On Being Human(e)

Comenius’ Pedagogical Humanization as an Anthropological Problem

Jan Hábl

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781532600562
  9781532600586
• eBook ISBN:
  9781532600579
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

There is a difference between that which is and that which is to be. Anthropologically: there is a way I am, and the way I am to be, or not to be. How are we to explain this? This book presents the argument that human nature is both complex and complicated in at least two specific ways--ontologically and ethically. In our being we are indisputably good, dignified, worthy, important, or even noble. But in our morality we are ambivalent--capable of both good and evil, the humane and the inhumane. In his paramount work Jan Amos Comenius expresses the goal of his lifelong endeavor: "to help keep man from falling into a non-man" (Pampaedia). If human beings are to become what they ought to be, they need to be educated towards humanity, says Comenius. But the fundamental question is, what is a human being? And what ought one to be? "Salt ought to be salty. A river ought to be clear. A knife ought to be sharp. But what ought a person to be?" What is the essence of our humanity? And how can that be cultivated or educated? This book presents Comenius's answers to these questions.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Introduction: Presentation of the Problem
• Chapter 1: Theatrum
• Chapter 2: The Depths of Safety
• Chapter 3: Labyrinth
• Chapter 4: Didactics
• Chapter 5: Pampaedia
• Chapter 6: Conclusion
• Appendix 1: Comenius in the Course of History
• Appendix 2: Outline of Comenius’s Didactic Fundamentals from the Great Didactic
• Appendix 3: Chronology of Comenius’s Life and Works
• Appendix 4: Glossary of Special Terms
• Bibliography