Man in the metric grid: anthropological reduction and the ethical turn in educational assessment
S. N. Gamayunov
Tver State Technical University, Tver, Russia
Keywords: digital double, digital heteronomy, evaluative reductionism, face of the Other, hospitality, practice of recognition, society of control, act of subjective breakthrough, ethics of pedagogical attention
Abstract
Introduction. The spread of evaluative reductionism in higher education generates an anthropological crisis: the learner is increasingly reduced to a set of behavioral patterns subject to classification and optimization. The aim of this article is to reveal the anthropological foundations of this reduction and outline paths toward an ethics of pedagogical attention, in which the human being ceases to be an object of measurement and becomes a subject of joint judgment. Methodology. The theoretical foundation comprises Heidegger’s concept of Gestell (enframing), Deleuze’s “society of control”, Arendt’s “totalitarian thinking”, Levinas’s visage (face of the Other), and Derrida’s hospitality. The methodological apparatus includes phenomenological analysis, hermeneutic interpretation, and ethical reflection. A review of 2020-2025 literature shows that while Russian philosophical-pedagogical discourse has developed sustained criticism of educational digitalization, the anthropological foundations of this criticism remain insufficiently explored. Discussion. It is shown that reducing the learner to a “data point” constitutes a new form of heteronomy, where an external algorithm replaces the subject’s inner autonomy. Through Levinas’s visage and Derrida’s hospitality, the possibility of a practice of recognition that disrupts metric totality is substantiated. A distinction is proposed between two modes of pedagogical interaction: the “evaluative gaze”, which fixes deviations from the norm, and the “encounter”, in which the uniqueness of the other opens up. The temporal structure of the educational event is analyzed: the digital system operates exclusively in chronological time (chronos), leaving aside the moment of authentic insight (kairos). The limitations of Learning Analytics are critically examined as reproducing the positivist logic of reductionism and failing to capture the qualitative distinctiveness of educational experience. Conclusion. The study concludes that restoring the human dimension in assessment is imperative: a transition from fixing behavioral markers to an ethics of joint judgment, where the teacher acts as a witness to the act of subjective breakthrough. Prospects for further research in the anthropology of the educational event are outlined.
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