가다머의 이해와 교육

Abstract

Hans-Georg Gadamer has applied the term 'hermeneutics' to a philosophy of human existence as a whole. He argues that understanding is more than a mental process. It is not just something we do but the way we are. We are beings who understand, and understanding underlies all our activities. Such understanding fundamentally is a process of interpretation. So, in contemporary hermeneutics, education is like a conversation or game aimed at understanding. Understanding a human act, especially much learning, is like interpreting a text which occurs within a tradition. The interpreter begins with a preliminary understanding of what we interpret. Interpretation involves opening myself to a text and questioning it. So that I must interpret a text in the light of my situation. Tradition, says Gadamer, makes me what I am. Tradition is always present so that I never can get completely outside it. For Gadamer, teaching is dialogue within a tradition. The teacher interprets the great acts and text of civilization. The teacher's task is not so much to transmit the tradition as to enable the student to interpret it, and thus to permit tradition itself to continue. The model for such teaching is dialogue, in which two or more speakers, all coming from their own limited point of view, reach an understanding they had not anticipated. Genuine dialogue allows the truth to appear and to be seen by each. Therefore openness on both sides is essential. No one must come with his mind made up. In the give and take, each of us arrives at a new understanding. This study examines the educational meaning of hermeneutic understanding in the light of Gadamer's idea. It purposes to broaden the horizons of humanistic education which are beyond the positivistic trends of education.