Problems of Art, Problems of Education :: Philosophy Philosophical Essays

Problems of Art, Problems of Education ABSTRACT: Some main postmodern ideas, such as the decay of totality or the dispersion of the subject, are too risky to introduce into the education of youth. However, there are some postmodern ideas — though not central ones — that could prove helpful in contemporary education. The hero of this paper is the prefix "inter-" which (especially in the French philosophers' writings) took a new and remarkable meaning by becoming one of the main metaphors of the human condition in the world of culture. The meaning of the prefix "inter-" can be successfully taught by art, for works of art have always exemplified means of oscillating in the sphere of the "inter-" between the concrete and abstraction, detail and generality, freedom and rules, spontaneity and discipline, between Rorty's conception of the "ironist" and the "strong poet." "...the significance of art inevitably declines and nothing in the current circumstances of civilisation and culture shows that this process would be stopped." S. Morawski, On the Sense of the Newest Creativity "The crisis of education in its cultural dimension affects all of us. For we all were or will be connected with education, as pupils and students, parents and teachers. We all stand face to face with the question of its future when the problem how to grow into a human being in the surrounding world remains unsolved" K. Blusz, Education and Liberation 1. The crisis character of our Euro-American culture is so generally noticed that it needs no proofs. Among many different domains of human activity both the contemporary art and the theory of art are found in a hard situation; the marks of this plight are the more and more intensive questions about the end of art, anti-art, post-art on the one hand and about the post-aesthetics, anti-aesthetics and an-aesthtics on the other. In the theory of education we can find the same terminological symptoms which (like a rash) testify the same kind of impotence and illness — also here the discussion about the end of pedagogy in the contemporary culture goes (Ricardo Massa) and the predictions of the birth of the new post-pedagogical epoch are made (Hubertus von Schoenbeck). Shoud we, in such situation, following the past patterns like, for example, very valuable conception "education through art" (Herbert Read, Irena Wojnar), ask about the role of the post-art in the post-pedagogy? This way seems to be not especially fruitful.