Understanding, learning and language: a hermeneutic approach

Abstract

This essay answers to a problem. In the conference Education is self-education, Gadamer tries to justify the proposition that it is only possible to learn through conversation. However, he does not provide a justification, but instead he only reports personal experiences with learning. Thus, this essay takes on the challenge of justifying his proposition. In order to define the problem, the notion of language assumed here will be methodologically based only on Truth and method. In his capital work, Gadamer conceives language strictly as word. From there, this essay proceeds briefly as follows. Understanding is the condition for the possibility of learning, as it is not possible to learn something that was not understood. Understanding means apprehending the meaning of something, making it familiar. Learning, in turn, requires the acquisition of the necessary skill to carry out an activity related to what has been understood. So, in order to learn to do something, it is first necessary to work out in its being what is to be learned. Otherwise, the thing which learning should be concerned with remains undetermined. To elaborate it in its being, there is only one mean: language, word. Language makes it possible to determine what someone is dealing with. Thus, this essay consists of a path that begins with the determination of understanding and learning as an experience. Then, the experience is conceived as a play and, finally, as a language, whose authentic essence is conversation. This, at last, is how one can justify the proposition according to which it is only possible to learn through conversation.