Intellectual development, however, can be an intra- as well as an inter-personal
phenomenon. That is, learning may not come directly from teachers but rather
from their absent or invisible presence. Online pedagogues, therefore, can be
present in different ways. They may be present in person, participating in learning
conversations. They may constitute an absent presence that, nonetheless, is
embodied in the learning resources directed towards students (e.g., the selected
readings or activities). Or pedagogues may exist merely as inner voices, inherited
from the language of others, that (invisibly) steer the desires, self-regulation,
and self-direction of learners. Indeed, this last pedagogic position ‘auto-didacticism,’
has always been central to the post-Enlightenment ideals of liberal adult education.
