HOPES, CONCERNS AND RESPONSES OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION TO THE CHALLENGES OF THE MODERN WORLD: REVIEW-ESSAY OF THE INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE ‘THE HOPES AND ANXIETIES OF HUMANITY AS EXPRESSED IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION OF THE 20TH AND 21

Abstract

The review is presented by the key ideas considered by the participants of the international scientific conference ‘Hopes and Anxieties of Humanity, Expressed in the Philosophy of Education of the 20th and 21st Centuries’, which was held this year at the end of September at the University of Silesia (Katowice, Poland). The content of the events included a discussion of key ideas for the transformation of education for its ability to become the ‘vanguard of social change’. It is noted that modern philosophers initiated a number of leading and epochmaking discourses, which concern human nature and concentrate on the psychosocial and spiritual state of man, the development of his adaptive capabilities in the situation of the dominance of information technologies, and in the conditions of war, in the face of global man-made crises, justify hopes with overcoming the above-mentioned threats and restoration of human integration of the inner meaning of life, recognition of the importance of education in overcoming crisis situations, social and civilizational barriers, as well as solving moral and ethical dilemmas. Education should focus on designing educational activity strategies, and not be limited to specific didactic structures. Its mission is to outline the orientations of educational activity and, when they have exhausted their heuristic potential, to reformat them, looking for new gaps in conventions and regularities and, accordingly, new opportunities for further development. The second part of the conference had a bio-doxographical character and was dedicated to understanding the intellectual experience of past eras in the study of the experience of the modern world. The participants of the international conference reconstructed, interpreted and rethought the legacy of the well-known Polish teacher, philosopher, psychologist, founder of the Pedagogical Institute in Katowice, Józef Peter.