Introduction Lyotard’s Thought as Pedagogy
In: Inhuman EducationsSearch for other papers by Derek R. Ford in
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The introduction begins with one place Lyotard explicitly focused on education, in his introduction to The Inhuman, which serves to introduce the two inhumans mobilized through the book: the inhuman of the system and the inhuman of humanity. The system is organized not around ideals or community but by development, exchange, transparency, and deliberation. The system’s inhumanity emerges from the fact that it disregards or represses the inhumanity of the human, which concerns the infancy of humanity, or the inability to speak. The inhuman education of the system works to develop the child into an adult, whereas the inhuman education of the human finds resonance with that which cannot be, or is beyond, articulation. After a brief biographical sketch of Lyotard, I conclude the chapter with a justification for the book and the approach it takes. Rather than applying Lyotard to education or mining Lyotard’s writings for references to education, the remaining chapters engage Lyotard’s thinking and writing as pedagogical in themselves, and approach them through four educative processes: reading, writing, voicing, and listening.