To be or to have?

That is the question for adult education

• Peter Jarvis University of Surrey
• Erkki Pekkinen

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33336/aik.96805

Abstract

The question put by the author relates to the fundamental nature of education and he goes on to examine it from existentialist premises. His basic argument is that education is about persons and their development, but that the nature of this age is about possession. ln clarifying the concepts of being and having, the author applies Erich Fromm’s analysis of these two forms of existence. According to the author, education is confronted by unresolved problems as it adopts the characteristics of contemporary society and rewards the having of knowledge rather than being and the higher levels of learning and human development.