Philosophical hermeneutics and scientific and pedagogical activities
Authors: Medvedev N. V. 
Published: May 2024

Importance. Maintaining a continuous, equal dialogue between teachers and philosophers is one of the conditions for achieving the main humanitarian and educational goal – the upbringing of a spiritual and moral, comprehensively developed, socially responsible personality. Scientific and pedagogical activity is based on a certain system of philosophical and ideological ideas, principles and ideals that enrich and stimulate the development of educational thought and practice. Currently, the experience of philosophical hermeneutics, one of the directions of Western thought, is in great demand in educational practice. Hermeneutical theories influence the formation and formation of a special science – pedagogical hermeneutics. The principles of hermeneutics are increasingly being used as a theoretical and methodological basis for discussing and critically comprehending traditional pedagogical problems, such as methods of teaching and upbringing in the field of social sciences and humanities, assessment of the quality of education, the content and meaning of pedagogical activity. The ideas and positions of hermeneutics resonate in discussions about qualitative research. Hermeneutics helps to comprehend the genuine difficulties of interpretation that each individual faces in everyday life and professional activities. The purpose of the research is to reveal the possibilities of applying the experience of philosophical hermeneutics in the structure of scientific and pedagogical activity. To achieve this goal, the characteristic features and principles of hermeneutics as a philosophical tradition are considered, the cognitive potential of the hermeneutical approach in scientific and pedagogical practice is clarified.

Materials and Methods. The following methods and approaches are used: 1) using the comparative historical method, the process of formation and development of philosophical hermeneutics is revealed, its conceptual evolution is analyzed; 2) the fundamental method of interpretation is used to work with texts of prominent representatives of philosophical hermeneutics; 3) the application of an interdisciplinary approach is due to the combination in the study of various fields of knowledge: philosophy, pedagogy, linguistics, psychology; 4) on the basis of a systematic approach, an analytical description of the applied aspect of philosophical hermeneutics for pedagogy is provided. The historical and philosophical reconstruction of the ideas and principles of hermeneutics was carried out on the basis of the works of F. Schleiermacher, W. Dilthey, M. Heidegger, G.-G. Gadamer. The specificity of the hermeneutical methodology is comprehended against the background of the positivist methodology opposite to it.

Results and Discussion. The cognitive potential of the hermeneutical approach in scientific and pedagogical practice is considered. It is noted that this approach provides the teacher with an understanding of the meaning of key educational terms, which helps to avoid situations of conceptual confusion in pedagogical communication. Understanding and interpretation can cause certain difficulties for students themselves when they relate to the content of various texts. In such cases, the teacher should find out the causes of the difficulties that arise, and help the students overcome them. It is emphasized that hermeneutics forms a specific style of thinking with a clearly pronounced anti-positivist orientation. The widespread opinion about the teacher as a subject of educational activity and the bearer of genuine knowledge, which he must “put into the heads” of students, in hermeneutics gives way to the idea of learning as a process of mutual creativity, cooperation between the teacher and the student. The role of the teacher is reduced to creating conditions that ensure the “merging of horizons” of participants in pedagogical activity. Hermeneutics stimulates the formulation of questions aimed at understanding the meaning of educational activity, it clarifies the degree of involvement of the teacher in the realization of this meaning. Starting from the idea of ontological inclusion of a person in a cultural and historical tradition, hermeneutics makes it possible to understand to what extent prejudices determine our behavior and thinking, and how this circumstance affects interpersonal relationships. The hermeneutical approach makes it possible to interpret educational activities based on the idea of the uniqueness of pedagogical experience. The use of the hermeneutical method assumes that the teacher-researcher associates himself not with an impartial observer, but with a full participant in the dialogical search. Thanks to the joint efforts of the researcher and other participants in the hermeneutical conversation, meaning and understanding merge.

Conclusion. It is shown that the problem of interpretation, considered in the framework of educational activities, is of a practical nature. Modern philosophical hermeneutics, having made an ontological turn, overcomes the Cartesian view of the abstract opposition of subject and object, tradition and reason, which prevails in “modernist” pedagogy. Teachers can benefit from the analysis and development of the most important ideas and provisions of hermeneutics for their application in scientific and pedagogical activities, as it helps to realize their own prejudices, questions initial interpretations, strengthens the position of self-reflection regarding the educational process.