Hermeneutics and Ethics
The conversation with the prominent Ukrainian philosopher, Prof. Sergey Borisovich Krimsky, was conducted by Irina Kamenshchikova.
Professor Borisovich, in your opinion, what challenges does contemporary education face?
First of all, it should be emphasized that the problems faced by education today (at all levels, from schools to universities, doctoral studies and beyond) have radically changed.
Here’s a simple example. For our generation, multiplication tables were a true lesson of wisdom. Today, students don’t want to learn them because they have calculators. Imagine, almost every student has a personal computer today. This means that they have access to all the knowledge that humanity has accumulated through the internet. And just like they don’t need to learn multiplication tables, they don’t need to learn facts either: they can get any fact or knowledge from the internet, and they can get it quickly enough. This radically changes the education system.
Sergey Borisovich Krimsky, a professor and doctor of philosophical sciences, is a distinguished academic. In the field of science and technology in Ukraine, he is a laureate of Taras Shevchenko National University and a senior researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences (NAN) in Ukraine. He has authored 10 monographs, one of which is titled “Philosophy as a Path to Humanity and Hope”. He is a renowned scientist, a social activist, a representative of culture, a great erudite, and a wonderful conversationalist with whom one can discuss a variety of topics: friendship, love, human dignity, poetry, and music. He constantly works with young people, giving lectures and appearing on television, and his articles are published in newspapers. In one way or another, the subjects he touches upon are always related to questions of morality, humanity, and spirituality.
Firstly, his main task is to teach how to use knowledge. The student already has access to knowledge but does not know how to use it. Secondly, he does not teach facts, but rather heuristics and creativity. The heuristic task has come to the forefront today. A modern teacher is not the one The teacher needs to be an expert, as knowledge is vast (the internet knows more than him). We haven’t reached that goal yet, but we are working towards it.
A person possesses fundamental certainty, i.e., some fundamental knowledge from which various axioms, basic facts, etc., stem, which of course need to be acquired. However, the scope of fundamental certainty is not extensive. From it, other knowledge can be acquired, it must also serve in drawing conclusions. There is a law that extends throughout the history of mankind, throughout the history of the formation of science – the law of knowledge compression. Modern knowledge doubles every five years. How then can one go from zero to a modern advanced level? Two or three lifetimes would not be enough. That is why there are ways of compressing knowledge that are not new but have been applied in past centuries.
Please, explain this with an example.
One does not need to learn everything, but rather the initial foundations from which other things can be logically derived. There is a limited number of letters in the alphabet, a limited number of words in speech, and the number of sentences is infinite. We simply take the original expressions from the whole multitude and then obtain what we need through logical reasoning. The same applies to geometry: if you know several basic axioms, you will be able to derive other knowledge.
If there is a solution to the problem, why haven’t they been solved until now?
That’s because our pedagogy is at its most primitive level possible. It still follows the principle of obviousness. Democritus blinded himself because visual perception hindered his abstract thinking.
This is a legend, but it reflects the situation. The principle of obviousness played an important role in the fight against scholasticism – in the 16th century, scholastics indeed engaged in speculation. However, obviousness ceased to function in Newton’s scientific worldview, based on mathematics, logic, and a very high level of knowledge systematization. Obviousness no longer works at the level of differential and integral systems. What is differential, what is integral? Even a great mathematician won’t give you a definition. It’s not obvious. Cold. And we can only show what is obvious. Therefore, completely different methods are needed.
Which ones?
Many years ago, Friedrich Schleiermacher founded the study of understanding – hermeneutics. It seemed like it would be the foundation of pedagogy… It has existed for a whole century, but no educator uses it. Many educators haven’t even heard of that term…
What methods does hermeneutics use?
In 1911, the effect of complete conductivity was discovered: when a conductor is placed in a liquid gel and cooled to -270°C, current passes without resistance. The explanation for this effect was found only in the 70s, simultaneously in the United States and the Soviet Union. They clarified that under such conditions, electrons pair up, after which the resistance disappears. But how can this be explained from the standpoint of common sense? The theoretical physicist Nikolaj Nikolajevich Bogolyubov explained it in a hermeneutic way, through action: imagine that you have to cross a hall where people are dancing (and electrons in their usual state really do…. referred back to people who dance). How will you navigate? If you go alone, you will constantly bump into the dancers. But by waltzing with a partner, you will effortlessly make your way around the entire hall. This is an example of how the most complex processes of theoretical physics are explained.
Very clear!
Or how to explain what spring is? We can say that spring is when leaves bud, trees bloom, i.e. through action again. You will not find hermeneutics in any pedagogical program. The term may still be used, but you will not find more than that.
Learning to use knowledge, not prioritizing facts but the skill of creative problem solving, using hermeneutics… What else is necessary today?
Humor is necessary, it greatly stimulates thinking and interest. Many great scientists did not establish their own schools, which is very unfortunate. Rezenford did not have disciples, neither did Heisenberg, nor Einstein, but Niels Bohr had an entire school. When Bohr came to Moscow at the Institute for Physical Problems, one of the first questions asked to him was: “How are you going to succeed in a place where there are smart minds like us?” “Did you manage to build the school?”. He replied, “Very simply, we employed only people with a sense of humor.” Humor brings academics and students closer together. Humor is a way of working. It also functions in school. Give children a humorous task, they will laugh and start solving it with pleasure. Scientific anecdotes can even be told…
Do you use humor in your teaching practice, does it help you?
When I teach about consciousness – which is a very complex topic, we can still understand knowledge, opinion can be understood, but consciousness… So, if I don’t know something, I simply describe the properties of consciousness. One of the properties of consciousness is reflection. We can think about thinking and create a new thought, that’s reflection. I will tell one of the classic anecdotes of the 19th century:
Two travelling salesmen are in a train compartment. One asks the other, “Aron, where are you going?” Aron thinks, “If I tell him I’m going to Odessa, he will immediately guess that I’m going to Zhitomir. If I tell him I’m going to Zhitomir, where I really am going Um, they will think that I am traveling to Odessa.” And he replies: “I am traveling to Zhytomyr.” The other replies: “I know that you are traveling to Zhytomyr, but why are you trying to deceive me?”
And the students perfectly understand what reflection is! It may seem that humor is stupidity, but in fact, it is a very stimulating factor.
So far, we have been talking about real education, but in addition to that, there is also ethics. Where and at what age does a person have to face the fact that there are rules, norms? For example, is it possible to educate an adult? What can influence them except for some life events?
Let’s start with the completely obvious fact. Education is a continuous process. It starts but never ends at any level. I always say: as soon as a collaborator relaxes and becomes arrogant, they are lost to science.
Now, let’s talk about the ethical basis. Where does the issue of spirituality develop from? From the formation of oneself.
Every person goes through the longest journey in life – the journey to themselves, and in the end, they need to come to understand who they are. It has been shown that this understanding can only be achieved through ethical actions. On the basis.
In ethics and teaching ethics, the hardest thing is not to fall into moralizing. It’s such a complex matter!
What does “not fall into moralizing” mean to you?
Not saying “This is good, this is bad.” Completely different things are decided here. Tolstoy struggled to write Anna Karenina. He transcribed it by hand three times, not knowing what to do with Anna. The problem was that during his time, juries across Europe would acquit husbands for killing their unfaithful wives, considering it normal. He was preoccupied with The Kreutzer Sonata (Tolstoy’s novella, op. trans.): the protagonist forgives everything, accepts everything, loves her, but she mocks him, which he can’t stand, so he kills her. However, sitting in prison, he realizes that he hasn’t solved anything because he still loves her… Tolstoy initially went in that direction, but as an artist, he understood that it wasn’t the solution. He was walking in his Jasnopolje estate and found a booklet on an unfinished work by Pushkin – Sofia Andrejevna used to read it to the children. He started leafing through that book and came across an unfinished story The Guests Have Journeyed to the Country House. Amongst those guests was a woman in the same situation as Anna Karenina. And then Pushkin suggested to Tolstoy the thought: it is not for us to judge or justify a woman. Every woman has her own destiny which can be either her punishment or her reward. Show the woman her destiny without any moralizing. There is no need to tell her, “Don’t do it.” She will do as she pleases anyway. You should tell her, “Do it, do it! But if you do it like that, there will be consequences.”
That’s how ethics is taught: through causality. Do not tell people, “Don’t do it,” tell them where a certain act leads.
That’s how it was with Tolstoy, but what about today?
In contemporary society, ethics has gained prime importance because, among other things, we are moving towards an information society, and it cannot tolerate lies. Lies close off the channels of information. It is necessary to show the ethical danger of lies, to provide examples from literature or the lives of great people. There are dangers for us too. unutar konkretnih situacija i iskustava. Ne možete naučiti etiku iz knjige ili teorijskih razmatranja, već iz stvarnih životnih događaja i susreta s različitim ljudima. Evo primjera:
Ako vam netko ukrade novčanik, etika bi vam rekla da trebate prijaviti krađu i pokušati pronaći počinitelja kako biste zaštitili sebe i druge. Ali kako se odnosite prema tom lopovu može biti pitanje etičkog izbora. Hoćete li ga napasti i osvetiti se ili ćete se pokušati pomiriti s činjenicom da ljudi čine greške i trebaju priliku za promjenu?
Naši postupci i reakcije na svakodnevne situacije mogu biti primjer drugima o tome kako želimo da se postupa s nama. Kroz svoj primjer, možemo prenositi vrijednosti poput poštovanja, pravednosti, ljubaznosti i iskrenosti. To znači da svaki pojedinac može poučavati etiku svojim djelima i ponašanjem.
Međutim, važno je napomenuti da etika nije jednostavna disciplina i da se ne može svesti na jednostavna pravila i ispravne postupke. Ona je dublja i kompleksnija, jer uključuje i naše moralno razmišljanje i svjesnost o posljedicama naših djela.
Dakle, tko može poučavati etiku? Svi mi, u svakodnevnim interakcijama s drugima, možemo biti primjerom pravednosti, poštovanja i moralnih vrijednosti. Poučavamo etiku ne samo riječima, već i djelima. based on trust in one’s personality. Immediately after the war, I found myself in Lviv, where there were still Polish Catholic churches, and I went in to listen to a priest. He gave a sermon about, as far as I understood, how there will never be any atheism in Poland.
He spoke very simply, always emphasizing simplicity. “I was here during the occupation,” the priest said, “and I saw how the Germans led people to their death. People went like a flock of sheep,” he raised his voice here, “but God did not create man to be like that. Man must decide.” He didn’t say how to decide, but it was clear: either you make the decision to fight and throw yourself at the machine guns, or you will be led to your death… But in any case, a decision must be made. Your own decision.
So, there are no ready-made recipes for ethical questions?
In morality, one cannot be dogmatic and absolutist. There are people like that, those who constantly fight for justice. But life is more complex. A representative of Russian symbolism would say that life is like a symphony in which different voices and melodies intertwine, and each person must find their own harmony. Andrej Belij said, “What a joy it is to be a soldier! Here, we have our own, and over there, they have theirs. How simple! How clear!” So, in life, we determine where a friend is and where an enemy is. It is a very difficult task. Every person has both positive and negative traits. However strange it may sound, a person instinctively feels what is good and what is evil. We should seek righteous paths either through instinct or through sound experience. But sometimes, humans are weak and make mistakes; they need to know how to forgive and find consensus in certain situations. Of course, they must not lose the guiding values.
What values does modern society strive for in education and upbringing?
This is a very serious question. One must consider a certain circumstance here: the society we consider to be correct is referred to as a “knowledge society”. Today, security is not provided by money, but by high education standards.
Schools similar to the Parisian “École normale” are emerging, where students learn to solve heuristic tasks and are then sent to work because they are still learning. They have a scholarship, an apartment, everything they need. My friend was in “École normale” for a history exam. They didn’t ask him any dates or facts (facts and dates can be memorized), they only gave him one task: “It is known that Napoleon wrote eleven letters to the English minister Pitt. We have received ten letters. Write the eleventh letter. It can only contain one phrase, but you need to know what he could have written about, and most importantly, the style must reflect the era.” What an exam!
But does education alone, even the best, provide a meaningful and fulfilling life?
Of course, it is also necessary to love work, master knowledge, and be conscientious. Such knowledge determines one’s destiny. This is the humanization or ethization of knowledge. And although it may sound pathetic, it is actually realistic and attainable – one must overcome oneself. Simply put, this is what Plato also taught: “At the end of each day, ask yourself in what way you have conquered yourself.” And if you consistently do that, you will learn. To conquer oneself, because in every creative act, a person conquers oneself, becomes more oneself, discovers something, etc. This is a very important quality.