A Reflection on Musical Experience as Existential Experience: An Ontological Turn

Competence as a Key Concept of Educational Theory: A Semiotic Point of View

“…As for the requirement of critics like Barnett and his followers (Dall'Alba and Barnacle, ; Pio and Varkøy, ) that education—even and especially higher education—should develop the whole personality, the authentic being of the students, we can learn from the theory of modal competence that education is inevitably just that. Always when we teach some knowledge or skill as a bare semantic competence, we at the same time unavoidably teach also to the student that she either can do that or she cannot; and that she knows how and why to do that, or that she does not know; and that she has to do that in some situation, or she does not have to; and most remarkably that she does or does not want to do that.…”

Saving Beauty in Music Education

“…In other words, we are facing basic conditions of our human lives: dependency, vulnerability, mortality, the fragility of relationships, and existential loneliness. In a culture of smoothness and positivity, everything that reminds us of these problematic existential aspects of human life is regarded as unwelcome, as a source of discomfort (Pio and Varkøy 2012). Thus, what awaits us in an existential musical experience requires that we put aside our culture's knee-jerk concealment of the essential human condition.…”

“…A kind of pedagogical banalization is occurring. Such a hegemonic reductionist discourse certainly marginalizes any idea about music experiences as existential experiences (Pio and Varkøy 2012) and any idea about aesthetic experience as critical reflection.…”

From the Ontology of Interaction to the Semiotics of Education

“…They all consider ontology extremely important to philosophy and also to practice of education, up to suggesting exactly the phrase "ontological turn" in their texts or even titles (Barnett, 2004;2009;Dall'Alba & Barnacle, 2007;Pio & Varkøy, 2012;Rømer, 2013). Common themes in these papers are: values and aims of education (Ibid, Bonnett, 2000;Brook, 2012;Kristjánsson, 2010), ontological commitments of educational research (Wegerif, 2008), and especially the concept of dialogue and its ontological bearings in education ( , 2012;Wegerif, 2008).…”

“…Common themes in these papers are: values and aims of education (Ibid, Bonnett, 2000;Brook, 2012;Kristjánsson, 2010), ontological commitments of educational research (Wegerif, 2008), and especially the concept of dialogue and its ontological bearings in education ( , 2012;Wegerif, 2008). A very strong shared influence is from Heideggerian phenomenological and existential ontology of human existence, being-in-the-world (Dall'Alba & Barnacle, 2007;Pio & Varkøy, 2012). Of course the orientations and arguments differ much in these approaches but the space does not permit doing justice to them by more detailed analysis.…”