The matter of simply living together, on both a global and a local scale, is complicated by the cultural, economic, religious, technological, and ecological challenges that we face in today’s world. An educational–philosophical take on these complexities translates into reflections on, and attempts to answer, the questions that these challenges raise. How is the older generation to introduce a new generation into today’s world and to ‘prepare’ it for the world to come? What sense can be given to such introduction and ‘preparation’? Or in the more general terms of Friedrich Schleiermacher, ‘What indeed does the older generation intend to do with the younger generation?
The contributions in this book – originally presented during the 14th conference of the International Network of Philosophers of Education – address a broad range of philosophical issues related to the question of the educational relationship between generations today. The philosophical analysis offered by the authors in this volume creates openings, not only for other philosophers of education, but also for policy makers and practitioners. They serve as invitations, not only for further thinking but also for reconsidering educational practices; and most importantly, they generate new questions, for both today’s and tomorrow’s generations. This book was originally published as a special issue of Ethics and Education.
Introduction: Old and new generations in the 21st century: shifting landscapes of education 1. The authority of Bildung: educational practices in early childhood education 2. On (philosophical) suffering and not knowing one’s way about (yet) in educational philosophy: Reply to Christiane Thompson 3. Postliberal education 4. Transition to parenthood and intergenerational relationships: the ethical value of family memory 5. Exhausting the fatigue university: in search of a biopolitics of research 6. Epistemic empathy in childrearing and education 7. For the sake of peace: maintaining the resonance of peace and education 8. Education in times of fast learning: the future of the school 9. Taking a chance: education for aesthetic judgment and the criticism of culture 10. Character education and the disappearance of the political 11. Formal criteria for the concept of human flourishing: the first step in defending flourishing as an ideal aim of education