The acceptance of limit and pain as a condition to learn from the experience in Dewey and Bion

Abstract

Re-reading some Dewey’s and Bion’s works, this paper will highlight the perspective that sees the metabolization of suffering as the itinerary that leads us to become fully human. In particular, for both authors the experience of the limit is fundamental for accessing the ability to learn from experience. In this regard some convergences between the two Authors will be highlighted, even in the great historical-cultural distance that separates them, including, in particular, the invitation to practice what Keats called the «negative capability» that allows paying attention to raw and animal sensations, to intuitions, to «unthinking thoughts», to destructured states of mind without saturating it with rational formalization, trusting that imagination, in Dewey, and the alpha function, in Bion, can metabolize and give shape to that primigenial experience for the benefit of learning from experience. It will be shown that such an unsaturated mental arrangement is very important in the educational field to allow for the development of an authentic ability to think.