Journal Screenshot

International Journal of Academic Research in Progressive Education and Development

Open Access Journal

ISSN: 2226-6348

Phronesis as the Educational Outcome of Hermeneutics

G.V. Loewen

Open access

'Practical Wisdom' is often quoted as Being the offspring of the marriage of experience and knowledge, but what precisely makes it so pragmatic, and why is it considered to be wise? An interpretive investigation into some of the canonical source of modern hermeneutic theory in education reveals that the elements of the other, concernful Being, suspicion and play are amongst those at work in constructing both the discourse regarding how authentic learning of the 'new' occurs, but also in that very process itself. Dangers and risks associated with the encounter with otherness as a strange and threatening exercise are also examined, with a view to understand them as in part emanating from the structure of educational institutions and the persona of teachers in the classroom. The text concludes with a sense that to discover the meaning of the new is to rediscover one's own origins, as the learning process creatively reproduces every beginning of self-understanding.

Adorno, T. (1998a). 'Taboos on the Teaching Profession', in Critical Models: Interventions and Catchwords. Columbia University Press, New York. [1969]. Pages 171-190.
Bleich, D. (1988). The Double Perspective: Language, Literacy and Social Relations Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Caputo, J. D. (1987). Radical Hermeneutics: repetition, deconstruction and the hermeneutic project. Midland, University of Indiana Press. Bloomington.
Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and Education. Collier Books, New York.
Friere, P. (1970). Pedagogy of The Oppressed. Seabury-Continuum Books, New York.
Gadamer, H.-G. (1984). 'The Hermeneutics of Suspicion', in G. Shapiro and A. Sica, eds.Hermeneutics: questions and prospects. University of Massachussettes Press, Amherst. Pages 54-65. 1996 The Enigma of Health: the art of healing in a scientific age. Stanford
University Press, Stanford. (1993). 1998 'Science and The Public Sphere', in Praise of Theory: speeches and essays. Yale University Press, New Haven. Pages 62-70. [1977].
Gallagher, S. (1992). Hermeneutics and Education. State University of New York Press, Buffalo.
Grondin, J. (1995). Sources of Hermeneutics. State University of New York Press, Albany.
Heidegger, M. (1977). 'Letter on Humanism', Basic Writings. Harper and Row, New York. Pages 189-242. [1947].
Horowitz, G. (2001). Sustaining Loss: Art and the Mournful Life. Stanford University Press, Stanford.
Nietzsche, F. (2004). On the Future of our Educational Institutions. St. Augustine Press, South Bend. [1872].
Palmer, R. (1969). Hermeneutics. Northwestern University Press, Evanston.
Ricoeur, P. (1992). Oneself as Another. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. [1990].
Schiller, F. (1965). One the Aesthetic Education of Man - in a series of letters. Ungar Books, New York. [1795].

In-Text Citation: (Loewen, 2012)
To Cite this Article: Loewen, G. V. (2012). Phronesis as the Educational Outcome of Hermeneutics. International Journal of Academic Research in Progressive Education and Development, 1(2), 1–15.