Home – Home – Jornals – "Philosophy of Education" 2009 number 1

An epoch of changes is characterized as an epoch of structural changes in society; and education, as a process of person's gaining conscious self-dependence in exploring the space and time of his/her life. In the center of author's attention is the mechanism of the social changes influence on the quality of education, this mechanism being considered as a system phenomenon. The basic elements of the educational system are educational, productive and leisure activity. The characteristic feature of our today's life is the change of proportion between rational and irrational elements in the structure of various kinds of activity. The Internet, mass media, advertising foster the strengthening of the irrational in society's life, the rational being restricted to industrial sphere. The changes in the content and methods of education in school and the high education establishments have led to decline of reflexive knowledge. As a result, we see the diminishing of the degree of conscious self-dependence among students, workers and citizens. Russia is in need of development of a new educational strategy.

The purpose of the article is to investigate the education through the discourse of consumption. The consumer orientation is shown to be the main trend of contemporary education. Consumerist features of education are demonstrated by applying such concepts as

The object of the article is to investigate the problem of alienation both in the society and in Russian education. The author studies the problem of alienation in contemporary social life and shows its expansion and complexity in the XXIst century. A special emphasis is put on the alienation in the system of contemporary Russian education. The author outlines the basic problems to be studied in this area. The author singles out and substantiates ontological, epistemological, methodological, axiological, praxiological, and optimological factors of alienation in various spheres of social life, particularly, in the socio-individual, individual-psychological, and anthropo-technical ones.

In the article, a system-philosophical analysis of the transforming societies is performed and the corresponding changes in the education system are uncovered; the problem of the society transformation in the XXI century is formulated. The authors investigate the transformations in modern Russian education, which concern deep foundations of the socio-cultural existence of the society.
It is substantiated in the article that there are two levels of transformations: a superficial one (social phenomena) and a deep one (intrinsic), and there also exist the external and internal reasons of social transformations. A special attention is paid to global factors, because the major part of the transformations are of the Western-globalist type, and the Western world exerts the decisive influence on the entire world community due to scientific and technical process, accompanying by both egocentrism and rationalism. Other countries of the world are designated as endemic, and on them the Western globalism exerts influences of various kinds: stimulating, deforming, suppressing, fostering development and so forth.

The "postmodernist" features of the reform of Russian education are analyzed. There are given the opinions of the reform participants: from the teachers to the people who "advance" the reform. It is substantiated that in the sphere of the education reform there has formed a situation of "schizophrenia" of public consciousness on the basis of  "double bind " pattern, which regularly reproduces itself and leads to degradation of the education system. Moreover, a hypothesis is put forward that, despite the seeming localness of the current reform of Russian education, the ways of its development will define, in many respects, the image of the future of the entire world because

The crisis phenomena in modern society are, to a considerable degree, conditioned by the excess of imitation in many spheres of social activity. Such interconnected activities as social-innovative and educational ones are also not free from imitation. The objective of this article is to reveal the imitational component in modern society and show the possibilities of social design as a new developing approach to social planning and education. The social design is considered to be the means of overcoming imitation and ensuring the innovative development.

Modern information technologies and resources of telecommunications form the basis of realization of the educational programs on a new level.
The article is dedicated to the analysis of the educational environment of the innovational institution of higher education. There are considered the following components of the educational environment: information-technological, intellectual and material ones. The authors present the experience of creating the educational environment of the institution of higher education using, to the full, the distant educational technologies.

In the paper, the methodological and theoretical questions of modeling the educational objects are considered. The differences between the

The article presents a research model which characterizes qualitative shifts in scientific cognition. The author suggests that the paradigm approach be replaced by a meta-system approach, as the latter more adequately reflects the continuity of the dialectical process in theoretical and applied education systems.

The author describes her experience of construction and realization of a philosophical course for the non-philosophical majors. Instead of traditional review of philosophical ideas in their historical development, this course considers the problems related to the future professional activities of the students. In connection with this, the emphasis is put on the epistemological, axiological, ethical problems and the problems of human rights. The problems of professional ethics are considered together with the general ethical problems.

The article introduces the reader into phenomenological understanding of the essence of movement in art, whose basis is Aristotle's theory about four (fundamental) types of movement. Within the framework of modern thinking, movement is customarily interpreted just as a physical phenomenon. The author suggests considering fixing as one of the kinds of movement. In the author's opinion, life itself is the most mysterious kind of dynamics, and we are all still far from its understanding.

In the article there is described the influence of a new for the Russian reality human-right defense mechanism - an institute of Commissioners for human rights in Russian Federation and its constituent territories - on one of the forms of social conscience, legal conscience, as well as on the formation of civil society. The most important areas of the Ombudsmen's work are the following: forming citizens' legal conscience, legal education and teaching civility, contribution to education in the sphere of human rights, improvement of lawmaking, and above all, of the legislative process in terms of its democratization, and also the progress of collaboration with different Russian as well as international human rights organizations.

This article is devoted to the problems of law reforms in contemporary Russia. The purpose of the article is to discover their connection with the structure and content of legal education. The purpose is achieved by a comparative analysis of the opposite approaches to law - etatist and anthropological ones. According to them, the law is considered, respectively, to be a derivative of the state or the individual. The article shows that in our legal education and society as a whole the etatist approach to law is dominant and, thus, hinders the process of law reforms. The author comes to a conclusion that the anthropological approach to law has to be the conception of law reform; and, based on it, it is necessary to revise the system of legal education.  Only in this case the law reform in our country may be successful.

The article is devoted to the philosophical analysis of the state power and the use of theoretical results in educational process. Power is a many-sided philosophical phenomenon, which requires complex approach in its studying. This fact is necessary to consider in liberal education. The author of the article thinks that the main, leading principles of the state power, which have to be considered in the educational process, are the following: spirituality, priority of culture and principle of common wealth. In the sphere of liberal education within the framework of academic courses for the higher education students, it is necessary to present both subject-object and subject-subject approaches to the analysis of the state power, to show theirs advantages and disadvantages. The future of the state depends on the quality of training of the specialists of higher education.

The socio-economic and political changes in Russia have led to partial breakage of the "museum-society" ties. The museum is one of numerous subjects of social-cultural sphere having its own specific features in organization and social meaning. Today, it seems to be in little demand by the customers. It is connected with the fact that new approaches and principles are not applied to the administration of museums. As a result, though possessing rich expositional materials, museums cannot attract visitors. The author considers marketing of the museum as one of the most effective ways of solving the problem of incorporating the museum institutions into the life of modern society.

This article is devoted to a modern problem of intercultural communication whose urgency is determined by two opposite tendencies in the mutual relations between countries, ethnoses, and cultures; namely, integration whose essence is manifested in rapprochement and inter-penetration, and confrontation " locally and periodically making itself felt. The author considers intercultural communication as a complex phenomenon, being studied by many branches of humanitarian knowledge. There is given a review of necessary scientific views to reveal the essence of intercultural communication. In a brief review, the history of studying the phenomenon is shown. The author analyzes and compares different approaches to the concept of intercultural communication; and, in conclusion, presents her own vision of intercultural communication. In the article, the characteristic of the intercultural communication as a socio-pedagogical phenomenon is given.

The paper presents an analysis of various approaches to the understanding of the concepts of "culture", "research culture", "culture-congruous environment", defines the conditions of realization of the culturological approach as one of technological foundations of the development of students' research activity, determines the ways of analysis of the pedagogical events through the prism of existing cultural norms and open cultural values. The purpose of the article is to present some aspects of consideration of the

In the article, there is considered the reflection in the celebratory folk ceremonial actions of the concepts of chaos and order. In the author's opinion, we may talk about a special role of the male group in the "svjatochno-maslenichnaya" (Christmas and the Last-week-before-the-Lent) ceremonialism which is illustrated by the examples of Slavonic traditions of "ryazheniye" (disguising). The male component in the folklore theater of the Eastern Slavs is given in a context of comparison between the images of Christmas disguising and the behavioral characteristics of folklore performers; and this component is defined as dominant.

One of the problems of the contemporary society is the level of the person's informational culture. Informational culture is based on two concepts: information and culture, where information is a connecting and organizing resource. The level of the person's informational culture and the informational potential of society are determined by the level of creative resource and general culture of the person.

In the article there are described modern ways of cooperation of education, science, culture in formation of successful person capable of adaptation in global condition. A considerable attention is devoted to the role and

This essay seeks to discuss the problems of invariant content in the philosophy of education and its place among other branches of philosophical knowledge. As the author claims, the desired solution can be reached through establishing connections between the philosophical knowledge, on one side, and the pedagogic needs in theoretical grounds of research and formation of educational process as well as the essential qualities of this process as the subject matter of the pedagogical science, on the other.

The purpose of the article is to study the role of mass media in the destruction of the traditional mechanisms of self-identification of the person. It is shown by the author that this activity is being carried out purposefully and aggressively as an anthropological strategy of mass-medians and it is aimed at disorientation of the citizens and atomization of the society.

The article is devoted to some current problems of receiving education in the conditions of the informational society formation.
The author brings our attention to the phenomenon of adult education. The problems in the adult higher education are caused by social changes in modern world, by the processes of diversification of purposes and tasks of the entire system of education and by new social roles both of the teacher and the student.

In the article, reasoning about the global questions of the present time and their influence on the problems of education of the person, we try to reveal the tendency of development of modern Russian educational system in view of global transformations and qualitative transformations of the Russian society itself.

The purpose of the article is to search for methodological approaches to substantiation of a general theory of upbringing from the axiological positions. A tendency of generalization of the upbringing theories is noted. The groups of values, including the traditional directions of upbringing, are distinguished. The author describes the invariant components of the person's system of values which are formed during education; he also proposes scientific principles which may form the axiological foundations of a general theory of upbringing.

The problems of self-actualization can be called 'eternal' in the history of humanitarian thought. The complexity and contradictory character of self-actualization predetermines a variety of definitions of this scientific term. Self-actualization of elderly people is not an exception, as it has the highest rank in the hierarchy of needs. Retirement drastically changes not only the lifestyle but also the person's social position. Thus, the participation of the state is important. The People's Department of the Novosibirsk State Technical University (NGTU) is an example of such participation of the state.
This is a new form of the social work with pensioners, which helps them to keep their activity and adapt to quickly developing information space.

The author expresses a critical opinion concerning the implementation of the idea of humanization of the Russian education. The lack of success in the education humanization is explained by the author by the prevalence of the scientist and materialistic ideas in the society, which exclude universal and metaphysical understanding of the essence of humanity and, through this, provoke the "lack of humanness" phenomenon becoming wide-spread in the society. There are considered some forms of the lack of humanness: the authoritative collectivism, individualism, and pessimism. Also, there are indicated two ways of humanization of the person: self-knowledge and dialogue. It is shown that the success of education humanization depends on widening the sphere of dialogical education.

In clause from the socially-philosophical point of view the administrative, political and ecological factors which have affected formation of features of ecological behavior of peasants of Siberia in XIX are analyzed - beginning XX centuries Are opened factors of formation of ecologically responsible behavior in conditions of an environment within the limits of economic activities and also factors which conduct to degradation of ecological consciousness.

Ecological education is, to some extent, an independent direction of pedagogical activity, forming its own system which is determined by the ecological culture being delivered through it.
The usage of a complex approach allows substantiating the demands to the readiness of teachers to realize it. The personal and professional readiness of the teacher is an open, complex, poly-functional, and multi-component system. Its model includes integral features, characteristic to the personality of a socially mature individual. These personal features form a basis necessary to create the ecological culture. The main components of the professional readiness of the teacher-ecologist are: the level of development of the professionally significant personal features, the gnostic readiness, the level of methodical readiness, the level of mastering the ecological and pedagogical ethics.

The author of the article emphasizes a high urgency of turning to the problem of humanization of education in modern conditions, because the dynamics of humanitarian changes in modern society is one of the developing global phenomena and concepts of public life. It is substantiated that humanism in a broad sense is the recognition of the value of the human being as a person. This value has a priority in relation to all other values. It is noted that humanization as the major characteristic of the concept of humanism is reflection of ideas of humanism in the society and is realized depending on the concrete historical conditions, the purposes and problems of social development on the basis of universal values. It is proved that humanization of education today becomes the moral guarantor and a basis of the society development. It is considered unquestionable that the resolving social and economic problems is impossible without a high level of development of education on the basis of the fundamental values of humanism.

In the article the contemporary educational system problems, interaction of society and nature are touched upon. The reasons of those problems in the institutional sphere, the process of forming and developing ecological mentality and culture are considered. The article includes a philosophical analysis of the term "ecologization", proved the actuality of using in the paper an ecological mentality in the system of moral spiritual education maintaining humanistic ideals and values.

The author considers the problem of the values choice as the foundation of formation and development of person's professional orientation. The leading values of students-psychologists at different stages of their education are studied. There is investigated the role of professional orientation in the formation of professional activity, where the system of values is the decisive one.

The purpose of the article is to study such possibilities of the ironic method of philosophizing thanks to which this method acts as a way of realization of the aesthetic function of philosophical education. In connection with this purpose, the author distinguishes two basic problems. The first problem concerns the aesthetic aspect of the educational process. The second problem is connected with the search for the aesthetic content of irony. Trying to solve these problems, the author investigates how the ontological, epistemological and ethical spheres of the ironic method express the category of beauty.
The article is devoted to study of the aesthetic function of philosophical education. The author comes to a conclusion that the irony can appear as one of the methods which expresses the aesthetic contents of philosophical education.

In the paper, the decisive role of the

In the article, there is considered a question, important for education, which concerns the conditions that contribute to involving the learners into notional interaction based on their understanding of the meanings of what is happening. There is substantiated the necessity of additional organization of the notional orientation of learners toward the situation which opens a possibility of the further understanding of not only the information but also the meaning of the texts, the relations of the opinions and generation of their own ones. According to the data obtained by the author, joint organization of the conditions of a pedagogical situation, verbalization by the learners of the significant themes and notions assist in realizing the above task. The author considers the diagnostic function of the metaphor to be the most appropriate method of fixation of the effectiveness of the notional interaction.

In the article, an attempt is made to study the

The topical character of the theme is clear, because the large-scale socio-cultural and political transformations of the Russian society in the last decades have fostered changing the status and role positions of men and women. In the article, the authors analyze the career aspirations of women, and offer an innovative model of management of the institution of higher education organization with the use of gender potential. The authors emphasize that the men and women should have an equal right to independently choose their professional way and have an opportunity to participate in the sphere of management.

The gnoseological status of a gender metaphor is connected with the process of sense formation. Its place in the taxonomy of fundamental metaphors defines necessary characteristics for the explication of the integrity of principles of scientific knowledge development, such as creativity, mediation and agonic processes. The author undertakes an attempt to pose a problem of categorization of the world by the gender metaphors in the conditions of post-nonclassical science. It allows looking anew at the role of expressive language instruments in the process of scientific knowledge development.

The concept of probabilistic knowledge, in spite of its active use in the contemporary science, is not used in the practice of education. In the article, there is undertaken an attempt to solve this problem and to show that the probabilistic knowledge is a consequence of the realization of the theory of knowledge as the theories of representation. An alternative (dialectical) theory of cognition in science gradually gathers force. Changes must begin from education; therefore the teachers and students should know, understand and correctly apply this knowledge in the practical professional activity.

In the article there is critically considered the conception of new, practical humanism of I. T. Frolov and the necessity of gradual practical humanization of socio-humanitarian disciplines which are studied in the higher education. Possible tendencies of their mutual relations and influences on public life are described.