Some hypothesis about the results invariably precedes every experiment. According to nominalistic pragmatism, the results of an experiment are always particular and concrete, never general and abstract.
Experimentalism of John Dewey is based upon this biological pragmatism according to which the ultimate aim of all knowledge is harmony of the man with the environment. Education develops social skill which facilitates one’s life. The school is a miniature society which prepares the child for future life.
PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM
Philosophically, the pragmatists are pluralists. According to them there are as many words as human beings. The ultimate reality is not one but many. Everyone searches truth and aim of life according to his experiences.
2. EMPHASIS ON CHANGE-
The pragmatists emphasize change. The world is a process, a constant flux. Truth is always in the making. The world is ever progressing and evolving. Therefore, everything here is changing.
Pragmatists are utility is the test of all truth and reality. A useful principle is true. Utility means fulfillment of human purposes. The results decide the good and evil of anything, idea, beliefs and acts. Utility means satisfaction of human needs.
4. CHANGING AIM AND VALUES-
The aim and values of life change in different times and climes. The old aims and values, therefore, cannot be accepted as they are. Human life and the world is a laboratory in which the aims and values are developed.
Pragmatists are individualists. They put maximum premium upon freedom in human life. Liberty goes with equality and fraternity. Everyone should adjust to his environment.
6. EMPHASIS ON SOCIAL ASPECTS-
Since man is a social animal therefore, he develops in social circumstances. His success is success in society. The aim of education is to make him successful by developing his social personality.
Pragmatists are experimentalists. They give more importance to action than ideas. Activity is the means to attain the end of knowledge. Therefore, one should learn by doing constant experimentation which is required in every field of life.
PRAGMATISM AND EDUCATIVE PROCESS
Activity lies at the centre of all educative process. The basis of all teaching is the activity of the child, says Foster. Every continuous- experience or activity is educative and all education, is fact, resides in having such experience. But continuous growth in experience is not the whole education. Education is something more. It is a constant reorganizing or reconstructing of experience. Pragmatism approaches the problems of education from the ‘progressivits’ view point “progress implies change. Change further implies novelty”, so education cannot be conceived of as acquired once for all. Problem solving is at the core of all education. The educative process thus becomes empirical, experimental, and piecemeal: in a word pragmatic.
1. EDUCATION AS LIFE-
Pragmatists firmly believe that old and traditional education is dead and lifeless. Education is a continuous re-organizing, reconstructing and integrating the experience and activities of race. They want to conserve the worthwhile culture of the past, think out the solutions to meet the new situations and then integrate the two. Real knowledge can be gained only be activity, experiments and real life experiences.
2. EDUCATION AS GROWTH-
Thus education will be useful if it brings about the growth and development of the individual as well as the society in which he lives. Education is meant for the child and child is not meant for education and child is not empty bottle to be filled up by outside knowledge. Each child is born with inherent capacities, tendencies and aptitudes which are drawn out and developed by education. One of the aims of education is to develop all the inherent capacities of the child to the fullest extent.
3. EDUCATION AS A SOCIAL PROCESS-
To pragmatism, man is a social being. He gains more and more knowledge through personal experiences than he gets from books. According to pragmatism, the education of the child should be through the medium of society