Institutional and epistemological conditions for a transition to the paradigm of questioning the world

Résumé

This article examines the institutional and epistemological conditions for a transition from the paradigm of visiting works to the paradigm of questioning the world within educational institutions, particularly in secondary and tertiary education. Anchored in the Anthropological Theory of the Didactic, the analysis conceives paradigms as tacit social contracts that govern human activity and investigates how didactic systems evolve through changes in the relations between teachers, students, and knowledge. The discussion traces the historical development of successive variants of the first paradigm—centered on the study of pre-established works—toward the emergence of the second paradigm, characterized by collective inquiry into generating questions. Central to this transition are the notions of adidacticity, milieu, and definalization, which enable a shift from prescribed exercises to the genuine study of questions. Through examples such as study and research activities and study and research paths, the paper analyzes the dialectic of didactization and adidactization, the construction of the milieu, and the evolving topogenesis of teachers and students. The article concludes by identifying epistemological attitudes required of teachers and learners to engage in education as a process of questioning the world—problematizing, Herbartian, procognitive, exoteric, and encyclopedic—thereby redefining both the aims and the assessment of education in this emerging didactic paradigm.