Toward a Phenomenology-oriented Transformative Education in Adult Life

Abstract

The paper highlights Husserlian phenomenology as a fruitful pedagogical paradigm for adult education philosophy. Actually, through a comparison with the Transformative Learning approach as developed by Jack Mezirow, phenomenology is presented as providing a peculiar account on learning from experience as well as on reflection. More precisely, a stress on the value of reflection in adulthood is detected both in the Deweyan line of thought, as expressed by Mezirow, and in the Husserlian one, as developed also in Martin Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, and Paul Ricoeur. My aim is to show that, even though the reflective approach has certainly affected contemporary education, chiefly the phenomenological reflexive attitude – however less often explored with pedagogical purposes it may be – can be particularly precious in educational theory and practice. Actually, a phenomenology-oriented education paves the way not only to some practical and professional skills but, more deeply, to an existential and ethical competence, i.e., a genuine adult life.