Pragmatism in Education: Philosophical Foundations and Pedagogical Practice

The problem of education is an important part of social practice and public policy. A successful model of education depends on how competitive the state will be on the world stage, how strong its sovereignty will be, how likely it is that the state will turn into a center of power, into a superpower. R. Dalio ^[20] identifies education as a key factor (among others), why some states turn into empires and superpowers, and others they occupy a more modest attitude in the global balance of power. High—quality education is educational tourism (finance), it is innovation, it is competent officials, it is capable of performing complex operations and working in high-tech fields, it is effective soldiers, it is an attractive and rich culture that influences world culture and acts as a soft power. High-quality education has a permanent and cumulative effect, therefore it requires close attention and careful study of approaches.

Today there are several philosophical educational models ^[9], among which, perhaps, the most famous are idealistic (Humboldt), analytical (I. Scheffler, R.S. Peters, etc.), existentialist (M. Buber, E. Fromm, etc.), postmodern (A. Illich, P. Freire) and a number of others. However, pragmatism is one of the longest-existing and most popular educational paradigms, having both serious theoretical disputes and extensive practical experience in its background, i.e., if we turn to the principles of K. Popper ^[13], pragmatism has passed (and is passing) the stages of verification and falsification. Moreover, despite its shortcomings, it is the United States, the "country of victorious pragmatism", that is today the leaders of educational ratings (students and scientists vote with their feet) and hard and soft power ratings in the unspoken global interstate competition. Considering that the Russian education system has been in the process of reforming and searching for its own effective models since the collapse of the USSR to this day, it seems important to closely study the existing philosophies and practices of education, in particular pragmatism, which in this article will be paid attention to through the methodology of hermeneutical and phenomenological analysis.

Philosophical grounds

The emergence of pragmatism is associated with a change in the historical context of human existence at the turn of the XIX – XX centuries, when the world became, on the one hand, more global than ever, on the other, as capitalist as possible: the diversification of sources of profit and its maximization turn out to be the alpha and omega of social relations, and marketing becomes a common frame of thinking: marketers define the values of life and existential landmarks, form images of individuality, contribute to the fact that society is formed as an aesthetic (S. Kierkegaard) agent. Globalism and capitalism turn out to be closely related to each other. And pragmatism finds its place in this bundle: in the conditions of capitalist reality, the metaphysics of utopia is replaced by the metaphysics of the possible, the metaphysics of (other -gr. "business") — an action that only verifies the thought behind it. It is action that is at the heart of pragmatism: action in a constantly changing situation, in a flexible response, in the absence of truth as a thing-in-itself, as something broadcast, but not verifiable. I. e . pragmatism is based on consensus, it is an absolutely democratic trend in education.

Pragmatism takes its foundations in the writings of Charles Pierce, W. James, D. Dewey — American philosophers (logicians and psychologists concurrently) who tried to understand the American society of their time and offer their recipes for its best organization, their future programs. If in Europe the extinction of transcendent metaphysical concepts (including religion) led to experiments with totalitarian states, then in the USA a similar situation led to attempts to emancipate the individual not only from the structures of the state (American individualism), but from signs in general. Pragmatism, in short, means the ability to take a critical position regarding the sign and the ability to manage signs: to recognize meanings, interpret, arrange, shuffle. In other words, pragmatism is the art of managing signs ^[12], and the philosophical principles of pragmatism in education are the education of this quality in an individual: merciless logic in the criticism of signs (unfolding potentially indefinitely ^{[11, p. 186]}) and close attention to the latter and to the consequences of their adoption (use). The task of the pragmatist, as defined by Charles Pierce, is to assimilate the full intellectual content of any symbol in its general (concerning the general) action and the consequences resulting from this action ^{[11, p. 182]}. Pragmatism calls for "abandoning the idea of a definitive dictionary and becoming an anti-fundamentalist in relation to knowledge" ^{[8, p. 196]}.

The essence of the philosophy of pragmatism in education is the criticism of signs (the reality of culture as a sign and each sign covers the sign and so on to the very bottom) and thus the exercise of self—control or subjectivation. Criticism of signs in pragmatism is a peculiar type of epimelia heautou, a self—care practitioner according to M. Foucault ^[15]. The education (construction according to V. Humboldt) of a rational individual begins with teaching criticism of signs. Charles Pierce saw the first step in achieving clarity of the ideas we operate with ^{[10, pp. 266-295]}. The second step, as we already know, is foreseeing the practical consequences of an idea ^{[2, p. 33]} and understanding the mechanisms of how certain words (signs) work: how they constitute and construct us and social reality ^{[2, p. 38]}. In other words, the educational potential of pragmatism is in its focus on fostering flexible, agile, critical thinking aimed at dialectical consideration of any cultural phenomenon (any theory, ideology, any text) with an emphasis on the result ^{[2, p. 39]}, which should maximize the effect: starting from the particular, pragmatism always means general ^{[11, pp. 160-182]}.

If the first characteristic of the educational position of pragmatism is the criticism of signs, then its second basis can be considered the democratic nature of both the method and the results obtained. At the heart of pragmatism is a consensual understanding of the truth: it is considered only what can be confirmed and verified, and the rest is declared a lie ^{[24, p. 142]}. In other words, pragmatism is as scientific as possible: it does not appeal to certain idols (F. Bacon), but draws attention to the need for dialogical implementation of scientific practice, to the collective nature of the search. As R. Rorty notes: in pragmatism, "there is no instance to which one could appeal higher than the democratic consensus" ^[4], where knowledge is a derivative of collective research, mutual trust and the "intersubjective agreement" of the interlocutors ^{[3, p. 56]}.

The same democratic tradition underlies the educational trajectory of pragmatism, which calls for starting from the recognition of plurality (individuals, situations, ideas, interests, variants of truth), from the a priori freedom of interactions (ideas, people, groups) and from the fact of correlation between ideas and reality resulting from their interaction ^{[5, p. 85]}. At its core, pragmatism calls for education to follow the cognitive activity of the student, thereby deepening his experience, and the importance of the teacher is reduced to the role of a more experienced mentor who is in partnership in the field of general knowledge of the problem. From the point of view of J. Dewey, education should be based on the environment (the field of social practices and immersion in the problem through involvement in the activities of the group, where learning takes place not only relative to the subject being studied, but implicitly life in society as a whole), on a sequence of transitional forms (from simple and domestic forms of life to more complex social constructs), on the reality of the studied (the correlation of the studied with the actual and actual problems of society), on activity (active methods of teaching and learning through activity), which education is adjusted to, and not which is built under the educational theme. In other words, in the Dewey model, learning follows the child, complementing his practice ^[6]. An ideal example of such an educational model is Dumbledore's mentoring of Harry Potter, gradually and gradually preparing the boy who survived for the main battle in his life and for his main moral choice, while at the same time allowing him to move and navigate in a dangerous world. Ultimately, the student must learn to live in the real world and interact with it by acquiring social efficiency, cultural baggage and the ability to make ethical decisions. At the same time, according to R. Rorty, school education serves socialization, while higher education serves individualization ^{[30, pp. 114-127]}.

Pragmatism in education

The original thesis of pragmatism is that the world is a constantly changing and complicated system, the task of man is survival in a changing and complicated world. The world, which W. Beck designated as a "risk society" ^[1]. Pragmatism develops on the basis of utilitarianism and capitalism, it turns out to be closely related to the "applied" aspect of American culture, which is based on the principle of action — doing with a certain contempt for intellectualism, but with a desire for a certain result, often associated with the common good. The apostles of pragmatism in education are J. Dewey, who developed the foundations of the theory and practice of pragmatism in education, and R. Rorty, thanks to whom pragmatism became widespread in Europe.

The purpose of education is to educate a critically thinking person. In other words, the purpose of education is not to make students "experts" of any texts, information, but to teach them to learn, to teach them to adapt to a constantly changing world. J. Dewey saw the tasks of education in the need to continue the existence of a social group, i.e. society as a whole, where a person is only a temporary unit, and therefore his task is to study previous experience, accumulate his own and pass on to the next generations, thereby ensuring the continuity of tradition and renewal of the community, its greater stability relative to the challenges of the environment ^{[5, pp. 7-9]}. In other words, in his understanding of the fundamental goals of education, Dewey is very conservative: this is the preservation and transfer of the accumulated experience of mankind, in the flow of which the person himself is just a temporary carrier and converter of information. Knowledge and the transfer of knowledge, according to Dewey, is the primary condition for the existence of society in general. Pragmatism in this case turns out to be closely related to the general trend of American philosophical thought, initially focused on solving civil and socio-political problems ^{[7, p. 14]}.

So, the first goal of education in the concept of pragmatism is to ensure the existence of society.

However, the existence of society is impossible without communication. Dewey focuses on the consonance of these words: society and communication. Communication ensures the existence of society through the presence of common themes, values, concepts, the formation of which provides education. A group of individuals, according to Dewey, does not form a society if it is not united by common knowledge formed through communication ^{[5, pp. 9-11]}. Ensuring communication between people (and through this — the existence of society) is the second goal of the educational policy of pragmatism. An individual should be in the environment of individuals and be in constant communication with them — this is a natural human environment and a natural way for him to continuously learn: through others.

Dewey's educational concept focuses on non—formal education, which naturally arises in a group, and formal education, which arises in connection with the growth of knowledge and the need for its structured and facilitated transmission. Dewey believed that the formalization of education often leads to its separation from the real problems of society, turns it into a "dead", abstract, deprives it of a personal emotional dimension. In this regard, Dewey considered it necessary to combine the principles of informal and formal education ^{[5, p. 12-14]}. The third goal of pragmatism in education is to create an educational model where knowledge follows the student's experience, constantly expanding his horizons, while constantly keeping in mind the reality of social practice.

With an amendment to the terminology, these same features are highlighted by R. Rorty, who attached key importance to education as a way of including a person in social life through fostering feelings of solidarity and cohesion in him, the ability to dialogue with others (polylogue), through the creation of a common language field (within which society is possible) ^{[26, pp. 81-89]}. The ultimate goal of education, according to Rorty and Dewey, is the transformation of a human animal into a human in the full sense of the word: a socialized (who has assimilated the values of society) individual (who has realized his uniqueness and independence) ^{[30, p. 118]}. Society begins with the individual, the individual begins with society — this is the paradox underlying pragmatism.

The condition is the procedural nature of curricula (for example, Dewey argues that the curriculum should not be squeezed into the "Procrustean bed" of academic disciplines. Rather, it should be built around students' natural problems); placing students with their needs and interests at the center of the educational process; giving students the opportunity to choose the content of subjects ^[4]. From the point of view of pragmatism, education is possible if several conditions are met: sociality (group, dialogue, consensus), activity (action, practice, result), empiricism (transfer of experience, experimental method of research and education, correlation between the studied and real social phenomena and practices). At the same time, secondary education should serve to include a person in society, assimilate basic social values, familiarize young people with what older people consider to be the truth, whether it is the truth or not, i.e. to contribute to the development of a certain social consensus, while higher education should contribute to the development of the ability to doubt, stimulate imagination, challenge and constitute one's own individuality ^{[30, pp. 114-126]}.

From Dewey's point of view, the environment plays a fundamental role in the educational process. It should be designed in such a way that, getting into it, the student involuntarily finds himself involved in the directed flow of educational practice, as if included in it. The environment should promote, stimulate, motivate and exclude other (harmful) opportunities. As water for fish, so the school / university for the student must be a sphere in which it is impossible to be at the same time and not be included in the overall process. The environment forms "intellectual and emotional attitudes of behavior in individuals by involving them in activities that generate and strengthen certain motives" ^{[5, p. 21]} and it is also able to establish taboos on certain actions through the threat of condemnation or ostracism. Thanks to the environment, the student learns the language, manners, acquires taste. Rorty adds that the environment (social group) generally forms a linguistic animal out of a person ^[26]. According to Dewey, school, as a special environment, firstly, creates a simplified model of society in which it is easier for a child to comprehend the complexity of culture, secondly, it is designed to protect as much as possible from unacceptable aspects of social life, and thirdly, to compensate for the negative influences of society with positive ones. In other words, according to Dewey, the school should be not just a formal social institution, but a community of equals and enthusiastic, engaged in a common cause, where the child would unconsciously assimilate the correct patterns of social behavior and be included in positive social practices ^{[5, pp. 16-27]}.

From Dewey's point of view, the student is initially in the group and through the group assimilates the main body of information. Moreover, he is initially active and plastic in the assimilation of information. The student acts and does it according to his own interests. The task of a properly structured educational process is to follow the child in his cognitive activity. From his point of view, "the true reference point of school subjects should not be science, literature, history or geography, but the social activity of the child himself" ^[6]: first, the child acts, commits an act, acquires experience, and then receives additional materials from his teachers. That is, if we take the example of literature, the child first falls in love, and after that reads lyrical poetry and novels about the experiences associated with falling in love, and not vice versa. Theory follows experience. And experience follows theory. In the concept of pragmatism, experience occupies a key position: any conversation about knowledge and education begins and ends with it — thanks to experience, a result is obtained that is true to the extent that it correlates with reality.

So, at the heart of the educational program of pragmatism is action: cognition of the world through activity, through conducting experiments, through a simplified (game) learning format; gaining and accumulating experience; democratic and horizontal nature of the educational environment in which teachers act as partners. From R. Rorty's point of view, such an organization of the educational space helps to reveal the potential of the student, because "in a democratic community it is customary to be inquisitive and sociable, to use persuasion instead of force, to prefer a free and open dialogue to a monologue that shackles communication" ^{[3, p. 67]}. Action, experience and democratic communication should contribute to the emotional involvement of the student ^{[32, p. 150]}. An interdisciplinary approach should be added to this, in which there is no artificial division of general knowledge into subject areas, but the education following the cognitive activity of the child comprehensively expands his information about any phenomenon ^[6]. All this opens the way to the creative development of the student. Pragmatism, at least in R. Rorty's interpretation, denies the rigid framework of the method, the strict gradation of scientific and artistic knowledge of the world ^{[3, p. 63]}, calls for "abandoning the idea of a definitive dictionary and becoming an anti-fundamentalist in relation to knowledge" ^{[8, p. 196]}. In other words, pragmatism sees as its condition a certain integrity (holism) of cognition both in its forms and in its methods, while denying strict/narrow methodology as such ^[14].

Means: the problematic nature of learning, the essence of which is that students do not just master a certain area of knowledge, but, using their intelligence, solve certain problematic situations. Teachers in the pragmatic sense are by no means "experts" who are aware of what exactly students will need in the future. They act more like colleagues in the cognitive process, as moderators and designers. This style of interaction fits into the form of a polylogue – polyphony, in the space of which everyone has the right to defend their opinion. Some researchers even talk about a communicative turn (democratic dialogue) in education associated with pragmatism ^{[22, pp. 77-108]}.

Of course, this does not mean that the philosophy of pragmatism excludes fundamental knowledge, it develops the idea that the appeal to this kind of knowledge should be initiated by the initial empirical search activity.

Dewey 's pedagogical criteria are as follows:

1. Logic, philosophy, and education are varieties of research. Logic is the theory of research, and philosophy is the theory of education.
2. It is extremely important that education directly involves students in the problematic nature of the subject they are trying to study, it should contribute to the development of the skill to think problematically.
3. Students should work not with refined texts of culture, but with raw texts of the current social reality with its problems, i.e. learn to solve current problems.
4. An approximate scheme for analyzing the problem may look like this: (a) the situation before reflection, (b) a sense of difficulty, (c) doubts from what was previously taken for granted, (d) doubt becomes a question, (e) statement of the problem, (f) formation of a hypothesis, (g) verification of alternative hypotheses, (h) discovery of objections, (i) revision of hypotheses, (j) application of revised hypotheses to life situations, (k) post-reflection of the situation.
5. Pragmatism proceeds from such initial properties of children as: (a) emotionality, the impact of which increases the involvement of students in the educational process; (b) sociality: children naturally tend to work together and their willingness to form a community should be encouraged, not suppressed; (c) habit formation, since habits are necessary for the development of skills; (d) imagination: children's reflections and imagination tend to stimulate each other, which is useful in educational practice; (e) interest, since children's questions about meaning contribute to the further development of their interest in the world around them ^{[32, pp. 148-150]}.

In other words, pragmatism tries to be based on the natural qualities of the child as a questioning being, proceeding from the maxim that all children are scientists by nature: they are interested, ask questions, explore, unite, fantasize. Scientists in children are ruined only by formal and abstract education, which needs to be adapted to children, and not vice versa. However, one should not think that in such a system the role of the teacher is somehow leveled or belittled due to the horizontal nature of communication - despite such an organization of the educational process, from Dewey's point of view, the teacher should be "in the center" ^{[29, p. 395]}, i.e. control and organize the entire learning process, creating necessary conditions. Strictly speaking, neither Dewey nor Rorty give a specific, programmatic list of how to organize education; they only focus on the general principles of building an effective educational process, the advantages of which are: project method (creative activity and design), individualization (the interests of the child are ahead of book knowledge and material requirements), emphasis on activity, the applied nature of knowledge (any knowledge must be applicable and experienced), democracy (pragmatism develops in a child the habit of democratic values and devotion to them) ^{[31, pp. 78-79]}. Regarding the importance of democracy as a means of organizing the educational process, it should be added that, from the point of view of pragmatists, it allows the best way to take into account the interests of students and is the most successful way to turn learning into a joint activity to solve problems ^{[17, p. 6]}. In addition, from the point of view of R. Rorty, humanitarian education and virtues are necessary for the existence of liberalism ^{[19, p. 24]}. All these methods are required to help students create new values and meanings, accumulate individual and practice-related experience, gradually adapt to society, develop comprehensively ^{[28, p. 1845]}. From the point of view of pragmatists, this educational model should instill in the child the desire to learn throughout life: the whole life should be perceived as one big cognitive adventure.

However, it should be noted that in the United States, a long-term controversy is unfolding around pragmatism between supporters and opponents of the current. Some people consider Dewey himself to be the savior of American society, and some compared him to Hitler: he was proclaimed the savior of American education by those who welcomed greater involvement of students in their own planning and activities, but he was called "worse than Hitler" by those who believed that he infected schools with epistemological and moral relativism ^{[27, p. 22]}. The alleged threat of Dewey's ideas to so-called American values (Christianity, capitalism, and even individualism) is still a popular topic in American society today, especially on right-wing, conservative websites ^{[25, pp. 330-336]}. Among the disadvantages of pragmatism are: (a) denial of the existence of a certain (objective) truth (from the point of view of pragmatism, what is true in practice), (b) rejection of the universality of ideas and values (they change depending on time, place, situation), (c) the absence of pre-established and defined educational goals, (d) non-recognition of spiritual values, (e) anti-intellectualism (repulsion from practice and a certain disregard for theory and book culture), (e) neglect of history (more attention is paid to the present and the future when leveling historical experience) ^{[31, p. 78]}, (f) lack of tools to establish the truth ^{[16, p. 95]}.

At the same time, pragmatism remains an actual educational concept in the United States: parallels are drawn between the principles of Dewey-Rorty pedagogy and philosophical education for children (including in line with the growing popularity of philosophical practice) ^[32], its positive democratic aspect is noted ^{[21, pp. 99-108]}, it is indicated that in conditions when A revolution in education has taken place in the USA and Great Britain, expressed in a hidden disregard for practicality, deregulation of educational provision, transfer of responsibility from public to private and commercial companies, emphasis on competition through partnership, deprofessionalization of teachers and reduction of the value of learning to what is measurable, those who wish to question such a revolution can find support in John Dewey's completely different vision of education ^{[23, p. 282]}.

Thus, we can focus on the three main pillars of pragmatism as a method of education: criticism of signs, consensual truth and the educational process, an active cognitive position based on the primacy of experience. This is where both his strengths and his weaknesses lie ^{[18, pp. 127-129]}, since such an approach oversimplifies the multidimensionality of human subjectivity and limits the value of human imagination, clipping the wings of those looking beyond the horizon of reality. Despite this, pragmatism remains an actual philosophical and educational concept in the American (and thanks to R. Rorty and Yu Habermas and in the European) environment ^{[32, pp. 185-241]}, and therefore requires careful study.

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