The following text intends to interpret Alain Badiou’s theory of the subject from the perspective of philosophy of education and, more precisely, from the pedagogical theory presented by the philosopher Gert Biesta. His educational thinking will help us show that the philosophical education proposed by Badiou could be seen as an interruption of learning through truths. In our opinion, Badiou’s work offers us a means to understand education as a subjective process that disturbs learning insofar as it questions its individual, functional, mediating and efficient character. Our intent is not to enter the debate about the educational consequences that derive from Badiou’s fundamental theses, but rather to establish a conceptual framework from which one could debate with other contemporary pedagogical theories. The text begins by showing the extent to which Badiou’s work proposes a philosophical education that can be understood as a process of subjectification through truths. In order to do so, we will use secondary sources where his general theses are more clearly synthesized and made more accessible to those who are not experts in his work. We then present the fundamental theses on which Gert Biesta’s theory of education is grounded. Finally, by way of conclusion, we examine to what extent the notion of philosophical education as a process of subjectification through truths fits and complements Biesta’s pedagogical theory.
Keywords
- Alain Badiou
- philosophical education
- Gert Biesta
- subjectivation