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MIKLÓS HELTAI — PÁL HELTAI
realization led him to the conclusion that while direct education through “educa¬
tional” content, based on the psychology of the individual is impossible, education
based on interpersonal psychology is possible. The latter type of psychology is
concerned with how people relate to each other (“one person turning towards
another”). He called this type of psychology tarsaslélektan, literally “psychology
with partners”, which we have translated as interpersonal psychology.
Contemporary pedagogy, following traditional psychology, distinguished
three broad areas of education, emotional, intellectual and volitional education.
As seen from Table 1 below, Karacsony included two more categories into his
interpersonal psychology, namely legal relations (law) and religious relations
(religion). In the psychology of the individual these would correspond to sense of
well-being and faith respectively. (Sense of well-being does not refer to physical
well-being, but rather to a sense of security).
In interpersonal psychology, the various psychological functions appear in
a form different from those identified by the psychology of the individual, as
shown in Table 1:
Table 1. Psychological functions
Psychological functions in the psychology of
the individual
Psychological functions in interpersonal
psychology
(sense of well-being)
law, legal relations
emotions art
intellect language/science
volition society
(faith) religion
Karacsony maintains that direct education of the sense of well-being, emotions,
intellect, volition and faith is impossible, but education through the corre¬
sponding interpersonal relations is possible. Artistic (aesthetic) education,
through interaction between teacher and pupil as between artist and audience,
is possible. Linguistic (scientific) education may become possible through the
use of language as teacher and pupil use language to discuss (scientific) prob¬
lems. Social education may become possible if teacher and pupil act together
within the framework of a social relationship. In this case, the two partners,
teacher and pupil, will mutually exert an influence on each other, and educa¬
tion will become possible. He found that in pedagogical contexts where teacher
and pupils interact it is these forms of relations that may have an influence, i.e.
educational effect.
While rejecting the possibility of direct ways of education based on the ac¬
tivity of the teacher, prevalent in his age, Karacsony was also critical of early
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