Thinking with (and without) the tyranny of ‘knowing’: Dialogic methodology in educational philosophy

What it means ‘to know’ is a hotly debated yet ‘all-too-certain’ agenda in educational philosophy today. On one hand it is widely accepted that there are multiple routes to knowing, while on the other it is cast in curriculum and policy agendas that drive allegiance to monologic frames. Dialogic methodology provides a means of thinking with and beyond the tensions that are produced by advancing a series of philosophical interanimations with ‘other’ – through modes of thought, practice and axiologies that are located in time and space. Based on the philosophical legacy of M.M. Bakhtin, this paper sets forth a methodological route to advance ‘knowing’ as a creative dialogic event of in-between-ness, thus giving rise to important and persistent philosophical questions concerning representations of meaning and their lived ‘reality’ in dialogue. An argument is forged concerning the endless possibilities that exist for knowing ‘other’-wise and, importantly for understanding how certain tyrannies of knowing might be lived within and beyond current educational regimes of obedience. In creative contemplation of what it means to know in present and future educational landscapes, for whom and to what end, a series of alternative renderings are potentiated through this approach.