Disputation Ingrid Andersson

Avhandlingstitel

"Avoiding Reductionism in Posthumanism: The Significance of Subjectivity, Thinking, and Origin Stories".

Opponent

Cecilia Ferm Almqvist, professor, Inst. för utbildningsvetenskap, Södertörns högskola.

Betygsnämndsledamöter

Anna-Lena Kempe, professor, Institutionen för pedagogik och didaktik, Stockholms universitet.

Johannes Rytzler, docent, Inst. för utbildningsvetenskap och konst, Mälardalens universitet.

Ulf Mellström, professor, Centrum för genusforskning, Karlstad universitet.

Suppleant

Hillevi Lenz-Taguch, professor, Barn- och ungdomsvetenskapliga institutionen, Stockholms universitet.

Ordförande

Max Scheja, professor, Institutionen för pedagogik och didaktik, Stockholms universitet.

Handledare

Klas Roth, professor, Institutionen för pedagogik och didaktik, Stockholms universitet.

Andra handledare

Karin Gunnarsson, docent, Institutionen för pedagogik och didaktik, Stockholms universitet.

Avhandlingsbeskrivning

This thesis argues for the integration of a human subjective dimension within posthuman theory and philosophy, particularly in conjunction with educational theory and practice. The thesis consists of three articles, each centered around a principal concept relevant to the overarching inquiry: the significance of subjectivity, thinking, and origin stories.

In the first article, I examine the notion of subjectivity and its transformation within the framework of posthumanism, proposing that an expanded conception is necessary—one in which the thinking subject incorporates the “materiality” emphasized by posthumanist perspectives. Drawing on the scholarship of Katherine Hayles, I demonstrate that while cognitive capacities depend on foundational mechanisms, the interplay between these mechanisms and subjective experience necessitates an exploration of distinct levels of abstraction and agency. While this aligns with key objectives of posthumanism, I contend that the interplay needs to be further concretized to be both philosophically and educationally relevant.

The second article centers around the concept of thinking as meditated on by philosophers Hannah Arendt and Gilles Deleuze. Their understanding of thinking bears many similarities as well as differences, and the tension between these is from where I construct a broad definition of thinking that entails imagination, meaning-making, judgment, common sense, abstraction of patterns, and action. Thinking thus becomes a multilayered dimension in which different components can be activated at different times, sometimes overlapping and sometimes not. The definition of thinking that I construct based on the joint reading of Arendt and Deleuze is a continuation of my understanding of a vibrant posthuman subject that interacts as much with itself as with the surrounding world. While posthumanism focuses mostly on the importance of a subject-independent surrounding world, I argue that the active subject, as worldly, is the locus for educational change.

In the third article, I consult the philosophy of Sylvia Wynter and center the discussion around my key concept of origin stories. Telling stories about ourselves and surrounding communities drawn from different kinds of presumed origins is a human activity conditioned by our biological architecture and sociogeny. The demarcation line between these is mainly analytical to better argue for the interplay between them. I propose that it is in the mentioned interplay that we find avenues for change pertaining to our innate inclination to categorize people and other entities in a hierarchical fashion.

Together, the three articles flesh out a philosophical-educational approach equipped to take on problems with in-built hierarchical taxonomies regarding people, nature, and technology. I demonstrate how the approach can be utilized by the examples of AI, data-driven methods in education, critical thinking and cultivation of judgment, and biological-racist views drawn from presumed origins.