PASCAL’S WAGER – FOR MODERN STUDENTS (HISTORICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL, GENERAL THEORETICAL, WORLDVIEW AND DIDACTIC ASPECTS). PART 1

Author(s): Gusev D.A., Minaychenkova Ye.I., Gorbunova Yu.A., Pustovoitov Yu.L., Ryukina A.A., Suslov A.V.

Rubric: Methodological research

DOI: 10.21777/2500-2112-2024-2-116-127

Release: 2024-2 (47)

Pages: 116-127

Keywords: teaching philosophy, the basic issue of philosophy, materialism, idealism, atheism, theism, Christianity, pas- cal’s wager, worldview search, metaphysical asymmetry, scientism, anti-scientism, anthropovolutarianism, providentialism

Annotation: The relevance of the topic is determined by the fact that the content of the university academic discipline “Phi- losophy” provides rich opportunities for the realization of not only educational and developmental, but also educational goals of teaching and shaping the worldview of young people, focused not so much on a positivist understanding of knowledge of the world, man, society and history, as on the formulation and search for answers to metaphysical questions. The object of the study is the didactic features of the investigation of problems of con- frontation and polemics of two ideological systems of human life navigation, which represent opposite solutions to the “main issue of philosophy”. The subject of the study is the didactic specifics of students’ acquaintance with the famous Pascal’s wager in the context of ideological searches for personality. The purpose of the work is to substantiate the presentation of Pascal’s wager not as one of the many elements of the history of philosophy covered with the “dust of centuries”, interesting to the present person only as a “monument of antiquity” and therefore completely uninteresting to modern students, but, on the contrary, as always, the actual basis of ideo- logical personal choice. The research methods are abstraction, idealization, thought experiment, comparative analysis, deductively and inductively organized conclusions, conclusions by analogy and empirical generalization. The result of the work and one of its conclusions is the position according to which the content of Pascal’s wager provides in fact a unique didactic opportunity to demonstrate and substantiate the metaphysical asymmetry of the worldview choice between the materialistic, atheistic, evolutionist, scientific and anthropovolutaristic ideological pole of life navigation, on the one hand, and the idealistic, theistic, creationist, anti-scientific and providentialist pole, on the other one. The field of application of the research results is the ideological search for personal- ity, multifaceted educational interactions and didactic strategies in both secondary and higher education. The first part of the article describes the didactic and ideological aspects of students studying the confrontation of materialism and atheism in the general course of philosophy, on the one hand, and philosophical idealism and theism, on the other hand, as two worldview teachings and systems of human life navigation, conditioned by various solutions to the “basic issue of philosophy”.

Bibliography: Gusev D.A., Minaychenkova Ye.I., Gorbunova Yu.A., Pustovoitov Yu.L., Ryukina A.A., Suslov A.V. PASCAL’S WAGER – FOR MODERN STUDENTS (HISTORICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL, GENERAL THEORETICAL, WORLDVIEW AND DIDACTIC ASPECTS). PART 1 // Education Resources and Technologies. – 2024. – № 2 (47). – С. 116-127. doi: 10.21777/2500-2112-2024-2-116-127