Losing Our Way: Pragmatism,Perfectionism and Education as Anxiety

I explore in this paper the extent to which Stanley Cavell's contribution to the philosophy of education is measured by his distance from American pragmatism. I wish to argue that pragmatism and what Cavell calls ‘perfectionism’ are simply not offered in the same key and crucially that it is this stylistic or tonal difference that separates Cavell not only from his pragmatist contemporaries but from the pragmatist picture of democracy and education as sketched so compellingly in the work of John Dewey. I suggest, in other words, not only that Cavell is importantly distant from the pragmatists but that it is this very distance—this very ambivalence to that tradition of thought often taken as the native philosophy of America—that captures Cavell's distinctive educational promise.     

Philosophy as Education and Education as Philosophy: Democracy and Education from Dewey to Cavell

In the contemporary culture of accountability and the 'economy' of education this generates, pragmatism, as a philosophy for ordinary practice, needs to resist the totalising force of an ideology of practice, one that distracts us from the rich qualities of daily experience. In response to this need, and in mobilising Dewey's pragmatism, this paper introduces another standpoint in American philosophy: Stanley Cavell's account of the economy of living in Thoreau's Walden. By discussing some aspects of Cavell's The Senses of Walden that suggest both apparent similarities and radical differences between Thoreau and Dewey, I shall argue that Cavell discovers rich dimensions of practice in Thoreau's American philosophy, ones that are overshadowed in Dewey's pragmatism: that he demonstrates another way of 'making a difference in practice'. Cavell, as a critical interlocutor of Dewey, from within American philosophy, offers a way of using language in resistance to the rhetoric of accountability and in service to the creation of democracy as a way of life. I shall conclude by suggesting that the enriched tradition of American philosophy from Dewey to Cavell is to be found in their promotion of philosophy as education and education as philosophy.     

“从做中学”与教育的生存论解读——杜威实用主义生存论学习与教育思想探析

文章从杜威实用主义生存哲学的内在逻辑着手,解析“从做中学”思想提出的生存论、经验方法及探求逻辑的理论根源,认为它不是一种教育理论,而是一种探求学习理论。正是基于实用主义生存论哲学和“从做中学”的学习观,杜威提出了著名的“教育就是生长、就是生活、就是经验的改造或改组”的教育思想,在人类教育思想史上占有独特的地位。     

“经验”在杜威教育思想中的重要性

作为进步教育的倡导和实践,杜威的教育思想对美国乃至世界教育都产生了很大的影响。杜威同时又是名的实用主义哲学家,他的哲学思想,特别是“经验”概念,始终贯穿在其教育思想中。从教育的本质、目的到方法,无处不见“经验”概念的影子。章拟对这一问题作简要述评。     

Education for social change and pragmatist theory: five features of educative environments designed for social change

This paper establishes the basis for a pragmatist-inspired theory of human action to predominant ideas about knowledge, learning and education. As a necessary prelude to an examination of pragmatist theory’s position on human action and its specific focus on habits and creativity, pragmatism is defined and then related to inquiry. Next, the fields of adult education and social movement learning are explored for their continued resonance with the main educational tenets of pragmatism. Following this, a separate section on habits and creativity is offered to highlight a key relationship for the design of educative environments. Knowledge is addressed in a section that explains it as a carrier of routine and a bridge in the individual-collective nexus. The paper ends with five features of an educative environment designed for social change, each of which is identified in relation to the tenets of pragmatist theory.     

教育沟通着人与社会——《民主主义与教育》的社会学解读

美国现代著名的实用主义哲学家、教育家杜威实现了对二元论哲学的超越,以进化论为支撑建构了实用主义的教育理论。其“沟通式”的教育作为一种社会活动过程促进了人的生成与社会的结构性延续。在这种意义上,教育通过持续性、整体性、有机性沟通着“个体人”与“集合人”——社会。     

论实用主义教育思想对我国教育改革的影响

实用主义教育思想是十九世纪末、二十世纪初兴起于美国的一种教育思想,其代表人物杜威所提出的"教育即生活"、"学校即社会"、"做中学"等观点曾在世界范围得到普遍认同,对中国的教育发展也产生了积极的影响.本文以杜威实用主义教育思想的理论渊源为基点,透析杜威教育思想的真正内涵,揭示其对中国当前教育改革的影响.     

杜威教育思想的生命现象学底蕴探究

杜威的实用主义经验论哲学具有生命现象学的特质,他从生命经验出发直观生命现象的本质,描述和阐释了生命所具有的情境性、过程性、自主性、理智性和社会性等特征。这些生命现象学描述构成其丰富深邃的教育思想体系的哲学底蕴。     

Dewey in Transition: Towards a Pragmatist Ethics of Recognition in Schools

This article aims to study one of the potential contemporary updates of pragmatist philosophy. Specifically, it explores pedagogic possibilities that open up by adding Axel Honneth's studies to the discussion on the ethics of recognition, with the community dimension of education found in John Dewey's philosophy of education. In the spirit of Richard S. Bernstein's understanding of Dewey's radical democracy and from a more clearly educational philosophical perspective, the article explores the pedagogical possibilities that arise from broadening the communitarian dimension of education found in Dewey's philosophy of education with the studies by Honneth on the ethics of recognition. In the line of Colin Koopman's definition of transitionalism as a ‘philosophical temperament’, Honneth's ethics of recognition ‘transitions’ the Deweyian tradition towards a more contemporary disposition to think through the ethical dimension of education. The article intends to make use of a fruitful dialogue between classic pragmatism and critical theory to address some challenges of contemporary school life.     

Anxieties of Democracy and Education: Naoko Saito's American Philosophy in Translation

The article is an essay on Naoko Saito's recently published book American Philosophy in Translation. We attempt to draw out the central argument of the book as it moves through its eight chapters. The author finds that American philosophy, which she takes to be rooted in pragmatism, whilst it owes much to Dewey, needs to be reconstructed in order to meet contemporary political challenges, with their implications for political education. She asks questions such as what is the place of the tragic sense of life in philosophical thought? What is a philosophy of affirmation and chance? How are we to understand the significance of the untranslatable? What are these connections between transcendence, translation and transformation? More specifically, how are we to understand the distinction between philosophy in translation and philosophy as translation? And how does all this offer us new ways of thinking about the current state of democracy, political education and education more generally? One specific suggestion is that an education in foreign language can be transformative in terms of political education. The article concludes that Saito's project throws up some important ideas that are pertinent to our times. We question the central idea regarding language education, whilst we welcome this scholarly volume.     

杜威的德育思想及其借鉴意义

杜威从实用主义教育哲学的视角出发，对学校道德教育的理论和实践进行了反思，并在此基础上提出了走出学校道德教育困境的出路。杜威的德育思想，对于我们正确认识道德与人、道德与生活、德育课程和其他课程、德育工作者和其他教育工作者以及道德教育过程中教师和学生等诸关系具有重要的借鉴意义。     

Pragmatism and post-qualitative futures

This paper notes that there has been a relatively recent revision of the pragmatist philosophy canon, one that moves beyond a focus on epistemic and pedagogical theories, and locates pragmatism in a tradition of radical ontological theorizing and political action. This essay examines this revision for its relevance to the emerging materialist turn in qualitative research methodology. The essay focuses on two themes within contemporary and classical pragmatist philosophy: a reflexive realism and an ontology of the future. The methodological implications of these features are explored in detail. These implications are compared to post-structuralist conceptions of reflexivity that informed the last wave of qualitative research innovation and to the new materialism theories that are inspiring a new wave of methodological innovation. The most significant methodological implications of pragmatic philosophy are located in its ideas about the ontologically co-constituting relationship between inquiry practice and future possibilities.     

中美教育哲学研究人员之比较

20世纪80年代以来,美国教育哲学学会会员构成多样化,教育哲学研究人员的培养方式发生了变化,并且女性教育哲学家走进人们的视野。我国的教育哲学研究人员多是教育背景出身,加强教育界与哲学界的联系,可有益于改变我国教育哲学研究人员的培养方式。     

什么是教育哲学

"教育哲学"有不同的用法,它可以指教育学的一个分支学科,也可以指个人或教育机构对教育的基本看法。尽管多数专门的教育哲学工作者认为教育哲学是一般的,但其实他们所阐述的教育哲学也都是具体的。然而,这并不意味着教育哲学是无原则的相对主义,教育哲学的价值在于阐发和宣传适应时代发展的教育思想和价值观。     

探寻教育新路的一代教育家--颜元

颜元是中国实学教育的先驱，从唯物主义世界观出发，他对“主静”、“空谈”的封建传统教育进行了深刻的批判。他倡导学以致用，强调习行实践，提出了以培养实用人才为核心的实学教育方案，对后世的教育产生了深刻的影响。     

Heidegger,Technology and Education

In this paper, I defend the viability and relevance of Heidegger's philosophy of technology and consider its emancipatory potential in the field of education. First, I situate Heidegger's philosophy of technology within the broader emancipatory project of his early work—the fundamental ontology of Being and Time—and emphasise the role of language and (self-)appropriation in human subjectivity. Second, in light of the importance Heidegger placed on education for resisting the reifying and alienating effects of technology, I conclude with some critical reflections on recent attempts to develop a positive Heideggerian programme of education. In particular, I reveal some crucial limitations of the pragmatist or ‘bodily coping’ approach—defended by Hubert Dreyfus and Mark Wrathall and argue that an ‘appropriative’ alternative yields a more compelling philosophy of education, which emphasises the cultivation of moral articulacy.     

合作教育的哲学基础及其启示

合作教育的劳动教育思想基础和工读教育实践形式最早发生在欧洲,但合作教育的诞生却在美国,这与美国的实用主义哲学和文化有着密切的联系。作为美国民族文化精髓的实用主义哲学是合作教育在美国诞生的重要基础。文章讨论了合作教育的哲学基础与合作教育在美国产生的深层次原因,并指出其对我国合作教育发展的启示。     

Romanticism and Romantic Science: Their Contribution to Science Education

The unique contributions of romanticism and romantic science have been generally ignored or undervalued in history and philosophy of science studies and science education. Although more recent research in history of science has come to delineate the value of both topics for the development of modern science, their merit for the educational field has not been explored. Romanticism was not only an obvious historical period, but a particular state of mind with its own extraordinary emotional sensitivity towards nature. It is especially the latter which we hope to revisit and reclaim for science education. After discussing several key historical contributions, we describe nine characteristics of ‘Romantic Science’ in order to focus on six ideas/possibilities that we believe hold much value for transforming current science education: (1) the emotional sensitivity toward nature, (2) the centrality of sense experience, (3) the importance of “holistic experience”, (4) the importance of the notions of mystery and wonder, (5) the power of science to transform people’s outlook on the natural world, and (6) the importance of the relationship between science and philosophy. It is argued that in view of a pragmatist/utilitarian conception of school science prevalent today the aforementioned ideas (especially the notion of wonder and the poetic/non-analytical mode of knowledge), can provide food for thought for both science teachers and researchers seeking to work out an aesthetic conception, one that complements current approaches such as inquiry science and conceptual change.     

教育哲学的新开端

在新技术社会和全球化时代,我们需要重新思考教育哲学的作用和承担的任务.作者回顾了柏拉图、卢梭和杜威三位伟大的哲学家,阐发了他们教育哲学作品的意义以及对我们的启发.同时本文介绍了美国教育哲学早期的发展、取得的成就和付出的代价,提出在新时代教育哲学需要有广阔的视野,与其他学科领域以及其他教育家和学者的工作有更多的联系和合作.     

Inoculation against Wonder: Finding an antidote in Camus,pragmatism and the community of inquiry

In this paper, we will explore how Albert Camus has much to offer philosophers of education. Although a number of educationalists have attempted to explicate the educational implications of Camus’ literary works, these analyses have not attempted to extrapolate pedagogical guidelines towards developing an educational framework for children’s philosophical practice in the way Matthew Lipman did from John Dewey’s philosophy of education, which informed his philosophy for children curriculum and pedagogy. We focus on the phenomenology of inquiry; that is, inquiry that begins with genuinely felt doubt, pointing to a problematic to which the inquirer seeks a solution or resolution. We argue that the central purpose of education is to develop lucid individuals. To this end, we concentrate on Dewey and the pragmatist tradition, starting from Peirce, leading to Lipman’s development of Dewey’s educational guidelines into classroom practice. We show where Camus and the pragmatists are congruent in their thinking, insofar as they can inform the educative process of the community of inquiry. What we conclude is that the role of the teacher is to develop lucid individuals facilitated in a classroom that is transformed into a community of inquiry embedded in contemporary historical moments.