Solitude and selflessness and the cultivation of humanity in liberal and religious education

ABSTRACT

This paper attempts to analyse the role of solitude and selflessness in promoting consideration for the person and the possibilities offered by liberal and religious education in this regard. The empirical point of departure is the Polish system of public education, where liberal education takes the form of general education while religious education is pursued as catechesis. The theoretical grounding for the characterisation of selflessness as the goal of education and solitude as its method are provided by Roman Ingarden’s phenomenological conception of personal and moral values and Erasmus of Rotterdam’s Christian humanism. I propose that firstly, liberal education may provide significant aid to religious education for the cultivation of selflessness; secondly, that solitude in normal conditions may be a unifying factor for liberal and religious education; thirdly, that selflessness and solitude, being two complementary parts of consideration for the person, constitute the test of good education understood as the cultivation of humanity.

KEYWORDS:

• Solitude and selflessness
• consideration for the person
• liberal and religious education
• cultivation of humanity
• Poland

Introduction

This text is devoted to solitude, understood as the circumstance and experience of being with oneself, aloneness. Moreover, my intention is to argue for it in the context of education not detached, but combined with selflessness. I believe that it is only together that they may become a set of goods supporting education as distinct social practice, even in today’s difficult lockdown conditions.

I posit education passes the test which determines whether it can be considered good education when it can be described as supportive of learning and growth. Learning by itself does not constitute education; we learn continuously, regardless of age (we might, for example, learn to use modern media). Similarly, natural growth alone does not satisfy the definition: education ought to determine growth, direct it towards a state more preferable than the outset (to reform, perfect) (Peters 2008). In reference to people we can talk of growth towards full personhood, about the process of becoming fully human (Carr 2003; Stern 2018a). And so education may become good education when it considers the human and personal development, the fulfilment of possibilities and calling to be human. Only such consideration for the person, encompassing both care for self and for others, allows for the initiation of education as a practice benefiting people, for establishing and viewing it amongst other practices (MacIntyre and Dunne 2002; Noddings 2005). Such is also its genealogy. We recall the ancient schole formula, which emerged to fill leisure time with individual or communal learning, practice and becoming human with the guidance of a teacher (Marrou 1981). I understand the act of reflecting upon the person as a signifier for all humane practices and so, wishing to count education among them, I believe such reflection ought to play a permanent role in education. In absence of such a signifier we obtain learning that equates to training. Such education looses the dignity of a practice in its own right and becomes subservient to other practices (MacIntyre and Dunne 2002; Hogan 2003; Higgins 2011). An equally important criterion that education should meet is to search for possibilities to introduce consideration for the person to everyday practice via our own, pedagogical methods. Educational methods fulfil pedagogical criteria not based on their effectiveness, but ethicality, equity (otherwise they would be governed by the rule that the goal justifies the means and education would even warrant brainwashing or terror). This criterion has its application also in reference to the goals of education (Frankena 1973).

In the following work I aim to present solitude and selflessness as germane and internal goods of education, thanks to which its objects have a chance to develop while learning according to their possibilities and calling to humanity in the various situations in which they will be required to live. Humanity is not granted and established: we learn it while recognising the needs of others besides those of our own, with life being the test of our ability to rise to its various challenges. Education is the time of learning to be human and simultaneously the practice of humanity. If we are to pass the exam for being human during the pandemic then children cannot be exempt from it. Since they are also being tested, they ought to have the opportunity not only to identify their own needs but to learn to understand the situation of others and consider it when furthering their own plans and actions. That is: they should have the opportunity to learn humanity through action on behalf of another, for their good.

When examining how solitude and selflessness benefit education, I will describe the former as method, connected to the value of aloneness, and the latter as the goal of education. With such an arrangement I hope the postulated consideration for the human in education will become manifest. The first step will be to conduct analysis using the theoretical grounding provided by the philosophies of two masters of internal life, that is the renaissance humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam and the 20th century phenomenologist Roman Ingarden. Both examined internal life, each in their own times and from separate perspectives. I treat the stances they arrived at as complementary and well applied to the topic at hand (Smart 1973, 1986; Freathy and Parker 2010).

In the next step, dealing explicitly with education, I will search for methods and contexts favourable for implementation and fostering of consideration for the person by means of solitude and selflessness. I will attempt to demonstrate that selflessness and aloneness experienced via solitude require each other to balance each other out, the former aligned outward with no self-interest and the latter facing inward. Both however flow from the person, just as love of neighbour and love of self (amour de soi not amour-propre) (Mk 12:31–33; Rousseau 1979). I will draw examples from liberal and religious education. This is a deliberate choice. I believe those currents could give rise to a renewal of education as such. I have arrived at this view convinced by the fact that both mentioned educations possess large arsenals of pedagogical means, developed through a long tradition of fostering humanistic ideals and the constant supply of philosophical and theological ideas (Kimball 1986; Nussbaum 1997; Barnes 2014; O’Grady 2019). The preservation of and calling upon those methods, according to their merit, would be beneficial, all the more so because they could also lose their utility, succumbing to the global trend of the instrumentalisation of education. While I reference and compare them, I am aware of their differences, which I however suspend, working from the assumption that their contact and communication are possible in the field of humanity, which they both cultivate and consider to be a goal of education, irrespective of the differences in which they justify the same humanistic value.

Upon examining the curriculum framework, teaching directives and/or literature pertaining to religious education in different countries, one can find numerous examples of the complementarity of those two domains, especially when the subject is implemented in the form of religious studies (education about religion). Interaction with students from different religious and secular backgrounds is considered to be supportive of individual development (Jackson and O'Grady 2007). It has been proposed, in the context of religious pluralism and human rights, to encourage students within the framework of religious education to share their various religious practices and experiences, seeking inspiration from the pedagogy of dialogue, critical pedagogy or renewed Thomism (Gearon 2002; Sjöborg and Zieberts 2017; Stern 2018b; Enstedt 2020; Luby, 2020, 2021). This shows how religious education could support general education to 'secure the place of humanity at the heart of education' (Hannam 2019; Hannam & Panjvami 2020, 395). It is also possible to read Pope Francis' support for fraternal humanism and appeal for a 'culture of dialogue' to be promoted through religious education, contained in a document by the Congregation for Catholic Education, in this manner (CCE 2017).

In countries where religious education is confessional in nature (education into religion), as is the case e.g. in Poland, where catechesis takes place at school (Mąkosa 2015; Zielińska and Zwierżdżyński 2017), this broader, neutral, comparative, one could say, humanist aspect of religious studies, referencing human rights, based on human reasoning (Hannam 2019), and described as 'open and liberal, intending neither to promote nor to erode faith' (Jackson and O’Grady 2007, 198) might be lacking. In a school setting, teaching religion does not necessarily achieve its goals. Catechesis requires school-based religious instruction to be complemented with authentic religious initiation and practice in the parish and the youths' environment (Misiaszek 2010; Horowski 2020). This however is not always the case. Considering the above, various ways of improving school catechesis have been considered in the literature, such as allowing religious societies access to school space or the search for a broader the oretical grounding, outside of the strict Thomist and neo-Thomist framework prevalent in Poland (Mastalski 2013; Chrostowski 2020).

Taking the above into account, in this text I seek to draw inspiration from classical ideas of Christian humanism and modern phenomenology. I set out to establish not only that general education can benefit from religious education, but also that religious education can benefit from liberal education and its distinct characteristics. I expect to be aided in this by a reading of various masterful descriptions of inner life, in with selflessness and aloneness played a significant part.

Liberal education, described as ‘selfless arts’ (Bergson 1972), although understood in various ways, generally promotes the idea of education not focused on profit but on the promotion of basic tenets of humanity (Nussbaum 2010). I will try to demonstrate the means by which this could be achieved and what religious education may gain from this. I will then conclude with a report of my findings. My hope is that the models of solitude and selflessness as learning and the practice of consideration for the person, maintained by both domains of education will ultimately aid the renewal of education as such.

Internal life in Christian humanism and phenomenology and their relation to classical thought

Selflessness is opposed to selfishness. A passage from Scripture (Phil 2:2–4) warns us of eritheia, that is selfishness, selfish rivalry, selfish ambition or personal vanity. In general, the term ‘selfishness’ denotes various forms of egoism or self-interest. In classical philosophy, Aristotle’s eudaimonistic position attracts interest, although it does not provide a convenient basis for the establishment of selflessness ethics. In book IX of the Nicomachean Ethics he considers it according to the goal of human activity and classifies it as positive and negative. Selfish in the positive sense (or a true lover of self) is a person interested in his own ethical activity, striving for what is noble which he understands to be the highest good or happiness (Aristotle 2020, 229–231). Aristotle finds nothing worthy of condemnation in such a person. It seems that for him, only goodwill (eunoia) manifest in perfect and complete friendship is not selfish, understood as ‘selfless and non-accidental good will towards a friend’ (2020, 193–194; Dryla 2008, 123). In other types of friendship there would be more or less egoist forms of goodwill, based on pleasure or utility (Aristotle 2020, 196). Finally then goodwill is for Aristotle as selfless as that is possible, for self-interest in his philosophy is never suspended (Dryla 2008; Slote 1995). Olga Dryla’s interpretation, which places Aristotle’s ethics within egoist motivation with a preference for conflict avoidance, suggests that the seemingly non-egoistic components of this ethics, such as selfless goodwill, nobility and competition in nobility, form a coherent whole, rendering them compatible with Aristotle’s theory of motivation (2008, 162). Jennifer Herdt (2008) arrived at similar conclusions regarding Aristotle’s ethical stance, though she approached the issue when examining a different subject, namely the path to virtue in human development and moral upbringing. In Christian philosophy, which refers to Aristotle through St. Thomas Aquinas, there is an awareness of the problems generated by the desire for one’s own good (Wojtyła 1979). Scripture calls this attitude Pharisaism. Nevertheless, the moral entity interested in its own good is assigned valid status and is not regarded as selfish, but as a Christian on the way to holiness.

Writing about solitude and selflessness I introduce a different perspective, one which supports the spiritual or even strictly religious development of a person, one which is not mainstream but critical of orthodoxy or the official position of the Church. Firstly I would like refer to the humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam and then the phenomenologist Roman Ingarden. Though divided by centuries and their philosophical angle of approach, I will treat their stances as complementary. Both provide help in the search for the meaning of solitude and selflessness. Erasmus in his manual for Christian religious renewal titled Enchiridion militis Christiani published in 1503 formulated 22 rules of true Christianity. They were all devised as ‘wrestling holds’ for the internal struggle for development. I will now exemplify this by examining one of them. Rule five advises: do not flaunt your faith and good deeds; do not focus on rites, but on the love of your neighbour. ‘Draw nigh to the Lord’ and he ‘will draw nigh in his turn’; as you ‘rise out of the tumult of the senses, he “will obligingly come forth to meet you from his inaccessible light and that unimagined silence”, in which “all the tumult of the senses” and “the images of all mental ideas dissolve within this silence” (Erasmus 1988, 84). It would be difficult not to read this prescription as anything other than a celebration of selflessness. Erasmus’ thought has over the ages found proponents not only among Christians. We may assume that this is owing both to the promotion of humanistic ideals and the cultivation of an image of Christianity, which does not oppress man with the pronouncement of his sinful nature, but introduces him to the Gospel and God’s love proclaimed therein, which revives him. The ancient formula ‘know thyself’ as ‘the beginning of wisdom’ finds application in this process, since the path to self knowing includes opening oneself to God and one’s neighbour (Erasmus 1988, 40, 122).

Another development on this ancient maxim can be identified in modern phenomenology, which I see as supplying Christian thought with a novel view of moral goodness, which as was the case with Erasmus, is free from Pharisaism. Husserl’s student Roman Ingarden, in his lectures on ethics at the Jagiellonian University of Cracow, argued that consideration of oneself is on the whole a positive activity, but only when such personal values as: consciousness, freedom, strength, intelligence, happiness, versatility, depth, inner criticism and individuality are taken into account. Care for these faculties being a substantial part of working on oneself, equating to self improvement.

I suggest that we augment the above list with aloneness, describing an attribute and intrinsic value of the person. I understand aloneness to be a mode of human existence, encompassing amongst other things being-with-oneself, but also to refer to the school of thought for which this ability to be with oneself is a necessary precondition. In this sense, coming to terms with solitude (a state which in the era of the pandemic ceased to be an abstraction for us) as a condition which facilitates thought may be understood as a pedagogical method, the isolation and appreciation of which I propose in this study (Stern 2014a). I treat solitude as an instrument to achieve suspension, which enables us to experience thinking, to reflect about ourselves, about others and the world (Wrońska 2020).

For Ingarden, moral values are another set of personal values. And so for example we are presented with aloneness experienced in solitude, directed towards one’s own person, engaged with one’s own interior and furnished with all the necessary tools for its care and growth and the same person directed towards others, beyond himself. Both aspects are complementary to each other. For Ingarden, consideration for others takes the forms of: responsibility, faithfulness, integrity, respect for truth/honesty, justice, courage, modesty, mercy, self-control, generosity, humility and finally selflessness. He dedicates a lot of attention to this last value, which, being the opposite of selfishness, is characterised by a certain duality. Within this conceptual framework it is both a moral value and a necessary precondition for every moral act.

According to Ingarden, we talk of selflessness when ‘someone acts, attempts to bring about certain states of affairs not motivated by however the outcome may impact them, but because of the value of that state of affairs itself. Moreover, when bringing about a valuable state of affairs, they pursue it not because they stand to gain, but precisely without regard for at one’s own benefits or advantages’. This is while ‘selfishness may be so advanced that one performs a certain merciful act not in order to help someone, fulfilling someone else’s need, but in order to achieve inner merit, to be a morally valid person. I believe – writes Ingarden – it is a special, great immorality, a gross error of moral conduct when one does something good not so that this good is enacted, but in order to receive moral merit. When the guiding, sometimes hidden, motive of someone’s actions is the concern for one’s own honesty, one’s own good etc.’ (1989, 250).

Solitude is a personal experience which may strengthen one’s own sense of aloneness embraced as a personal value and as a school of thought. Selflessness on the other hand is an experience on the moral plateau. Together they constitute a pair of values, the first of which I propose to view as the method, the other as the objective of education. I treat them also as the answer to the problem of egoism written into Aristotle’s eudaemonism (and the subsequent doctrines which make reference to it, including Thomism). They are complementary aspects of internal life, laid bare by Erasmus’ moral improvement and Ingarden’s care for dignitas. Simultaneously they present two elementary forms of reflection on the person: upon oneself and others, which are worth cultivating in the process of education. While they are both valuable, it is their complementary nature that creates synergy. Aloneness (with solitude) is not self-sustainable, it is set to gain through openness to selflessness and vice versa: selflessness without complementary self-regard could lead to abandoning care for oneself. It could be argued that religious experience in turn contributes to both dimensions and introduces a transcendental third. Ingarden’s position shows us therefore how philosophy, including phenomenology, may contribute to and support religious thought (von Hildebrand 2020; Wojtyła 1979; Siemianowski 1998, 2014).

If personal values can be considered to support moral values and constitute a useful base for them (Ingarden 1989) then I propose approaching the next stage of analysis: a reflection on education on the basis of liberal and religious education. We owe the not so obvious idea of combining them to Erasmus of Rotterdam. He was himself a personification of such a junction, of which he frequently gave testimony, for example in the mentioned Enchiridion. On the last pages of that work the humanist praised classical studies that could ‘inspire even men of superior intellect to love the Scriptures’ (Erasmus 1988, 127). According to these words, God can be glorified not only by the natural qualities of a person, but also by beauty. Let this quote foreshadow the next thread of the topic at hand. I will begin however with a description of the situation in Poland, where both religious and general education have their place in the public education system. This also constitutes an important reference point for my reflections on selflessness and solitude in education.

School catechesis as a form of religious education in the framework of general education: the Polish example

In the case of Poland we see on one hand an outgrowth of encyclopaedism in primary and secondary schools, cultivated to the tune of the most noble goals of general education (Wrońska 2020), on the other, confessional-catechetical teaching religion within the framework of public, non-denominational education (Dronkers 2004; Merry 2007; Ruyter and Merry 2009; Patalon 2009; Szyjewski 2010).

School catechesis in Poland is based mainly upon Thomism, which is firmly established in the country, but also upon personalism (which stems from the former) and virtue ethics. Scholars representing this Catholic mainstream generally support religious education in its confessional form, although there is debate over the validity of its description as catechesis in a school environment rather than it being a form of teaching and/or evangelisation (Osewska 2015). Kazimierz Misiaszek describes teaching religion at school as being an attempt at a credible and coherent Christian formation of children and youth (2010). Some theorists of religious education, differentiate between religious instruction in a school setting and catechesis, which ought to be pursued within the family and parish (Misiaszek 2010, Horowski 2020). This stance regarding catechesis is also expressed by the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) and the General Directory for Catechesis (GDC). Catechesis openly aims to introduce and initiate into a given confession, in the Polish case, predominantly Catholicism (GDC 1997; CCC 1997; Misiaszek 2010; Mąkosa 2015). By contrast, according to the GDC, what distinguishes school religious instruction is 'the fact that it is called to penetrate a particular area of culture and to relate with other areas of knowledge. As an original form of the ministry of the word, it makes present the Gospel in a personal process of cultural, systematic and critical assimilation' (GDC 1997). Bearing the above distinction in mind I think it is fair to say that despite the subject being described as religious education, Polish schools are in practice sites of catechesis: lessons are conducted by catechists, mostly Catholic priests, who include preparation for religious practice and sacraments (first communion, confirmation) as part of the curriculum, instilling in students the truths of faith and religious life of a particular confession. Even when the subject is taught by lay catechists, they must be approved by Church authorities, who also decide on the contents of textbooks and the curriculum (Zielińska and Zwierżdżyński 2017).

The process of catechesis does not include the formation of a critical stance, nor the ability to compare Catholicism with other religious doctrines on the basis of knowledge about them. Human rights, while often cited in religious textbooks, do not serve to establish contacts that transgress boundaries formed on the basis of confession, gender, race and sexual orientation. These laws, interpreted as derived from God and subordinated to religious norms, are described 'as a protection against the designs of a secular world' in the struggle between sacred and profane (Zielińska and Zwierżdżyński 2017). Religious Education lacks links to other taught subjects or even to school teaching as such, i.e. being subject to the criterium of the objectification of knowledge. This allows for its assessment as indoctrination (White 1973; Szyjewski 2010, Kasiński 2019), although since it is implemented at school, it could make good use of the opportunities offered by a classroom environment, where children ought to have the opportunity to encounter human reasoning (Luby 2020). Religious experiences can be complemented with broader, general knowledge, including also criticism, scepticism and even negation of religious experiences. Religion solidified into dogma easily succumbs to radicalism and instead of raising awareness of one's neighbour can become exclusionary, constrained to a circle of followers indifferent or hostile to outsiders, without empathy for the existential problems of their religious outgroup, e.g. refugees, victims of violence, exclusion and other challenges (Ziebertz 2020). On the other hand, religion that is not taught in depth nor experienced by the pupil, can succumb to didacticism, becoming yet another subject that must be passed, perhaps merely to heighten one's grade point average.

While catechesis remains optional it most often lacks alternatives, such as ethics or philosophy classes and so it is attended also by those students for whom there is no concurrent activity provided as well as those that are conformist (or seek to benefit from the extra mark to raise their grade point average). School catechesis which is the implementation of a political agreement – the concordat between the Polish state and the Catholic Church, has been the norm in Poland for 30 years (Szyjewski 2009; Zwierżdżyński 2017; Kasiński 2019). Before that it took place in designated spaces in parish churches. The street protests which swept Poland in the late autumn of 2020 in which youth and students participated en masse, expressing disapproval of the Constitutional Tribunal’s ruling introducing a more rigorous interpretation of existing anti-abortion legislation, may serve as an example of the religious formation of that first generation catechised at school. Among the slogans of the manifesting crowd, which make reference to the constitution and human rights, many have overtones critical of the Church. This provoked a discussion, in which the clergy also participated, which strengthened the earlier criticism of religious education in its current form the protests as a signal of the failure of religious education in its present form (Mariański 2008; Misiaszek 2018; Wierzbicki 2018; Szostek and Maćkowiak 2021). To conclude however with a criticism of the present situation would be to present an incomplete picture (Wyżkiewicz and Gospodarek 2020). Generally, religious education has a high potential (Wright 2005), which I have in mind approaching the next stage of this analysis, the aim of which is to present such a form of liberal and religious education which authentically introduces selflessness and accustoms one to solitude, allowing the cultivation of consideration for the person and therefore enabling the development of the pupil and improvement of education as such.

Liberal education as an introduction to selflessness

To advocate for selflessness in a workshop environment with reference to the benefits that can be expected from it is not convincing, since knowledge about it does not suffice, it has no utility and I doubt that it can be learnt. It would also be unethical, contrary to the purpose of education (or even absurd) to reward (bribe) the pupil for selfless behaviour, and even more so to punish for the lack of manifestly selfless action or the failure to perform a tasked, selfless act. With regard to the formation of one’s moral character, Maritain referred to this stage of school education as ‘premoral’ training (1966, 27). We may assume that it is in the conditions of this premoral stage of development that MacIntyre (2007) suggested rewarding the child with sweets for its willingness to learn chess. Nevertheless I would like to reveal the formative possibilities offered by liberal education, including in its school implementation, by means of selflessness. For more examples, I refer the reader to Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship (Goethe 1995).

Following Erasmus’ words from the concluding verses of the Enchiridion, it may be worth to once again recall Henri Bergson’s stance in defence of the status of liberal arts as specifically unselfish, ‘selfless arts’. Underlying the term is the centuries-old tradition of education as a cultivation of humanity through the study of classics and acquisition of general knowledge and not preparation for the challenges of the workplace (Peters 2008; Kimball 1986; DeNicola 2012; Nussbaum 1997; Wrońska 2014). I will continue to call this liberal education, because of its emphasis on liberation and its respect for free will and personal preferences. Liberal education is not a monolith, but rather a multiplicity of conceptions, to various degrees associated, sometimes even identified, with models of general education. I am inclined to differentiate them, if only according to their degree of voluntariness, a trait often neglected in general education. Here I have in mind especially secondary schools in Poland (licea), where the climate of encyclopaedism, based on deontic authority dominates at the expense of voluntariness, freedom of inquiry, questioning, critical approach and recourse to epistemic authority. Today we witness how the liberal, liberating and voluntary model of education gives way to pragmatically understood learning, which is furthermore controlled and subsidised by the state. Such education is expected to produce measurable results and provide utility both for the individual as well as society and economy. If we are to advocate for liberal education to be implemented in educational practice, one argument for this is would precisely its selfless imprint.

Taking inspiration from Richard S Peters (2008), the major scholar devoted to this set of problems, I understand liberal education to be the link between principal education occurring in the family on the basis of parents’ ethical obligation to educate their offspring and the education pursued mainly by institutions created by various entities, including the state on the basis of a social contract, delegating the task of educating the next generation to teachers. It is a type of education not reducible to training, instruction or apprenticing. This is achieved via offering first hand knowledge, unprocessed to textbook form, from a range of areas, which enables critical understanding of diverse content, fulfiling the need for personal development and the path to self-education and self-actualisation (DeNicola 2012). In this way, curiosity and the drive to know reality, to experience and understand the bounty of culture and civilisation can find the outlet. Moreover, the desire to improve oneself through the effort and discipline necessary for inquiry and research, including reading and interacting with sources, may manifest itself as may voluntary engagement in joint creative activity and exchange of thoughts and views, discussion, persuasion, seeking proof and posing questions (Wrońska 2014). Focusing on these educational goods directly we are granted the opportunity to indirectly make selflessness more accessible.

This precious added value of liberal education, being a moral value should not appear in moral action as intended value, but only as the value of intent (Hartmann 1962). As phenomenologists argue, we ought not direct our actions towards moral value, but put it into practice as if incidentally, while bearing something else in mind, that is, a specific good performed for another person. Otherwise we reveal an impurity of intent, by doing something on someone’s behalf taking into account one’s own merit, virtue, moral excellence, deserving of salvation, etc. Such a critique is very pertinent to the practice of direct exercise of virtues, with their associated risk of falling into complacency, Pharisaism, and avarice.

A similar stance, specifically on a pedagogical ground, has already been developed amongst others by Wolfgang Brezinka, who proposed indirect action as especially suitable for value education. This would include the proliferation of benevolence and good example, the securing of valuable opportunities for action in the developing child’s immediate environment (Spaemann 2000; Hogan 2003; Noddings 2004) as well a concern for the environment and living conditions of the educated and their educators, which would have a positive impact on the pupil and their axiological sensitivity. Direct education, such as explaining to the pupil what values and norms are, instructing them and teaching to discriminate and make choices, is also indispensable, but ancillary to the primary, indirect influence (Brezinka 2003). When considering selflessness it is made manifest that knowledge about, instruction in and explanation of that value, although useful and necessary, are not sufficient to imbue a person with selflessness. Growth in an environment permeated with selflessness, especially when demonstrated by people of stature, whence one has the opportunity to experience the effects of selflessness, plays a much more important role, as an expression of emotional ties and proximity.

The exemplification of good life within liberal education may be achieved not only by teachers but also by through texts, accessed as human life models. Presented skilfully by a teacher to answer curiosity of and the drive to understand the world, encouraging critical thinking as well as voluntary and non-compulsory participation, without calculation and expectation of gain they prove their use for the introduction to selflessness. For students at the initial stages of education, this introduction may take place in various different ways. Those can be, for example, the propagation of individual and group student projects, participation in school council initiatives and volunteering on school grounds, encouraging creativity through student clubs, sports and art associations chosen by students according to their interests, as well as philosophy classes or university lectures for children (Lipman 2003; Lipman, Sharp, and Oscanian 1980; Gregory 2011; White 2012). The natural activism of children should be in balance with what liberal education proposes. Its offer invites (with no compulsion) to pause, ponder, criticise, reflect, be surprised and inquisitive, to have internal experiences. This may be a good grounding for all else, parallel and complementary to what is being offered to the pupil as obligatory, prescribed, sacred, required, beneficial, useful or necessary for success etc.

Solitude proves to be very effective as a method of liberal education. An encounter with text is facilitated by concentration and silence, removed from clamour and distracting stimuli. In such circumstances solitude ceases to be despondent or intimidating: it becomes assimilated and well applied. Moreover, it may even be a tempering condition, especially when it becomes associated with the challenges of mental effort, such as the understanding of a text, polemic with it, formulation of questions, research on a chosen problem presented by the text etc.

The relation of the above to religious education is not immediately evident. I assume however that it is precisely selflessness, discovered by in liberal education and embodied in it through contact with goods of culture and voluntary interaction with others, but also in dialogue with oneself (Arendt 1978), through an assimilation of solitude, which may prove significant not only in the support of personal and moral but also religious development. The experience of the sacred, left unexamined in the process of developing selflessness, may resemble yet another transaction undertaken with God for the salvation of one’s soul. Similarly, rote stance and acquired religious practice may resemble pragmatic efforts aimed to cultivate the equipment aiding or even guaranteeing the achievement of eternal life through a set of given practices. This situation may be influenced by education, especially when instrumentalized by state or church authorities for the purpose of indoctrination (Kasiński 2019).

I will now move on to portrayal selflessness on the grounds of religious education, enriched by the perspective on the sacred it offers, along with the solitude assimilated by it. Both religious and liberal education independently of each other reveal the personal capacity to pursue good, which from a religious perspective could be called action on neighbour’s behalf.

Religious education in the light of selflessness– Erasmian inspirations

I propose to once again consult Erasmus, whose position I consider complementary to the Ingardenian image of man as viewed through personal and moral values. In order to describe man, the author of Enchiridion utilises the concepts of the inner and outer man, borrowed from St. Paul. He uses them interchangeably with the concepts of spirit, reason and law of mind on one hand and concepts of flesh and its law on the other. In search for their relation to one another he places, for example, respect for one’s parents, love for one’s children or the cultivation of friendship as derived from the order of nature and so lacking the merit specific to actions derived from spirit, flowing from love of God. In order to improve one’s relationship with God (being a Christian), recourse to certain guidelines is helpful. Those rules enable one to deal with evil of threefold nature: one’s own blindness, the flesh and weakness. I made reference to one rule at the beginning of this text; it contains a direct warning against Pharisaism, that is self-interest in enacting good deeds. At the same time it makes appeal to love, the ideal personification of which is God himself. Believers can find in love the main motive for the various ways of doing good to others. This resembles the argumentation of phenomenologist ethicists who objected to intending the moral good of undertaken actions and also identified love as the order of preferring a higher value over a lower one (Scheler 1980). Other rules given by Erasmus (1988, 1–3) can be read as an appeal to believers, directly referencing the strength or fortification given by faith, as long as it is based on love and trust in God, while some (4–5) provide a hierarchy of goods from a Christian perspective. One can for example correct others with kindness and make use of other goods as long as one remember that for people of faith only God is worthy of being a goal in itself. Morally neutral things, from learning, through good health, to wealth should be considered auxiliary to the process of reaching inner perfection, that is, reaching communion with God and becoming godlike. Erasmus did not include moral good or virtues among them, since those do not impede on the way to Christ, but on the contrary, they are expressions of love for God and neighbour (Mt 25:31–46). These prescriptions are an exact inversion of self-interest or Pharisaism.

Erasmus’ exacting tone was intended for adults. Religious education is doomed to failure should the parents, teachers and spiritual leaders who impart it preach demanding religious principles ex cathedra, not reinforced by practice, without indicating how they themselves implement those prescriptions, how they take on the role of adepts of the art in which God Himself is the master to which they turn for help in prayer. Such education would be hypocritical, teaching how to participate in a game in which one could at most stand to gain. Erasmus’ manual, full of exhortations to the inner strengths of a Christian whose life is marked with errors, ignorance, blindness and weakness, captures how imperfect the environment of young person’s grows sometimes is (1988, 54).

Referring this criticism to current times it is not difficult to concede that today we as adults are found wanting when the education of the younger generation is considered. First and foremost, we do not lead by example, secondly, we neglect the inner lives of children and youth, focusing instead on equipping them with everything external that can be tested and empirically exacted. Let us instead create an environment for children and adolescents where they may experience initiation, the feeling of something important but elusive to the senses, accessible through thought, reflection and the moral, aesthetic and religious internal experiences of youth, which activate and deepen the inner, spiritual life. The goal of education is not only to impart knowledge and skills that can be evaluated, measured and tested. Education includes also a concern for spiritual growth, the personal, moral, aesthetic and religious aspects of a person developing towards full personhood. Those require different support, their effects cannot be measured nor their mastery expected as abilities. Even more than is the case with liberal education, this is made evident in religious education, where primacy is given to the testimony of the child’s piety and faith provided by its environment of life and upbringing. Religion itself can be presented in terms of a mystery or a gift. Religious knowledge and its reiteration occurring within public educational institutions has only an auxiliary function, which moreover does not transgress the sphere of general knowledge, indicating that the process ought to be subject to similar standards as that of other disciplines of knowledge (Wrońska 2019).

What then is the potential for cooperation between religious and liberal education? I will attempt to answer this question below.

Religious and liberal education – mutual relations with an outlook towards synergy

Ironically, religious education in some countries, as is the case in Poland, may be associated with liberal education, since it is one of very few school subjects in which participation is voluntary (White 2004). The catechetical way it is conducted, however, leaves no doubt that it is an introduction to a specific religious doctrine characteristic of confessional schools rather than state run ones (Mąkosa 2015). To a certain extent school catechesis can meet the needs of those children who lack the opportunity to become acquainted with any religion, but would like to. The question remains, to what degree is this to their parents’ liking. When there is willing participation in confessional religious education, additional activities ought to be offered, which would counterbalance it by showing the given religious doctrine relative to others, critically, comparatively and in historical context or will introduce another, non-religious (ethical, philosophical) worldview. I suppose such subjects would fulfill their purpose regardless of whether they would be optional or compulsory (Nussbaum 1997; White 2004). Where such supplementation is lacking, even more care should be taken to ensure that religious education introduces the experience of selflessness, e.g. in the form shown above using Erasmus’ examples, based on the Evangelical message of Christianity. The Bible is a cultural text worthy of study not only from a pastoral perspective, for the purpose of initiation into religion. Reading for epistemic, rather than strictly religious purposes has the potential to divulge a sacral perspective on world and self not accessible elsewhere. In such conditions, the religious aspect removed, reading the Bible or other religious texts fulfils the role of liberal education by introducing new perspectives of understanding reality and one’s place within it, preparing for fearless participation in life and awakening the will for its improvement (DeNicola 2012; Stern 2018b; Hannam at al 2020). It is reasonable that reading material recommended by educators is prioritised, especially when students are at a young age, when they require encouragement and proposed reading imparted with authority – this does not contradict the liberality of education. This support by teachers is required until the pupil reaches the ability to self-educate (Wrońska 2020), while the undesirable situation when students left to pursue knowledge independently proceed to read and rehearse in order to pass exams, avoid penalties, receive good marks etc. should be avoided at all cost (Biesta and Hannam 2016, 2019).

When comparing liberal and religious education side by side, our attention is drawn by their shared transgression of the boundaries of school education. Both are strongly represented within the household and its educational influence. Even if they manifest differently, this does not necessarily result in their detachment from each other or conflict between them. Reason and faith, natural and supranatural attitudes can coexist within a person, since it is the personal which links both. Nearing the end of this paper I would like to once again examine solitude, which I think plays a useful role in making both personal dimensions compatible for the learner and seeker of life’s meaning.

Solitude as a method of religious and liberal education

I would not have argued for solitude for solitude’s sake. However if solitude leads to an experience of one’s aloneness and is a means to think, deliberate in silence with oneself, encounter God and talk with him through prayer, to meditate, read, contemplate art and the beauty of nature and to plan action, one cannot disapprove of it (Stern 2014a).

This is also the case with freedom which is experienced, appreciated and understood through leisure time and the degree of freedom granted. Does solitude as a method have a place in a school environment? I assume it does, but in cooperation with the home and after-school environments (Stern and Wałejko 2020). In school, understood to be a site of socialisation, solitude is rather associated with isolation, loneliness caused by difficulties in connecting with a peer group or rejection by classmates. It becomes more accessible in a home context, where it may be viewed positively. However for adults, both parents and teachers, to deploy it as a pedagogical resource, they must first assimilate it themselves, to possess the will and ability to benefit from it. An adult afraid to be with oneself will be ill equipped to discuss solitude or to advocate for it as a positive experience, instead opting for directive methods, for control and evaluation of the student’s performance of tasks. Before the offer of solitude is extended in an educational context, it is important that the subject of education understands its meaningfulness. A parent immersed in reading, listening to music while at rest, sharing thoughts and ideas after returning from a bike ride, walk or hike, seeking strength in prayer, would exemplify this well. In short, it is good to be able to turn solitude into reflection and then action on behalf of something or someone, for oneself or for others, and to share that ability with one’s child. Solitude becomes meaningful when it can serve an end. It is therefore a fellow traveller with trust. In this manner I think we have achieved circumscribe both selflessness and solitude as two goods that can support each other, one as a goal, the other as a method. Liberal education being selfless, strengthening personal attributes while also fostering thought and reflection as well satisfying the need for knowledge and understanding of the surrounding world, can be an introduction to a bolstered and more engaged religious education, with its aim of religious initiation (Wright 2005; Hannam and Biesta 2019). Selflessness and solitude are guaranteed in one and the other. It would therefore be advantageous if, rather than opposing each other in constant opposition, vying for student interest, arguably competing for reign of souls in ideological tug-of-war or in a hierarchical relation of one to the other, they complemented each other. (Hannam at al 2020).

The experience of solitude may be strengthening and so ultimately benefit one’s moral life, which requires courage, patience, renunciation, moderation and other virtues (Goethe 1995; Mill 1904).

Without the support of selfless liberal education, religious education, especially in the form in which it is implemented in Poland, where it is an introduction to a specific religious doctrine, when it is opposed to the modern, secular world can strengthen distrust of human freedom and, afraid of confronting the plurality of worldviews offered by a democratic society, may foster an attachment to traditionalism and practices which impart a communal sense of security in face of the threat presented by the chaos of the surrounding world (Smart 1981; Gearon 2008a, 2008b; Jackson 2015; Lewin 2017; Biesta and Hannam 2019).

Summary

On the basis of the above analysis regarding the role of solitude and selflessness in the cultivation of consideration for the person, presented in the light of Christian humanism and phenomenology and the possibilities offered by liberal and religious education in this field, I arrived at certain observations.

Firstly, the optimal educational offer extended to the pupil should contain both liberal and religious elements, for the care and promotion of personal, moral and religious values, including selflessness and introducing solitude as the experience of aloneness in both home and school environments. The teacher and educator plays a more significant role in this process at earlier stages of schooling. Cooperation between the home and its related environments (such as the parish) on one hand and the school and cultural institutions on the other is therefore vital. From the onset of secondary school, the pool of optional subjects ought to steadily increase in order to produce an educational offer with a balance of voluntary participation and obligation. Non-compulsion is conducive to selflessness.

Secondly, in countries where religious education is implemented in public schools in catechetical-confessional form, it ought to be counterbalanced by courses presenting religious knowledge in a comparative and critical way, as well as courses in ethics or philosophy, preferably as optional subjects. Should confessional religious education be a compulsory subject, courses nuancing the religious dimension of this education should also be compulsory in order to reduce the level of indoctrination schooling offers. In this case general education, although compulsory, has a very important role to play.

Thirdly, in conditions of the deep crisis of education manifest by its association with profit-seeking, with schools beginning to resemble workshops in which one practices what is beneficial or might in the future become useful, liberal and religious education with their potential to introduce selflessness and introduce silent, solitary self reflection are at risk. This was the reason motivating this study, which attempted to adjugate two philosophical perspectives which share a strong foundation and justification for the cultivation of humanity and educational effort to that end. Without seeking to diminish the role of other philosophical perspectives, such as virtue ethics or Thomism, which are the dominant interpretations of Catholicism in Poland, my appraisal of the state of education in Poland suffices to pronounce their insufficiency in this context. In consider the formation of virtues which they advocate not very effective in conditions of school catechesis, fitting into the model of education as workshop. As such, they do not protect against profit-seeking and become part of the education game which relies on marks, praise, diplomas, promotion and satisfying self-interest (including moral self interest). It would be difficult to find worse conditions for the formation of religious, personal and moral attitudes through education.

Finally, the obligatory position in the face of the pandemic in which we all, including children, youth and students, find ourselves, is a pertinent to the subjects discussed above. The lockdown has revealed the ineptitude of the directive model of teaching. The eventual return to school after a period of remote teaching could, counterintuitively, become an auspicious time to attempt to foster such a humane climate in the school environment as to guarantee not only safety, but also to strengthen mutual concern and understanding of the gravity of the situation. To encourage greater focus, caution, reflection, courage, commitment to the affairs of the whole community as well as insight into oneself and one’s attitude to the situation, which requires something novel, not only mastery of taught material or seeking personal gain. Let us preserve this admixture, this trace of selflessness, balancing all the tendencies that drag education in the direction of utility. Otherwise, this good will relocate entirely to the realm of self-education or even completely outside the scope of education into the sphere of individual experiences, cultivating humanity personally, in prayer or contact with texts and other cultural goods, in solitude.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Katarzyna Wrońska

Katarzyna Wrońska PhD is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Philosophy of Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Institute of Education, Head of Department of General Pedagogy and Philosophy of Education. Author of Educational Thought of Classical Liberalism in the Duet of John Locke & John Stuart Mill (WN UJ, 2012), Educational Goods and their Pedagogical Exploration (ed.) (WN UJ 2019). Interested in philosophy of education, general pedagogy, history of educational thought, liberal education, moral & civic education, and civility.