Dialectics of solicitude and the pedagogical development supporting in the perspective of a “weak thought”: reflexion on the margins of H.-G. Gadamer and G. Vattimo hermeneutic philosophy

Abstract

Hermeneutical experience of Other is always a kind of ethical experience and can shape the different relations which – according to Gadamer – are the various ways of experiencing of You. The relation rooted in the dialectics of solicitude is a kind of domination act as we be better know who the Other is and what he/she needs. One of the basic goals in the education process is to suport the pupils' development but the categories of development and pedagogical support are discursive and polisemantic concepts, constructed in many different educational practices. Pedagogical thinking intensively demands the links between the sphere of “theoretical” interpretations of phenomena and the pragmatic activity area. For the pedagogical praxis the clear, confident, rational and structured knowledge seems to be especially attractive. Knowledge which makes possible to solve the problems and leads to obtain the particular results. All these features shape what we know “strong thought”. While the category of weakness, which constitutes the reflexion characteristic for “weak thought” and inspired by M. Heidegger philosophy, refers to the concept of fortuitousness the existence, thinking and culture. The weak, unconfident, polisemantic and unclear thought, having the liquid borders which blur the clear shapes of concepts, being in a constant movement and exceeding the stable structures of knowledge. This kind of knowledge is not able to give us the unambiguous answers and simple instructions, it does not solve the practical problems and has no power to give the concrete advice ensuring the effective treatment. Such kind of cognitive reflexion seems to be not only inconvenient but simply useless for the educational practice. But going out of the practical activities can provoke the change of quality which can shift our thinking in the direction of multiplicity and heterogeneity logic. It also gives a chance to act in a more conscious way in our everyday, educational work.