Posthuman Education and Learning Collectives

How can meaningful human agency, equality, and learning be sustained in a world increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence, distributed cognition, human enhancement technologies, and digital networks?We expect modern education to simultaneously cultivate autonomous, self-determining individuals and serve broader social goals such as economic growth, efficiency, welfare, and productivity. Emerging technologies and new forms of distributed cognition intensify this tension, challenging traditional assumptions about agency, knowledge, and learning.Rather than viewing these developments as threats, David Edward Rose argues that they create opportunities for more democratic and cooperative forms of education. Drawing on philosophy, social theory, and critical educational thought, Rose investigates how collective learning practices and distributed cognitive networks can foster new forms of agency that are neither strictly individualistic nor subordinated to market imperatives.This book develops a vision of education grounded in cooperation, shared intelligence, and equal moral respect. It argues that human flourishing depends not simply on technological innovation but on the institutional and social arrangements through which technology is organized and deployed. By rethinking the relationship between learners, technologies, and social institutions, the book proposes new humanisms capable of responding to posthuman and postmodern critiques of the modern subject.