Educational cultural-semiotic and private environment of a developing person's life activity (towards the construction of semantic reality and ultimate ontology for the sphere of new education)

Rozin Vadim Markovich Doctor of Philosophy Chief Scientific Associate, Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences  109240, Russia, Moskovskaya oblast', g. Moscow, ul. Goncharnaya, 12 str.1, kab. 310 rozinvm@gmail.com Other publications by this author

Almost every word here requires a preliminary explanation. This is not about the biological environment (and not the environment as a setting), but about a new understanding of the environment, which is focused on the humanities and social sciences, on the field of pedagogy (education). There are many environments in a single cultural and semiotic space, the environment is not only established, but also "changing" (becoming); the environment created by a person and at the same time conditioning his behavior (as well as vision and understanding); the general environment (the same for many) and "private" (only for an individual); the environment as the space of different trajectories of an individual's development.

What does the cultural-semiotic environment mean? Here, in contrast to physical and natural conditions, the social and anthropological environment is formed by signs, diagrams, language, texts, significant objects (in culture, as is known, there are no insignificant things). A necessary condition for the existence of such an environment is communication, which, in turn, involves the creation of "semiotic means" (signs, texts, etc.), their transmission to users (broadcast), use by the latter to build a common or private reality, which requires understanding and meaning-making.

Semiotic means have an amazing property: they are created by people to resolve "problematic situations", but then, if they have won in competition with other semiotic constructions, they begin to define the vision, understanding and behavior (activity) of people as meaningful contents. Therefore, semiotic means and constructions in relation to the anthropological plan act as an environmental factor. The analysis shows that the change in the social and anthropological environment is discrete, there are both transformations and "parking", that is, periods of stable functioning and development of established ideas and ways of life (this logic is grasped in the concept of culture). Cultures differ in phylogenetic terms ("archaic", "Ancient Kingdoms", "antique", "Middle Ages", "Renaissance", "New Time") and ontogenetic, ("cultures of life" ? "childhood", "adulthood", "adult, independent life", "silver age", including the elderly and old) ^{[3; 4]}.    

Why is the vital activity of a developing person? Because the formation and development of a person and society takes place in the social and anthropological environment, conditions are created for his life activity (activity, solving problems and tasks, actions, etc.). In order to explain the expressions "reality" and "ultimate ontology", it is necessary to indicate our understanding of the current situation in the field of education.

     We have repeatedly written about the change of the pedagogical paradigm, calling the current period of transformation a "quiet revolution" in education ^[9]. There is a revision of the basic pedagogical concepts: the interpretation of the student as an "average individual with the same laws of mental development", the understanding of his personality as just a variation of these laws, as individual characteristics, criticism of the classroom system and the concept of formation, the need to supplement the vertical, power relations of the teacher with students with horizontal, tutor relations, understanding the limitations of the goal - formation of a "knowledgeable" person (today a computer "knows" several orders of magnitude more than a person) and the content of education as subject knowledge and disciplines ^{[5, pp. 52-66; 10; 6; 11]}.

In opposition to these provisions, others are formulated: the student is a kind of centaur ? both a "social individual" and a "personality", in the first hypostasis his development is subject to general laws, in the second ? "singular" (unique); not individual characteristics, but different backgrounds and development trajectories (evolution); a combination of learning and independent activity (education that promotes the transition to self-education in the future); search and formation of new forms of education (family and tutor education, ecosystem education, education with extensive use of digitalization and questioning, "inverted classroom", contextual, problem-based and collective learning, etc.); restoration of the meaningfulness of education in relation to goals and content, transition to reflexive contents and others [Ibid.].     

It is not difficult to notice that these new provisions, although formulated in the process of changing the pedagogical paradigm and possibly a new approach that has not yet been reflected, are not ontologically related to each other. At the same time, historical studies of how new trends and beginnings were formed in philosophy and science show that the discovery of a fundamentally new reality is a necessary condition for their formation. Two examples. One is Aristotle's discovery of the reality of nature. Trying to understand under what conditions an effective practical action is possible, Stagirite came to the conclusion that for this it is necessary to take into account the nature of things included in cognition and practice. At the same time, by nature, he understands, on the one hand, the process (movement) that takes place by itself, without the participation of man (or God), on the other ? the essence (causes) of these things.      

"Of the various kinds of manufacture," writes Aristotle in Metaphysics, "we have the natural in those things in which it depends on nature <...> nature in the first and basic sense is the essence of things that have the beginning of movement in themselves as such" ^{[1, pp. 82, 123]}.

Here reality is introduced, understood primarily as natural (natural movement), and secondly as the essence of the phenomenon. This is the first stage. The second is the concretization and ontologization of a given reality. So in the Middle Ages and during the Renaissance, in addition to the Aristotelian interpretation of nature, nature began to be understood as permeated with mathematical relations (R. Bacon, N. Kuzansky), as "created", i.e. created according to the plan of the Lord, as "creating", since everything that happens in it is due not only to natural causes, but also to the efforts of God, as "another nature", which, looking back at the first, man can create. F. Bacon overcomes the purely natural interpretation of nature, arguing that man is also interested in the artificial aspect in relation to nature (in other words, how nature after Bacon is understood in a natural-artificial modality).

"As for the content," writes Bacon, "we are making up the History not only of free and left?to?itself nature (when it spontaneously flows and does its work), what is the history of celestial bodies, meteorites, earth and sea, minerals, plants, animals; but, to a much greater extent, of nature bound and constrained when the art and service of a person takes it out of its usual state, affects it and forms it... the nature of Things affects more in constraint through art, rather than in their own freedom" ^{[2, pp. 95, 96]}. (my italics. - V.R.). Arguing that the task of man is to "master nature" (then man will become "powerful"), Bacon characterizes nature in one more respect.

The second example is the category of being in the works of M. Heidegger. By solving the existential problems facing him (the inability to combine historical and phenomenological approaches, to understand the multiplicity of interpretations in the philosophy of essence, to free up a place for faith in the scientific worldview), Heidegger discovers the reality of being, by which he means "bringing to light the hidden." At the second stage, this reality is concretized and ontologized. For example, exploring technique, Heidegger, within the framework of the reality of being, constitutes, relative to two historical periods, the ancient craft technique, which Aristotle explained through four reasons, as well as the producing technique of modernity, which he calls "postage."

"We," writes Heidegger, "are asking about technology, and now we have reached , the openness of the hidden. What does the essence of technology have to do with revealing the hidden? Answer: direct. For on the disclosure of secrecy stands every pro-knowledge. The latter, for its part, gathers four kinds of reasons ? all causality ? and rules them… What is modern technology? She is also the disclosure of the hidden... The disclosure of the hidden that reigns in modern technology is production … At the same time, such production always carries with it from the very beginning an attitude to reproduction, to increase productivity in the sense of extracting maximum benefits at minimal cost…What kind of openness is inherent in what came to light in the process of producing provision? In all cases, he is forced to be at his disposal in an established way, namely with the installation for further supplying production… Let's call it state-in-stock… Let's now call that exciting challenge that focuses a person on putting everything that comes out of hiding as being-in-existence, a post" ^[15].  

I believe that for the above-mentioned paradigmatic positions, it is necessary to indicate (discover) a new reality. The reader has probably already guessed ? this is the reality that the author called "the educational cultural-semiotic and private environment of the life of a developing person." What image helped me to see this reality? The image of culture, as it was formed by the author in the course of his long-term cultural studies (see ^[3]). However, I called this reality not a culture, but an environment. Let me explain why.

First of all, what kind of culture have I developed? Culture, as it could be understood from the above, is a "parking lot", a stable state of history in its course. The essence of culture forms a "semiosis", that is, culture develops in the process of inventing symbolic means and signifying phenomena with their help. A striking example is the very first "archaic culture" (formed approximately 20-10 thousand years BC). The consciousness, vision and communication of archaic people were determined by the language that had developed by that time (representing a sign system), two "fundamental schemes" ("souls" and "arche") and several "local schemes" (for example, the eclipse scheme). By the soul, people of archaic culture understood an invisible being (resembling a bird, butterfly, shadow), in which the immortal life of a person was concentrated, this being was in the human body, from which it could leave, but to which it could also return. However, if the soul left the body of this namesake forever, for him, the archaic man believed, death came, if it could come back, it was not death, but illness, if the soul was seen in a dream ? a dream, if a person or animal was drawn, then their souls were called, and you can turn to them with what- with a request. And here is an example of a local scheme. "In the language of tupi," writes culturologist E. Taylor, ?a solar eclipse is expressed in the words: "the jaguar ate the sun." The full meaning of this phrase is still revealed by some tribes by the fact that they shoot burning arrows to drive away a ferocious beast from its prey" ^{[12, p. 228]}.

It is on the basis of the three types of semiotic means indicated here (language, fundamental and local schemes) that the archaic culture has been formed and reproduced for about two tens of thousands of years. At the same time, semiotic means determined both the actions of primary collectives (tribes, families) and an individual, who, however, did not realize himself separately from his collective. In being together, writes Kurt Huebner, "a man of a mythical era finds the roots of his life. As an individual, as an individual and I, he is nothing... To have no gens means to be deprived of numinous Kydos and Olbos, which contain the identity of the gens given by the gods, that is, to have no face at all... The man of the mythical epoch is absolutely unknown to the realm of the internally ideal as the Self. He is who he is, while occupying a place in the universal mythical-numinous substance, which exists in many ways, be it people, living beings or "material" objects, therefore a person lives in many ways, and it lives in him" ^{[16, p. 76]}.  

But already in ancient culture, in addition to the social individual described here, integrated into the primary collective (later in the culture of the "Ancient Kingdoms" into the "people"), a new anthropological type of person is formed ? the "ancient personality". A "becoming antique personality" is a person like Socrates or Plato, acting independently, and not according to tradition, and therefore forced to build his own world and himself in it with the help of schemes. The personality, due to beliefs that do not coincide with the generally accepted ones, is in a difficult relationship with the social collective, but gradually they come to a mutual compromise. And again, as I show, the formation of personality occurs on the basis of semiotic means (language, "private schemes", etc.) ^{[8, pp. 155-158]}. 

Another important characteristic of culture is the process of its formation, development and completion (crisis and dying). Sooner or later, the established semiotic means cease to correspond to the changes and complications of life that cannot be avoided (natural disasters, wars, problems), as a result, culture ends and people have to invent new semiotic means on the basis of which the next culture is formed ^[3].

Even from this brief description of culture, the following image emerges. Culture is an environment for human life and activity, at the same time it is itself a form of social life. As a semiosis, it determines the vision, consciousness and actions of people entering the culture. Since ancient culture, the latter includes two anthropological types ? social individuals and personalities. On the one hand, semiosis and culture are created by people, on the other ? after they have formed, semiosis and culture themselves begin to determine people's lives. Culture as a form of life is a historical education that goes through the phases of formation, development and completion. 

It was this image that appeared (remembered) to me, when I began to reflect on the reality of a new education, which was conceived in the form of a set of paradigmatic positions. Realizing that education is not a culture and at the same time assuming that it is related to culture, I began to think about what kind of reality it is, what word to call a new education. Here I remembered the concept of the environment, which was proposed by the Belarusian humanities.

"In the traditional interpretation," the authors of the Belarusian monograph "The University as a center of cultural education. Changing forms of communication in the educational process", – the environment is described as a kind of environment of an individual that has a certain impact on him. We believe that in the context of university culture-generating education, the environment should be understood as: a) an integral part of educational subjectivity (which, in turn, is part of the environment); b) the effect of implementing a certain educational practice (the condition of which it simultaneously acts); c) differential integrity, constructed in actual educational situations. The environment in this case is more a symbolic field than an object or subject field. It is born and functions where there is a communicative interaction of various meanings or ways of activity and as a result accumulates this diversity so that each of the participants in the environment is able to change their own position and their own vision of the situation, as well as formulate a possible project of a new description and, therefore, a new construction of the situation... the educational environment is the area in which the transformation of the experience and identity of participants in education takes place. It is the main tool and the cumulative effect of such transformations, which allows it to overcome the limitations of individual or group ways of transformational self-description in favor of understanding such changes as conditions for cultural reproduction... We see educational environments as a communicative phenomenon, if, of course, we accept an expanded interpretation of communication as a process of cultural differentiation. This understanding of communication can be associated primarily with the theory of symbolic interactionism (Mead, 1934), which shows that it is in communication that the constitution of the basic instances of the "I", the Other, space, time, etc. occurs" ^[13].

  Of course, this language and concepts are different from mine, but don't the distinctions of the educational environment proposed by Belarusian colleagues correlate well with the image of culture that I have developed? When I say "correlate", I do not mean ontology, but reality, in my opinion, the description of the educational environment proposed by Belarusian humanities is also a reality, not an ontology. In short, I decided that the name for the new reality has been found ? this is an "educational environment". Now it was possible to proceed to the second stage: concretization and construction of ontology. However, it has been going on for a long time, but not within the framework of a single reality. I will give one detailed example ? the problems of teaching mathematics.

At present, the school, in relation to the teaching of mathematics, however, as well as many other disciplines, has partially reached a dead end. Students have a poor understanding of what mathematics is and why they will need it. Teachers recognize that mathematical knowledge no longer meets modern requirements for the content of education (it is unclear which knowledge to prefer, besides, today any knowledge or proof can be easily found on the Internet), but they cannot answer what should replace knowledge. In addition, for some reason they think that teaching mathematics provides the formation of thinking and personality. In my youth, while doing postgraduate studies at the Institute of Preschool Education of the APN RSFSR, I asked my supervisor Vasily Vasilyevich Davydov if mental development really develops personality at the same time. "He thought and said, generalizing: "Yes, mental development also forms the right personality." I remember, and then I didn't really believe it, because there are many good mathematicians and physicists who are at the same time very dubious personalities, from the point of view of morality or citizenship.

In the book "Mathematics: Origin, Nature, Teaching" published the year before last, I show that in mathematics it is necessary to distinguish three main areas: firstly, mathematical systems formed on the basis of two sources (theoretical reflection of a certain subject area and construction), secondly, the application of mathematical knowledge and objects in physics and in other scientific disciplines, thirdly, mathematics as a field of activity and scientific ethos.

Currently, we have a better understanding of what mathematics is, and therefore we can more correctly characterize its meaning, including for the field of education. Firstly, mathematics is an important historical phenomenon, one of the first types of science ("The Beginnings of Euclid", the works of Archimedes and Apollonius). Secondly, mathematics is a language of mathematical schemes and models used in physics and a number of other scientific disciplines (for example, in sociology and economics). Thirdly, mathematics is a kind of creativity and thinking (mathematical), which can be joined by someone who is fascinated by mathematics.

But it's worth noting right away that the kind of creativity and thinking is one among many others. At present, we cannot, as in the time of Kant, consider natural science and mathematical thinking to be the only and most correct a priori in terms of cognition. There are other types of thinking (and creativity) (humanitarian, social, interdisciplinary, technological, esoteric, etc.) that differ significantly from mathematical. And mathematical language is not universal, for example, in the humanities and social sciences, as well as in philosophy and art, not mathematical models, but schemes are in use.    

  Currently, teachers seem to be ready to abandon the interpretation of the content of mathematical education as mathematical knowledge and disciplines. However, what instead is unclear. It is unlikely that teachers of mathematics can be completely satisfied, for example, with the "didactics of big ideas" (fundamental concepts and concepts, technological packages, everyday use, big challenges), all this is, of course, heuristic, but why exactly these ideas, and will their implementation lead to the mastery of mathematics that is needed today? In short, teachers found themselves at a crossroads: it is no longer possible in the old way, and the new content is questionable and eclectic.

I will express my point of view. The content of mathematical education (and other scientific disciplines) is the meanings obtained during the reconstruction of the formation and development of mathematical disciplines. Meanings as a response to the problems of misunderstanding of the relevant disciplinary texts and provisions with the aim of clarifying situations, activities and thinking, which probably led to the creation of these texts and provisions.

In reality, for the course of geometry, solving the problems of misunderstanding the basic features of geometry as mathematics, such reconstructions need to be done, probably several dozen. Each such reconstruction will make it possible to determine the main mathematical contents and establish genetic links between them.

Moreover, it is advisable to do all this in the form of setting problems and questions, initiating discussion, inducing students to solve problems independently and subsequent reflection. In other words, in addition to reconstruction and genetic connections, the structure of the content of education is determined by another factor ? modern ideas about the laws of development and evolution of individuals. And the latter involves initiating independence and tracking different trajectories of personality development. Therefore, it is necessary to proceed from the fact that different students will answer questions differently and solve the problems posed to them differently. Ultimately, they may come to a different understanding of geometry (mathematics). These points need to be identified so that teachers and tutors can work individually with their wards (help them, discuss situations and problems that have arisen, initiate, if necessary, the next steps).

Another factor determining the features of the modern content of education is the ability to transfer the bulk of mathematical knowledge and proofs to the Internet, leaving only some for learning, which you can rely on to introduce the necessary understanding of mathematics. This is, if we are talking about a comprehensive school, it is another matter if students will specialize in mathematics (in special classes or at universities). 

  At the same time, this transfer means the need to move to a new content of education, to a sharp increase in the role and importance of reflexivity. After all, in fact, the reconstruction of the meaning of mathematical contents proposed by the author is nothing more than a reflection of the situations, activities and thinking that led to the formation of mathematics. It may seem to someone that the reflection of mathematics also means that in its teaching it is necessary to adhere to historical forms (for example, representatives of the "genetic system" of teaching mathematics thought so). No, historical forms differ significantly from modern ones, therefore, for the purposes of education, they must be transformed, replaced by modern ones. Thus, the main task of modern mathematical education is to create a cultural and semiotic environment that promotes students' self-education based on the basic mathematical material.

Another important consideration concerns the variability of the modern content of education. If modern education proceeds from the recognition of different personality types and trajectories of their development, as well as the principle of "cultural conformity" (with all innovations and independence, a young person should remain in culture and contribute to its evolution), then it is clear that the teacher should strive to provide the student with content in all its cultural diversity, which again, probably, it involves strengthening the reflexive principle. For example, it is not easy to introduce the fifth postulate of the "Principles of Euclid", but to immerse in the situation of attempts to prove it, and to offer material leading to the geometry of Lobachevsky, and then Riemann. And so it is everywhere ? the diversity and variability of the meanings of mathematics ^[7].  

I think it is not difficult to notice that the representations and distinctions indicated here correspond to the reality we have outlined above. They allow, with the involvement of additional material, to build on the basis of this reality and more specific constructions of ideal objects, i.e. ontology. For example, to distinguish between the assimilation of mathematical meanings that have developed in science and their independent discovery by a schoolboy or student; familiarity with mathematics for the formation of the necessary competencies of a social individual and engaging in mathematics as a sphere of life and personal realization; distinguishing mathematics as the language of exact sciences and schemes as the language of socio-humanitarian discourse.  

   I will explain the difference between reality, ideal objects and ontology. Reality is defined through a description of the subject matter (for example, culture or environment), which does not require definitions and instructions on how to understand this subject matter; each user understands how he can. Unlike reality, ideal objects are defined; and when we act with them, we try to follow these instructions and definitions. Ontology is defined with respect to ideal objects: on the one hand, it is a kind of constructor in which you can create ideal objects, on the other ? a generalized image of all ideal objects of this discipline. The first approach to the construction of ontology belongs to Aristotle. For example, in "Analysts" he characterizes the ontology of arithmetic and geometry as follows. "There are their own [beginnings], the existence of which is accepted (), for which the episteme itself [theoretically] contemplates (), for example, arithmetic – units, geometry – points and lines. For they [arithmetic and geometry] accept () being and being by this [for unit, point and line]. Their states by themselves, which means each, take (), for example, arithmetic – what [means] odd or even, or square, or cubic, geometry – what [means] incommensurable or breaking [lines], or convergence [lines], what is, show () through the general and proven ( )" ^[14].

It is worth dwelling on one more question. Currently, there is a competition of new types of education: similar provisions and meanings are formulated by ideologists of family, tutor, open, ecosystem education, as well as coaches, mentors, mentors, psychologists, teachers-innovators. The question is how to differentiate the competencies of all these subjects. You can specify three main criteria. First, the area of responsibility, that is, for which one or another subject takes responsibility. For example, currently school administrators take responsibility for school management, subject teachers - for mastering a certain discipline, psychologists ? for psychological assistance, tutors ? for accompanying a student and a young person in the field of education (in addition, it just so happens that tutors take responsibility for creating conditions for cultural development, transition to self-education and a new image of a person).      

The second criterion is the conceptual representations of each subject of a new form of education. For example, psychologists completely proceed from psychological ideas about a person (various traditional teachings about the psyche, theories of personality, psychoanalysis, cognitive psychology, etc.). Tutors rely on a whole range of philosophical and scientific disciplines, including methodology (with activity, mental activity, cultural and humanitarian orientation), narrative psychology, hermeneutics, an extended version of semiotics, some modern versions of psychology, anthropology and anthropopractics.    

The third criterion, the nature and features of real practice. There are a lot of intersections and similar ideas here. For example, supporters of the concept  "personalizations" consider education mainly as a practice of personal development. At the same time, tutors equip education as a set of practices: "mapping", "building individual educational programs", "questioning", "meaning generation", not excluding "creating conditions for personal development".

 It is clear that all these specialists who create modern education need dialogue and cooperation of different directions and new types of education for a clearer and more rational organization of modern pedagogy.