Abstract

CORNELIA GOTTSCHALK, Cristiane Maria. The Educational Rituals in the Light of Wittgenstein’s Philosophy of Language. Sophia [online]. 2017, n.22, pp.127-148. ISSN 1390-8626.  https://doi.org/10.17163/soph.n22.2017.05.

The linguistic turn promoted by the second phase of Wittgenstein’s thought, in part expressed in his work Philosophical Investigations, strongly influenced contemporary philosophy and raised new questions for the philosophy of education. Besides providing a new conception of language, his new philosophical method, also known as philosophical therapy, enabled the clarification of many of the dilemmas and paradoxes of philosophy, in particular those related to concepts like learning, knowledge, understanding, thinking, among other basic concepts in the field of education. My goal in this text is to start from the criticism that Wittgenstein makes to the observations of the British anthropologist Frazer on rituals of ancient civilizations (published under the title Notes on “The Golden Bough” Frazer), to clarify some educational errors in contemporary pedagogy and point to the possibility of teaching methods that can be “preventive”, in order to avoid dogmatism in education at all levels, from those present in the most general guidelines of official documents to the ones established in the daily practices of the school context. The connection of his philosophical therapy with educational issues will be given mainly by the idea that the school environment is also home to its rituals, which, in my view, allow the clarification of questions about teaching and learning, and consequently, a better understanding of the school routine. I shall also turn to a recent theory of meaning under Wittgenstein’s inspiration, the Epistemology of Use, to discuss the teacher’s role in introducing the student to language games, whose “ritualistic” bases of conventional nature are seen in this epistemological perspective as a condition for the acquisition of new meanings in the school context, thus enabling the shaping of independent and critical students.

Keywords : Ritual; persuasion; learning; linguistic turn; Wittgenstein.

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