Abstract

The contribution inquires what impact pragmatism and phenomenology had and still have on education? A logical starting point to answer this question is to back to the roots as it were and to relate Otto Friedrich Bollnow and John Dewey with respect to their understanding of experience and the role experience plays in education. Both have defended their understanding of experience in the context of major debates in the field of education. Dewey in 1938 after facing major criticism for the idea of a progressive education, which defines the foundations of the the process of learning on experiences rather than on a canon of knowledge. Bollnow positions himself in the methodological dispute of the 1960s and 1970s concerning a philosophical versus an empirical approach in education. Focusing on experience, Bollnow takes a third position in this debate, arguing that experience, while being empirical, needs to be interpreted hermeneutically. Amos points out that Bollnow and Dewey share the quest for orienting education toward experience, but also draws attention to some major differences. Dewey’s account of experience is an optimistic one. Bollnow on the other hand points to the danger of incrustation and rigidity of well-experienced positions.