Hans-Georg Gadamer'sPraxis: Implications for Connection and Action in Communication Studies

Abstract

We live in a world where news and stories of inequities and social injustice bombard us regularly. This essay advocates that our scholarship in the field of communication be grounded in praxis, which entails not only a commitment to but also an actual engagement in practice as evidenced by intervention work at the social, cultural, and political levels. Using Hans-Georg Gadamer's notions of praxis and hermeneutical understanding as a framework, this essay reiterates the need for scholars to form genuine dialogical relationships with their communities to have access to understanding that, in turn, can be put to good use through appropriate measures of intervention.

Connecting Autoethnography with Service Learning: A Critical Communication Pedagogical Approach

“…Specifically, students will do so by (1) applying their understanding of oppression to their own lives, (2) analyzing how their community experiences relate to other experiences in their lives, (3) evaluating power relationships, and (4) creating a coherent piece of writing that reflects their learning about power in society. Roy and Oludaja (2009) argue that the focus on social justice in communication should expand beyond the academy. To facilitate such expansion, students' learning opportunities should not be confined solely to traditional classrooms and traditional modes of teaching and learning.…”

Hans-Georg Gadamer on Praxis and Hermeneutical Understanding

“…Immediacy is undercut because the claim of the Thou is "reflectively intercepted" in a constant struggle that goes on for mutual recognition. (Roy & Oludaja, 2009) Genuine understanding of the other is achieved only in the third kind of dialogue between I and Thou. From Gadamer's viewpoint, this third kind of dialogical communication contains the "highest" form of interpersonal and hermeneutic experience.…”

“…Indeed, Gadarner regards reciprocity as in some sense a transcendental condition for the very possibility of human communication as such. (1985:45) Gadamer explains three kinds of dialogical encounters characterized by I-Thou relationships (Roy & Oludaja, 2009). The first dialogical relationship is one where an individual seeks to discover something that is typical in the other person's behavior.…”

“…It is a relationship where one individual is objectifying the other, serving as a means to an end. It is also a relationship where a researcher studies the other in a detached and objective manner while trying to identify behavioral regularities as a means of predicting the other's future actions (Roy & Oludaja, 2009). The researcher tries to keep a safe distance from her/his own historicity in order to gain a "neutral" perspective.…”

“…"(l983: 147) Gadamer's praxis, therefore, underscores the need for understanding and caring for others. Thus Gadamer calls for "sympathetic understanding" on our part (Roy & Oludaja, 2009). In Gadamer's opinion, a person who is knowledgeable and experienced in every conceivable way but fails to commit herself/himself to caring for others lacks "sympathetic understanding" that praxis entails ( 1989).…”