Hermeneutics and formative processes: Elements for a pedagogy of choice

Abstract

This article deals, within the scope of the philosophy of education, with the relationship between hermeneutics and formative processes, based on the principle that these processes involve both logical-rational-objective knowledge and the knowledge of experience, understood by the ancient Greeks as máthema and pathei matos respectively. Hermeneutics is defined as a philosophy of interpretation that focuses on the historical and linguistic condition of human experience of the world, therefore, in addition to texts themselves, it also deals with artistic manifestations and phenomena of reality, in search of understanding their meanings. This understanding operates as a translation within the language, so that interpreting is the same as knowing, and understanding a meaning is the same as translating it. The theoretical-methodological framework relies on contributions from Nietzsche, Gadamer, Ricoeur, Rorty and Vattimo, in a bibliographic and exploratory approach that starts from the evolution of the hermeneutics concept to discuss its implications in contemporary formative processes in the dimension of aesthetic experience and pedagogy of choice. The results show that the aesthetic experience, achieved through works of art, contributes not only to the understanding of these, but also to the understanding of the meanings of reality and to the long-term education, through which we learn to be what we are.