FENOMENOLOGY OF SOCRATIC DIALOGUE

IN PEDAGOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Косымова Г.С., доктор филологических наук, профессор КазНПУ имени Абая,

Ныязбекова К.С., кандидат педагогических наук, доцент кафедры Государственного языка КазНПУ имени Абая (Казахстан, г.Алматы)

Kulyanda2009@mail.ru

In the article the feature of Socrates’s dialog is examined in the context of ideas of pedagogical anthropology. Methodological principle of modern pedagogical knowledge is anthropological principle, and in this connection dialog as a universal form of intercourse of participants of educational process acquires the special meaningfulness. The features of Socrates’s philosophical dialog are presented, which explain conformity to law of lining up relations in the system of «man is a man» in the situation of transmission present experience.

Keywords: dialog, pedagogical anthropology, culture, man

В статье рассматривается особенности «сократовского диалога» в контексте идей педагогической антропологии. Методологическим принципом современного педагогического знания является антропологический принцип, и в этой связи диалог как универсальная форма общения участников образовательного процесса приобретает особую значимость. Представлены особенности сократического философского диалога, которые объясняют закономерность выстраивания отношений в системе «человек – человек» в ситуации передачи имеющегося опыта.

Ключевые слова: диалог, педагогическая антропология, культура, человек

Understanding and mutual understanding are the most important components of a philosophical and anthropological approach in educational practice which assumes training and education of a human being, his assimilation of signs of the culture surrounding him, penetration into existing laws and order of things. Life of each person develops in compliance with certain vectors and coordinates, and it is very important to know how and who they are set by. Education of a human being by another human being is an integral systematic process, and as K.D.Ushinsky stated in his fundamental work «The human as a subject of education: pedagogical anthropology», everyone thinks that it is “a familiar and clear thing but at the same time each science in itself only reports separate facts about a human being related to education whereas it is crucial to compare them and build an “easily-contemplated system”.

Pedagogical anthropology integrates various knowledge related to education of a human being based on a leading principle – to consider a person as an integral and unique phenomenon in cultural space. Culture as a combination of practical, spiritual and theoretical abilities of an individual assumes that the problem of communication should be considered as a condition for personality development in the atmosphere of co-authorship, and according to V.B. Kulikov, it is absolutely fair that an approach of such co-authorship is dialectics, and the most universal form is dialog. [1, p. 180]. Subjects of an educational process in an everyday life should be guided by a method of understanding the life. Pedagogical anthropology is based on the doctrine that the meaning of a learner’s life becomes available only as a result of dialogical interaction. Dialogical understanding is directly connected to self-knowledge, self-conversion and self-education. Understanding and dialog are inseparable. Orientation of pedagogical action to form «cultural person» implies withdrawal of asymmetry of pedagogical communication because in a dialog all sides are equal. Therefore, knowledge-information turns into knowledge-idea (thought).

Thus a learner acquires not the level of habits and behavior standards but meanings and understanding which are born in his mind as a result of his own efforts. Knowledge - thought is always result of own efforts, it is what the person created himself, what he reached with the need and desire for this achievement. Implementation of potential possibilities given to a person by the nature is embodied in the aspiration to productive activity, exchange of ideas, values, and available experience. It is expressed in readiness for a dialog with "others". Emergence of such dialogue is facilitated mainly by a teacher, as for a learner he is a kind of a translator of the existing culture, and not only as its representative, but also as the carrier of certain traditions. And if we consider a dialogue as an intrinsic form of judgment of human life, Socrates’s appeal to specifics of a dialogue allows to come to a conclusion that only dialogical communication can ensure interaction and interference in the ‘learner – teacher” system. Uniqueness of Socrates’s personality is explained by the fact that with his life and death he demonstrated his contemporaries and descendants the true sense of a human being’s life. What does a person live for? What is an essence of a human personality? What is virtue and what is vice? Socrates's philosophy is his life, and the questions selected by Socrates for his doctrine are the major issues for each person. Peculiarity of conversations, the principal occupation he devoted his life, was that they were not usual everyday talks and verbal disputes; it was well-thought and skillfully applied approach of studying philosophical, moral and political issues. Conversation is Socrates’s element into which he plunged at the beginning of his life and remained loyal during all his life.

Many researchers of the phenomenon of Socrates’s dialogs highlight in the list of speech verbs "truly Socratic" which reflect direction and sense of his philosophy: talk and test, discuss and advise, to ask and respond, doubt and plunge into doubt, to edify and refute. Isn’t it a bright characteristic of a shrewd psychologist who is sensitively reacting to movements of the soul at times imperceptible to an interlocutor? One of the major objectives of pedagogical anthropology is to understand how people of different ages influence each other, and what makes the basis of this influence in the course of interaction.

Education of a person as a process is inseparably linked with personal strengths of the person, and their development. It is understood as co-authorship through a prism of active relations. Samples, examples, and standards define the content of specific actions. They show how to behave in a certain situation, specify to the individual that in his activity he belongs to a certain community, and that he should acquire and accept necessary standards of behavior. A person in many respects goes along the beaten track, and ne needs to know and remember who has beaten these tracks. Only then it will be possible to speak about an ability to be guided in cultural measurement which is impossible without “a dialogue - a natural method of communication and obtaining truth” [4, p. 83]. Socrates’s interlocutors were philosophers, politicians, poets, influential citizens and ordinary people, and subjects of their conversations were the most various: about gods and people, intellect and foolishness, knowledge and ignorance, vice and virtue, benefit and justice, freedom and duty, wealth and poverty, friendship and mutual assistance, self-knowledge and education. Subjects changed, but not the essence: Socrates sharpened his art in philosophical dispute defending truth and approving moral. One of the features of Socrates’s conversations is who did he talk with. Conversations with friends and close pupils had instructions and edifications as he paid specific attention not to ironical exposure of false representations of the interlocutor but to an expression and reasoning of positive aspects of his standpoint; his advice was combined with criticism, serious issue with a joke, and his rich polemic notes acquired special sounding. An example for that can be “Conversation with Lamprokles about appreciation to parents”. Having noticed that his son treats his mother disrespectfully, Socrates invites him to talk, focusing attention that negligence to parents can complicate a person’s life, he can get deprived of friends, and «nobody will expect gratitude from you for the good» [5, с. 46]. It is an explicitly visible distance between who the person is and who he must become, which, of course, must establish an aspiration to transfer from an old status into absolutely new, and in this case educational impacts acquire especially internal value and concentrate inside the individual. Readiness for a dialogue, and readiness for understanding and accepting what the thought bears through centuries, directs a person to open something new and unknown, convinces him that when following to wise advice there is no limit to enhancement of moral qualities, especially if the person thinks and reflects, looks for responses to questions, reveals himself in the course of obtaining experience.

Pedagogical anthropology examines a transfer of experience from generation to generation based on division of real and ideal understanding, after all the principal conditions of education are not in reality, but in ideal and hidden opportunities, that is in an inner world of a developing person. The works of philosophers – dialogists attempt to direct the dialogue towards the internal world of the subject as to reveal him is possible only as a result of a dialogue.

Dialogue has no limits, it is borderless, it reveals creative activity of an individual, it is borderless as an opportunity to think and live. This opportunity means that first of all a person is ready to perceive another person in a constructive dialogue, in an exchange of ideas, values, experience and knowledge. It is an effect of the factor perceiving the other.

As a proof we can give Ortega-y-Gasset’s position: “When we look at each other, two different worlds are reflected in pupils of our eyes» [2, p. 5]. Penetration and knowledge of an inner world of a pupil, a person who trusts your word and example is based on trust, and this trust facilitates to passing a joint way of moral discoveries only in the course of a dialogue, formation of own moral position. According to Socrates, during dialectic conversations a person recovers knowledge of the immortal soul he has got, in other words – revives spiritually. Therefore a role of the interlocutor, who is assisting to the revival of the knowledge and its reinforcement by means of dialectics, is similar to the craft of his mother - midwife called "maieutics", i.e. midwifery.

A person, talking to Socrates, acquired knowledge, but Socrates didn't put credit for it, considering that the acquired was the fruits of the interlocutor’s achievements, and not the result of his wisdom. He assumed that his listeners could not learn from him as it usually means in the relationship “teacher – learner” but with his help they could reveal something majestic they had already been gifted by the nature.

Well-known Socratic phrase «I know that I know nothing» illustrates Socrates's skeptical and ironic attitude to human wisdom. He believed that human wisdom was a relative concept and revealing another person's ignorance, he did it very tactfully, first of all, on his own example, on his own ignorance, and thereby convincing interlocutors that they were equal (it is visibly presented at one of the stages of his dialogue). What promoted emergence of a dialogue? Conversations often arose spontaneously, on a course of joint reading different works, discussions of the read, and very important role was played here by Socrates’s encouragement of inquisitiveness and keenness of his listeners. When he himself could not find the response, he recommended to apply to knowledgeable people and at the same time continued reminding that “knowing –all” must be confronted by the development of something essential and useful in a practical sense. Those who were ready to listen to Socrates understood that he helped them to understand themselves, to understand their difficult inner self, which finally affected understanding of "another person" as well as themselves. The Socratic philosophical dialogue consisted of several dialectically interdependent stages which assumed the solution of the set problems at the level actual for the interlocutor. This model is the bright evidence of the fact that Socrates managed very quickly and, at first sight, by simplest methods to create an active cognitive vector in the “teacher – learner” system. Socrates’s ideas, signs of good skills is a fast assimilation of a subject by the person, memorizing the learned and interest to all knowledge which help to be in charge of housekeeping, run the state and generally to be able to use people and actions of people. That is why Socrates is believed to be a founder of true Greek philosophy and a new method of philosophical thinking. Recognizing that philosophical thinking has different forms of expression, dialogue in a bosom of philosophy is made within one sense, but at level of different speculations. In our opinion, these levels can be called as the fund of human experience from which approaches to influence a personality formation are scooped, and a man is flexible, he is a subject to educational influence, and this influence can help to reveal inclinations given by the nature. If philosophy examines education from the human entity standpoint, pedagogics should be philosophical, and philosophy - pedagogically effective. Undoubtedly philosophy provides the basis of understanding the educational process in unity with activities which reform human identity. Pedagogical anthropology claims to create an integral, all-round view on education, and at the same time there is a connection of instructions and principles of various philosophical views. Such measurement how to educate and be educated implies mandatory appeal to the phenomenon of dialogical communication in various situations and relations, and provides eligibility which, from the pedagogical anthropology standpoint, is an essential condition for saving the whole and modifying the particular. Its translational character enables to identify cultural and philosophical potential of the old and valuable orientation of the new judgment of the reality. A person receives the public status only in the course of mastering a group experience, the experience of the society he belongs to, and forms of mastering this experience can be various. Each of these forms fixes and expresses different sides of the "people – society" relationship. Various aspects of their interaction allow to trace the process of historical formation of a human personality entity and union of a certain individual to this entity by means of knowledge and education, therefore dialogue is a peculiar step on the way of a person’s formation as a social and cultural object, on the way of his development as an individual.

Literature:

1. Kulikov V.B. Pedagogical anthropology: origins, directions, issues. – Sverdlovsk: publishing house Ural university, 1988. – page192.

2. Ortega-y-Gasset.  Х.  What is philosophy? //  АS USSR Institute of philosophy. – М: Nauka, 1991.

3. Ushinsky K.D. Pedagogical works: in 6 volumes, V.5 // compiled by S.F.Yegorov. – М.: Pedagogika.

4. Fomina M.N. Philosophical culture: ontological dialogism. // monography. – Chita, 1999.

5. Anthology of pedagogics history: in 3 volumes, V.1.  Antiquity. Middle Ages // editor-in-chief A.I. Piskunov. – М.: Publishing Centre «Sfera», 2006. – page 512