Abstract: Lively and creative dialogue with the pedagogical tradition is a powerful resource for the construction of appropriate conceptual tools that give theoretical strength to the pedagogical field, enabling it to understand the education today. Within the scope of the classical pedagogical tradition, the link between human condition and educational theory is the essential guideline for investigating the human educational process and develop pedagogical proposals for the educational reality. This essay investigates, in the classical pedagogical tradition, nuclear educational concepts, aiming to problematize the relation between the human condition and educational theory. It thus addresses in Jean-Jacques Rousseau the interweaving between perfectibility and educability of self-love; in Johann Friedrich Herbart, it deals with the link between multiplicity of interest and educational instruction; and, finally, in John Dewey, it focuses on the nexus between the plasticity of the human condition and educability.
Keywords:
perfectibility; creativity; versatility of interest; educational lessons; plasticity