The Church of Worship : an exegesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Art at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand

The Church of Worship is a cult-like religious hyperreality performance and net-based project that explores and negotiates the parallels between religious devotion and celebrity adoration demanded by popular culture. This thesis uses the postmodern semiotic concept of hyperreality through Jean Baudrillard’s simulation and simulacra, as it’s theoretical framework. The project also explores Persona as a method for exploring the parallels between celebrity and religious icons or the concept of the ‘Hero’. The outputs of the church of worship include; a digital space of worship, performances, literature, and a series of overly refined fine art photographs. This project uses humour, abjection, and consumer and pop-cultural critique as central modalities

Naturens ansikten

This paper explores the moral underpinnings of education for sustainable development by studying the humanization of nature in contemporary teaching materials. To this end, Spinoza’s and Freud’s naturalistic psychological accounts – suggesting, among other things, that the human psychological constitution tends to further a reversed sense of causality – are invoked as resources for explaining the image of nature as portrayed in education for sustainable development. It is argued that the examples looked at rely on two problematic assumptions: (1) that there exists a metaphysical gulf between humanity and nature, and (2) that natural forces, like humans, act intentionally and therefore appear to be motivated by an underlying, albeit seemingly unexplainable, sense of teleology. To conclude, the humanization of nature in education for sustainable development is taken to make for a potential democratic problem insofar as the image of nature may be conceived as a powerful instrument for governing the everyday lives of people. That is, being able to influence the humanized image of nature also implies having a degree of influence over the ways that people live

At the wake, or the return of metaphysics

We have all been told of the death of grand narratives. We have been told that the days of asking eternal metaphysical questions in philosophy are long since over. When Wittgenstein’s (1953/2009) famous spade hit bedrock it reminded us that we had better stop wasting our time on lofty questions without answers. Foucault (1970) prompted us to recall Borges’ story of a certain Chinese encyclopedia showing us that there are many ways of ordering the world and that each way changes the rules of the game a little bit. We found that history was contingent and that hierarchies, however firmly built, would all crumble in the end. In its place were the slightly disorienting feeling following the postmodernist’s proclamation of ‘the elusiveness of meaning and knowledge’ (Kirby, 2017). It turned out that the metaphysical questions of old were not so easily abandoned after all. While we might turn a blind eye to them we are still bound to them by our tacit presuppositions and they still tend to lurk in the shadow of our every endeavor to rethink the old. Educational philosophy is in need of a direction as it is always aimed at some kind of change. Metaphysical assumptions can provide us with a direction. If we assume a capacity of free will, education can achieve certain ends, and if we assume that free will is a myth then education needs to abandon certain claims and stake out new paths. Both assumptions may be valid but they will result in very different understandings of what education is and what it can achieve. While the door opened by the postmodern skepticism of eternal truths cannot be closed, it may be that we can benefit from acknowledging our need for addressing our most basic metaphysical assumptions without unlearning the lesson of postmodernism. Like Foucault’s encounter with the Chinese encyclopedia, we might find joy in revisiting the lost traditions of the past without assuming that they can salvage us from the perils of our future. The postmodern doubt not only shook things up, but it helped us see that we always rely on something, whether we know it or not. Rather than tear down the great structure of metaphysics once and for all, it helped reveal that the questions we ask always betray some kind of metaphysical assumption. Seeing this, we can return to the great metaphysical questions a little less innocent than before

Other Classrooms: Beyond the Disciplinary Spaces of the Past

The following thesis is at once a somewhat rudimentary attempt to relate the history of the classroom while describing the potential impact on the space of learning by the introduction of a new type of computer program into a school setting. It asks the question: how is the space of learning affected by the use of this specific type of computer program as an educational tool? In order to begin to formulate an answer to this question I have drawn upon the theorizing of Foucault and Deleuze in particular. Establishing the modern classroom as a relative of sorts to the disciplinary spaces of the past, I conclude that the means and practices by which pupils are being controlled within the space of learning have shifted from discipline being extorted exclusively by the teacher – who in turn is aided by the physical and temporal constraints of the classroom – to control being applied by each individual pupil through technologies of the self. This, in turn, led me to the conclusion that although there are certainly quite tangible effects on the space of learning itself, the actual mode of learning may very well be kept intact through techniques designed to control the behavior of the individual pupil beyond the disciplinary spaces of the past

Spinoza on the teaching of doctrines : towards a positive account of indoctrination

The purpose of this article is to add to the debate on the normative status and legitimacy of indoctrination in education by drawing on the political philosophy of Benedict Spinoza (1632–1677). More specifically, I will argue that Spinoza’s relational approach to knowledge formation and autonomy, in light of his understanding of the natural limitations of human cognition, provides us with valuable hints for staking out a more productive path ahead for the debate on indoctrination. This article combines an investigation into the early modern history of political ideas with a philosophical inquiry into a persistent conceptual problem residing at the heart of education. As such, the aim of the article is ultimately to offer an account of indoctrination less fraught with the dangers of epistemological and political idealism that often haunt rival conceptions

Education and the Free Will Problem : A Spinozist Contribution

In this Spinozist defence of the educational promotion of students’ autonomy I argue for a deterministic position where freedom of will is deemed unrealistic in the metaphysical sense, but important in the sense that it is an undeniable psychological fact. The paper is structured in three parts. The first part investigates the concept of autonomy from different philosophical points of view, looking especially at how education and autonomy intersect. The second part focuses on explicating the philosophical position of causal determinism and it seeks to open up a way to conceive of education for autonomy without relying on the notion of free will in a metaphysical sense. The concluding part attempts to outline a Spinozistic understanding of education for autonomy where autonomy is grounded in the student's acceptance and understanding of the necessary constraints of natural causation rather than processes of self-causation

On following commands and rewriting the rules : the tension between moral universalism and relational pedagogy in Swedish early childhood education

Research aims: In this study I investigate a perceived tension between reevaluating certain foundational claims on the one hand and following universal moral commands on the other. I ask the question, how is it that certain commonly held assumptions (about the nature of knowledge and knowledge formation) are being debunked and others (about ethics and the good life) left undisturbed in the context of contemporary Swedish early childhood education? Relationship to previous research works: this is original research unrelated to previous studies. Theoretical and conceptual framework: I study the conceptual preconditions necessary for making sense of the studied policy documents. Paradigm, methodology and methods: content analysis of Swedish ECE policy documents. Ethical considerations: none applicable. Main finding or discussion: the main findings include a detected incommensurability in the ontological and epistemological conditions of the studied policy documents. Implications, practice or policy: I suggest further discussions concerning the theoretical basis of Swedish ECE policy so as reconcile this perceived incommensurability. Keywords: relational pedagogy; moral universalism; Swedish ECE policy; foundational values; epistemology