Anticipating the Educational Encounter as Event

Abstract

This paper attempts a consideration of some aspects of what has become known as the ‘philosophy of event’ as they apply to educational theory and specifically to the educational question of how individuals as subjects can undergo transformation, understood as change that brings forth something new. The centrality of this question is based in the idea that education does not have any meaning or potency without an understanding of how thought, opinions, dispositions and behaviour can be and are changed in educational engagements with knowledge, the world and with other human subjects. Equally important, and therefore also considered briefly here, is the question of the agency of the subjectivity of the individual and whether external social, cultural and historical forces provide a complete frame in order to explain the educational subject. In other words, questions are raised as to whether education can bring about change and if so whether individuals in their subjectivity have any control over this.