Pragmatism, Education, and the Problem of Pluralism

The concept of pluralism is of central importance in contemporary moral and political education, where a crucial aim is to promote acceptance of the life choices of others and to teach tolerance towards diversity of values. However, this promotion of pluralism suffers from two immediate difficulties. Firstly, the concept of pluralism has proved somewhat elusive, and it is far from clear that its various uses are congruent. Secondly, there is a long-standing criticism against ethical and political pluralism which maintains that pluralist views are difficult if not impossible to defend without succumbing to dreaded relativism. In this article, I will firstly distinguish an educationally interesting form of pluralism and then, drawing from thinkers in the tradition of philosophical pragmatism, attempt to meet the criticism that such pluralism has no interesting philosophical defense.Peer reviewe

Pragmatism and Its Aftermath

Pragmatism was considered for some decades as the philosophy of progressive education but, more recently, this identification has been problematized and different interpretations of the significance of pragmatism for the educational discourse have emerged. Against this backdrop, the chapter undertakes an exploration of the meaning of pragmatism, by highlighting how its anti-dualism, anti-foundationalism, and fallibilism have been pivotal for the elaboration of conceptual tools (like those of inquiry, habit, belief, social self, and democracy as a form of life), which have been of major import for the philosophical-educational reflection. In the interpretation here advanced the anti-Cartesian and Darwinian matrix of the classic pragmatist thought has provided educational philosophy and theory with the resources to remove the deadlocks of modern philosophy with its dichotomies between experience and thinking, body and mind, and action and theory