ARTICLES

Radical Universalism and the Logic of Pedagogy

Filipe Felizardo
Pages 69–92| Published online: 29 October 2024

Felizardo, Filipe. 2024. “Radical Universalism and the Logic of Pedagogy.” Marxism & Sciences 3(2): 69–92.
https://doi.org/10.56063/MS.2408.03212

ABSTRACT

The present investigation suggests that logical paradigms, as sets of rules of thought, are operative in pedagogical paradigms, as sets of norms for forming thought. In doing so, this paper examines whether such paradigms can be ac-commodated in a philosophy of pedagogy that hinges upon the meta-concept of radical universalism—to be defined and defended here as a meta-concept, guid-ed by Ilyenkov’s studies in logic. This essay follows several presuppositions: that pedagogy is a meta-logical endeavour; that learning, in turn, is an interpersonal and dialogical endeavour contingent upon the outcome of the development of logical forms. We will examine the concept of meta-concepts more broadly and then discuss the pedagogical meta-concepts of universalism and constructivist-pluralism. These will be presented as analogous to the logical schools of formal-ism and intuitionism, respectively. We will see that neither can fulfil the de-mands of radical universalism. We will use modality as a criterion to assess the intelligibility of each logic’s claims and the realizability of its purported pedagog-ical efficacy when paired with their corresponding meta-concepts. We will see that a degraded sort of universalism and constructivist-pluralism falter at their epistemological purchase—and that the latter, however benign, is still not a strong contender for a logic of dialectics and insufficient for a radical universalist philosophy of pedagogy. Through this opposition, we try to determine developed images of the meta-concept of radical universality and the radically universal learner— hoping to motivate their development in a novel logical framework.

KEYWORDS: Universality, dialectics, logic, pedagogy, formalism, intuitionism, constructivism, pluralism.

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