Gesto completo: uno strumento pragmatista per l’educazione

Abstract

Classic pragmatists proposed different tools for inquiry and education. John Dewey’s method of problem solving is the most known of them all and represents the pragmatists’ deep attitude toward a continuous conception of theory and practice. However, Dewey and the other pragmatists failed to understand the rationale of this continuity as a different conception of synthesis. Therefore, they did not propose tools or systems of education wholly different and complementary to the usual ones based on analysis.
Here, I want to introduce a tool for education based on synthesis understood as “recognizing identity through change.” The tool is named “complete gesture,” an action with a beginning and an end that carries on a meaning (from gero, meaning “I bear, I carry on”), making us understand something new and not conceptual.
The paper 1) will present the phenomenological and semiotic characteristics of complete gestures and 2) will apply this tool to education by focusing on learning by gestures as re-performance, on the relationship between master and student, and on the value of fallibilism and critique.