Ethical dispositions in text study: a conceptual argument

Abstract

This article explores an opportunity for the cultivation of moral dispositions through the hermeneutical activity performed by learners engaged in the study of texts. It seeks to direct teachers' attention to potential moral dimensions of the hermeneutical activity itself, an activity that might otherwise be perceived merely as a means to knowledge attainment. The paper discusses the nature of this hermeneutical activity drawing on the discipline of philosophical hermeneutics, especially on its concept of conversation between the learner and texts. Finally, it outlines a couple of challenges for teachers to explore as they engage students in this type of encounter with texts.

Notes

1. On uses of the concept of conversation in educational contexts see S. Haroutinian‐Gordon, 1991; N. Noddings, 1994. For the use of conversation in theological discourse see David Tracy, 1981.

2. In fact, Gadamer and Ricoeur also have different views about what the concept of conversation entails. These differences however are not directly relevant to the argument made in this article. See Ricoeur (1991).

3. Virtue ethics is of course a contemporary development of these ideas. See for example Hursthouse (1999) and to a larger extend McIntyre (1985).

4. While it goes without saying that the reader's horizon is also composed of her pre‐knowledge about the literature she is studying, I limit myself to point to a few examples of what might it look like to consciously work on some of these dispositions in the course of the interpretation of a text.