Considerations on a Phronetic Proposal: a Bakhtinian Reply

The present text is a Bakhtinian reply to Eugene Matusov's conceptual elaborations on the Aristotelic notion of phronesis, related to contemporary teaching activity and to his research-on-teaching proposal, carried out to involve pre-service practitioners in the educational field. Following his line of reasoning, some of the arguments raised in his search to define the specificities of teaching and researching in education are taken as fruitful ground for discussing the possibilities and limits of the concept of phronesis, and the educational implications of his phronetic proposal. The comments are circumscribed to two main focuses: 1. the notion of phronesis and the specificity of teaching/researching; and 2. the need for knowledge and research on teaching in contemporary world. An analysis of the implied conceptual assumptions with regards to Aristotle's four ways of knowing leads to an inquiry about the need and the pertinence of bringing the concept of phronesis to define the personal dimension of teaching and of learning to teach. The Bakhtinian reply attempts to situate Matusov's conceptual and practical work among the polemical issues that cross this uneasy field nowadays, highlighting the heuristic value of his conceptual elaborations to the present debates, also pointing to his positioning and specific contributions to teacher education and research activity.