The pedagogical-educational function of space: an analysis from Peter Sloterdijk’s geometric vitalism

Abstract

According to the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk, insulation and climatization are primarily symbolic as well as technical attempts that enable humans to build refuges from a disorienting, uncanny outwardness. The implicit model that orients the technical production of spaces is the uterine space. According to Sloterdijk, the first form of individual formation and the first inhabiting experience take place for humans in the protective shell that is the mother’s womb. In pedagogical terms, it is not possible to bypass an interpretation of the “‘spatial’ phenomenographies and phenomenologies” (Gennari). In fact, education occurs within an educational space that is such to the extent that it helps to build up the ability of the subject to dwell and seek out other worlds.
Simultaneously the pedagogical object and subject, the space is an educating materiality and a signification system. Starting from Sloterdijk’s spherology, which allows for a reactualization of the educational function of inhabiting space, an attempt will be made to inflect, sub specie educationis, the spatial ontology and the profile of the individual as a spatial and spatializing being.