The argument for this shift consists of six parts.
As a start, 1.), I will outline my pragmatist perspective on the question of usefulness since the question of this paper is not whether or not humanism is right but whether it is useful for education. From this perspective I will explore how a humanism could look like that would be productive in educational language and practice. 2.) I will argue for maintaining a descriptive openness regarding the questions of what is ‘human’ and what ‘the human being’ is. Educational practice should not hope for an anthropological foundation. For my undertaking of pragmatizing humanism, openness would 3.) also be required in a normative sense, that is, in relation to the question of how ‘man’ should become, how education can make individuals ‘truly’ or ‘more fully’ human and contribute to a ‘humanization’ of the world. Education should not indulge in a normative meta-narration – especially not if it hides its own normativity under the cloak of necessity.
This would be 4.) a matter of not succumbing to theoreticism in humanism, that is, of using the term’s ‘-ism’ as ironically as possible. An educationally appropriate humanism would be a theoretical attitude that does not constitute itself in disparaging demarcation from practice. The problem of much of what is called ‘humanistic pedagogy’ is that instead of turning to concrete people, it fully relies on pathos formulas such as ‘humanity’. This thought style I will call ‘theoreticistic’.