The educational fiction of agential control
Some preliminary notes on a pedagogy of ‘as if’
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8856363 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Johan Dahlbeck (0000-0003-1669-7132, Malmö University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 55 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 100-110 |
| Publication date | 2022-06-22 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Educational Philosophy and Theory (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0013-1857 • E-ISSN: 1469-5812 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/00131857.2022.2089978 |
| OpenAlex | W4283317837 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 12 |
This paper addresses the rift between the teacher’s sense of self as a causal agent and the experience of being in lack of control in the classroom, by way of Hans Vaihinger’s philosophy of ‘as if.’ It is argued that understanding agential control in terms of a valuable educational fiction—a practical (ethical) fiction in Vaihinger’s vocabulary—can offer a way of bridging this rift and can help teachers make sense of the tension between their felt need to strive for control and their experience of suffering from lack of control. A fiction, it is argued, is different from an illusion in that fictions can be affirmed without being believed. Unlike illusions, valuable fictions can be recognized as fictions and still retain some of their affective power over us, thereby allowing us to act ‘as if.’ In education, this is helpful as it means that we can make use of valuable fictions without assuming that these have to be protected from the critical gaze of non-believers. In fact, we can openly acknowledge that we rely on fictions as this is part and parcel of being a human being with a limited cognitive ability
Action (physics · Aesthetics · Cognition · Cognitive psychology · Control (management · Epistemology · Gaze · Illusion · Power (physics · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Computer Science · Educational Philosophies and Pedagogies · Philosophy · Philosophy, Ethics, and Existentialism · Pragmatism in Philosophy and Education · Psychology
| Citations per year | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Highly cited | No |