'We must learn to': the institutional essence of learning as an anthropocentric praxis following Heidegger

Abstract

This thesis begins from the belief that it is currently essential for us to relearn the essence of learning. To commence this task, this thesis works with the assumption that the essence of learning lies in the way learning can be ontological, changing the essence of what is, and instituting a new ‘what is’. This thesis is thus an attempt to take account of the radical constructivism that is the unavoidable anthropocentrism of such essential learning. The philosophical teachings of Martin Heidegger are brought to bear on this question concerning learning. This thesis suggests that on the one hand, the way in which Heidegger teaches, teaches us that learning is a process of instituting, a formative projection of necessities that metaleptically installs what is essential; on the other hand, what is thereby learned with and from Heidegger clarifies that this process of learning is a reflexively finitudinal praxis, a thingly effort that must be performed anew every time and can never be taken-as-finished. This means that the ‘freedom’ to change the essence of ‘what is’ by learning is never merely available to us because essential learning involves making-necessary in a sustained manner over-and-against what currently has been learnt-as-necessary, that is, ‘what presently is’. This thesis therefore learns that learning is an avowed act of willing, but one which cannot and must not be represented as a technical economy under the control of a humanist subject. The latter misrepresentations can in fact be understood as manifestations of the current withdrawal of essential learning. In the end, to try to capture what is being learned in this thesis, the process of essential learning is called ‘design’ as understood in relation to the current concern for sustainability