The philosophy of dialog in the educational discourse

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The philosophy of dialog in the educational discourse

Karanfilova E., PhD in Philosophical sciences,

Annotation

dialogical consciousness educational philosophy

This article deals with the topical issues of reformation of the modern educational system, which are connected to using of model and principles of the philosophy of dialog. The philosophy of dialog was presented by an author as an opportunity to form a dialogical consciousness and thinking and an actual way to overcome the rationalism and the monopholy of the culture.

Keywords: dialog, polyculturalism, hermeneutics.

Анотація

Каранфілова Є., кандидат філософських наук, доцент кафедри філософії, політології, психології та права, ОДАСА (Україна, Odeca)

Філософія діалогу в освітньому дискурсі

Ця стаття присвячена актуальним проблемам реформування сучасної системи освіти, пов'язаних із використанням моделі та принципами філософії діалогу. Філософія діалогу була представлена автором як можливість сформувати діалогічну свідомість і мислення, а також реальний спосіб подолатираціоналізм імонофолію культури.

Ключові слова: діалог, полікультуризм, герменевтика.

The main text

In the socio-philosophical discourse the situation of the modern global sociocultural crisis became a stimulus for the scientific researches and the development of strategies, conceptions and practical innovations for solving the problems connected to necessity of the reformation of the whole educational system. The relevance and the novelty of the approaches offered by the philosophy of the dialog for solving many educational issues make us take a look on the educational process in a different way, consider it as a process of the self-learning and self-developing personality's formation. This manifests the humanitarian function of the education with its emphasis on the methods of the understanding and the hermeneutical interpretation of the goals and values of the culture. For the philosophy of the XX-XXI centuries the studies of the abstract educational schemes and structures were not as typical as the studies of the specific empiric subject-interpreter, which deals with the different «texts» of the culture. It is impossible to bring them together without the use of the dialogism and multiculturalism principles. Hencethe researcher's increased interest for the dialogism as for the important tool of the modern communication.

The idea of the culture's dialog in itself isn't new for the philosophy, but the main thoughts, developed by M. Bakhtin and continued by W. Bibler in his works, deepened, widened, specified it. The crisis of the educational system in our country, which was caused by the collapse of the normative and unitary-ideologized pedagogics aimed to approve the communist ideals and values, has increased the philosopher's and teacher's interest for the philosophical tradition of the dialog. After all, traditionally it has developed so, that the cultural phenomenon «penetrates... all the decisive life events and the consciousness of the modern people» [4, p. 261]. One of the «dialog of cultures» concept's creators, M. Bakhtin, understands culture as:

The communication form of the people of different cultures, the form of the dialog; for him «the culture exists there, where there are two (at least) cultures, and the selfconsciousness of the culture is the form of it's being on the edge with another culture» [2, p. 85]; as a mechanism of person's self-determination with its historicity and sociality; as a form of finding, perception ofthe world for the first time.

The creator of the «dialogical philosophy» W. Biblerapplied the principles of his conception to an educational process. His «dialogika» stimulated the development of the new strategies for modern educational system, massive social movements for the humanization of education, for the alternative schools etc. As opposed to the previous concepts of education, that emphasized the isolated existence of «Me», Bibler treats education as based on a dialog mutual relation between people [4]. W. Bibler created an original conception of the philosophic cultures' dialog theory. A cornerstone of this conception is the idea of dialogical nature of human's mind. He treats education as a special form of communication between a student and a teacher, who must be able to combine theory and practice in the most generalized way. The scientist believed that the sense of education is a process of «person's of culture» participation in life. According to this, the subject of knowledge is interpreted as a person setting, deciphering, interpreting and understanding the deepest senses of culture.

The philosophic sense of the polycultural education phenomenon opens by means of reference to the basic philosophy of culture categories, such as «cultural monism» and «cultural pluralism». After all, the existence of the culture appears in the unity or variety of different cultures. The process of considering the world of culture as an united and varied at the same time sets up a problem, because for its solving the special dialogical way of thinking is needed. But this way of thinking wasn't given to a human being, it needs to be formed and developed. The dialog is an universal, comprehensive way of the cultural existence and the existence of people in culture, general definition of the indivisible origins ofthinking [3].

In the context of the stated above tendencies the most common is the philosophical conceptualization of the dialog's tradition, because person always search and realizes himself in the universum of senses. When positioning the dialog as an object of the socio-philosophical consideration, it is necessary to coordinate the analysis of this concept with a process of the personal self-consciousness, as here is situated the «painful point» of the variety of intellectual, ethical, aesthetic, creative issues of different spiritual production aspects.

Dialogism as an ability to complete, constructive, reciprocal interaction with nature, culture, human, performs as an indicator and result of the humanitarian education. The dialog as a pedagogical method lets interact with the unique internal world of personality and consider all the unit and all the accidental.

In this context dialog realizes its socio-adaptable function: as a deep intrinsic power of the social self-realization, it appears as a form of protection of the world's cultural variety.

We can't ignore the fact, that the practical justification of the necessity of polycultural education in the beginning of the third century is explained by objective processes that take place in the world community. In reality the whole world is going to unity. All the people join in the unite community, as a result of becoming complicated relations and mutual dependences. But the optimal polycultural educational strategy is possible only on condition of the dialog. Dialog is not a simple imposing of two opposite ideal: the unity and the separateness, monoculturalism and multiculturalism, it is a search of the cultural «golden mean». At the same time the formation of the cultural «golden mean» is a process, not a one-time campaign. Only the dialog makes the connection of the personal's values ideals and universal solidarity notable.

The traditions of the philosophical dialog were set in antiquity, in the philosophical practices of the European philosophy pillars - Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. They considered dialog as the main form of exchanging the knowledge - from a teacher to a student and vice versa. Dialog was considered as an optimal form of communication between people. We can say, that the main principles of the dialogical philosophy has been formed throughout centuries and found the final realization in the hermeneutical tradition of the postmodern discourse.

Today we can describe the main function of the modern education as fostering a dialogical person, who is able to perceive and to create a world in the harmony of its variety. Undoubted, that the space of the polycultural dialog becomes possible even in the meaning, that this dialog reunites different national cultures' features. In this connection the main importance has the dialogical approach in education, when it is based on the ideas of openness, cultures' dialogs and cultural pluralism. The sense of this approach consists in the considering of polycultural education as a way of familiarizing students with different cultures with the aim of forming a particular consciousness, that will let us interact with the representatives of different cultures and nations, integrate in the world's and European's educational space. The philosophical and methodological basis of this approach is consideringthe dialog in the way, that all philosophical systems are not rejected, but coexist and interact [4]. It's worth to admit, that the dialogism is the special feature of the aiming to integrity culture. This feature provides the self-preservation and cultural preservation mechanisms. The dialogism lets accept foreign arguments, foreign experience and always finds a compromise.

One of the important philosophical and cultural bases of the polycultural education is the thesis about the cultural pluralism. The cultural pluralism is needed to reflect the diversity and the discrepancy of the social realness in the specifically acculturated way. We have to admit, that our world is full of differences, that's why we need the unification of the cultural variety. Dialog (that is considered as a fundamental principle of the cultures' activity) points the mutual necessity of the cultures. M. Bakhtin wrote: «We ask the foreign culture new questions, that were never asked by it before; we try to find the answers in it, and the foreign culture answers by opening its new sides and new semantic depths... Within this dialogical meeting of the two cultures they don't merge and mix, each of them keeps its unity and opened integrity, but they are mutually enriched [2]. When we talk about students familiarizing with the elements of foreign culture and when there is a dialogical meeting of two cultures, there appears an inevitable question: what cultures do we keep in mind: past, modern, future? Are they cultures, that are only going to appear or some, that were absolutely opened during the historical developing? In that situation the M. Bakhtin's interpretation of the culture becomes very important. He presented culture as semantic layers. The first layer (the historically shot maintenance): it is connected to past and indissolubly connected to future cultural eras. The second layer represents the originality of the present situation and realizes the semantic actuality of culture in a narrow and specialized meaning of this word. The third layer of culture (the potential maintenance) is opened to future. While being polyculturally educated we face up differentiated unities of the cultural past, present and future. They can be understandable only in their historical continuity and interrelation.

The W. Bibler's approach for treatment culture as a united human's activity is very interesting for understanding the philosophy of modern polycultural education. W. Bibler thought that we can understand the dialogical school in a statement: «culture is purchased in humans' relationships and includes values, significant and institutional components» [3]. Actually, this approach is caused by an attempt to comprehend the culture in in the context of postmodern paradigm. This gives the understanding of the objective basis of the dialogism, which is inherent to for the deep senses of culture. As W. Bliber said: the modern thinking builds in the scheme of culture, when «the highest» achievements of the human's mind meet up the previous forms of culture (antiquity, the Medieval ages, New Age) in a dialogical communication. The same tendency has always been found in the cultural sphere. The form of culture, that is always built not during the removal procedure, but during the meeting (and tragic interface) of the unique personal phenomena.

In the XX century even complete and spiritual ranges of culture (West, East, Europe, Asia, Africa, or within the limits of the western culture - Antiquity, Middle Ages or the New Age's thinking) pull together in the same cultural space, in the same consciousness and thinking, demand from human not the chose, but the constant spiritual interfacing, integration, deep dispute in the center of some enduring spots of the astonishment and «the eternal questions of life». And - in that- in the dialog of the different life senses there is the sense of modern understanding, modern logic of thinking [3].

While trying to approach the study of this issue in a comprehensive way, we believe it is important to present the point of view of the scientists, who were studying the hermeneutics. The supporters of the hermeneutics consider the dialog of cultures first of all as a communication of consciousness. In that case consciousness is understood as a set of images and their structures, that are formed in activity [1]. As one of the global goals of the polycultural education is the achievement of understanding in a broad sense. It is important for us that during the consciousness communication as a dialog of cultures the understanding appears as a translation the conceptions of one culture into the conceptions of another. During the analysis of that phenomenon student, who is in the process of the polycultural education, meets some facts. Firstly, the closeness of cultures, if there is the community of consciousness, crossing it. Secondly, the ambivalence, dialogism: the same phenomenon can be interpreted by students in the imagination of their own culture and the foreign one, accepting them as the equal values and not tearing away any different conceptions. Only person with the dialogical thinking is able to accept the foreigner's culture and to tolerate it. The aim of the dialog participants is to achieve the mutual understanding with all possible differences of the taken in a dialog positions. The specific feature of the dialog of cultures with different languages consists in a problem, that the multifunctionality of words in some languages may be hypertrophied by the variety of meaning variants in other languages. Every participant of the dialog comes to his truth while searching for the sense and its verbalization. It may not match with the truth discovered by the other participant. It is important to solve a problem with the basic opportunity of their unification. There are prerequisites for it - they are in the existence of the common object and common aim, in the common technology, in the common ways of thinking, tools for the knowledge of object, the common logic of formation and statement the thoughts about the object of dialog. The formation of such prerequisites promotes the polycultural education of students, including the formation of the ability for mutual understanding. «The mutual understanding can be described as the approval of mutual value of similarity and distinction, as an interhuman and intercultural mutual trust and complimentary nature of ideals and senses» [9].

That point of view is supported by number of the researchers of polycultural education (Homann, Sandfuchs, Zimmer).In particular, M. Homann distinguishes two basic directions of the polycultural education: firstly, joint solving of cross-cultural issues - their existence has to be admitted and considered - secondly, the enrichment through the dialog with foreign cultures [11]. As for us the definition of polycultural education by Thomas: «The polycultural education takes place, while communicating with people of different cultures a particular person aims to understand their specific system of perception, knowledge, thinking, their system of values and acts, to integrate the new experience into their own cultural system and to change it in compliance with foreign culture. The polycultural education motivates not only for learning the new culture, but for the analysis of the system of your own culture as well» [14]. That kind of understanding lets distinguish different levels of the polycultural education or levels of familiarizing with foreign culture: from understanding to borrowing some examples of acting and their selective using. These levels may meet different stages in the process of the polycultural education or present its final result. The European concept of the multiperspective education can be considered as a dialogical approach. Its authors Gopfert [9] and Schmidt [12] demand the reconsidering educational program of schools and colleges in order to overcome the monocultural orientation. On the example of Bavarian scholar educational program for history, social science, religion Gopfert presented, how they alfect the development of openness, formation of the interest for foreign cultures and promote the formation of ethno- and eurocentrism, intolerance and hostility for other cultures. The most important is how the cultures are presented to students and how intensively the idea of the dialog of cultures is consisted in the educational program. Gopfert and Schmidt consider the polycultural education in a wide context of the educational theory, they also add cultural, political and social analysis of the situation. The result of his researches is educational program «the cross-cultural education». Schmidt admits the necessity of the recovery of the peaceful community; it is possible only on the level of personal contacts with people of different cultures, on the level of integration and transformation of the knowledge, that was got from other cultures [13]. In general Gopfert [10] and Schmidt [13] see the aim of the polycultural education as an attempt to give the students information about comprehensive cultural exchanging events happening in the world ant the multilevel structure of every culture.

To sum up the considering of the dialogical principle in the polyculural educational system we can add the thesis by Lossky about the world's culture as a synthesis of the best achievements of national cultures of different nations: «The national culture becomes famous all over the world only when the values born in it become the achievement of the whole mankind. The world's culture and the culture of the international communication are the results of the centuries-old development of the human history» [8]. The presented analysis don't apply for completeness and don't settle the whole complicated topic of the multiculturalism in the tradition of the dialogical approach.

The main ideas and aims of the philosophy of dialog in the educational system can be formulated as:

- the formation of the dialogical thinking and consciousness, release of its rationality ant the monopholy of the culture;

- renovation of the substantial maintenance, interface of different cultures, forms of acting, semantic spectrums;

- dialog as an integral component of the internal maintenance of personality;

- dialog as coexisting and interaction of the irreducible consciousness;

- dialog as a basis of the real development of the creative thinking.

We are sure, that the main aim of the educational system for today becomes «creating the opportunities for active communication, dialog, in which the voice of student will be important. In that case, it is really important for students to understand that they do have the right of speech and their opinion can affect the situation. For this it is necessary to avoid as it's possible the aprioristic categories in the educational program. It has to be flexible, able to change after the changes of conditions, because the object of the studies changes even by mean of our researches, after our work with it. Getting such an experience, student will be able to form knowledge even in his professional activities. The communicational experience that has been got by a student will let him form am image of his features and his own ability to form a knowledge, skills for compare his knowledge with knowledge of others, abilities to find the most suitable option in unordinary situation» [7, p. 48].

One of the important tasks of the modern society is the creation of the necessary theoretical basis and conditions for the realization of modern projects and principles, which can one the one hand will bring our educational system closer to the European standards, and on the other hand will consider useful national experience and will save that characteristic feature of the Ukrainian education in different measurements - from didactics to organization. That's why using of the strategies and principles of the philosophy of dialog during solving the educational problems is the most productive. The philosophy of the dialog becomes a methodological basis for the formation ofthe optimal model of educational process.

References

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