Turning the gaze to the self and away from the self – Foucault and Weil on the matter of education as attention formation

Abstract

Through writings of Simone Weil and Michel Foucault, the article explores the notion of education as the formation of the attending and attentive subjects. Both writers have in different ways acknowledged the important relation between attention and the self. While Weil develops a spiritual form of attention, an attention which can be trained in any form of serious studying, aiming at dissolving the illusion of the self, Foucault understands attention as an important aspect in the Greek notion of the care of the self, which was developed outside of and due to the limitations of pedagogy aiming at a self-attentive self-formation. Both non-egotistic notions of attention address ethical and educational dimensions of human subjectivity. Foucault's notion is anti-institutional and Weil's notion is non-formative. As such, both perspectives inform educational thinking and practice by highlighting attention as a crucial aspect of both the active and the contemplative subject.

Teaching at the margin - Didaktik in the sphere of attention

“…In several discussions within the philosophy of education, the activity of paying attention is thought of as a relational mode of being in the world rather than as an inherent capacity of the subject. Different qualitative dimensions of attention -like caring (Noddings 1984(Noddings , 2010Stiegler 2010), listening (Todd 2003), waiting (Weil 1951(Weil /2012Tubbs 2005;Rytzler 2019), and curiosity (Lewis 2012) -help bring forth the practice of teaching, or rather specific teaching events or activities, as practices that bring about and form attention (Rytzler 2017(Rytzler , 2019. However, in these discussions the significance of the subject matter tend to be underdeveloped (Vlieghe and Zamojski 2019).…”

“…From a Didaktik-perspective, teaching can be seen as an orchestration of artificial life-experiences, where things in the world are re-introduced and presented within the confines of the classroom walls according to teacher's interpretation of the curriculum and the students' reception of this (Von Oettingen 2018). From philosophical perspectives on education teaching can be seen as a form of suspension in time, where a common and shared experience forms subjectivity and attention (Rytzler 2017(Rytzler , 2019, but also a public and a public interest (Masschelein and Simons 2013; Rancière 2010; Säfström 2014). As such, teaching is a place specific gathering, where time is slowed down in order for the students to encounter a complex world, filtered through specific interests and perspectives (Mollenhauer 2014).…”

“…Attention as a phenomenon is rather illusive, something that not only complicates the relation between attention and teaching, but also the way we understand the relation between humans and their surrounding world. In a teaching context, an imperative of attention, rather than being uttered, is enacted through the teacher's actions or the material the teacher points towards (Rytzler 2017(Rytzler , 2019. As such, it can be seen as an invitation to students to take their place in and to engage transformatively with the world (see Lewin 2014;Ergas 2015;Masschelein and Simons 2013).…”

“…Acknowledging the relational aspects of teaching and its role in the formation of attention, the article seeks to turn away from psychologically, behaviorally, and cognitively based (or biased) perspectives that frame attention as either an individual capacity of the student or an expected student behavior in the classroom (Rytzler 2017). It also seeks to contribute to discussions of philosophy of education, where questions about uniqueness, otherness and subjectivity are seen as aspects of attention (c.f., Ingold 2001;Todd 2003;Lewis 2012;Rytzler 2019). In the article is suggested that a phenomenological account of attention adds nuances to an educational understanding of attention, as it comes to life (or not) in the lived practice of teaching.…”

Sources and citizens: An essay in applied epistemology

“…Human attention and the formation of problems has philosophical pedigree. The selection of the objects of our attention may be a product of our governed mentality (Foucault, 2001(Foucault, : 1488(Foucault, -1490, economic and value system (Goodchild, 2007: 260), spirituality (Rytzler, 2019) or neuroses ( Zi zek, 2006). Questions that our sources persuade us to ask are not innocent.…”