E-Journal of Philosophy of Education:
International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 7, 2022

Can Chance be Tamed by Probabilistic Data?: On the
Ontological Weakness of Education
Hirotaka SUGITA
Hiroshima University
Abstract
Gert Biesta puts the “ontological weakness of education” opposed to “strong language,” which aims
to establish a strong and secure connectuion between educational inputs and outcomes that is the coreof data-driven approach to educational practices and policy-making. To deepen our understanding of
ontological weakness, this study examines the ontological significance of chance, which is seen as
something that can be controlled through strong language for maximizing effectiveness of education.
First, this study focues on Giorgio Agamben’s critique of the superimposition of the realm of
probability onto that of reality. In probablistic thinking, a certain real event then becomes the object ofprobabilistic calculation of why it occurred. The case is determined by causal consequences of various
possible cases, and that the world is being so while it could be otherwise (chance) is made calculable.
However, to replace and suspend real events with imagined possible cases and calculate theprobability of their actualization to reality is, as Agamben claims in reference to Wittgenstein's notionof cases, to lose connection with reality. Second, this study points out that the concept of probability
has historically belonged to the category of opinion, not knowledge. Given his theological perspectiveon the concept of probability, Pascal’s argument about the wager that God either exists or does notsuggests we should live believing in the existence of God, even though we are aware that we are
powerless before God, equal to nothing. Finally, Agamben’s remark about the irreparable in the
appendix to his The Coming Community are helpful to look at the world with wonder, without looking
for a necessary reason to be so or being disappointed that there is no reason to be so. Thus, howsubjectification occurs in education emphasized in Biesta’s argument should not be controlled, butseen as wonderful.
Keywords: Probablistic Thinking, Chance, Ontological Weakness of Education, Agamben, Case

Correspondence:
Hirotaka SUGITA, Hiroshima University. Email: hiro9525@hiroshima-u.ac.jp

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Introduction
Data-driven education or evidence-based education is a model in which statisticalcausal inference of large amounts of data is used to determine effective interventions.
Data is used as the material for producing evidence through statistical causal inference.
An individual's data is considered to be a case in a homogeneous set, a realization of oneof a variety of potential outcomes. Randomized controlled trials, in particular, aim togenerate counterfactuals through randomized sampling to probabilistically postulate
effective interventions.
However, is it reasonable to attempt to tame chance through data probabilization for
effective education? It is not enough to claim that educational relationships, which consistof mutually interpretive acts between teachers and students, are different from physicalmechanisms. Furhter, statistical causal inference only seeks to increase the probability ofintervention, not the certainty of it (Hacking, 1990). Taken together, we have theuncertainty of prediction; we can call this the uncertainty of knowing the effectiveness ofinterventions, or “the epistemological weakness of education.”
In contrast, Gert Biesta's critique relies on “the ontological weakness of education”(Biesta, 2010, p. 361). Biesta puts the “ontological weakness of education” opposed to“strong language,” which aims to establish a strong and secure connectuion between
educational inputs and outcomes based on evidence-based education and numericalmeasures of educational effectiveness. Biesta believes that the purpose of education since
the Enlightenment has been “subjectification.” The condition of becoming a subject, heargues, requires educators to allow their students to act in new ways as they respond to“the event of being taught” and “the event of being spoken or addressed by the other, thatis the world.” Having developed this ontology of education, Biesta calls it a beautiful risk
to dare to close one’s eyes to the evidence and bring incommensurability into theeducational environment (Biesta, 2017).
The point is that all these possibilities only become real when trust is given, when
we bring in this incommensurable element, something that is not based on any
knowledge or evidence and may even go against all the knowledge and evidence
we currently have. What is important from an educational point of view is that trust
precisely open us a “space” where the child or student encounters its freedom andwhere they need to figure out what to do with this freedom. (Biesta, 2017, p. 92)

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Biesta’s conception of ontological weakness as in making students subject isdifferent from the epistemological weakness argument that is similar to data-driven
education. However, Lewis (2013, 2018) claims that Biesta’s theory of being a subject
based on ontological weakness also assumes that students will eventually actualize thepossibility of being a subject. According to Lewis, neither progressivist pedagogy, which
critiques conventional education, nor Biesta’s concept of subjectification escapes the ideathat investment, along with standards and actualization entail measurability, in that theyseek to actualize the potentialities or capacities of children.
To deepen our understanding of ontological weakness, this study examines the
ontological significance of chance, which is seen as something that can be controlled
through strong language for maximizing effectiveness of education. Chance is whatallows one to move from the actualization of what is possible (could be) to what is thecase (fact), that has a sufficient reason as to why that is the case (must be), and it is whatfalls out of a strong language that aims for effective intervention.

1. Superimposition of the realm of reality with that of probability
Giorgio Agamben in “What is Real?” writes an interpretation of the physicist Ettore
Majorana’s disappearance as an attempt to awaken the illusion that probability represents
reality, to show that reality cannot be grasped by probability calculations.
Majorana seems to suggest that it is precisely the exclusively probabilistic characterof the phenomena at stake in quantum physics that authorizes the investigator’sintervention, that is, renders him capable of “commanding” the phenomenon itself
to move in a certain direction. (Agamben, 2018, p. 12-13)
What is at stake there is the superimposition of the realm of probability onto that ofreality. Probabilistic thinking calculates which of the various possible cases willprobabilistically actualize to reality. A certain real event then becomes the object ofprobabilistic calculation of why it occurred. But is it reasonable to treat the real event as
a probable case calculable in the realm of probability?
In addressing this question, Agamben takes up Simone Weil’s Sur la science where
the latter criticizes quantum physics and its probabilistic thinking (Agamben, 2018).
According to Weil (1966), classical science has tried to represent the truth of a world inwhich various events are continuously and necessarily determined. In contrast, in
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quantum physics, the world is considered as a discontinuity of atomic systems and should
be represented through the calculation of probabilities. As a result, the connection withreal events in the world is lost. From here, Agamben argues as follows. Calculating riskin the realm of possibility suspends the real world, and because it does so, it makes it
possible to intervene and govern the real world (superimposition of the realm of reality
with that of probability). However, to replace and suspend real events with imagined
possible cases and calculate the probability of their actualization to reality is to lose
connection with reality. What gets lost is the very wonder of what is happening.
Modern science – and every single human being with it – directs its decisions
according to a criterion that cannot directly refer to the case in question, but only a“probable case” that can coincide with the former only “randomly”. (Agamben,
2018, p. 32)
Agamben has Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (hereafter
abbreviated as Tractatus) in mind when he opposes the “probable case” to the “case” thatmodern science, which adopts probabilistic thinking, cannot directly refer to. In Tractatus,
which begins with the claim that “The world is everything that is the case (Die Welt ist
alles, was der Fall ist),” (Tractatus, §1) Wittgenstein denies that there is any value within
the world. The real events of the world (the cases) are what actually happens in the logicalspace, in situations that could be otherwise. However, Wittgenstein does not argue thevalue of the world that is the case; instead, the mystery is that it is as is, “Not how theworld is, is the mystical, but that it is.” (Tractatus, §6.44)
Probabilistic thinking makes it possible to calculate and account for why the worldis being so. Probabilistic thinking has a framework of thought that categorizes equally thecases that are possible (possibilities) and then calculates which of these probable cases
can be actualized to reality and why. The case is determined by causal consequences ofvarious possible cases, and that the world is being so while it could be otherwise (chance)
is made calculable. “What we call a ‘case’ is the fiction according to which the probableand the possible ‘fall’ into reality, while the opposite is true" (Agamben, 2018, p. 33).
However, can chance be tamed as something calculable?

2. Putting probability back into historical context
Before examining whether chance can be tamed as something calculable, let us put
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the concept of probability back into its historical context. The starting point for
probabilistic thinking is often said to be the analysis of the game of chance in Pascal’s
Pensées(1962). Agamben notes that hasard (luck) is used there, and probabilité(probability) is reserved for theology. According to Hacking (1984), “probability”
originally meant the acceptability of “opinion” as distinguished from “knowledge,” andthe reliability of opinion was based on the testimony of authoritative others. In the 17th
centry, “probability” came to mean the reading of the laws and probabilities of the worldin which God’s will was written.
McMyler (2011), who discusses the ontological significance of testimony in lightof this historical background, positions knowing something through testimony as being
relational and ethical, supported by authority and responsibility, as opposed to theepistemological tradition that has emphasized autonomy, where “knowledge” is ajustified and true belief that individuals attain by themselves. As long as testimony isconceptually classified as so, the speaker shares responsibility for the truth of the beliefs
held by the listener, and it is essential for the listener to find trustworthiness in the speaker.
If these conditions are met, as McMyler suggests, the speaker's telling should berecognized as evidence in a broad sense.
When we return to the historical context, we find that for Pascal, the problem of“chance” is related to the bet on the existence of God. According to Omoda (2018),
Pascal's point is that “human beings, who are in the middle of infinity and nothingness,
perceive the tremendous chaos or bottomless abyss that lies between infinity andnothingness, and yet turn their attention to the gamble that is made beyond the infinite,that is, the gamble as to whether God exists or not” (Omoda, 2018, p. 256). Pascal’sargument about the wager that God either exists or does not suggests we should live
believing in the existence of God, even though we are aware that we are “powerlessbefore God, equal to nothing” (Omoda, 2018, p. 255).1 If this is the case, chance is not
something that can be calculated based on probabilistic thinking. Pascal’s wager was
something that contributed to the decision to gamble in spite of the acknowledgement of
uncertainty (weakness) that could not be incorporated into knowledge.
1

The issues raised by Pascal’s wager were carried over into the debate between William Clifford and William James.
Clifford pointed out the problem of a shipowner who believes that a ship carrying immigrants will not be wreckedbased on their faith in God, stating that “(i)t is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone to believe anything on
insufficient evidence” (Clifford, 1877, p. 295). In contrast, James defends the rationality of religious faith, even whenit lacks sufficient evidence. Currently, for example, McCormick (2015) points out that the value of knowing the truth
on which “evidentialism” (Conee & Feldman, 2004; Shah, 2006) emphasizes, is only of ultimately pragmatic value
when the matter in question is related to the meaning of life. Then, McCormick says, believing something without
evidence or even against evidence can be justified if doing so is related to meaning of life.
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3. The necessarily contingent
Again, can we tame the wonder of chance encounters as something calculable? As
we have seen, Agamben cited the “case” in Tractatus as something missed by thesuperimposition of the realm of reality with the realm of probability. To elaborate thispoint, it is helpful to refer to the appendix of Agamben’s The Coming Community, “TheIrreparable”, a commentary on section 9 of Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time, as well
as section 6.44 of the Tractatus.
In the first half of The Coming Community, Agamben argues that “the punishmentof unbaptized children who die with no other fault than original sin… turns into a naturaljoy” (Agamben, 1993, p. 5). The meaning of their lives cannot be told under a narrative
within the realm of perdition and salvation. Hope is found in the irreparable light thatrains down on them.
By the word “irreparable,” Agamben means that “things are just as they are, in thisor that mode, consigned without remedy to their way of being.” (Agamben, 1993, p.90).
The fact (the case) that the world is thus and so, whether sad or joyful, unhappy or happy,
is irreparable. Even if we attempt to ponder why the world is like so, why it is necessary
for certain possibilities to actualize into reality, the mystery of it will never be intelligible.
Nevertheless, if confronted with the fact that it could be otherwise (chance), we posit any
power or (God’s) will behind it and try to explain the reason, value, and necessity of whythat case has come about.
Referring to the principle of sufficient reason, which states everything must have areason or cause to be, that is everything has reason to exist rather than be nothing,
Agamben put change or contingency, that is the possibility of not-being, into a new place
within necessity, that is impossibility of not-being.
Language opens the possibility of not-being, but at the same time it also opens astronger possibility: existence, that something is. What the principle properly says,
however, is that existence is not an inert fact, that a potius, a power inheres in it. But
this is not a potentiality to be that is opposed to a potentiality to not-be (who would
decide between these two?); it is a potentiality to not not-be. The contingent is not
simply the non-necessary, that which can not-be, but that which, being the thus,
being only its mode of being, is capable of the rather, can not not-be. (Being-thus is
not contingent; it is necessarily contingent. Nor is it necessary; it is contingently

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necessary.) (Agamben, 1993, p. 105)2
The case that things are as they are is of value neither because it has reason to berather than being nothing, nor because the potentiality of opposing the potentiality of notbeing has actualized to the case compared to when it is not actualized. If we focus on thevalue of existence only from the viewpoint of which possibilities of being have reason to
be actualized, there will be no way to talk about the meaning of the life of an infant who
has just been born and died. We tend to see what the case is as having some reason forbeing so, and talk about the reason or value of that existence in terms of actualization of
the potentially of being. Probabilistic thinking seeks to control or command which
possibilities of being has probable potentiality to actualize. The “necessarily contingent,”
that is the possibility of not not-being, is a conceptual device that suspends suchprobabilistic thinking. The following remarks from the last part of The Coming
Community suggest looking at the world with wonder, without looking for a necessary
reason to be so or being disappointed that there is no reason to be so.
Seeing something simply in its being-thus ----irreparable, but not for that reason
necessary; thus, but not for that reason contingent---- is love.
At the point you perceive the irreparability of the world, at that point it istranscendent.
How the world is ----that is outside the world. (Agamben, 1993, p. 106)Conclusion
When confronted with the fact that a case could have been otherwise, we tend to
2

The emphasis on “rather” here is connected to Bartleby's attitude of replying in Merville’s story, “I would prefer
not to,” when asked, “you will not?” According to Agamben, Bartleby is questioning the superiority of will overpotentiality. “Prefer not to” does not mean “refuse to do” what is asked of him (“nothing is further from him than theheroic pathos of negation” [Agamben, 1999, p. 256]), but it wedges the process that if one has the potentiality, one
should exercise one’s will and actualize it. Bartleby’s reply is an experiment in which potentiality follows theprinciple of sufficient reason. According to Agamben, Merville’s story can be formulated in a question of thefollowing form: “Under what conditions can something occur and (that is, at the same time) not occur, be true nomore than not be true?” Bartleby’s experiment without truth “concern[s] not the actual existence or nonexistence ofa thing but exclusively its potentiality. And potentiality, insofar as it can be or not be, is by definition withdrawn fromboth truth conditions and…the principle of contradiction.” (Agamben, 1999, p. 261) The position of potentiality isrelated to contingency in which a being can both be and not be. Agamben names such contingency de contingentia
absoluta (Agamben, 1999, p. 261) that suspend the actualization of potentiality of being true. From this contingency,
the fact that is the case is not being than nothing, but rather or no more than not be.
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seek the reason why it was the case. The case is taken as one of the “probable cases”
which are accounted as the data calculable through probabilistic thinking. Probabilistic
thinking seeks to command which possibilities of being has probable potentiality toactualize. A data-driven society accelerates superimposition of the realm of reality withthat of probability. The more the predictability of what happens, the more chance will betamed and contingency will be excluded form evidence-based policy making. However,as Agamben bases “the case” in the sense of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus by focusing on thenecessarily contingent, it is possible to see with wonder how things are as they are.
It is in this context that “the ontological weakness of education” should be read.
According to Biesta, the condition of becoming a subject requires educators to allow theirstudents to act in new ways as they respond to others. Yet, for Biesta, it is why teaching
is not a constraint of freedom for students who are being subject, and cannot and ought
not be controlled. Subjectification does not lead to a tendency to actualize the possibilityof being a subject. That students arise as being subject may by contingent. However, thatis neither the actualized possible case nor the data calculable by probabilistic thinking.

Acknowledgments
This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI (Grant Numbers JP17K04546,
JP20H01638, and JP21H00819).

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E-Journal of Philosophy of Education: International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 7, 2022