt calls “worldlessness,” and that this concern is of deep and continuing significance to education. In a reconsideration of understanding and meaning beyond the automatism and ubiquity of the liberal self, this thesis then considers how thinking, judging, action and speech, as Arendt posits them, may call upon education to better enact its “promise to the world” of freedom and human dignity.

Conference Presentations by Graham Giles

This paper distills a conference presentation in which the author lays out the coordinates of a t... more This paper distills a conference presentation in which the author lays out the coordinates of a thinking of the ethical "constitution" of subtractive axiomatic ontology as the "truthful" alternative to what he calls the modern onto-ethical oscillation among constructivist and transcendental "fictions of the real." It argues that for ethics in education to remain vital and faithful to its complex yet never entirely discernible charge, it must forgo the mystical reconciliations of explicit or sublimated religious operators and fully assume the consequences of Cantor's "revolution" in contemporary rationality: namely that the infinite is immanent. If this be assumed the case, the author argues that the infinite supplement to any identification liberates the subject in educational thought from figuration as an emaciated creature of conceptual determination into the only latterly thinkable infinite medium whose contingency governs us via the instantiation of the new. As the only universal norm, this inconsistency gives affirmative agency to an active subjectivity which assumes its paradoxically groundless concretion in a durable thinking of transformation, and also one of singularity (both arguably foremost educative preoccupations) of refreshing traction and currency. A new ethical horizon for education, this is what Etienne Balibar (2004) calls, with apt understatement, "not exactly a minor adventure."

Teaching Documents by Graham Giles

Educational Philosophy and Theory, Mar 2014

This study is a philosophical inquiry into the ethical conditions of modernity as these bear upon... more This study is a philosophical inquiry into the ethical conditions of modernity as these bear upon, and are expressed in, the educational project. In modernity, the ethical is assumed as both a juridical proceduralism (of codes of ethics for teachers, or of a broader legal context) and a moral result (of presupposed good and evil, vested in categories like humanity, liberalism, or difference). When ethics are assumed as completed in the form of codes or ideals, that is, as present and already acted upon, there remains little of an ethics of justice in the ancient sense of the pursuit of the right way to live. Supplanted by imperatives of management and morality, the ethical conditions of living are no longer vital to education. The problem is ontological. The revitalization of the ethical in education requires inquiry into the logics of being. These logics are widely implicated and thus the resources for this inquiry are necessarily historiographical, critical, and speculative. These are deployed in this study in three thematic movements: First to the question of education’s ‘emplacement’ within the modern ethos, or ‘of what’ is educational thought a consequence in the modern ethical settlement; second, how may this be seen to be expressed as ethical thought in contemporary educational discourse; and third, and on the basis of the previous two, to the question of how it may be possible to re-think education ethically. The modern ethical topography is articulated as an oscillation among the ontological forms of conceptual realism (the constructivist procedure of the adequacy of thought to being) and those of ethical idealism (the transcendental production of what cannot be thought). Expressed as ethics of phronesis (practical wisdom) and alterity in educational thought, these are contested on the basis of generic ontology, or that of immanent infinite multiplicity, toward a subjective ethics in education—one that refuses the idealist corruption of the ‘object’ where ethics are concerned. To do so, I propose to educational thought a concept of truth elaborated at the intersection of mathematical formalization (à la Badiou) and comic realism (à la Zupančič).

Conversations on Curriculum and Pedagogy, Oct 2010

Conversations on Curriculum and Pedagogy, Apr 2010

Educational Insights, 2010

This thesis brings the work of twentieth century political philosopher Hannah Arendt to a conside... more This thesis brings the work of twentieth century political philosopher Hannah Arendt to a consideration of educational thought. It argues for and seeks to demonstrate ways in which Arendt’s oeuvre provokes and vitalizes educational thought as it concerns pluralism, ethics, democracy, knowledge, meaning and critique. In seeking “new landscapes to think from” for education, it invites Arendt’s phenomenological recovery of the political, the public realm, to disturb particular forms of thought that give shape to contemporary education. It specifically engages the problematics of modernity, in its expressions as the liberal self, instrumental rationality and alienating structures of authority. The author argues that these reiterate the bankruptcy of meaning which Arendt calls “worldlessness,” and that this concern is of deep and continuing significance to education. In a reconsideration of understanding and meaning beyond the automatism and ubiquity of the liberal self, this thesis then considers how thinking, judging, action and speech, as Arendt posits them, may call upon education to better enact its “promise to the world” of freedom and human dignity.

This paper distills a conference presentation in which the author lays out the coordinates of a t... more This paper distills a conference presentation in which the author lays out the coordinates of a thinking of the ethical "constitution" of subtractive axiomatic ontology as the "truthful" alternative to what he calls the modern onto-ethical oscillation among constructivist and transcendental "fictions of the real." It argues that for ethics in education to remain vital and faithful to its complex yet never entirely discernible charge, it must forgo the mystical reconciliations of explicit or sublimated religious operators and fully assume the consequences of Cantor's "revolution" in contemporary rationality: namely that the infinite is immanent. If this be assumed the case, the author argues that the infinite supplement to any identification liberates the subject in educational thought from figuration as an emaciated creature of conceptual determination into the only latterly thinkable infinite medium whose contingency governs us via the instantiation of the new. As the only universal norm, this inconsistency gives affirmative agency to an active subjectivity which assumes its paradoxically groundless concretion in a durable thinking of transformation, and also one of singularity (both arguably foremost educative preoccupations) of refreshing traction and currency. A new ethical horizon for education, this is what Etienne Balibar (2004) calls, with apt understatement, "not exactly a minor adventure."