This article considers the pedagogy of competencies as one of the pedagogies of "learning to learn" and presents four valuational propositions contained in the slogan "learning to learn": 1) learning which occurs without the transmission of knowledge by someone is the most desirable; 2) the method by which knowledge is constructed is more important than that knowledge already socially produced; 3) student activities should be inspired by the needs and interests of the individual; 4) education ought to prepare individuals for a constant process of adaptation and readaptation to a society in accelerated process of change. The article defends the position that the "learning to learn" pedagogies belong to an ideological universe charged with illusions about the so-called knowledge society and concludes by presenting five of these illusions.