Paideia: Between the political and the politics of the imaginary institution of education

Abstract

The article aims to elucidate what the institution of education is, from the work of Cornelius Castoriadis, and how it relates to politics as an activity and the political as an exercise. Starting from the premise that education has politics and the political as intrinsic characteristics. Thus, a following link is established between its more elaborate forms, the institution of paideia and the institution of power. This admits to presenting education as the way in which paideia, culture is transmitted; synonymous with society, that is, the set of values that support that society. These values include doing, saying, thinking with those that are manufactured to the individual himself, an individual who in turn does, says and thinks to that society, without falling into reductionism or determinism. For in addition to the latent and visible explicit power, there is infra-power as a generator of new social forms, new social institutions. Therefore, the relevance of recovering the reflection on the purpose, functionality and necessity of paideia as a human creation that empowers both the human psyche and the anonymous collective.