Etyka – pedagogika – prakseologia: refleksja z myśli Tadeusza Kotarbińskiego
Ethics – pedagogics – praxeology: Reflection on Tadeusz Kotarbiński’s thoughts

Author(s): Andrzej Sztylka
Subject(s): Philosophy, Education
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: ethics; pedagogics; education; praxeology; activity; efficiency and inefficiency of acting; outer order; inner order; subjectivity as the real status of teacher and pupil; art of living: “doing good”
Summary/Abstract: In Tadeusz Kotarbiński’s outlook on life, both in his attitude toward the world and in the cognitive and practical, real aspect, praxeology and ethics of reliable guardianship are unexpectedly, creatively and masterfully joined with one another within the art of living and education. The most important thing about Tadeusz Kotarbiński is his radically rational drift. Reism, understood in the personally-carnal sense, dictates ethics’ independence from religious beliefs, and praxeology determines the activism of this ethics. Its aim is thus to improve thinking and acting by eliminating appearances, to specify the language in use and to make the mind structures verifiable. The article shows – in some necessary briefness – Kotarbiński’s developed and deepened views upon the general condition of contemporary reality from ethics’ and pedagogics’ point of view, the ethical condition in accordance with the basic assumptions as well as the condition of pedagogics and some postulates for pedagogy. The defense of the so-called invariants, i.e. the resources of empirically and rationally well-founded “ethical truths” – as Maria Dąbrowska and Maria Ossowska used to say – “some simple moral truths humanity leans on” – constitutes one of the biggest tasks for educators. The conclusion resulting from here is that praxeology is helpful in proper pedagogical activity in the process of initiating ethics. The co-existence of ethics, pedagogics and praxeology in the work of improving man’s quality and improving our world, according to Professor Kotarbiński, leads to a general remark that the most important thing in the teacher’s activity is “the real status of the pupil.” The place and the role, the subjective roles of participants taking part in the whole of the personal and social activities, determine both pedagogics’ quality and the sense of one’s whole life. There is a great difference between “doing good” and “doing right.”

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