East-West Perspective on the Ethos of Daisaku Ikeda’s and John Dewey’s Educational Thought

• In Event: A Curriculum of Great Learning: An East-West Dialogue

Abstract

The fourth presenter will bring Daisaku Ikeda and John Dewey into an East-West dialogue centered around their respective conceptions of “self.” Both Ikeda and Dewey share a notion of self as inseparable from the environment. Ikeda puts it in terms of the “oneness of self and environment” (esho funi) and “dependent co-arising” (engi) [(e.g. Life: An Enigma, A Precious Jewel (1982); A New Humanism (1995)], while Dewey speaks of “self as interest” [Democracy and Education (1916)]. The relation of profound interdependence between individual and environment expressed in these conceptions of the self becomes a lens through which to look at the five important concepts of great learning: human-nature interconnectedness, self cultivation, community studies, moral principles, and joy of learning.

Then, these five concepts will be considered in the context of the thinkers’ educational philosophies. Ikeda’s articulation of a vision of great learning comes in the form of what he calls human education (ningen kyoiku, see To the Youthful Pioneers of Soka, 2006); for Dewey, it finds expression as democratic education (Democracy and Education, 1916).

The presenter identifies both in Ikeda and Dewey two senses of humanity. On the one hand, it refers to the conditions, biological, cultural, and historical that make our human experiences in general and learning in particular possible. On the other, it refers to an accomplishment, the end of the process of learning, the fruits of the cultivation of character. We are born human only in one sense, but fully human we must become. This process of becoming human transcends the mere acquisition of knowledge and skills. Merely knowing is not enough.

At the heart of this shared vision of education resides the human connection. Dialogue understood as the encounter of emergent human beings, is central to the curriculum of both Ikeda’s human education and Dewey’s democratic education. From a global perspective, from the point of view of encounters across difference, which is the inescapable condition of the world today, we can describe this sense of emergent humanity in terms of global citizenship, and the kind of education that promotes the flourishing of such emergent humanity as cosmopolitan education.

Author

• Gonzalo Obelleiro, Teachers College, Columbia University