Experiencing Change, Encountering the Unknown: An Education in ‘Negative Capability’ in Light of Buddhism and Levinas

Summary

The exploration of Theravada Buddhism and Levinas's philosophy highlights how concepts like impermanence, suffering, and non-self can inform an educational approach that embraces uncertainty. By integrating the practices of vipassana meditation and Levinas's ethics of alterity, a new ethical sensibility emerges that enhances our encounters with the world. This perspective fosters 'negative capability,' which can positively influence educational practices that inherently deal with change and uncertainty.

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Abstract

Levinas and Theravada Buddhism across and through their differences in order to rethink an education that is committed to 'negative capability' and the sensibility to uncertainty that this entails. In fleshing this out, I first explore Buddhist ideas of impermanence, suffering and non-self (anicca, dukkha, and anatta, respectively), known as the three marks of existence, from the perspective of Theravada Buddhism. I explore in particular vipassana meditation's insistence on openness to the transient nature of experience and self, and the notion of 'encounter' that is implied therein. I then interweave this with Levinas's notion of an ethics of alterity. I argue that taken in tandem, both provide the condition through which another kind of ethical sensibility can be developed-that is, one that is attuned to our encounters with the world. In conclusion, the article reflects on how this sensibility as 'negative capability' can re-inform an ethics of educational practices, which are by nature themselves necessarily involved with change and uncertainty.

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