The Present Situation and the Idea of Personalistic Education

Abstract

The paper begins with a brief characterization of the situation of modern man with regard to the phenomena of anonymity and loneliness caused by the lack of the traditional values and beliefs without which the question of the meaning of human life cannot be seriously approached, and a truly meaningful future thus cannot be looked forward to. Acknowledging the need for searching for a system of global humanistic ethical principles, it then argues that the fundamental principle of these explorations should be personal dignity and the awareness of the common good. These are personalistic categories, important in the pluralist world and consistent with the Christian vision of man. The paper presents educational premises that, it suggests, should be followed if upbringing and education are to be fully personalistic processes, and describes phenomena inconsistent with the principles of personalism, making reference to the principle of subsidiarity, which in the context of upbringing and education means freedom to choose the good and to implement it, and to the philosophy of rationalism which perceives the human being in terms of a personal being and defines the main manifestation of human nature as the desire to achieve a certain kind of fulfillment.