Education and otherness: Passages from arlequim to pierrot

Abstract

The proposal of this article is to reflect upon education and otherness taking Michel Serres’s philosophy as background. Considering he is a philosopher of relations, Serres offers challenging and thought-provoking ideas for this article. Here, we consider that education is accomplished only in circumstances in which difference is truly welcomed, that is, difference, from this perspective, is a fundamental condition for every education act. In order to reflect upon education, so understood, the main reference of this article is Michel Serres’s Le tiers-instruit (translated into English as Troubadour of Knowledge), more precisely the prologue to that book, in which the author presents Harlequin’s story, who eventually becomes Pierrot. With Harlequin, Serres stimulates us to reflect upon the welcome to difference through multiplicity, cross-breeding, through that which is multicolour; features of a multifaceted character. However, the education process does not finish there. In the end, the results of many a mark, branded by several encounters, is the white sum, that is, Harlequin becomes Pierrot. It is in the change from Harlequin into Pierrot that education, as a relation with the otherness, becomes evident in Le tiers-instruit. This paper, thus, intends to reflect upon the conditions for a hospitable welcome to difference.