Work, education e epistemology in the “crisis of real capitalism”: an analysis of the “conditions of possibility” of the crítical theory in the face of the offensive of postmodernism

Abstract

This study discusses the emergence of postmodern approaches to education, trying to understand their attack on the critical “metanarratives” of modernity and their “pessimism” about the “human condition” and the “project of the Enlightenment” (Silva, 1996; 2002; 2003) in the context of the “crisis of real capitalism” (Frigotto, 2000). It understands and characterizes these approaches in the current social, epistemological and educational scenarios, highlighting their main assumptions, concepts and limitations. It invests, in particular, in analyzing the “conditions of possibility” of critical theories in education in the face of the onslaught of postmodernism. It concludes with the understanding that it is essential, in current times (social crisis and linguistic-pragmatic turn in philosophy), to revitalize and discuss “the conditions of possibility” of critical theory (a philosophical perspective that privileges categories such as: praxis, totality, movement, contradiction, mediation), as a matrix of analysis that prioritizes the tense and contradictory relationships between thought and action (praxis), work and education, society and education.