Be(com)ing Human: Semiosis and the Myth of Reason

by Andrew Stables

Educational theory is necessarily concerned with what it means to become human, 'becoming' implying a process of growth and change. In general, philosophy of education has tended to view childhood (defined as the period during which one is being educated) as preparation for a settled period as adult citizen, during which one's human nature is given its full expression. Traditionally, then, first we become human, then we are (fully) human. However, when we speak of ourselves as human, we do so in these two as a present species marker, and as a regulative ideal. Most literature focuses on the former sense; the present argument will focus on the latter. What, therefore, should be the grounds for a theory of the individual in society and the world that can best underpin approaches to social policy and education on the assumption that the human animal is always aspiring to fully human status that can never be attained? Central to the argument are the acknowledgment of the human as an open system and the concomitant acceptance of overlapping phenomenal worlds, whereby experience is shared but never exactly duplicated between sentient beings.

156 pages, Paperback

First published June 29, 2012

Reviews

[Sue Lyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a scholarly and timely book. It brings together many of the things I have been thinking about but not able to articulate. Anyone who thinks about what it means to be human should read it. Influenced by Peirce, Dewey, Saussure, Derrida, it is definitely a book for those interested in pragmatism. A helpful critique of analytic philosophy and useful discussion of the continental tradition. Stables rejects mind/body dualism. What I like best is his argument that life is not divided into 2 successive stages - becoming as a child and being as an adult. Stables argues that We are continual meaning makers and interpreters and always relational. He argues that if phenomenological worlds overlap there must be some overlap between the human and animal world. This part of his argument has the potential to change our relationship to the animal world.