Mythological Narrative and the Issue of Common Space as a Goal of Education

Summar y: The aim of the analysis is to emphasize the importance of philosophical justifications that underlie the foundations of pedagogical activity that makes a person ready to live in a community. In contemporary culture, the domain of values, of great importance for personal development and social integration, turns out to be the most problematic. It is often left at the junction of what is rational and irrational, although more attention is paid to rationality in everyday life. The dynamically changing socio-cultural context, affecting the educational processes, urges us to look for the principle of legitimacy for the axionormative sphere. One of the proposals of contemporary humanities is to involve the category of myth as a guarantee of preserving of values essential to culture. That’s why the article deal with the problem of the validity of standards of conduct in view of the use of the explicative category of myth. In this way, I would like to appeal for values that are significant in making a person ready to build relationships with others, and which, due to the progressive individualization of social space, can seem unobvious. The article consists of two parts. In the first one I will take up the goal of social education. I will undertake, therefore, an attempt to interpret the “common space” term as: (1) culture, (2) the moral efficiency of the individual, (3) cultural heritage and (4) the ultimate goal of life. This part will refer to the theory of social education of the Polish pedagogue Jacek Woroniecki. The second part will deal with the issue of the theoretical justification of “common space” as a value in the post-enlightenment culture which introduces the mythological narrative into the pedagogical argumentation. In this part I will critically refer to the views of Wolfgang Brezinka, a German scholar.