Abstract
In order to manage our daily lives, we make many decisions based on empirical evidence derived from instrumental action. At the other extreme, we are often attracted by a so-called postmodern solution that invites us to make arbitrary choices. In the education system, the pressing dilemma should not be a choice between standards of competence or unthinking relativism, but how to take action towards intercultural tolerance. Establishing a small teacher training course for a group of British Muslims has shown that communicative action informed by understanding can be disabled by the instrumentality of positivist frameworks, such as those used by government inspectors. In philosophy, Ricoeur offers a provisional dialectic of hope that can be used to show why neither positivist methods, rational analytic philosophy, postmodernity nor any one belief system for interpreting the world should be allowed to exert hegemonic control. The ethicopractical philosophy of Ricoeur also offers a reconstructive view of reality that helps us to rehabilitate belief in human nature and encourages us to seek solutions to conflicts of interpretation in understanding others. It is applied, in this instance, to project work with Muslim women in the UK, in which an ontology of action shows the power of working collaboratively towards an understanding of oneself as another.
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