観念・道徳・教育 : プラグマティズムの一考察

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"Peace," "the dignity of man," "respect for learning" and the like are fine ideas, but extremely difficult to realize in actual life situations. For there is a tendency that ideas can easily be separated from practices, while at the same time man has a strong inclination to absolutize himself. This is because he forgets the fact that man is born into a specific society which is already set in customs and institutions, and therefore he lives in close interaction with his environment. Hence it is very hard for him to live in accordance with reason alone. How can man avoid committing this error of consecrating his self-assertions? Pragmatists considered man in relation to his environment and customs, and insisted on deliberating the consequences when choosing some means to realize an idea. In such a way of thinking, ideas and authorities are denied a priori values, and are considered to be of functional value as instruments contributing to the development of experience and growth. Its criteria of value judgement are principles of continuity and interaction of experience. It now comes to be a question of what kind of growth and experience is expected. When John Dewey mentions "a higher quality of experience" or "a better quality of experience," what kind of experience does he mean by it? Pragmatism itself, which is completely a theory of method, does not give any objective criteria for judging the quality of growth and experience. So it seems that a sort of "a unified outlook on the world" or a certain view on "an ideal type of man" is to be assumed implicitly in the background of pragmatism. Man has various desires in the process of his growth and existence. Human desires are constructed, so to speak, in layers, and range from the highly elevated to the egoistic and brutal. It cannot be expected that man's desire to live up to his dignity becomes dominant and definite of its own accord: nor that "intelligence" finally succeeds to find the best way for mankind all by itself. These manifold desires are to be transformed through the oughtconsciousness provided by ethics in order that man may aim at better growth. This ought-consciousness is the "Guidance" given by the transcendental being which comprehends all the people and the world. We can set ourselves free from our tendency to persist absolutely in our own view, and take attitudes befitting the ideas after which we strive, only when we accept certain ideas as "Imperatives" from that comprehensive transcendental being, not as instruments contributing to growth. This very process of pursuing the ultimate for man must be recognized as the true moral education which is most helpful to all in the deepest sense of the word.
国際基督教大学の論文

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小島軍造
国際基督教大学

観念・道徳・教育 : プラグマティズムの一考察

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