Philosophy of Education in Times of Crises and Pandemics

In much of the philosophy of education today, diagnoses of socio-political pathologies underpin visions of a more desirable, democratic future. However, the very philosophical act of making an educational vision responsive to (and dependent on) crises of the times is rarely, if ever, critiqued. On the contrary, a pattern of standardised research steps is being consolidated, one that reflects medicalised politics of identifying a critically “ill” present, offering “cures” that promise a better future. In this article, it is argued that this pattern has major epistemic and political risks. It may jeopardise the quality of educational–philosophical research, and it may make philosophy of education overlook new, undemocratic politics. This article briefly discusses the pattern, and then the risks of the medical metaphors on which the pattern relies. One such risk concerns what counts as politically “ill” in “pandemic times”, and new polarisations, such as “the vaccinated versus the unvaccinated”, may thus be introduced. Finally, the article suggests that philosophy of education should consider some de-medicalisation of the notion of pandemics.

Alinsky revisited: ‘rubbing raw the resentments of the people’

This chapter analyses American community organiser Saul D. Alinsky's theoretical background and shows that his understanding of 'resentment' was drawn from the ethics of the Scottish philosopher Adam Smith and the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. 'Rubbing raw the resentments' and 'to fan the sores of discontent' are Alinsky's medical metaphors describing his technique to understand frustration and aggression, to cool down emotions and to transform its energy into common action and political negotiation. He tried to empower the people by turning personal discontents and problems into public issues. What are the lessons to be learned from Alinsky for contemporary community development responses to populism? His analysis and his confrontations with McCarthyism and proto-fascist agitator Father McCoughlin provide examples of ways of meeting the challenges we are facing in Germany today, where new prophets of deceit operating through populist politics again carry out the fine art of propaganda, using the new forms of mass communication and the opportunities of social media. Ultimately, the chapter offers a German perspective to the international discussion on community development, populism, and democratic culture.

The evolution of conceptual modeling of “magic” and “medical” metaphors in Ancient Greek rhetorical and philosophical discourse

Using the theory of conceptual metaphor as a theoretical framework, this paper explores the metaphorical use of the magical and / or medical concepts in Gorgias, Empedocles, Plato, Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Pseudo-Longinus. It examines how a deep level of the cognitive image of magic and medicine echoes ‘frames’ that constitute the target domain of rhetoric in the Ancient Greek language. This study focuses on Gorgias’ speech “Encomium of Helen” as both the one of the earliest and most representative in the use of such conceptual metaphors within Ancient Greek rhetorical and philosophical discourses. Judging by the text of Gorgias and other works of Ancient Greek literature, the slots of the source domain of the metaphor intersect with the etymological bases of the magic lexicon (“power”; “sound suggestion” and “formation of visual images”), and are supplemented by new ones (“unnatural influence”, “efficiency”; “carelessness of target audience”, “change of emotional and cognitive state”). This Gorgias model of rhetorical influence found its fruitful application in Plato and rhetoricians of the Hellenistic-Roman period, though with diametrically opposite axiological meanings: negative in Plato and positive in Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Pseudo-Longinus. Indeed, in Hellenistic rhetorical theory, negatively marked slots of the metaphorical frame disappeared (probably because of the influence of the then-current views in medicine), as well as concepts with ambivalent treatment, such as φάρμακον. Finally, it seems that among the above-mentioned authors the only one who has paid attention to the methodological similarity between rhetoric and medicine, given the medical terms and metaphors used by Gorgias, was Plato.