The foremost philosopher of art argues for a new politics of looking.

On the 20th anniversary of its publication, this classic manifesto is updated with an important new preface by the author. Freire reflects on the impact his book has had, and on many of the issues it raises for readers in the 1990s. These include the fundamental question of liberation and inclusive language as it relates to Freire's own insights and approaches.

The distinguished author of books on psychology, ethics, and politics, John Dewey specialized in the philosophy of education. In this landmark work on public education, Dewey discusses methods of providing quality public education in a democratic society. First published close to 90 years ago, Democracy and Education sounded the call for a revolution in education, stressing growth, experience, and activity as factors that promote a democratic character in students and lead to the advancement of self and society. Unabridged reproduction of (...) the classic 1916 edition. (shrink)

Although there is ample interrogation of advertising/commercial/media culture in critical pedagogy, there is little attention paid to the fine arts and to aesthetic experience. This lacuna is all the more perplexing given Paulo Freire’s use of artist Francisco Brenand’s illustrations for his culture circles. In this essay I will return to Freire’s original description of the relationship between fine art images and conscientizacao in order to map out the future of the image in critical pedagogy. This return to the origin (...) of the use of images in literacy programs will highlight the interdependent nature of word and image but also will demonstrate some of the long standing misconceptions of the way fine art images function in relation to education and politics. In conclusion I will suggest that if images have a future in critical pedagogy, then this future must ultimately move beyond Freire. As an alternative genealogical anchoring point for the development of the aesthetics of critical literacy, I suggest a turn to the work of Jacques Rancière. Through his conceptualization of the “pensive image” as well as the “emancipated spectator” we can begin to understand how the fine art image can work to realize Freire’s democratic ideals without relying on Freire’s problematic formulation of the image-pedagogy relationship. In conclusion, I suggest that the philosophical model necessary to support critical literacy is not Freire’s culture circle so much as Kant’s aesthetic community now revitalized via Rancière’s own aesthetics of dissensus. (shrink)

"First published in this translation 1955; second edition (revised) 1974; reprinted with additional revisions 1987; reissued with new Further Reading 2003; reissued with new introduction 2007"--T.p. verso.

"Recounts the story of Joseph Jacotot" -- vii.

What has philosophy to do with the poor? If, as has often been supposed, the poor have no time for philosophy, then why have philosophers always made time for them? Why is the history of philosophy—from Plato to Karl Marx to Jean-Paul Sartre to Pierre Bourdieu—the history of so many figures of the poor: plebes, men of iron, the demos, artisans, common people, proletarians, the masses? Why have philosophers made the shoemaker, in particular, a remarkably ubiquitous presence in this history? (...) Does philosophy itself depend on this thinking about the poor? If so, can it ever refrain from thinking for them? Jacques Rancière’s The Philosopher and His Poor meditates on these questions in close readings of major texts of Western thought in which the poor have played a leading role—sometimes as the objects of philosophical analysis, sometimes as illustrations of philosophical argument. Published in France in 1983 and made available here for the first time in English, this consummate study assesses the consequences for Marx, Sartre, and Bourdieu of Plato’s admonition that workers should do “nothing else” than their own work. It offers innovative readings of these thinkers’ struggles to elaborate a philosophy of the poor. Presenting a left critique of Bourdieu, the terms of which are largely unknown to an English-language readership, The Philosopher and His Poor remains remarkably timely twenty years after its initial publication. (shrink)