The Art of Education or the Science of Education?

This paper focuses upon the possibility and limitation of an Educational Neuroscience (ENS) or Mind-Brain Education (MBE) in a general way. Both approaches seem to nurture the hope that educational efforts in general could be provided with a scientific foundation. By means of the explanatory bracket as provided by Bourdieu’s concept of the field and Luhmann’s system-theory, we provide a conceptual argument to the effect that it appears impossible to achieve such a reductive agenda. Hence, we argue that education remains a ‘verstehen-based’ art and can therefore not be captured by an exclusively natural-scientific approach as envisaged by ENS or MBE.