Vol 25, No 4 (2021): PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION: CHALLENGES OF MODERNITY

The article considers what is a philosophy and its relation to education . The modern academic development of philosophy has questioned the theoretical basis of specific aspects of knowledge and human experience, including education. It is an active rather than a passive or descriptive discipline. Education is defined similarly as a process by which knowledge, skills (including collecting empirical evidence and reasoning from it), cultural norms, values, and beliefs are acquired. The development of the modern philosophy of education is considered with its emphasis on conceptual analysis. Education is philosophically the conscious development of maturity requiring capacity for both intellectual and economic autonomy. Issues in the contemporary philosophy of education are then considered, particularly the challenges of post-modernism and post-truth for a philosophy of education in an Internet world. It identifies the need for comparative philosophical perspectives other than Occidental ones and suggests philosophical anthropology and comparative education as potential guides. It concludes that although there is now no consensus on how a coherent contemporary philosophy of education may be developed, analysis of concepts, metaphysical reasoning, and ethics may still provide a basis for a coherent and defensible philosophy of education whatever the comparative cultural setting.

The Lancet stated in its editorial on the 9th of May 2020 that the situation in Brazil was very problematic insofar as the COVID-19 pandemic was concerned. More than a year later, Brazil already registered more than half a million deaths from complications of COVID-19, which places it in second place in the world ranking of deaths despite having the seventh-largest population in the world. Despite this utterly tragic situation, in July 2021, almost 40% of the Brazilian population approved of the federal government's role in confronting the pandemic, and the Brazilian elites have defended openly the view that the economy was more important than individuals' lives. Given this context, in this article, we reflect on the issue of plutocracy, demonstrating its platonic authoritarian foundations, in order to understand the Brazilian elites' attitude toward the pandemic, which had no proper regard or care for the most vulnerable in society. Through this philosophical inquiry we indicate the importance of education, particularly of philosophy of education, in encouraging educationists and educational systems to reflect on problematic issues and self-reflect so as to identify possible educational deficiencies and shortcomings that created the conditions for individuals' attitudes of indifference to the victims of the pandemic and the vulnerable in society.

The practice of adult learning and education (ALE) in Hong Kong is lesser known to the wider community of ALE practitioners due to lack of exchanges with international peers. There is a small community of full-time ALE practitioners working mainly in university continuing education schools but a larger body of uncharacterised or alternative practitioners can also be found. Essentially, both types of practitioners are conservative in their outlook and they adopt strategies that align with market needs and priorities set by public funders. Under the backdrop of neoliberalism which has harmonised ALE practice worldwide, a dominant form of individualised learning makes it difficult to promote group learning for societal advancement. ALE practitioners in Hong Kong are no exception to this influence and have been found to profess philosophical orientations favouring the behaviourist/narrowed progressivist notions of learner empowerment for economic and personal gains. Given recent worldwide renewed enthusiasm in making ALE responsive to societal issues, this paper examines the options and learning areas that ALE practitioners in Hong Kong can make their contributions to, such as: health advocacy, climate justice, and media literacy. Through engaging in these aspects of work, practitioners will have to incorporate methods of facilitating group learning in formal and non-formal ALE programmes and courses. An embrace by practitioners of the original notion of progressivist philosophy in adult education may emerge as one of the outcomes to make ALE practice inclusive, relevant and socially responsible. Even with the ongoing COVID-19 health crisis, it is deemed even more pressing to pursue a balanced practice approach that can take care of individual's skills transformation for post-COVID economy as well as developing human bonds that would help to make society progressive as a countercheck to neoliberal-inspired individualistic adult learning.

The study of education systems as social phenomena has led scholars to question the role of education in modern society. The question of how to improve education naturally leads to concerns about what is wrong with the present education system. If education is meant to elevate the next generation, how can it meet the goal of ensuring a meaningful existence for those being educated? Scholars have demonstrated that education has been reduced to a process of the construction of objects, where curriculum as techne commodifies students into products with market value. We propose that the tendency of interpreting techne as technology is a perspective of the modern age, and the rules of modern education are based on the rules of modern technology, under the guidance of the paradigm of productivity. We will introduce a broader interpretation of techne which frames it as the cultivation of virtue, i.e., virtue-techne. On this basis, education could be viewed as techne in the sense of praxis (practice, exercise), rather than as fabrication in the sense of production. We highlight the rising rate of student suicides in Taiwan in recent years, where we determine the education system lacks a focus on praxis. This article investigates alternative praxis-oriented notions of education, from Aristotle's cultivation of virtue to Hadot's "spiritual exercises," to advocate for a shift away from the production paradigm. Indebted to Heidegger, we clarify his "techne as revealing" by emphasizing two frameworks for education: The first, modern education being valued by its adherence to metrics based in the paradigm of production. The second, education as a process wherein its value is derived from the life context of the participating individual. Finally, as a comparative study, we explore the current state of education in Russia and Taiwan, and present the case of one high school in Taiwan which has adopted the practice of spiritual exercises in its curriculum, including a required hike to the peak of Taiwan's tallest mountain, to cultivate a sense of (and value for) the liberated life before its students graduate.

The aim of this article is to compare two models of reality construction and their applicability to explain the various effects of the digitalization process. The evolution of the constructivist ideas about reality is reconstructed in the context of the dispute among realists and constructivists, which was one of the most significant events in the epistemology and philosophy of science of the 20th century. The author points out the differences between the intellectual and the social construction of reality, and carries out a comparative analysis of the philosophical theories and concepts describing the aforementioned alternatives. The intellectual construction of reality, which often takes place in theoretical physics at different stages of its development, is also analyzed. Particular consideration is given to the philosophic-scientific contexts generated by the sociology of knowledge, the theory of speech acts, and the actor-network theory. The article also shows a distinction between the construction and the constitution of reality. The constitution of reality within various types of non-theoretical (pre-theoretical, post-theoretical) thinking, fixed using the means and methods of phenomenological philosophy of science, allows identifying and describing the main contexts through which the word “reality” acquires significance and is endowed with meaning in the present-day intellectual and social practices. Special attention is paid to the concepts of “virtual reality” and “digital reality.” The features of the intellectual construction of virtual reality are described. The difference between the intellectual and the social construction of digital reality is substantiated as between two alternative practices, which determine the meaning, and the prospects of digitalization. This distinction may be of particular interest to those who design digital platforms and implement digitalization in various areas of human life and society, especially in as education, legal procedure, management, economics, and business. Today, when partly spontaneous, partly controlled digitalization is taking place in these spheres, the results of this study make it possible not only to understand the logic of the changes taking place but also to apply forecasting and planning methods actively, i.e., constructing the digital reality.

The article presents an overview of the most significant results in Russian academic research in philosophy of the Arabic Middle East in the second half of the XX century-the beginning of XXI century. The author consistently examines the contribution of various schools and their main representatives to the field of Arabic studies, in particular, the academic research works dedicated to the Middle East philosophy and history written by the scientists from the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Saint Petersburg State University and RUDN University. The article attempts to show the conceptual findings and results of this academic research on Arabic Islamic philosophy of the Middle Ages considering the problems of understanding and interpreting Arab and Muslim culture, which was held by a number of leading experts during the second half of the XX century, up to the early XXI century. It is equally important to understand the role and place of the historical and philosophical Arabic studies in the dialogue between different philosophical cultures - in the context of striving for responses to the challenges of the modern time. The author of the article proves the idea that overcoming false cultural, philosophical and ideological stereotypes in the unprecedented global interaction of East and West in the late XX and early XXI centuries will significantly expand academic mobility and internationalization in the fields of education and science, open new perspectives for international cooperation in various fields and promote mutual enrichment of cultures.

-