The unknowable other and ethics of ungraspability: Education through the irrational.

AbstractThe insistence on knowledge accumulation in modern educational discourses has led to the formation of exclusive dichotomies in various forms, most tangibly observable in the division of people into ‘knowledgeable’ and ‘unknowledgeable’. What underlies this dichotomy is a conception of rationality based on which knowledge is seen as an ‘instrument’ which must necessarily result in a usable, profitable <italic>product</italic>. From a Levinasian perspective, the latter situation inevitably, if not purposefully, leads to the formation of the Other being located at the side of irrationality, hence an unnecessary entity within the knowledge economy. Analysing Werner Herzog’s film, <italic>The Enigma of Kasper Hauser’</italic>s (1974), this paper aims to show how irrationality, contrary to the belief of dominant educational/pedagogical discourses, can act as a source for creative thinking. The paper argues that by accepting the Other as the unknowable, we allow them to resort to their singularity as a source for imaginative thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]