THE CHALLENGE OF LEARNING TO STEP ‘OUTSIDE MYSELF’: MERLEAU-PONTY’S LECTURES ON CHILD PSYCHOLOGY AND PEDAGOGY AND THE ONTOLOGY OF EXISTENCE = ВИКЛИК НАВЧИТИСЯ ВИХОДИТИ «ЗА СЕБЕ»: ЛЕКЦІЇ МЕРЛО-ПОНТІ З ДИТЯЧОЇ ПСИХОЛОГІЇ І ПЕДАГОГІКИ ТА ОНТОЛОГІЇ ІСНУВАННЯ

Abstract

Established theoretical approaches aimed at understanding childhood and children have been challenged in recent years by posthumanist thinkers (Barad, 2007; Braidotti, 2013) who reject dichotomies such as mind/body; reason/emotions; human/non-human and postqualitative researchers who seek to decolonise the discourses of childhood (Murris, 2016). And yet, mainstream educational approaches continue to foreground developmental psychology and its child/adult dichotomy, grounded in the Cartesian ontology of separation (Bates, 2021). Cartesian ontology posits that mind and world are separate ‗substances‘ with essentially different ‗properties‘, which exist independently of each other. Individuals are viewed within Descartes‘ ontology as equally ‗atomised‘: separate from one another and from the world. Whilst Cartesian ontology of separation severs ‗inside‘ from ‗outside‘ to center the self-grounding mind located ‗inside‘ the atomised self, Merleau-Ponty‘s (2002) ontology of existence reminds me that I live from the start ‗outside myself‘, entangled in the world and others through relationships of mutual dependence. This paper draws on Merleau-Ponty‘s Lectures on Child Psychology and Pedagogy (CPP) to challenge ‗atomistic‘ theoretical and educational approaches to childhood.