Journal of European Baptist Studies, Volume 9, Number 2, January 2009

ect to continual ‘reorganisation’ and is never ‘finished’ in its development). Abstract and holistic models are useless 5 John B. Cobb, Can Comparative Religious Ethics Help? in Paul F. Knitter (ed.). Transforming Christianity and the World (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1999), p. 164. 22 Journal of European Baptist Studies fancy; what matters is everyday life and solutions to real problems (the ethical and political dimensions of philosophy). It is also noteworthy that pragmaticians refer to the naturalistic assumption that a human being is a part of the broader world of nature but - contrary to Spencerian evolutionism - they strongly oppose social determinism. Culture does not have a spiritual or metaphysical source but is a form of an active and responsible adjustment to actual conditions of life. Consequently, it is not established ontically nor grounded in a transcendental pattern, which in the pedagogical context considered here means that the subject is being continually constructed. Reality is a dynamic collection of interactions between its participants; it is open (processual) by character and every aspect of the world consists of continual becoming. A human being is a unique participant of these processes: on the one hand, conditioned naturally and culturally, and on the other hand, free to change the encountered reality through his or her active involvement. 6 7 Pragmaticians criticised dualism of reality and abandoned the rigid differentiations between the soul and body, consciousness and being, thinking and acting, organism and environment, individual and society. Rather, people are in the constant process of mutual adjustment to one another and to the environment. The essence of socialisation is a harmony of continuation and creativity; any innovations cannot be hostile towards tradition. The pragmatists view truth in a distinctive way: it always refers to the practice of everyday life (a statement is true if it works) and, as such, is not a closed or static notion. Truth is not to be discovered but to be experienced; the experiencing subject should not be raised above the experienced object but should be immersed in it (thus the borderline between the subject and object of experience is blurred). Consequently, knowledge constantly escapes possession and rather than being conceived of statically as a commodity it must be approached dynamically as a process dependent on the entire context of time, place, etc. This principle refers to both gnoseology and axiology: values are constructed through a person’s concrete involvement, which means that some disappear and others emerge. Social values are established democratically; that is why education should above all develop human activity and responsibility. Educational processes are not limited to a specific area or time and all established educational institutions must as much as possible reflect the n currently experienced world. Be