about science and education - Nietzsche

“The study of science has been extended to such interminable lengths that he who, though not exceptionally gifted, yet possesses fair abilities, will need to devote himself exclusively to one branch and ignore all others if he ever wish to achieve anything in his work. Should he then elevate himself above the herd by means of his specialty, he still remains one of them in regard to all else, - that is to say, in regard to all the most important things in life. Thus, a specialist in science gets to resemble so much as a factory workman who spends his whole life in turning one particular screw or handle on a certain instrument or machine, at which occupation he acquires the most consummate skill." (1)

Science that focuses on specialization which is the result of a capitalist conception of education, has not enough impact on society. As a corollary a crisis of meaning surfaces. So what should a meaningful education actually be? According to Nietzsche, it must be radically oppositional and avoid both the desire for a teaching teacher and the arrogance of the self-educated. Each student must become aware of his own wants and misery, of his own limitations. Through such agonizing questioning, the follies and ineptitudes of the individual, and therefore of the age, must become known. For Nietzsche, the meaning of education is defined in opposition to almost everything that constituted education in his time. A Nietzschean education is meaningful only insofar as we constitute education in order to "educate ourselves against our age". Today, we are at a stage that we need to rethink our education system and classrooms for an era when classrooms are no empty.(2)

(1) Nietzsche, F. (1910). On the future of our educational institutions (JM Kennedy, Trans.). Edinburgh: TN Foulis.

(2) Allen, A. (2017). Awaiting education: Friedrich Nietzsche on the future of our educational institutions. Philosophical Inquiry in Education, 24(3), 197-210.