Heiser, Jan Christoph: In the responsive in-between – turning around, rethinking, relearning. In: Journal Phenomenology. Focus on phenomenology and pedagogy. Issue 57/2022, pp. 56-67.

Abstract

The phenomenological approach to learning is characterized by a peculiar assessment of human experience: according to this approach, learning is to be interpreted as an experience in the sense of being pathically affected (Meyer-Drawe). In this perspective, in addition to the general, constant negativity of learning, those situations in which a break with the familiar and the known occurs, as well as the physical-reflexive reactions to this irritation, become significant. It is therefore certainly not presumptuous to claim that the in-between becomes the true locus of phenomenology – and that turning around, rethinking and relearning become constant companions.

However, the phenomenological learning situation would also be decisive for the cultural overlap situation – as the between cultures – insofar as the crisis of intercultural experience stimulates confrontation and change among those involved: one's own identity becomes questionable in the confrontation with the foreign and forces the search for answers; Here, too, one finds oneself in a “sphere of the in-between, which is constructed from the interplay of demand and response” (Waldenfels).

This article traces this transformative learning from the (culturally) other as an intersubjective-responsive process in order to highlight the learning-theoretical and intercultural relevance of phenomenological pedagogy.

Keywords: learning, experience, encounter, in-between, epagogé, epoché, periagogé, negativity, responsiveness, sociality, intersubjectivity, interculture, polylogue, intercultural education

Journal Phänomenologie
The Journal of Phenomenology is a biannual journal for phenomenology, hermeneutics, and contemporary French philosophy, featuring focus topics, interviews, reports, reviews, lemons, and lots of other information.