Ricerca di senso e problematicità del vivere: il contributo deweyano all’approccio problematicista

This contribution puts in confrontation the characteristics of Giovanni Maria Bertin’s problematicist approach, in particular the social-cultural value of ethical-social educa-tion, with the instrumentalist approach, the “intelligence method” of John Dewey (which is related to active, progressive and democratic education: substantial democracy and not only representative and formal democracy) and his militant logical philosophy. On the other hand, both G. M. Bertin and J. Dewey are concordant in retaining that an inten-tionally educational process (the action of educating) is characterized by being perma-nent, continuous and directed at a constant search for sense and meaning concerning one’s self in a constructive relationship with others and the environment (natural and so-cial) in an ethical and aesthetical way. The Deweyan approach and the Bertinian one are, therefore, delineated as unavoidable points of reference for educating in the complexity of reality, through the option of a life style marked by authentic life, or ‘ethic living’ (Gal-lerani, 2011), under different forms of commitment and achievement, going towards an individual and social empowerment. To set up the direction of the problematicism and of ‘ethic living’ means, finally, proposing solid ethics of thinking, acting and living in a con-stant ‘transaction’ (in the Deweyan meaning) that is founded on a democratic and engagé way of life in the óikos-world.