Egalitarian Education and the Skeptical Pedagogue: Jacques Rancière and Stanley Cavell on the Scene of Education

Abstract There are striking similarities between Jacques Rancière's treatment of the pedagogue in The Ignorant Schoolmaster (1991) and Stanley Cavell's treatment of the skeptical instructor in the second chapter of Conditions Handsome and Unhandsome (1990). In this article, I argue that this pairing highlights the ways in which both Rancière and Cavell approach the figure I call the skeptical pedagogue. They share the term “stultification” for the effect of this figure on the process of learning and teaching. Skepticism and the explanative method erode the student's capacity to show their intelligence and the teacher's willingness to perceive it. I also show that both Rancière and Cavell share an egalitarian ethos in their writing on education and aesthetics. Against the skeptical pedagogue's misleading foundationalism, the connection between Rancière and Cavell illuminates how the presupposition of equality enhances the context of education, focused not on a single proper starting point or a procedure of rule‐following but on acts of translation and creative intelligence. This article responds to key texts on Rancière and Cavell in educational theory and aesthetics and develops an account of practices such as rule‐following in judgment and communicability in aesthetic education. After describing the skeptical pedagogue and presenting an account of egalitarian education, I show how a distinctive conception of translation enables both Rancière and Cavell to describe ways for the student and teacher to go on together. I develop the connection between Rancière and Cavell and argue that they share a conception of egalitarian education that emphasizes what we owe to ourselves and each other as reasonable beings.