Educational Imaginaries

Abstract

The previous chapters have elaborated some of the major themes in Gadamer’s reworking of the hermeneutic tradition: ‘the power of prejudice ’, ‘the fusion of horizons ’ and ‘the problem of method ’. Along the way some important insights have been gathered into the implications of this tradition for education. I have characterised these as ‘becoming ourselves’, ‘becoming attentive’ and ‘becoming worldly’. In this final chapter I address the question: what sort of a society can we imagine in the light of Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics and what are the implications of such an imagined society for education? The response to that question focuses on the need to reclaim a humanistic vision for education, to build our education practice around the need to reason together while respecting the individuality of the individual, and to value education as an essential civic space within society. Education constitutes a ‘free space ’ of mutuality and recognition within which we achieve personal fulfilment through our willingness to engage with the strange and the unfamiliar.