Sustainable development and the role of instrumentalism concepts for social institutions and educational system

¹ Candidate of Sciences (Philosophy), Associate Professor of the Department of Cultural Studies and Art Education, Drohobych State Pedagogical University of Ivan Franko, Drohobych, Ukraine
² PhD in Philosophy, Assistant Professor, Assistant Professor of philosophy of Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture, Kyiv, Ukraine
³ Candidate of Sciences (Philosophy), Associate Professor of the Department of Cultural Studies and Art Education, Drohobych Ivan Franko State Pedagogical University, Drohobych, Ukraine
⁴ Assistant of Department of the Philosophy by Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture, Kyiv, Ukraine

^* Corresponding author: ise.cupw@gmail.com

Abstract

The conception of pragmatism and the educational theory deriving from it are quite popular in management systems and social sciences in the context of the need of implementing sustainable development strategies. This is facilitated, firstly, by the combination in the renewed conceptions of this trend of its bottom-up positions with the ideas of other worldview trends – neo-positivism, existentialism, neoFreudism – which enabled enriching the categorical apparatus and general theoretical content of the educational model, management and social education of pragmatism, while preserving the spirit of the conception. Secondly, the changes undergone by the conception of pragmatism in education have allowed it to successfully integrate into the currently intensified general trend of understanding educational management as a process of socialization of the individual, his/her adaptation to the existing values of Western society. In this context, it is a matter of assessing human behavior not in terms of whether it is consistent with fixed, „eternal‟ moral principles, but rather in terms of the practical results that human actions contribute to the achievement of a given aim. This aim was understood in different ways: some identified it with the development of personal consciousness, while others linked it to self-improvement or integrity, still others linked it to the ultimate development of all human faculties, etc. Obviously, the very desire for such a shift in the assessment of human behavior reflected the fact that the absolute principles and norms of classical ethics were no longer „working‟ under the new social conditions; a more sophisticated criterion was needed to evaluate behavior in the context of constantly changing factors in social and individual life.