Learning as Mediated Desire
René Girard and the Anthropological Foundations of Educational Theory
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22045495 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Gino Casale (0000-0003-2780-241X, University of Wuppertal, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 16 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 924 |
| Publication date | 2026-06-10 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Education Sciences (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2227-7102 • E-ISSN: 2227-7102 |
| Publisher | MDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT) |
| DOI | 10.3390/educsci16060924 |
| OpenAlex | W7164402876 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 28 |
Despite a century of learning research, why human beings desire to learn remains theoretically unresolved. Behaviorist, cognitivist, and constructivist paradigms explain the mechanisms of learning but presuppose rather than account for its motivational genesis—a gap this paper terms motivational minimalism. Drawing on René Girard’s mimetic anthropology, this paper develops Mimetic Learning Theory (MLT), grounded in philosophical anthropology (Plessner, Gehlen), hermeneutics (Rosa, Gadamer), and normative theory (Biesta, Honneth, Arendt). MLT reconceives learning as the reflective transformation of mediated desire. Humans do not merely copy actions but appropriate the desires of models who render knowledge, identity, and recognition worth striving for. Eight dominant learning paradigms are reread as partial articulations of this mimetic dynamic. Two novel constructs are introduced: mimetic load (the affective–cognitive tension from competing models of desire, complementing cognitive load theory) and zones of desire (a reformulation of Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development). MLT does not displace existing frameworks but re-grounds them in a shared anthropological logic—that learning begins not in the mind, but in the field of mediated desire
Cognition · Education theory · Experiential learning · Hermeneutics · Learning theory · Normative · Philosophy of education · Educational Philosophies and Pedagogies · Philosophy, Ethics, and Existentialism · Violence, Religion, and Philosophy
Identität - Verkörperung - Bildung
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The Big-fish–little-pond-effect Stands Up to Critical Scrutiny
Social Constructivist Perspectives on Teaching and Learning
Students' Need for Belonging in the School Community
Teacher enthusiasm
Imitation of Facial and Manual Gestures by Human Neonates
Risking Ourselves in Education
Rethinking Subjectification
Emancipation as subjectification. A critical realist reading of Biesta’s educational philosophy
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Clarifying the role of social comparison in the big-fish–little-pond effect (BFLPE)
Promoting early adolescents' achievement and peer relationships
Habitus Clivé and the Emotional Imprint of Social Mobility
Thinking with Bourdieu against Bourdieu
| Highly cited | No |
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