The Pathos of Knowing: Affectivity, Gnosticism, and Education
Keywords:
phenomenology, knowledge, affectivity, Gnosticism, educationAbstract
This article examines the phenomenology of knowing in the context of education by foregrounding affectivity as a constitutive dimension of knowledge. It diagnoses Gnosticism as a mode of knowing marked by affective detachment, in which abstraction and intellectual mastery are privileged over lived, embodied experience. In response, the article turns to phenomenology—particularly accounts of life and pathos—to clarify knowing as an immanent, affective activity grounded in being affected. It offers a conceptual diagnosis of gnostic tendencies in educational understandings of knowledge and reflects on their implications for conceiving education as a formative, affective, and embodied practice.
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