Filosofiya osvity. Philosophy of Education

Education and Self-knowledge: On Actuality of philosophical-educational ideas of Hryhorii Skovoroda and Johann Gottlieb Fichte

2023-02-04T17:27:55+02:00

The paper considers the relationship between self-knowledge and education on the material of Skovoroda’s and Fichte’s philosophical and educational explorations. Verification of the methodological statement of the unity of theory and biography is carried out, which finds its confirmation in the cases of both Skovoroda and Fichte. These two figures, despite their opposing positions on religion, embody the contradictory nature of the Enlightenment and the expectations associated with it. First of all, that affects the perspective of the emancipation of human and society both in secular versions and in the projects of renewed religion, with the framework prerequisites for the transformation of the latter proposed by Skovoroda and Fichte. The paper compares approaches by Skovoroda and Fichte to solving the problem of humanizing human nature through self-discovery, carried out on the basis of the improvement of worldview education necessary for the assertion of rational freedom; the complementarity of the concepts of “naturalness” (Skovoroda) and “vocation” (Fichte) is substantiated. The paper reveals the heuristic potential of Skovoroda’s anatomical metaphors as a visualization of the transition from the optics of the visible to the invisible in the formation of a “new person”. The distinction between the visible and the invisible and Christian ethics, according to Skovoroda, form the basic foundations of the educational process, and the Bible is the main textbook and teacher, – while Fichte, on the other hand, proclaims the scholar to be the educator and teacher of humanity. In his views on human, Fichte possesses a position opposite to Skovoroda, rejecting arguments in the spirit of Neoplatonism. His philosophical and educational explorations are focused on the improvement of the human race, which after the Napoleonic wars is reduced to the German nation, whose salvation under the situation of political dependence is proclaimed to be national education based on German culture and language.

About the use of the image of Skovoroda and his philosophical views in ideological constructions of representatives of the Ukrainian diaspora of the 2nd half of the 20th century

2023-02-04T18:04:29+02:00

The article is dedicated to the consideration of the use of Skovoroda’s image in ideological discourse by representatives of the Ukrainian diaspora (D. Dontsov, V. Shaian, M. Shlemkevych). The usual presence of the symbolized figure of Skovoroda in the Ukrainian identity leads to its further use in the system of national ideologies. The creator of the ideology of “active” nationalism, D. Dontsov, interprets the figure of Skovoroda as the bearer of the ideals of the higher “caste” in the conditions of the decline of political and spiritual life in Ukraine in the second half of the 18th century. The creator of the neo-religion of nativism, V. Shaian, sacralizes the person of the philosopher, endowing him with the status of a prophet, which is directly related to the only divine essence – the “highest light”. For the philosopher M. Shlemkevych Skovoroda marks the end situation: the end of the era of Cossack autonomy and the full incorporation of Ukrainian lands into the Russian Empire. Skovoroda’s way of life symbolizes the type of people who escape from real life into spirituality. In general, in the ideological constructions of the authors considered by us, the image of Skovoroda is constructed not so much on the basis of an appeal to primary sources: the philosopher’s texts or the memories of the philosopher’s contemporaries about his lifestyle, but on the basis of his previous images, and here his “Ukrainianness” is the main one. Skovoroda is only a “Ukrainian philosopher” and it was on the basis of this that it was constructed already at the beginning of the 20th century. The image and its further elaboration in the ideological discourse of later times take place. The presence of the image of Skovoroda in the structures of Ukrainian national self-consciousness and stereotyped knowledge about his philosophical views is quite stable: the idea of “two natures”, the doctrine of “three worlds”, the principle of “kinship work” also leads to their further “exploitation” in the texts of Dontsov, Shayan and Shlemkevych

The concept of “Sittlichkeit” in Georg Hegel’s philosophy

2023-02-04T18:28:03+02:00

The article is devoted to clarifying the central significance of the concept of ha-bituality – “Sittlichkeit” – in the practical philosophy of Georg Hegel. Unlike Kant, Hegel does not place morality (in its imperative version of the transcendentally proper) at the center of his practical philosophy, but law (as the facticity of nor-mative immanent in society). Habituality appears in early Hegel’s philosophy as the basis of sociality: it defines social virtues and social institutions. The habitual-ity appears here as a social totality and self-sufficiency of self-attitude: thus, Hegel affirms habits/convention not only as a substantive morality, but also as a social substance in general. Subsequently, in the Jena “real philosophy” (1805/06), ha-bituality turns out to be the sphere of life of the real spirit and acquires distinctly dynamic features. Hegel analyzes the “absolutely ideal totality of the people”, re-vealing the regularities of its formation from “natural habituality” through forma-tion/ education (Bildung) and recognition to the forms of developed civil society, among which the most important are the family, business relations, law and, fi-nally, the State. Thus, Hegel’s realm of practical philosophy is the sphere of action of the objective spirit, where not subject-object, or even subject-subject relations dominate, but the attitude of individuals to the substance of their life process, where habituality becomes the most important factor, where it is substantial by definition. Thus, in the usual material of experience, the principles of the mind are directly present, which here operates on the basis of “sound mind” and common sense. Next, Hegel moves on to the development of the philosophy of the Absolute Spirit, in which conventionality is an important and mandatory step in its inces-sant formation. Hegel also associates commonality with the action of “God’s law”. There are two poles of extremely objective manifestation of the spirit in customary relations: one translates into the general realm of the spirit the paradigm of kinship, its archaic rudiments, their sanctity, covering the inviolability of the individuals, the second personifies the undeniable authority of the whole, embodied in the state. Social institutions function properly under the condition of healthy mindset of those who rule and use these institutions.

On the history of teaching logic at the St. Volodymyr University

2023-02-04T22:16:56+02:00

The history of logic in Ukraine is still not sufficiently studied. Researchers, as a rule, analyze the legacy of outstanding scholars from a historical-philosophical point of view, paying attention to philosophical problems considered in their works. Logical issues are left out of consideration. One of the reasons is that a small number of original logical works have survived to this day. Besides, these are mostly archival documents, including lecture manuscripts, essays on specific issues of logic, curriculums, etc. If we consider the published works, they are mostly textbooks, some of which remain unknown to a wide circle of scholars.

In this context, the purpose of the paper is to analyze the teaching of logic at St. Volodymyr University from 1834 until 1917. The author set four research objectives. The first is to find out what place logic took among another academic disciplines at the University. The second is to analyze and systematize information about teachers who taught logic. The third is to investigate textbooks and manuals that students used to master the logic course. The fourth is to analyze the logical curriculums used at that time. In the paper the author distinguishes the peculiarities of logic teaching at the University of St. Volodymyr; reveals the reasons why logic had been presented to students in the traditional view; answers the question, of which relevant problems to that time had impacted the teachers’ logical treatments; shows how European trends in the development of logical knowledge had been taken into account in the logic courses offered to students at St. Volodymyr University.

Open science: from theory to practices (Ukrainian and Chinese perspectives)

2023-02-05T01:00:19+02:00

The article is dedicated to the analysis of how the ideas of Open Science find their way to the research practices in higher educational institutions, particularly in the examples of Ukraine and China. It is revealed that at the moment most researchers do not possess adequate information about the concept of Open Science, its guidelines are almost absent from regulatory documents and strategies for the development of HEIs, and they just start to appear in plans and declarations of the national level. It is shown that for now only the practices of implementing the lower “procedural” aspect of Open Science, in particular the development of open access to data and information, are in the focus of attention at both national and institutional levels, while the support for the values of democracy and academic freedom mostly remains a declaration. Open Science is argued to be not just the promotion of open access and the building of the corresponding infrastructure, but the whole paradigm of openness and democratization of research practices, including their decentralization and the abandonment of the externally imposed orientation on quantitative and formal indicators of the research effectiveness. It is found to be especially difficult to implement the values of academic freedom and democracy declared in normative documents and development strategies into everyday research practice considering the centralized traditions of management peculiar to many countries of the world, including Ukraine and China. Still, some of the practices that are being more or less successfully realized in China and other countries of the Southeast Asian region, which are at approximately the same stage of movement from excessive centralization of the higher education system to its democratization, are argued to be useful as examples for Ukraine.

Implementing scientific education in the universities and attracting talented youth to science

2023-02-05T01:35:09+02:00

Society needs young people with an open outlook, ready to act in non-standard circumstances and create new algorithms for solving social problems, based on the latest scientific achievements. Science also constantly needs a timely change of scientific generations, acceptance by the new generation of a new vision of tasks and opportunities of science. All this should be provided by scientific education, which brings young people closer to education already at the level of universities and even senior school classes. Properly organized scientific education ensures the proper quality of education of citizens, which allows them to adequately orient themselves and realize themselves in new circumstances according to the axiological matrix. In this context, high-quality scientific education, characterized by such parameters as a science-centric humanistic outlook, cognitive flexibility, personal creativity, and cognitive-humanistic creative interaction between subjects, is the most relevant. The article examines demonstrative examples and defines the key areas of effective development of the so-called scientific education, STEAM-education. Despite the fact that the principles and methods of scientific education must be introduced at all stages of the acquisition of education by a modern person in the mode of lifelong education, it is precisely in universities that scientific education can be implemented most fully and give the best results: it is the talented youth who already have a sufficiently high level of scientific knowledge and skills of scientific research and at the same time has not yet become institutionally engaged, and therefore socially dependent, but on the contrary, is maximally open to the creation of new knowledge and new social institutions. Thus, scientific education appears not only as a new powerful factor of motivation for academic activity but also as a reliable way for young people to find their place in society and be the vanguard of overcoming the risks of modern social turbulence.

Critical thinking: concept and practice

2023-02-05T02:06:43+02:00

The relevance of critical thinking makes it necessary to clearly define this concept and explore the steps necessary to acquire the skill that lies behind this concept. Today, in the specialized literature, you can find a variety of definitions of critical thinking, which can give the impression that this field is in a chaotic state. The author’s analysis made it possible to identify the essential features of this concept, based on which critical thinking is defined as the ability to analyze the process of thinking for its compliance with the criteria of rationality. Acquiring this skill involves mastering three main components: normative, descriptive and prescriptive. The normative component includes knowledge about the standards of rational thinking. These standards include not only the rules, principles and laws of logic but also the basic laws of statistics and probability theory, as well as the rules of scientific work. The descriptive component involves the acquisition of knowledge about how we actually think. First of all, we are talking about heuristics and cognitive biases, which are kinds of algorithms by which habitual thinking occurs, and which often lead us to mistakes. The prescriptive component includes knowledge of how to make the transition from habitual thinking to correct thinking. The author notes that critical thinking is an interdisciplinary project because mastering this skill requires the use of information from various fields of knowledge. At the same time, the article describes the special role of philosophical community both in the study and in teaching critical thinking. Accordingly, it is concluded that there is a need for more active development of this field by Ukrainian philosophers, which may become a promising area for the implementation of their professional skills.

Contradictions of Philosophy of Education as an Object of Scientific Analysis

2023-02-05T02:27:44+02:00

Modern globalization, informational, digital-oriented challenges actualize changes in theoretical and methodological approaches to mastering knowledge, professional-oriented types and technologies of activity. The philosophy of education, as well as pedagogical activity, indicates the existential risk of human beings: the Pandemia of COVID-19 and the Russian military threat to Ukraine’s integrity and independence. The organization of the educational process is determined by new forms: online, offline, mixed learning; Interactive technologies. In the post-nonclassical picture of the world, the idea of the network acquires worldview and value. Obviously, the pedagogical culture of verbal communication, especially artistic and figurative intellectuality, spiritual and semantic potential of words and thought, pedagogical reflection, are apparently methodologically and valuable. The problem of contradictions of the philosophy of education is traced in the plane of dialectical, synergistic, information approaches. The general contra-dictions of the philosophy of education are distinguished, in particular: between the integrity of cultural existence of mankind and the specifics of national cultural correspondence; between the dominant collective forms of the educational process and the individual nature of cognitive activity; between humanistic and scientifically-technocratic worldview; between the challenges of modern scientific thinking and the practice of its implementation in educational and pedagogical activity; between digitalization activity and information space safety. The solution of the contradictions of the philosophy of education involves the methodology of synergetics (nonlinearity, systematic, complexity, self-organization). There is a topical contradiction regarding Ukraine between the restructuring of the economy, the widespread development of services and the slow modernization of the production industry, compared to developed countries (USA, United Kingdom, Japan). Its solution is made significantly possible by socially and value priority investments in science-education-technology-production. Moreover, the synergy of efforts of power, political, legislative, managerial structures, community of philosophers, scientists, pedagogues, teachers and parents, Ukrainian society as a whole is needed. The overcoming a certain dependence of education/training on electronic communications should be praxiologically oriented. Socio-value priorities of science, education, creative self-realization of nonsense are components of a positive image of Ukraine in the European and world communicative space.

Thought experiments: the philosophical and educa¬tional aspect

2023-02-05T03:10:53+02:00

In recent years, one can observe great interest in such a phenomenon as thought experiments in various fields of science and philosophy. In research, they are usually seen as tools for argumentation or presentation of some theory. The author of this article will consider thought experiments instead from the point of view of use in the educational process. Also, thought experiments will be analyzed as one of the options for checking the level of understanding of some material from the educational course, which adds creativity and creativity to the educational process not only for the teacher but also for other participants of the educational process (pupils, students, graduate students). The proposed classification of thought experiments will help improve the educational process and interest in the subject. The article provides examples from the history of philosophy and science, which illustrate the importance of thought experiments for learning and emphasize their use as a tool (or skill) when working in a specific field of science. Examples of the use of thought experiments in the educational process of different countries, recommendations from international educational organizations, and the provision of a specific algorithm for their application were given. An improvement of this process, which primarily appeals to everyday experience, is proposed. Some recommendations from the work of modern logic are given for a clearer and stricter use of such reasoning as reasoning by analogy. A comparison was made regarding the attitude to the thought experiments of such scientists as Thomas Kuhn, Karl Popper, and Georg Lichtenberg. Attention is focused on using thought experiments to improve understanding of concepts and theories and increase the creative component and interactivity during all types of classes.

Crossroads of scientific and educational alternatives: monopoly on decision-making or cultivation of competence?

2023-02-05T10:50:23+02:00

Despite a fairly homogeneous way of functioning, our modernity is marked by different conceptual identities: some consider it as an epoch of simulation, others insist on the expediency of terminological equivalents such as risk society, butterfly and black swan effect, and some argue that a short period, criterion uncertainty and functional turbulence. Such a priori problems are dangerously supplemented by a decrease in the level of scientific thinking and the culture of managerial decision-making, as a result of which the horizon of seeing problem challenges and effective answers to them narrows. Even ambitious international institutions, projects and initiatives are increasingly playing the role of selfish interests of individuals and lobby groups through political marketing, populist, demagogic and manipulative tools. After all, the most threatening problem is the inability to determine the hierarchy of problems, dangers and challenges, resulting in the inability to build a symmetrical hierarchy of means to overcome existing problems. Such intellectual and managerial shortcomings are mostly tried to be eliminated by increasing the level of formalization, substituting quality criteria with purely quantitative criteria and giving priority to secondary factors. The consequence of such an incorrect perception of reality and paying hypertrophied attention to marginal tendencies is the exacerbation of real and priority problems, which more and more often become chronic, questioning the full functioning not only of science and education in Ukraine but also society and the state as a whole. In such circumstances, the prospects for cultivating competence and responsibility at all levels of management decision-making, and above all, mainly at the highest political level, become crucial.

The “ages” of civilization as the structures of political representation

2023-02-05T11:57:33+02:00

The aim of this article is to delineate a comprehensive account of the development of human civilization in terms of increasingly representative structures of governance, structures that make people more and more present on the upper echelons of decision-making. I hypothesize that there are three essential dimensions of this development: first, media of communication becoming increasingly abstract makes society increasingly conscious of itself because it gets the ability of self-reflection and self-critique from increasingly complex perspectives that do increasing justice to the society; second, the anthropomorphizing/relativizing of the increasingly creative forms of life; third, if the law-making is conducted within the exchange of perspectives in which the being and the people are properly represented, the laws thus issued make societies increasingly free (1) from the dictate of violent power (2) and to practiсe the art of interdependence, that is, to create new models of cooperation. The basic narrative is that of a balancing between the dependence on the outside force and self-dependence; growth occurs when we are able to relativize the force that creates our life on this particular stage, that is, to establish communication with it. If we are too reliant upon it or upon our own power, we stop participating in the exchange of perspectives, in politics that creates new, wider and deeper, contexts for social life. In this sense, humans are “called” to representational politics, to make themselves and each other present on the upper levels of law-making, so that the laws by which people live do justice both to their own desires and to the reality outside of them. The possibility of this representational activity is grounded in the icon of the Trinity where persons make themselves present to each other to the extent of full transparency but without any erasure of the difference.

Perennial-progressivism—P2: an avant-garde cross breed philosophy of education for the 21st century

2023-02-05T13:31:52+02:00

Essentially, philosophies of education in education and the education per se have a pragmatic significance in socio-political life of it subject. Philosophies of education are not solely appointed to provide theories or to set principles in education but also destined to advance practices following the realities and needs of life particularly in society – the common denominator of Philosophy of education is to train good citizen and human beings. It is to say that one of the essential features of philosophy of education is to keep education in track in the rapid pace of flux of time by being flexible, responsive, and sensitive to the various concern and issue of a particular status quo. Philosophy of education is understood as a critical view that goes as deep as its roots about everything that happens. 21st century is being characterized as the ‘disinformation’ or ‘fake’ news era due to the negative consequence of the social media and the environment where the learner’s dwells, on the same manner ecological issue become a serious issue. Thus, 21st century education should attend to the progress and demand [concern] of the time. Pondering on a two prominent Philosophy of education viz. Perennialism and Progressivism, this article aims to find out and divulge an effective methodology and principle on education that cater a response to the demand of the status quo by breeding the above-mentioned philosophy of education. The breed of Philosophy of education will be called Perennial-Progressivism with acronym P2. These philosophies of education would not that be effective if it will be used in isolated instances – use a particular philosophy of education on a certain context due to contextual gap of the notions and the context. Likewise, there are shortcomings that a particular philosophy of education possesses which on the other hand is in the demand of the context. However, a combination or a mix breed of at least two philosophies of education that has been scrutinized and made it relevant to the needs and demand of the context would be an effective one given such considerations.

Deconstruction of the myth of the “russian world” doctrine about Orthodoxy as the basis of Russian identity

2023-02-05T14:04:02+02:00

The article analyzes the basic ideology of the “Russian Peace” doctrine: the myth that “Orthodoxy is the basis of Russian identity.” The existence of this ideologeme in the informational and symbolic field of Ukraine and the whole world, its manipulation, and its inclusion in the current context of the Ukrainian cultural space lead to a distorted perception of relations between Russia and Ukraine, the existing war between them. The article attempts to reveal those distortions and semantic substitutions that are ontologically contained in many ideologemes of the “Russian world” and which can be analyzed as typical errors in the context of the argumentation theory. Such research aims to develop a conditional “dictionary” for the mythologist of the “Russian world,” which could be used during the conduct of a thorough information confrontation. The author chose the myth “Orthodoxy is the basis of Russian identity” as the basic ideologeme because most other ideologues are derived from this thesis with the help of skillful semantic manipulations. Secondly, this myth is interpreted and used by Russian ideologues in incredibly diverse ways and in various contexts. Based on the analysis of this myth, the author concludes that the ideology of the “Russian measure” by definition does not meet the criteria of clarity, clarity, and unequivocalness; the meanings of its key concepts are as variable as possible, depend on the context, are used interchangeably in general formulations where clarification of the non-standard use of the term is not foreseen; there is a change of identities, which makes it possible to manipulate historical facts and people’s memory. Russian ideologues constantly use such logical errors in their argumentative practices. In the process of revealing the illogicality and paradox of the mentioned myth, it turns out that the very essence of this mythologem significantly contributes to the unfolding of the crisis of Russian culture and politics, which is spoken about by the same ideologues who praise the messianic role of Russia.

The experience of motherhood during the war: de¬scriptive phenomenological analysis

2023-02-05T14:54:36+02:00

The article analyzes the individual experience of the first ten months of motherhood before and during the full-scale war between Russia and Ukraine using the method of descriptive phenomenology of the body. Corporeality is considered as a basis for a possible description of the motherhood experience. In the analysis, I apply the ideas of Luce Irigaray (deconstruction of the complex image of motherhood in art, science and philosophy) and Yulia Kristeva (analysis of the Western Christian tradition of depicting a mother with a baby and the narratives embedded in it) in the context of returning the discourse about motherhood to women. Based on the ideas of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Iris Young, I turn to a phenomenological analysis of the body, namely, the female body, as the “first locus of intentionality.” In particular, it is about experiencing drastic bodily changes during childbirth and the first weeks of motherhood, the blurring of bodily boundaries between the nursing mother and the baby, the establishment of a common everyday life through the establishment of new repetitive rituals, its cancellation due to the need to flee and the attempt to restore it in a new place. In this regard, I provide the phenomenological interpretation of the home as a space of experiencing security, individuation, privacy and storage (Young) and its loss. I have singled out the processes of sleep and eating as the two main bodily manifestations of anxiety in everyday experience. A key element of the physical maternal experience is breast-feeding, which provides a suitable range of feelings: from pain and sacrifice to comfort and euphoria from union with the child. It was revealed that the specificity of the female body and its adaptation to new requirements within motherhood (in particular, additional weight, softness, endurance, inertness, etc.) made it possible to adapt to new critical circumstances associated with the beginning of a full-scale war, deprivation of a home, experiencing a threat and oppression.

“Globalization of higher education (national and institutional levels)”

2023-02-05T15:06:31+02:00

In accordance with the “Program of joint activities of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and the National Academy of Educational Sciences of Ukraine FOR 2020-2022”, on November 29, 2022, a joint Round Table of the Institute of Higher Education of the National Academy of Educational Sciences of Ukraine and the H. S. Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine on the topic “Globalization of higher education (national and institutional levels)”. Three representatives of each institution took part from both sides and presented their achievements of recent years. The event was moderated by the professor of Taras Shevchenko Kyiv University Mykhailo Boichenko.

Review of the 23rd International Conference on Ethics Across the Curriculum

2023-02-05T18:05:46+02:00

The review presents the key ideas discussed at the 23rd International Conference on Ethical Education in Curriculum “The Ethics of Engagement” (“The Ethics of Engagement”), held from October 6 to 8, 2022 at the University of Mississippi, Oxford (Mississippi, USA). The content of the event included a discussion of approaches to the inclusion of young people in the study of ethical issues of schoolchildren and students of various specialties. The organizer of the conference was the American Society for Ethics Education Across the Curriculum (the Society for Ethics Across the Curriculum).

“Philosophy of modern education: transdisciplinary reflections” Interuniversity scientific and practical seminar on the basis of Ternopil National Pedagogical University named after Volodymyr Hnatyuk

2023-02-05T18:30:30+02:00

The review conveys the main content of the Interuniversity Scientific and Practical Seminar «Philosophy of Modern Education: Transdisciplinary Reflections», which was held on the basis of Volodymyr Hnatyuk Ternopil National Pedagogical University on December 8, 2022, Ternopil. Representatives of the Department of Philosophy and Pedagogy of the Lviv National University of Veterinary Medicine and Biotechnology named after S. Z. Gzhitsky, Kharkiv National Pedagogical University named after H. S. Skovoroda also took part in the seminar.