A pragmatic conception of teaching and learning

Abstract

After the linguistic shift of the late 19th century, new epistemologies emerged taking into account the fundamental role played by language and its praxis in the constitution of the meanings of our experience. Notably, philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein speaks of "language-games" to emphasize the actions involved in language, seen as linguistic instruments par excellence. Nevertheless, the pragmatism in education continued to ascribe to language only the role of describing the experience, or of being its representative. With these considerations in mind, the present text proposes to reflect upon teaching and learning within the school context, having as its referential an epistemology of Wittgenstenian inspiration, the philosophical pragmatics, with a view to rethink the current pedagogical practices, which have oscillated between an essentialist conception of education (we all construct one same knowledge) and, in the other extreme, the possibility of a total relativism. Between the transcendental and the empirical, the philosophical pragmatics gives us instruments to see the teaching action as the representation of a certain worldview, grounded on rules of a conventional nature which, therefore, cannot be uncovered by the pupil, but, at the same time, constitute the conditions for the meaning so that the pupil, once persuaded by the teacher, can organize his/her experience in a different way, oriented by these rules.