Philosophy Of The Dialogic Paradigm In The Educational Space

Abstract

The reflexive analysis of educational activity as socio-cultural phenomenon is implemented in the article. It is shown that the dominance traditional – scientific-technical, scientistic – paradigm of the education contradicts to co-vital content of globalized information society itself. The author gives arguments that the condition of transformation the national education systems from the traditional paradigm coordinate of the functioning to innovative ones is their transfer into the mode of maximum opened, content saturated and communicative intense dialogueness. The paper discloses a concept of an educational dialogue as a form of business communication that in process emerges at a certain vita-cultural or scientific-disciplinary teaching material, accelerates psychosocial development of the student personality and contributes to the increasing of its intellectual and self-actualizing potential. The basic components of dialogue are singled out, which compose the parity of educational activity at high school: the developmental space of subject interaction, dialogueness of social existence of human as personality, value-semantic parity of educational cooperation of study participants, educational polylogue as a special time-space of the development, improvement, self-cognition and self-realization of the future professional.

Keywords: Philosophy of educationthe paradigm of dialoguenessvalue-semantic paritydialogical rationalityself-regulationeducational polylogue

Introduction

Understanding the philosophical issues connected with the functioning of the system of national education, has become extremely urgent in connection with the crisis in the sphere of social production. ‘The specificity of philosophical reflection concerning education is that philosophy primarily aims to answer fundamental questions related to attitude of man to the world, its way of "occurrence" in human-being, i.e. to introduce philosophical outlook at the problems’ (Sulima, 2012, Bibler, 1989, 1992, 1993). In any case, education in the twenty-first century is a critical and culturally-sensitive, knowledge-oriented social institution, through which humanity has the opportunity to ensure the processes of preservation, accumulation and transfer of achievements of material and spiritual culture from one generation to another (Sulima, 2012; Bush, 1985).

It is obvious today that an updated quality of the modern post-industrial society and increasing trend to a global world requires a new approach to organization of educational activities – giving it a high subjectivity, equality, dialogueness and mutual responsibility. The emergence of new philosophical ideas in the educational space is due not so much to internal problems of education, as to changes in the cultural stratum of the society, its intellectual status, new requirements and benchmarks in social formations. Along with the socio-economic tasks of resource strengthening of universities, organizational and management goals have acquired the enduring significance as well as psychodidactic goals, which focus on meaningful invariant parity: it includes the formation of the curriculum by the students themselves in accordance with their individual preferences and requests, as well as their selection of a certain part of academic disciplines and special courses; it also includes a value-semantic rhythm in the mutual acceptance by all parties of the basic elements of the learning process, as well as psychosocial equality of the rules and conditions of their current educational joint activities, and inner perception by each follower of parity of interpersonal relationship as an everyday life norm.

Besides the subject definition of philosophy of education, focusing on the substantiation of fundamental principles of functioning, development and self-organization of scientific-educational sphere, feature of philosophical reflection on this compound object of knowledge is the intellectual coverage of education as a sociocultural phenomenon in all its values, meta-systemic, theoretical, methodological and applied, purely empirical and experimental aspects of life. The essential objectification philosophy of education is "the field of philosophical knowledge, which studies the methodological bases of functioning and development of education as a holistic system. It is an interdisciplinary and integrative field of knowledge, which accumulates achievements and perspectives stimulated by different sciences, such as psychology, pedagogy, ethics, aesthetics, cultural studies, sociology, etc., arises the form of the conceptualization of education, which becomes an object of philosophical analysis, which covers its ontological, epistemological, anthropological, axiomatic and praxiological aspects" (Sulima, 2012).

Research Questions

It is obvious that the emergence of the philosophy of education as a separate scientific discipline was due to synthetic crisis of national systems of education in different countries of the world at the end of the 20^th century, and, while having certain mental and socio-cultural differences, is still based out of the main source – paradigmatic inconsistencies of the new education civilizational realities of the post-industrial era (Machlin, 1995). We are talking about the oppressive dominance of the traditional scientific and technical (scientistic) educational paradigm, which is contrary to vital content of the globalized information society. This fact is recognized among foreign and Russian scientists. For example, the co-chair of the Network of the philosophy of educational studios of the European Association of Education Studies D. Bridges has proposed the following thesis: “Without the development of broader content goals of education, epistomological foundations of the learning process, ethical and social dimensions of educational practice, we will remain with simple technical practice of education, which has no real value” (Sulima, 2012). In addition to this thesis, in the context of the development of the theory of educational activity it is rightly noted that paradigm transformation of scientific knowledge in this case "is mainly connected not so much with the appearance of separate theories, as with the whole theoretical systems, representing themselves not as the refinement or detailing of the original postulates and concepts, but their fundamental problem transformation, the structural expansion, a qualitatively higher synthesis" (Sulima, 2012). In our opinion, it is true that new theoretical systems in the field of educational studies as a self-sufficient social institution cannot be logically deducted from existing epistems, models and concepts. The paradox and drama of our life is that today politicians and bureaucrats first and foremost ‘know’ how to reform the education systems, while well-known scholars and respected teachers are expressing more restrained, moderate and far from optimistic views. In this regard, we put the question whether the opened, content saturated and intense dialogueness can serve as the condition of transformation of the national education systems from the traditional to innovative ones.

Purpose of the Study

Substantiation of the paradigm of the dialogueness as an integral framework condition for the achievement of parity in educational activities of the teacher and students and therefore the essential psychodidactic reorientation of the higher school system from the information extensive development path to the rapidly growing in the following aspects: problematically communicative, meaningful innovative, personally responsible.

Research Methods

The author uses cognitive analysis, philosophical analysis, content-analysis, graphical presentation.

Findings

The object of the study is an educational activity as heavily integrative, multifunctional, mega-systematic phenomenon, which covers in it own subjective deployment other activities (primarily search, training, games, research, cognitive, communication, labor, spiritual and creative) and efficiently involves obtaining by a personality of the four-element socio-cultural product: new knowledge about human-being, society, the world and the mental process; the use of the achieved knowledge, mastering skills and standards in the practice of public life.

The subject of the proposed research is a paradigmatic dialogueness in the polyphony of the sources, forms, conditions and means of the parity activity of modern high schools.

The philosophical concept of modern education for the first time was clearly defined in the leading theme of the twentieth World Congress of Philosophy (1998, Boston) "Paidea: the philosophy that teaches humanity" (Singaevsky, 2007). The scientists are gradually transferring this discipline from a philosophical interpretation of the directions of the educational practices into a space of interdisciplinary research undertaken on a systematic basis, and focusing on the newly formed paradigm, into an independent branch of knowledge – philosophy of education. First of all, this term is connected with the methodological setting to achieve philosophical consistency, which in theory covers at least two layers: a) the definition of the methodological foundations of interdisciplinary pedagogical theories and practices and b) the argumentation of the philosophical position regarding laws, trends and prospects of the development of education as a special branch of scientific knowledge and pedagogical theory (Singaevsky, 2007).

In the conviction of the developers of this interdisciplinary research area, the philosophy of education should create a joint foundation for the integration of various educational theories and practices. Besides, it is noted that the philosophical and educational knowledge are formed not from individual systems of knowledge, but from generalizing of an advanced educational experience within their inter-system interaction and structuring. The philosophical categories with their methodological-conceptual foundations are becoming decisive for a higher school, in order to ensure its advanced nature and predictive educational policy. According to Romanenko, philosophy of education indicates the key points of the reorganization of this important social institution, valuable foundation of new projects of education systems and the segments of the development of pedagogical thought, which integrate and consolidate the main lines of research for the search of the optimal forms of implementation of educational practices (Romanenko, 1998).

Classical (or traditional) paradigm of education, as we know, was formed by certain philosophical and pedagogical ideas that were formulated in the late 18th – early 19th century by JKomensky, Pestalozzi, Herbart, Diesterweg, Dewey and other thinkers (Bear, Polyakov & Sulima, 2012). At the end of the 19th century Herder, Humboldt, Hegel created a new philosophical concept of education, oriented to self-knowledge, self-formation of personality, the recognition of their rights to education (Flosofa osti, 2009). Over historical time, this paradigm was continually enriched with new ideas, including the efforts of the following thinkers: Ushinsky, Drahomanov, Makarenko and others (Bear, Polyakov & Sulima, 2012). But today it is almost exhausted and doesn’t meet the demands of the modern global information society. The position of the classic paradigm is increasingly defined as a crisis for several reasons: firstly, in the opinion of the representatives of the Club of Rome, it is in a crisis because it represents itself as a "supportive education", mostly focused on reproductive - "inactive, impractical" - knowledge; secondly, the process of learning, in fact, in this case has the only aim to acquire knowledge and skills through a gradual accumulation of material, its formulaic and stereotypical use in different types of activities; thirdly, despite the fact that the technocratic nature of this education stimulates intellectual development of the younger generations, still doesn’t promote enough to its psychosocial maturity and moral and spiritual perfection.

A kind of common denominator of transformation of national education systems (primarily in EU countries), as shown by the reflective analysis, from the traditional paradigmatic coordinates of their functioning to innovative coordinates, is their translation into the regime of a maximally open, content-rich and communication-intensive dialogueness. Today it is truly said of the crucial importance of the culture of dialogueness in the development of human groups and communities, as well as the culture of live dialogue as the most defining integral index of tolerance, humanity and wisdom. At the same time the dialogism as a philosophical principle and the way of life encourages and often achieves the significant restrictions of individual and collective egoism; it also stimulates the development of the best human potential in the daily activities of each socialized person.

Founded in the sphere of humanitarian knowledge over one hundred years ago, the paradigm of the dialogueness only now has become a defining feature of scientific thinking and mass consciousness, marking a hopeful feeling for the resolving of the difficult, primarily socio-economic and environmental problems of mankind. In this regard, Sadovska expresses the following idea: "The space of the dialogical communicative meta-rationality is focused on the constructive interaction of different forms of sociocultural action and scientific knowledge. Dialogue as a method of the current thinking has its basis in the structure of human consciousness in the neurophysiological, psychological and epistemological aspects. In this regard, the image of the subject of knowledge, established by Descartes and Kant, which provides a universal and impersonal knowledge of reality, is giving its way to the idea of intersubjectivity, dialogical rationality. The prerequisite for the idea of intersubjectivity is a complex structure of "Self-concept", which covers the "Self-concept" as an individual and the "Self-concept" as an universal mind, when such an "Self-concept" becomes the point of intersection of the mortal human life and the entire history of the human spirit" (Kopyev, 1992; Kuchinsky, 1983; Sadovska, 2007).

In the early 20th century well-known founders of the philosophy of the dialogue (Ebner, Rosenzweig, Rosenstock-Hussy, Buber, Bakhtin, Levinas (Ebner, 1952); (Rosenzweig, 2002); (Rosenstock, 1997), (Rosenstock, 2000), (Rosenstock 1997), (Rosenstock, 1994), (Rosenstock, 2002), (Rosenstock 1925), (Rosenstock, 1994), (Buber, 1995), (Buber, 1999); (Bakhtin, 1979), (Bakhtin, 1986); (Levinas, 1930) argued for the limitations of the dialogue only as an object of logics and pointed to the need for extrapolation of the phenomenon of dialogue as a purely human way of worldview to all areas and segments of life-being of the socialized individual. And, although, it seems that the real dialogism significantly restricts the dominant status of the personal "I-concept", still it is spreading the limitless field of the inner freedom - spontaneity, empathetic nature in the relations between people that fully claim their philanthropic style and character of life. According to Stepyko, ‘it is important that mutual respect in the process of dialogical communication is achieved not by the subordination and neglect of someone’s position, but through the achievement of self-esteem and formation of the corresponding relationship to the position of the opponent. Such a statement is a necessary condition for the relations on all levels, because within the transformation to the intersubjective space the interacting sides should not only be tolerant towards the opinion of "the Other", but also efficiently represent their own opinion. Thus, the philosophy of dialogue is a significant milestone in the formation of a new ideological paradigm and has a significant influence on the development of modern communication attitudes unlike monologue theorizing of the former rational paradigm philosophy" (Stepyko, 2015).

The founders of the dialogical paradigm in the new era are Buber and Bakhtin (Buber, 1995), (Buber, 1999), (Bakhtin, 1979), (Bakhtin, 1986). The basic idea of Buber’s concept of dialogue is that “Self-concept” is not a substance but a relationship to become “You-concept”. Due to this transformation, the destiny of man is realized into practice, where the distance between “Self-concept” and “You-concept” is the place where it has its authentic being (Buber, 1995), (Buber, 1999). It is the exact sphere (interim sphere between the two participants of the dialogue) where new formations appear. These formations are formed not by one of the dialogue partners, but together. Hence it is clear that the essence of human existence is revealed in an unbiased open relationship between “I’ and ‘You’ concepts towards this or that ‘Other-concept’, which represents itself as the purpose of subject-subject communication. However, the subject-object attitudes and intentions, being formed for utilitarian use of the ‘Other’ as a means of achieving purely personal goals, are in part strikingly problematizing and even dramatizing the relationship within the meeting of two sovereign personalities. This situation creates a zone event, the existential space of dialogue, in which each participant gets the opportunity for self-discovery, self-knowledge and self-improvement as a part of facilitative intention of the ‘Other’.

In substantiation of the philosophy of dialogue Bakhtin has formulated the fundamental aim: the human being is a special dialogical sphere, because it "is the most profound communication; to be the means to communicate" (Bakhtin, 1979), to interact in a dialogical format to meet different contexts, views, ideologies, various social "languages". Therefore, dialogue is a mutual action of the essential abilities in the mutual influence of two or more personalities. The thinker considers the presence of communicative intentions as the premise of dialogical relations, which he treats as an intention for the "word": "Logical and substantive relationship to become dialogical... should incarnate, become the word, i.e. a statement, and get the author, the Creator of the given utterance whose position it expresses" (Bakhtin, 1979), (Vasilieva, 1985). It is the "word" which causes a dialogical reaction of a person; it is not so much a symbolic term, but the statement of the author's view on a particular issue. Hence, in fact, the substantiation stands for two kinds of dialogue – distal (response to "the essence") and modal (reaction to the attitude of the author toward the subject).

Thus, the activity of the personality, its conscious activity is essentially dialogical. To become an author of the statement means to formulate and articulate not just an idea, but the attitude to it. Actually, a dialogical reaction occurs when the word is perceived as a sign of "someone else’s meaningful position...i.e. when we hear someone else's voice in it" (Bakhtin, 1979). Therefore, any dialogue for Bakhtin is always a controversy, this is an alternation of reactions of opponents to the "voice" of each other: "In a hidden polemic the author's word is directed to his subject, like any other word, but each statement on the subject is built so that, in addition to his substantive sense, to hit polemically on someone else's word on this topic, on someone else's statement on the same subject" (Bakhtin, 1986). In other words, a full-fledged dialogical relationship is the only form of the attitude to the personality that saves her will and imperfection, approves the responsibility of the act in relation to the ‘Other’. So, the process of human development both as a personality and an individual occurs in an intersubjective dialogueness, based on openness, equality and harmony (Furman, 2014; Jubinski, 1986; Anderson, Baxter & Cissna, 2004; Atterton, Calarco & Friedman, 2004; Bergman, 1991; Kellebrew, 2012). And, moreover, the endless dialogueness determines present human community, since the parties of such a relationship create a common language that provides the ability to reach an agreement, not to subjugate the ‘Other’ or the others to your own will.

The organization of training and education in this sense is not an exception, too. Training and, especially, educational dialogue is a form of business communication that occurs on a specific methodological or scientific-disciplinary material, it stimulates the development of cognitive and transforming activities due to the systematic formulation of problems, objectives and issues, promoting emotional and personal openness of the interlocutors, their psychological disposition to trust and truthfulness of the intentions and statements and in the end provides the extraction of new knowledge, appropriation of social norms, treatment by this time of unbearable skills and abilities, building value-semantic and self-actualization potential of those who teach and learn.

The main functions of educational dialogue are:

a) transmission of information, social experience and cultural heritage of humanity and a specific environment;

b) regulation of interpersonal relations, the emergence of mutual understanding as the result of dialogical communication;

c) ensuring self-regulation and self-development on the basis of "self-dialogue";

d) acceleration of psychosocial development of the personality of the student and enhancement of his/her intellectual and self-actualization potential;

e) the formation of professional thinking and deliberate development of creativity of future specialists.

Conclusion

The above conceptual basis and long-term teaching experience at the universities have enabled us to determine the fundamental components of a dialogical filling of parity of educational activity in a higher school (Figure 01 ). In order to specify the content of the proposed scheme we will point out the markers-indicators of the real presence of the dialogical parity in the educational process of the University:

See Full Size >

• the cognition of the personality in joint activity is always dialogical when both parties are mutually intentional: the meaningful activity of student is connected with the activity of the comprehended issue;

• dialogical form of educational interaction becomes a method of dialogue when finding the truth or the best way to solve problems is carried out using a number of substantive issues and methodically competent search of answers to these issues (Yotov, 1979);

• the dialogue, which is announced

"between the two consciousnesses in the form of asking, occurs under the condition of the equality, which provides the mind the opportunity to open the truth, which it did not even know before the beginning of a dialogue" ( Losev) (Florence, 1986);

• semantic polyphony of inner voices of the students, which is objectified in questions, hypotheses and proposals, is the best indicator that the educational process has reached the maximum personality development effect;

• the productivity of educational activity initially depends on the parity of the participants, unbiased and unconditional acceptance of partners in communication, tolerance of statements and reactions, encouraging intellectual initiative and creative search in solving educational problems and challenges.

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