This article highlights the educational and the aesthetic significance of the subject matter (i.e., “the third thing”) in the relationship between teacher and pupil. This, through a reading of two texts, one written by the 19th century educationist and German philosopher Johann Friedrich Herbart, and one written by the contemporary philosopher and political theorist Jacques Rancière. By emphasizing the third thing between pupil and teacher, the article intends to reimagine both the educative and aesthetic values of those timeless things around (...) us, such as objects of art and education, which give life a meaning beyond our limited socio-cultural desires, interests, concepts, and identities. Teaching, from this “fusion of the horizon” between Herbart and Rancière, is an activity created by the heterogeneity already integral to the “essence” of the subject matter. As such, the article also offers a fusion of the horizon between aesthetics and Didaktik. (shrink)

On several occasions in his work, R. S. Peters identifies a difficulty inherent in teaching that underscores the complexity of this relationship: the teacher has the task of passing on knowledge while at the same time allowing knowledge that is passed on to be criticised and revised by the learner. This inquiry asks: first, how does Peters envisage these two tasks coming together in teaching, and, second, does he go far enough in developing what it means for the teacher to (...) recognise the difference and otherness of the learner? At the heart of the matter in answering these questions is how to conceive of the connection between learning and the transformation of the individual. Before turning to Peters, this inquiry begins by discussing connections between transformation and learning in classical and contemporary philosophical discourse. In this context, notions of discontinuity and interruption are shown to be central to understanding transformational learning processes. Peters' thought is then located within this discourse and taken up in three central ways: (1) by analysing his notion of teaching (2) by examining the ideas of learning and transformation embedded in his concept of teaching, and (3) by inquiring into how these issues relate to his idea of philosophy of education as a central part of teacher education. (shrink)