PREreview of The Future of Schooling: Pansophia, Accelerationism, and the Drift of Knowledge in Technocapitalism

The article offers an stimulating and relevant analytical proposal for the fields of educational history and theory by situating modern schooling within the long pansophic tradition and questioning its naturalization as the almost exclusive form of organizing knowledge. The historical reconstruction of the articulation between pansophia, school, and state is solid and contributes to understanding how the Enlightenment promise of universal access to knowledge was institutionally captured, becoming a technology of ordering, control, and hierarchy. Indeed, interpreting the persistence of schooling as a symptom of historical exhaustion rather than merely a problem of effectiveness constitutes an important and timely theoretical contribution.

The appropriation of Deleuze and Guattari’s framework is also, as far as I can see, pertinent and productive. Concepts such as deterritorialization, lines of flight, and the critique of project-based logic support the author’s refusal to propose normative alternative models and reinforce the intention to redirect attention toward emerging, unplanned, and non-institutionalized processes of knowledge circulation. In this sense, the philosophical framework is aligned with the architecture of the argument and strengthens the critique of the rigidity of modern pedagogical tradition.

However, it is precisely the consistency of this theoretical choice that makes certain tensions within the text more visible. The treatment of pansophia oscillates between its critique as a modern fiction captured by the school dispositif and its revalorization as a persistent, (almost) ontological force that lingers in history, manifests itself in contemporary forms of knowledge circulation. Moreover, although the author mobilizes Deleuze and Guattari to sustain indeterminacy and the refusal of project-based thinking, the same theoretical framework might allow a richer exploration of the “cracks” as historically situated spaces, traversed by material conditions, unequal access, and concrete cultural mediations, in which real subjects could envision differentiated existential possibilities.

In this regard, the very pertinence of the theoretical apparatus mobilized gives rise to questions that remain open in the text (or, are triggered by it): if lines of flight and assemblages do not emerge in a kind of vacuum, but in socially determined contexts, would it be possible to advance the analysis of these mediations without falling back into the normative logic under critique? And, within this scenario, what remains the place of knowledge—not as school curriculum, but as an effective element in the constitution of modes of life? These questions point to directions for theoretical deepening and reinforce the article’s potential as a meaningful provocation within contemporary educational debate.

Conflitos de interesse

O autor declara que não possui conflitos de interesse.

Uso de Inteligência Artificial (IA)

The author declares that they did not use generative AI to come up with new ideas for their review.