Debating Higher Education: Philosophical Perspectives13 Being and Becoming Through Education

This book focuses on the importance of an ontological dimension for today’s higher education, with critical attention to implications for the student experience, engagement, satisfaction, wellbeing, employability, (dis)embodiment and activism in which students take a stand on their own being and becoming. This book focuses on the importance of an ontological dimension for today’s higher education, with critical attention to implications for the student experience, engagement, satisfaction, wellbeing, employability, (dis)embodiment and activism in which students take a stand on their own being and becoming. In accessible language, key philosophical ideas are explored for their relevance to contemporary higher education, integrating philosophical with pedagogical perspectives. Although much of the material has been published previously, there is value in bringing it together into a single volume in exploring an ontological dimension of higher education as it is embodied. In doing so, the book demonstrates benefits to pedagogy through sustained attention to philosophy and theory, and vice versa, thereby contributing to recent heightened interest in the philosophy and theory of higher education. This book is intended to prompt re-imagining the ways in which higher education is conceived and conducted. An argument is put forward for greater emphasis on expanding possibilities for knowing, acting and being, toward fuller lives of interdependence with others and things in an interconnected world. Through highlighting an ontological dimension in this manner, a hope-filled future emerges for higher education.