SCIENCE AND HUMANITIES FOR A PEDAGOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY ITALIAN EXPERIENCE OF CLINICAL PEDAGOGY

Abstract

Who is the human being? After many thousand years, this question remains the main problem for the educational world and for the different approaches in working on the help relation. The anthropology is a Science or a Knowledge? Understanding more about the human being does it mean to make new empirical research or does it mean to reflect on the wisdom of the philosophy or religion? Is it possible to integrate different approaches and study’s methods on the human being in order to understand the depth of a person who is more than an “individual in average”? A multifaceted approach applied to the study of human being is necessary to understand the person complexity. It also necessary to research models, tools and strategies for reflecting on the pedagogical mission and to put in practice the educational theories. After the Positivism and as reaction to centuries of philosophy and theology’s dominion, we are subdued only to scientific vision of life. Consequently, the human being is considered as number, as code, as combination of one or more correlation. Instead it is time to re-define the pedagogy (as education theory) starting from the person and relevant subjective experience. The experience of a human being derives from perceiving a body, having a mind and using intelligence, feeling emotions and sentiments, and also choosing values (moral dimension) and living spirituality (transcendence dimension). It is necessary to integrate the cultures of the past with the scientific excellences of the present, without going back. How is this process possible? It is very difficult, but this is a great positive challenge for the global knowledge society. As far Italy, but also Europe, there is a new movement called “clinical pedagogy” that has succeeded to integrate different anthropological approaches in its educational theories. Thus demonstrating that is possible to maintain an own theoretical and methodological autonomy involving in its framework the contribution of other disciplines. The clinical pedagogy is one among holistic educational (or psychological) approaches that considers the human being with referring to his/her individual and social nature. In facts, the clinical pedagogy continues its experimental and humanities researches in a context of applied education. The clinical pedagogy is a new challenge to reflect on the anthropological constitution of the person under point of view of helping relation. Keywords: Anthropology, Theory of Education, Educational Practice, Clinical Pedagogy .