Pedagogy of philosophy

This article is resulting from conference series which took place with the Université of Strasbourg, in 1994. See also Philosophy of education.

Pedagogy of the Philosophy.

By opening the cycle of conferences, François Galichet recalls the reasons for creation of the workshop. In addition to the crisis, of the economic situation, teaching of philosophy related to the change of the public, it also acts of a properly philosophical desire of reflection on the teaching of philosophy.

On the first point, all the interventions will converge, with the difference close Jean-Luc Nancy will move the accent by wondering about the evolution of the teachers themselves. The second point intends to challenge the charge according to which any pedagogy of philosophy would be essentially anti-philosophical, technocratic, since she does not address herself to the pure reason of an abstracted subject, but with a pupil of final class. The pedagogy of philosophy should not precisely become the exclusive domain of “sciences of education”. Philosophy could not be indifferent to the stakes of its own teaching, under penalty of transforming it into a certain academism.

However, in spite of an urgency related to the generalization of the teaching of the discipline, at the very least significant urgency in the technical classes, but also until in the University S, according to Jean-Luc Nancy, the opposition of two fixed positions which caricature one the other really was not still exceeded. This going beyond will be the stake, at least implicit, of the majority of the interventions. Jerome Boulanger will however work to seize the terms of this “dialectical of the educational reason” and to show in what the debate is impossible, from the beliefs of the adversaries, beliefs undoubtedly philosophical in addition, in the sense that one can locate them in the history of philosophy. In isn't fact, in the name of a certain idea of the philosophy which one clashes in sometimes regrettable terms, that one claims to standardize in a direction or the other the class of philosophy? But can it be different within the republican framework of the state education and the baccalaureat? Also Nicole Grataloup and GFEN defines the question in the following way: “Is the community of the professors of philosophy able to work to define what she wants jointly? ”

A pedagogy of philosophy?

All the effort to justify this pedagogy with the eyes of the philosophers comes down integrating it in the Philosophie, or at least regarding it as the practical answer to a questioning or requirements referred to a philosophical school, Bachelard ienne for Patrick Baranger, that of Erlangen and the “dialogical constructivism” of Paul Lorenzen and Wilhelm Kamlah for Mrs. Kledzig. It will be pointed out that Michel Tozzi, from the point of view plus instrumentalist, sees in the scientific research and teaching recent a contribution to didactic which would remain enracinée philosophically, and intends to distinguish this position from the preceding one, that which ratifies like valid teaching models only those proposed by the philosophers themselves.

German Didactician of philosophy, Mrs. Kledzig, confronted with a quite different situation, that of the introduction of an option of philosophy in Germany, finds sometimes the same terms of the French inspection: philosophy does not constitute a whole of contents that the didactic one would help to communicate, by alluring the pupil. That would bring back for us, as also Jerome Boulanger pointed out it, to the commercial diagram of the production and the exchange; Dilberman attaches this remark to the critic of the commercial sophist of opinions, at the beginning of Protagoras.

The didactic one must thus wonder at least what is philosophy. However, to avoid any dogmatism, it is necessary to answer as Kant which it is to philosophize, act and not contained. J. Baker had criticized this formula, as it crystallized in a proverb finally not very Kantian. Besides is it a question of safeguarding the freedom of the Master, or that of the pupil? It is known how, in other disciplines, one could sacrifice the first in the name of the second. To philosophize should not in any case prohibit to arrive at certain answers, even little in favor in the opinion, nor to even prohibit to make Métaphysique, would be it traditional.

Defined as its own movement, philosophy thus seems to be its own method, like want it the antiones. But Mrs. Kledzig understands well by there a certain teaching method, founded on the active participation of the pupil, on the dialog, whose subject is the pupil, with the assistance of the Master. One is undoubtedly closer to some teaching Romantisme than of Socrate, which joined the talk of J there too. Baker. From isn't the point of view of the French situation, to make cheap evolution of the public, to wrongly make to confidence with the Intelligence pupils, even with the teaching direction of the professors, according to the reading which proposed Béatrice Normand of the official instructions of 1925? Tozzi considers besides as obvious that the “didactisation” of a discipline cannot solve the problems of the crisis of the school, if it identifies a specifically teaching dimension inside this general crisis, in particular in philosophy.

In Germany, the doubling of each discipline by the didactic one is institutional, so that the debate cannot develop that within this framework, which shorts-circuit the most sterile Aporie S. It is not question of disputing the didactic one, but of defending a philosophical, and not pragmatic or technocratic design of it. It will however be noticed that the strategy remains that of one adaptation to the age and the experiment of the pupils, which can by no means pass for neutral. Thus, design even of the philosophy like reflexive and “anthropological”, which comes to support the dialogical method isn't actually the theoretical reflection of this kind of pedagogy? In competition with the theologist and the professor of morals, doesn't one lock up from the start the interrogation within the limits of the common opinion or “politically correct”? French professors consider thus that the new program of the disciplinary technical Group of philosophy “is asepticized”.

The man, and thus the pupil, need benchmarks, but that it forges itself, starting from its Praxis, in a critical way. The professor would propose simply methods to him to do it. It would require only pupil that it is autonomous. He would not get done everything visions of the world to him.

Thus the growing ditch, described by Jean-Luc Nancy, between the Master and the pupil would not grow hollow, because one would leave the experiment even of this last. But doesn't one risk in fact of reducing to little thing the critical rupture of the pupil with respect to his immediacy, which certainly is always already mediate, but not in a way awaited by the professional philosopher? One will need well that the pupil clashes with done everything interpretations, for the rigor of the expression and the thought, with the writing, lived like strangeness, according to Jean-Luc Nancy, and even wrenching for Nicole Grataloup. If not, one could be well satisfied to systematize the ambient ideology or the Idiosyncrasie of the pupil. Contrary, Jerome Boulanger had underlined the character secretly directing of these pedagogies of the participation. Dilberman had brought it closer to the figure of the tutor in the Emile. The intervention of Patrick Baranger has from this point of view the merit to propose a pedagogy lucidly directing, in the name of epistemology bachelardienne. Admittedly, the “didacticians” want to sometimes see, in the wake of Bourdieu, behind these criticisms of the methods known as active, the attachment with a dogmatic and masterly design of the lesson of philosophy, the sublimation of the opinion of the Master in philosophia perennis , the contempt of that of the pupil, plastered with the contingency in the name of the socio-esthetics criterion of the nobility of the thought. Patrick Baranger, in answer to a question, recalls that, at Plato, the doxa could be right and even philosophical. There does not remain about it less not attached, as for him, with the scientific model, which means by no means that he hopes that the pupil strips himself of any opinion before entering to the temple.

The teacher must accept to clash with the opinions of the pupils, but especially to take care not to give them the same statute as to his own speech. Philosophy, like science, starts with the criticism of the opinion. If the pupil cannot express his representations, and to help there, it is already to criticize them, the class of philosophy will remain for him a purely school business, without incidence apart from the duties and of the course. The opinions will only be consolidated by it, and in particular the perception of philosophy. To affirm that the dignity of philosophy puts it above any pedagogy, to be satisfied to denounce the opinion magistralement, has precisely this consequence to consolidate it, would not be this that by the resentment of the pupil. It is thus necessary to proceed differently, using a rather heavy device of exercises, where the procedures of reference of the professor to the pupil are very meticulous persons. However, that against the point of view of Nicole Grataloup, to make be expressed and to clash the opinions orally first ends up submerging the opinion of the teacher under the majority positions and almost indéracinables. That corresponds accurately to certain teaching experiments, for example as for the universality of beautiful, or with the value of the animal, or in fact the position of traditional philosophy is seen transformed by the pupil into aberrant opinion, at best in historically exceeded position.

In the final analysis, even if the institutional distinction between pedagogy and philosophy can have heavy practical consequences, that the reflection on the teaching of philosophy is baptized didactic philosophical or philosophy of education can seem a rather formal debate, from where the very conciliating position of François Galichet. Pedagogy and philosophy even merge in their project. Admittedly, little would be ready for as much giving up any reference to the history of philosophy, which seems to be according to the talk of Mrs. Kledzik a tendency in Germany, in the name of it “philosophizing by oneself”. It is hoped only that in best case these contents will cease being external, that it will merge with the step of the pupil, that it will become culture. Sometimes one seems to await that the pupil finds by oneself such philosophème, including through myths and from fictions, like Nicole Grataloup, which after all is perhaps not completely chimerical.

Conservatism is not essentially anti-pedagogic besides. To lay the stress on a whole of discursive competences and Rhétorique S can agree very well with an extremely dogmatic vision of the philosophy, which becomes contents in oneself then, indifferent to its access road. Precisely, Dilberman reproaches Patrick Baranger for supposing behind the training a philosophical knowledge made up, on the model of traditional science. Conversely, the indifference with the contents returns perhaps less to one generous design that sophistical of philosophy. As François Galichet points out it as for the “anti-pedagogs” any use of techniques is rhetoric, and thus “of right-hand side”. But unless carrying out the phantasm of the corrector who notes on the ideas, how to proceed differently? If not will it be necessary to standardize with the national scales the lessons of philosophy, would be this only to reward “objectively” for their efforts the most school pupils? It would be to make pass the means, the examination, before the end, to philosophize it. However this to philosophize a rhetoric “with the good sense of the term supposes”, according to the expression of Jean-Luc Nancy, in any case a capacity to conceptualize, to question themselves and reason, which could not be foreign with the language, according to the analysis of Nicole Grataloup.

The debate between those which compare discursive teaching to the dogmatic opinion and those which compare pedagogy to rhetoric is disturbing, concludes François Galichet. Each adversary caricatures the other to reject it into the “line”, whereas it acts according to him of two currents also of “left”, i.e., seems it, in favor of the democratization of philosophy. Like Mrs. Kledzig, F. Galichet intends to leave, not of the gasoline of philosophy, but of the pupil. But it is not any more its experiment which it acts, it is of its future situation in the adult world. That has the merit to lock up more the pupil in an experiment perhaps poorer only one is sometimes liked to imagine romantiquement, in any case an experiment where all is made to a certain extent without explicit choice; one would not however need romantiser in its turn the adult life. Philosophy must certainly clash with the prose of the existence, would be it unauthentic. One will judge perhaps reducing to reduce philosophy to this aspect, because it would be more immediately tempting for the pupil. Which credibility to grant then to critical inclinations, if one starts with such a conformism? It would have at least to be questioned too him.

In fact, François Galichet especially understands by there congédier the debate on “the nature of”. Philosophy is with the service of the praxis, citizen, as the instructions of 1925 point out it, but so professional; with the service of the critical, but so existential reflection. Philosophy is spread as well in the confrontation with the Mort and with the Suicide, like it Camus wanted, as in the control of the argumentative techniques. It is thus not locked up in a gasoline delimited scolairement. It is not a specialized knowledge, like want it implicitly the most savage adversaries of pedagogy. In any event, it would be unreasonable to want to transform all the last year secondary school students into professional philosophers, like besides as pure producers adapted to the job market.

It is not however sacrilege only certain techniques which are useful in philosophy can be useful apart from the class, like the argumentation or the speech, and, would add us, the precision and the rigor of the thought. Admittedly, these considerations are not neutral for the class of philosophy; F. Galichet estimates prudently that they could bring to less neglecting the oral examination, and of course the person of the pupil. He recommends, following Nicole Grataloup, the recourse to the fictional writing.

Is it true that the current design of the class of philosophy would almost never make it possible the pupil to clash with the existence and within the meaning of the life? That the reflection is done on a conceptual level from the start does not certainly satisfy the theories of emergence. But can there be passage by the origin, the immediate one, or only allusion to the immediacy, instrument of the collecting of the attention of the pupil, which is not, in truth, negligible? In isn't a general way, under dialectical pretext of rupture, there there, as at Bachelard itself perhaps, nostalgia of the origin, rather significant at Nicole Grataloup, and in particular the exercises which she proposes? Can one for example, without yielding to the Pathos, becoming aware of the tragedy of the existence without starting by contemplating the concepts of need, contingency, direction, Néant? To see certain texts of Épicure or Nietzsche is not, or does not have, foreign being with the existence of the pupil. The imagined mediations should not lose us in what there is of quota within its experiment, but go right to essence, to enable him to think it finally, even at the price of simplifications.

F. Galichet had finally challenged the debate between pure philosophy and pure pedagogy. Philosophy cannot be pure, nor foreign pedagogy with philosophy. Jerome Boulanger however intends to determine the report/ratio of each interlocutor of this curious debate to his adversary and his own beliefs. That brings it, in spite of the position of Tozzi, to reduce the protagonists to two authorities, the general inspection and the didactic one, around Tozzi and of Philippe Meirieu.

The didacticians start from a report, the need for adapting to a new public, and thus for sacrificing certain unreasonable requirements. For the inspection and the review philosophical Teaching , it can act only to liquidate the discipline, whose spirit escapes scientism radically from the cognitive theories. Universal, true, philosophy spawning time of itself a way in any spirit, independently of any socio-psychological determinism. To center teaching on deficiencies of the pupil, it is to deprive it of this access to truth. Philosophy does not need to be adapted, it is essentially teaching, the way of the opinion to the knowledge. It is thus not reduced to results, which one could know more or less exactly and rigorously. In this conviction, one loses sight of the fact the historically different layers, or one sees there the mark of the perenniality of philosophizing. The didacticians, them, consider that to presuppose this philosophical good sense, it is in makes require average pupil a culture which it does not have, and thus to exclude it. But how the active methods can compensate for this lack? Won't they rather ratify it, in the name of spontaneousness?

However, the didacticians make mine adapt to contents of the methods whose principles are in contradiction with him, which is seen reduced by Bourdieu with a certain prescientific opinion. It can then be a question, according to the Inspection, only of one sophistical, authoritative news and directive under outside demagogic. Thus, philosophy becomes a discipline like the others whereas for the inspection it confines with crowned. One could recall with Mrs. Kledzig that to learn is not a competence, that each discipline defines its own requirements, and that thus no training is like the different ones. In this direction, they all are equal. Thus for the GREPH, precisely because philosophy is a discipline of formation like the others, its teaching must start before the final one, instead of crowning the whole of the studies, as consider it the instructions of 1925, with accompanying notes by Béatrice Normand.

The two adversaries refer readily to Socrate, but the ones forget the importance of the critical test: what is been confined must still be viable. The others, more Platonic than socratic, believe in obviousness of a theological type, to which any pupil is ready to see himself charming, that it knows it or not. They forget, would add us readily, the bad faith or the bad mood of many interlocutors of Socrate, the difficulty and the length of the sabotage of the opinion.

J. Baker considers that there are two irreducible positions, precisely because they are only beliefs, “born from the illusions of our own educational reason”. The didacticians believe in the unit of nature, and thus naturalize the educational phenomena, conceived like properties of the brain. But at the same time and in a contradictory way, they are victims of the humanistic illusion of the successful education, to which it would be enough to give oneself the average scientists. They exaltent the spontaneousness of the pupil, against the dogmatism of philosophy, but they constitute by their methods even the latter in contents, necessarily dogmatic, or, like Tozzi, in a certain type of speech on the world, which one can learn by exercises and suitable situations. According to F. Galichet, however, this vision mechanist of didactic from now on is exceeded. But, conversely, isn't philosophy likely to dissolve in the “transverse” exchange of opinions, in order to improve sociability, the tolerance or even the methods of the oral intervention?

The inspection, it, intends to wake up the singular with the universal one, but it ends up privileging the transmission of the knowledge, because it théologise the philosophical knowledge, and poses whereas the pupil must and can reach it by the only word of the Master, if he is qualified. “The presence of mind to the spirit is the only teaching condition” writes J. Muglioni in the Lesson . The professor of philosophy is thus a “intellectual guide”, with whom the pupil would be from the start on one level. On the other hand, in spite of their scientism, the didacticians would remain prisoners of a romantic figure of the Master, like “Master with living”, being oneself. This design is indeed not entirely foreign with that of Mrs. Kledzig, didactician.

There is thus according to J. Baker slipped of thinking by oneself of thinking personally, then with clean and the opinion. The other party would have slipped to him of the universality of philosophizing with its Hypostase, out of reach pupils. There would not be thus in this impossible debate, expressed by J. Baker in the Kantian form of the Antinomie, but which also makes think of Hegel, “the avers and the back of the same medal”, the unit of the subject and knowledge, seized in dialectical curiously dedialectized and solidified. One will be able however to discuss the presentation of didactic like a block, from where reserves of F. Galichet. Are not there didactic scientistic and technocratic and a romantic pedagogy, clearly distinct in right? The latter claims to wake up, continues Boulanger, clean pupil, but that passes by fascination towards the professor. On the contrary, the intellectual guide is erased in front of the universal knowledge, but to reach it the imitation with the most school direction of the term supposes, which confines with the rite. Thus, the traditional professor would intimate to the pupil “imitates me if you want to learn how not to imitate me”, while the Master with living would blow to him “does not imitate me if you want to resemble to me”.

Thus, J. Baker concludes, if one surely should not scorn the questions of pedagogy, nor even “sciences of education”, it is necessary to keep this double illusion of the “educational reason”. Is this to say that it is necessary to teach while knowing that to teach is with the impossible rigor, like perhaps philosophy itself? That would certainly return back to back pedagogs and philosophers.

Which exercises in class of philosophy?

This skepticism is quite far away from the teaching optimism of Patrick Baranger and especially of Nicole Grataloup, and its panoply of new philosophical exercises. One cannot, for one as for the other, to superbly be unaware of what are the pupils in the name of the universality of the reason. One must seize what returns difficult or incomprehensible philosophy to them. The exhortation with problématiser remains in oneself inoperative. Confrontation between the opinions, through exercises, will be born an internal requirement from problematization, elucidation of presupposed, where the philosophical one would be already concerned. For example, known as NR. Grataloup, behind a party taken hiding place a certain design of the nature of the man, whom one can criticize only if it is exposed finally.

The danger would be undoubtedly to hope for these exercises a radical effectiveness, independently of any traditional philosophical culture, to even constitute these exercises in end in itself, because they are easier for the pupils than the essay and his conceptual dryness. Under pretext of facilitate the rupture, one would extremely be likely to bring back philosophy to ludic operations to perhaps limited range. It is undoubtedly not true that confrontation of the opinions is born spontaneously problematization, as notes it besides P. Baranger. The exercises must at least avoid consolidating the opinion, but precisely the lecture leaves intact the opinion, fault of clashing with it. NR. Grataloup insists on the fact that the spirit of the pupil is not a tabula even shaved, that it always has methods, very bad, in particular with the writing. It is necessary to relearn to him to connect the requirements and the direction, the language and the contents. It is thus necessary to invent exercises in connection with this unit, instead of multiplying the abstract instructions, as the “ do it; Annabac s ”. Perhaps admittedly, it will be answered, like Michel Serres, that all that one can await from a professor, it is that it states that should not be done, and who corresponds to these bad become inveterate methods, which have of another raison d'être only to allow the economy of the thought and freedom.

Work more properly critical is undoubtedly easiest, but the pupils tend to caricature philosophy like a sterile company of demolition. Thus they generally read Descartes, for example. To clarify presupposed mechanically does not make it possible to choose, but to only choose with full knowledge of the facts. One can call upon on this point max Weber. This work can thus be only preparatory. To let be expressed the written opinion does not contain the danger to lock up the pupil in a narcissistic kindness, considers Baranger in answer to a question of J. Baker, because it is only the first stage of a device which will be spread out over the whole year. It is not a question to make accept the pupil who he philosophizes already, but only to lead it to philosophize by rupture, but also by “joining” with its representations.

It would not be used for nothing, according to him, to run up against face the representations of the pupil, if not to direct it, nor to request it to rest on opinions, which it cannot include/understand from the start. The representation moreover is invested “affectivement”; for the pupil of modest milieu, to philosophize it according to NR. Grataloup a rupture with his/her parents is, almost a treason. The question is summarized by Baranger in the formula “how to make with going against”. It is necessary to confront the representations of the pupil with their inefficiency, while at the same time the pupil develops strategies to protect their core from very contradicted practical. These representation belong to certain general types, which facilitates the task of the teacher of course.

The reference obliged to the practice does not have as a consequence, fortunately, to restrict the field of the interrogation to the everyday life. Baranger notes that information allows sometimes, but seldom, to overcome the representation of the pupil. More often, it should “be put to the test of reality”, or rather, is corrected it, with problems, more or less theoretical, for which it does not function any more. In the fact, most difficult is often for the pupil to distinguish what in its experiment is essential and what is contingent detail. This experiment is from the start plunged in interpretation; still it is necessary that the pupil tests the need to go further, when the opinion seems to be sufficed for itself to the fact even to its approximation. In releasing does presupposed put to us on one level with philosophy? That is not undoubtedly done without necessary artifices.

Confrontation from other points of view is not enough, it should not especially lead to the relativism or dogmatism, which supposes the intervention of the teacher at the very least. There thus is not there, or there, of myth of “emergence” or romanticism of the rich person immediacy of the life, if not like heritage well surmounted and integrated. Jean-Luc Nancy will briefly point out that the professor must incarnate objectivity. Baranger considers that since the philosophical rupture is destabilizing, the framework of the class owes, by contrast, solid being. The knowledge is a value, the group, a support, the professor, a guide in which one has confidence. These frameworks, in particular the figure of the teacher, must thus escape the questioning finally; all could not be philosophical in a course of philosophy, which leaves a place for properly teaching aspects, that against a certain idealism, however preserving, course of philosophy.

P. Baranger associates rupture and joining, “reconstitution carefully” of the representations of the pupil. In does fact, how take place the subsumption of the philosophèmes to the vision of the world of the pupil? The finally psychological prospect for Baranger obliges to raise the question in these terms. To require more, one radical conversion with philosophy, can underlie certain speeches well, but remains at the very least unrealistic. Baranger notes by understatement that the result obtained will be only seldom a total purging of the representation. To want isn't the purity of philosophy, to reduce it to an object of purely school use? Can't one however defend the idea that the duration of the course, even of the duty, has as a function to make a digression, one méditatif Sunday of the existence? Nicole Grataloup insists on the training of the writing like training of the thought. Doesn't the writing make it possible the thought to develop in an autonomous way, of congédier, with the risk of the bad abstraction, the daily newspaper? Thus, NR. Grataloup speaks it about the amazement of the pupil in front of the unsuspected potentialities of the language, which it then any more does not treat like an instrument. Also she recommends poetic exercises. The drafting of dialogs or philosophical letters would vary the exercises and their attraction, at the same time as it would involve the pupil with the discussion, with the distinction of what is criticized and of criticism itself. To anticipate the objections will enable him to exceed the opinion, but also, will add us, not to be locked up in the plan stereotyped thesis-antithesis. The risk would undoubtedly be that the pupil opposes point of view to point of view, instead of releasing the insufficiencies of the criticized thesis. It is not at all sure, like the experiment undoubtedly shows it, that the pupil is ready to multiply the exercises when it knows that with the baccalaureat it will have to choose between a comment and two essays, especially if it sees the finality badly of what appears to him a play, not necessarily easy, and which it made forever.

The pupil tends rhétoriquement not to distinguish assumption, assertion, objection, refutation. These exercises have thus as an aim to bring it to a “polyphonic” writing, or it must continuously distinguish the various voices, without taking refuge inside the massive opposition of a thesis and of its opposite. Lastly, the evaluation of work will have to clarify the multiplicity of the requirements and competences, and to be not reduced to a total note.

As well the intervention of Baranger as that of NR. Grataloup seem to suppose middle-classes but of good will. However, one could not reduce the crisis to a question of cultural level, or even of “epistemological profile”. In this case, the professor would have finally only to make his trade. The attention with the writing is already more realistic, but this problem can be solved by some exercises, whereas it goes far beyond the class of philosophy? Especially what to make when the pupils are quite simply not ready to accept some rupture that it is, and not to reflect? When, as NR. Grataloup tells it, they compare philosophy to a “language of woman”? One will be able to hardly make disappear magiquement the difficulty from philosophy. Didn't NR. Grataloup begin its talk by recalling that the philosophical writing “it is difficult and not only for the pupils”? The exercises must clash with this difficulty, and not retract it. However this drift is traditional in all the “pedagogized” disciplines.

The language of the pupils is not that of the school, philosophy is with the height of this shift, note NR. Grataloup and Jean-Luc Nancy. It is not a question, says the first, to transform the professors of philosophy into professors of grammar, but more not to distinguish work from the language and work of the thought. Also will be necessary it to release the pupil of fear to write, to multiply the occasions to write differently, while disciplining the writing. Is one right to turn the back on the scholastic, in the name of a romantic design of the writing? Doesn't one substitute itself thus, according to a frequent temptation, with the French professor, as a listener made the remark with François Galichet of it? Can one hope to join by gradually philosophizing it there? It is true that there is many styles different of philosophical writing. Easiest to imitate is undoubtedly not the least technical seemingly. Henri Dilberman considered that the scholastic was precisely what is easiest to learn independently of a sociocultural luggage. This school aspect makes it possible the serious pupil to cling to something of definite, which it is enough to learn. Otherwise, doesn't one encourage the idleness of certain pupils of literary classes, which never exceed the level of a well written duty, but surface, it would contain forces imperfect subjunctive?

According to Jean-Luc Nancy, the immediate contact with philosophy, according to the proverb in media LMBO , would constitute best pedagogies. If not, will one come from there to invite the pupils to draw the cave of the Republic? However, can't one advise like Baranger to have jointly recourse to the two strategies, rupture and joining? Temptation to accompany the pupil by maternant it high risk to push back always further the awakening from the identity of philosophy, in what it has of less natural and society man. There is a way of accompanying the rupture which ends up asepticizing it, by refusal by concern. To refuse the academic forms should not either lead us to multiply exercises, school either by their dryness but by their false setting in account of immediate of the pupil, undoubtedly less infantile than the pedagog seems sometimes to imagine it. All is played, seemed it, in the passage of the teaching theory to the exercise. Continuity seems sometimes debatable.

The most interesting exercises are perhaps the dialog or the philosophical letter, because they do not claim enraciner in the immediacy, if not that of the external form, less school seemingly. From the start, they are on the ground of the concept, and even of the history of philosophy, since the example which Nicole Grataloup gives is that of the letter of a determinist with Descartes. As for the “card of method” accompanying the essay, it is likely to appear rather not very lighting for the corrector; admittedly, it will give the opportunity to him to correct in the most explicit way the stereotyped faults.

The exercises should thus be maintained in an atmosphere of thought, never not to call upon the concrete one for the concrete one, nor to reduce the concept to the example. They suppose a constant intervention of the professor not to transform itself into true caricatures. The fictional writing called upon by Galichet and Nicole Grataloup should not convince the pupil that to philosophize, it is to imagine, from where the stress laid by the latter on the critic of the myth thus forged by the pupil.

NR. Grataloup does not operate a radical criticism of the essay. To dissociate the formative aspect and the instrument of evaluation, as GREPH proposes it, could lead well besides to its burial in fact. Autonomous activity which invites to be prescribed its own tasks, it is a training of freedom. This requirement of autonomy must exclude any strictly guided work, which would reduce pedagogy to the désapprentissage. On the contrary, the pupil must become aware of the stakes of his work, which only return reason of its execution. Should it be concluded from it that the various exercises do not have an other virtue to only prepare with the essay and the comment? Obviously, the ambition is higher, it rather acts to propose exercises perhaps more accessible, less academic, but which would preserve this essential requirement of autonomy, contrary with the very significant resignation in the pedagogy of the majority of the other disciplines.

The report of crisis

Without attraction for the interrogation and the knowledge, but also without desire, even school, of progress, without a minimum of respect for the institution or the culture, any pedagogy will undoubtedly be vain. Admittedly, Jean-Luc Nancy considers that the situation is less serious than five years ago, when it was waited until the occasion to remove the teaching of philosophy into final. It will be added that pupils evolved to more open-minded, less fascinated than were not their elder by the material signs of success. The absence even of prospects always does not bring to the rejection of a discipline whose existential character, even of social and political criticism, is obvious. These is precisely these aspects that Mrs. Kledzig or François Galichet privileged, in a different way. In the name of many misunderstandings, the company would turn to the philosophers, from where the inflation of meaning “philosophy”. That does not withdraw anything with pessimism Jean-Luc Nancy, since it turns to the prospects for the teaching of philosophy, into final but also at the university. Beatrice Normand, while carrying out the reading of the instructions of 1925, written by De Monzie, had deeply questioned the possibility even of the teaching of philosophy in the current classes, particularly in the final techniques.

In 1925, the minister Anatole de Monzie, the very reasonable adversary of the ebullient pedagog Célestin Freinet, made former acquisitions the condition of the course of philosophy. Temptation is large now to want to introduce philosophy upstream in the name of the gaps of the teaching of the other disciplines, or in the name of its reflexive specificity, like does it the GREPH. In fact, can one be satisfied to ratify the change of public, the great number it is necessarily synonymous with lowering of the level, and why? In Germany, like had developed it Mrs. Kledzig, the teaching of philosophy is not confined in last year.

For Mrs. Normand, the current pupil is not ready any more to authorize attention, to agree to reflect, to learn. He wants at most to make a success of his duty with the baccalaureat, from where the massive recourse to the “annabacs”. He awaits a course which is immediately usable accordingly, he renâcle to be learned regularly, foreigner with any maturation. NR. Grataloup saw in the school itself an obstacle with philosophy, because in the other disciplines the requirement of autonomy was turned “pedagogically” by the recourse to entirely directing and guided work. Mathematics is seen reduced with a work of application of known formulas. The pupil does not have to wonder any more what it has to do nor why. It is in philosophy that the question re-appears, but in the form “philosophy, that is not used for nothing”, formula, also points out Mrs. Normand, recurring in the parents of pupils. Here is in any case an angle of attack pedagogically interesting, but risky.

The question of why philosophy was besides in the center of exposed of Mrs. Kledzig, because it is about a discipline lately introduced into the German secondary. A listener evokes the success of this new option to the Denmark, or it is in competition with the economy and the data processing, of which the pupils do not discuss the utility in general. The romantic image of the discipline would explain this wonder. Why, then, the discipline it does not have also this image in France, or why, if not, this image it remains inoperative, except perhaps at certain pupils of literary classes?

Jean-Luc Nancy, like Nicole Grataloup, insists on the obstacle of the language in class of philosophy. He recalls that, in the Années 1960, the French professors converted their teaching into direction of the spoken language by the pupils. Contrary, the variation would have increased in class of philosophy, and not only because of the pupils or of the gaps of the teaching of French.

Thus, Jean-Luc Nancy decentres the debate towards the evolution of the teacher of philosophy of the secondary. According to its own experience of pupil in the Years 1950, the professors of philosophy then were much specialized in history of philosophy and metaphysics. Their culture remained very impregnated psychology of Pradines or Piaget. The opening to the Germans, the Marxism, Sartre or even to structuralism would have resulted in privileging, according to the expression of Dilberman, “philosophizing philosophy”.

Isn't it there too about a “schooling” of the discipline, which goes enough in the direction of the Bouveresse-Derrida report/ratio, so at least this technicisation of philosophy was maintained in more reasonable terminals? There is not jointly, as the interventions illustrated it enough, a tendency to maieutic and the dialog, the return to concrete, than Marx, Sartre, or phenomenology inaugurated, even in unrecognizable forms for the average pupil? Is it thus necessary to turn pedagogy towards the scholastic, even official philosophy, or on the contrary towards the praxis, even the romanticism? It is at the very least curious that nobody evoked before Jean-Luc Nancy the conclusions of Bouveresse and Derrida.

While the professors of college approach those of university, contrary the students bring closer to the last year secondary school students, with the additional handicap of a historical culture very badly comparable. What to make, request Jean-Luc Nancy, of these people who make only philosophy and who cannot however make some? One cannot any more, at the university in any case, all to bring back to the only reflexive and critical dimension. With the college as in faculty, the philosophical requirement is beaten in breach by the “imbalance of general training”. With the baccalaureat as with the aggregation, the candidates appear unable to read the texts which are subjected to them, so much the register of language is strange for them.

In Province especially, the best students escape the Université. It is the question even of the finality of the latter which is concerned, as well as very French division between university course and the die of the universities. The training in preparatory class is too school, while it is slackened too much in university. It is particularly the year of control which reveals “what was engaged as of the final one and beyond”, in particular a lack of “rhetoric to the good sense of the term”.

In answer to a question of Beatrice Normand, Jean-Luc Nancy explains that the general request for philosophy is not certainly in the technical colleges, in particular classes, but rather in the company and the company, in the search of reference mark, or of a more practical or human glance, in any case less technical, from where appearance of philosophical consultants of company, or of cabinets of philosophy. In parallel, the escape towards teaching brings many candidates to the contests. The students of philosophy increased by 50% in first year in Strasbourg, which is “monstrueusement too”. Optics is sometimes of monnayer a license of philosophy against a post of nurse.

That does not change anything with cultural imbalance in the beginning crisis teaching discipline, the more so as any exercise or change of program causes the rejection of the profession, as the reactions to the report/ratio of Bouveresse and Derrida show it.

Conclusion

It is not finally question of giving up the philosophical requirement. Even if one proposes of it a more prosaic image and less history, all insist on its critical dimension and its rational rigor. It is to make pass this requirement which poses problem, in particular on the register. One cannot hope any more that the pupil easily crosses the obstacle of the strangeness of the philosophical speech, including under his surface aspects. It is thus necessary to give in honor the maieutic one, without yielding to the facilities of a fictitious equality of the Master and pupil. The multiplication of the exercises should not especially make lose sight of the fact the requirement of philosophy, nor to scramble its identity, already quite difficult to appreciate.

However, the professor of Philosophie cannot be pressed on contents with the banal direction of the term. Its step is not either in the air of time, it really does not form part of the prolongation of the natural attitude. If one leaves the opinion, it can be only to criticize it, to even make him say what she does not want to say, namely to identify its presupposed. Admittedly, the gap between opinion and philosophical culture are perhaps less large sometimes, which is finally affirmed by NR. Grataloup, especially if one reduces philosophy to his éthico-existential aspects. However, this continuity, even dialectical, isn't it mainly mythical? Doesn't one introduce into the interpretation of the concepts which originate in the language, or the historical culture, but not the implicit structure of lived of the pupil? On the elementary level of the pupil, one cannot proceed all the same by eidetic variation. To refuse any scholastic seem not very practicable, to claim that it is the pupil who finds itself these instruments, by reflection or creative use of the language, confines with mystification. There is thus well a certain jump, for which the maieutic one reveals the need, but that it cannot let make with the pupil, conceived at least like virgin of any knowledge and having only representations. When it is really the case, the course of philosophy deserves its name with difficulty.

The most school aspects have at least the merit to confer a framework, even certain historical contents with the course; it is undoubtedly not true that their value stops there. Interrogation and culture are by no means antagonistic, it would be vain to be delighted to have very natural pupils, even if this paradoxical naturality is that of the post-industrial company. Admittedly, nobody did it, so much the difficulties are obvious for the teacher. Doesn't this temptation exist, however, since one thinks to be able all to draw from the pupil, even dialectically, of its alive activity, where direction and work coincide without any abstract and technical mediation, as at Bergson the act seeing produced the body of the sight?

In fact, the pupils make history of philosophy spontaneously, by recopying force handbooks, in general in a completely moved way. That is perhaps related to the strangeness for them course, which leads them to want to reproduce this strangeness, this distinguished shift. In this direction, to divert them, not towards the immediacy, but towards the alive questioning is indeed the first thing. This questioning will not become relevant independently of any historical culture. According to Baranger, most difficult to obtain, they are precisely problematized duties. The culture is quickly reduced by the pupil to a whole of various opinions. The pupil can put well questions, but not problems. Can one then make or not the saving in examples, traditional, philosophical or not, of problems, and ask him to start with most difficult? Actually, one will guide it by the hand in this development, very faithful in that to Socrate and Ménon.

That the course of philosophy does not produce philosophers in only one year is not astonishing. In concluding that the work of the teacher was vain is not essential, as perhaps the memories and the regrets of the former students show it. In spite of the “endemic plague” of the baccalaureat, according to the expression of Antoine Augustin Cournot taken again by the GREPH, there undoubtedly remains about it a certain distance, sometimes thought, with respect to the obvious merchants.

Internal bonds

Philosophy for the children
Matthew Lipman
Michel Tozzi
Michel Sasseville

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