Antonina Lukenchuk

Reflections on the Nature of Self in the World and Adult Education: a Search for Inclusive Ways of Knowing Antonina Lukenchuk

This research outlines philosophical perspectives on the problems of personal identity with the relevance to adult education. An argumentative discourse revolving around the nature of self includes scientific materialism, traditional metaphysics, and esotericism. An emphasis of this discourse is on the concept of self as subjectivity. A descriptive analysis of the phenomenon of ?I? is used to corroborate the existing arguments on the nature of self. These arguments are tested through personal experiences of individual learners?students enrolled in the College of Education at one of the Midwestern American universities. Phenomenological analysis of the data revealed four essential structures of self: "My everyday self," "I am Sorge," "'I' as a transcendental subject," and "I am Unio Mystica." These four structures comprise the model of personal identity. The study demonstrates the existence of direct relations between the ontology of a human subject and teleological concerns in adult education. The way a person/ adult understands herself or himself preconditions a person's perspective on education.