The staged cage? Education, reality, and "illusions" of freedom: a dialogue

Inspired by the wit and artistry displayed by Paul Feyerabend in Three Dialogues on Knowledge (1991), this chapter is presented in a dialogue format in which the three interlocutors participate in a hypothetical conversation on the concepts of reality, education, and freedom. Central to this conversation is the model of a staged representation of reality, used perhaps unconsciously by both artists and scientists, that Feyerabend introduces in Conquest of Abundance (1999). Using the backdrop of contemporary political unrest as a tinderbox, the speakers begin with a discussion on Feyerabend’s stage model, before embarking on a journey to consider how this could relate to education and, furthermore, how it might tie in with notions of freedom and what a free society might look like, if such a thing could exist at all.