The Poverty of Abstract Methodology
In this age of educational obsession, the dilemma of our intelligentsia is that they are intellectually confronting with the philosophical problems of post-modern thought in a pre-modern society. On the other hand, at socio-political level, institutions are emerging to develop what has previously been developed and ironically rejected by the developed nations. This is not just true for poisonous pesticides, mechanical industry, agricultural good, arms etc., but it is also true for development of ideas. When they try to explore the shortcomings of 'Enlightenment' thought in general and 'Modern' thought in particular (which is in fact the theoretical domain of our contemporary socio-political and of course educational institutionalization), people consider them as anti-progressive and those who want to keep their people backward, underdeveloped and uncivilized barbarians. It has been witnessed that in our indigenous discourse regarding the pedagogue for effective means of knowledge transference is over shadowed by the approach of methodologically disciplined use of reason expounded by the Enlightenment thinkers. On the other hand, the systematic eradication of traditions as epistemologically unreliable source of human understanding and knowledge.
In this paper, we will try to critically evaluate this ironic side of our philosophy of education. This paper has been divided into three sections: the first section deals with the Enlightenment rejection of traditions and prejudices as epistemological conditions for human understanding; the second section deals with epistemologically grounded institutional prioritization of methodologically disciplined use of rationality by the Enlightenment thinkers for the discovery of the truth; the third section will emphasize the poverty of this enlightenment approach, particularly in the context of Gadamer's idea of historicity of understanding.