Caracterización de la computación en el centro educativo investigado.

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Other sources of prejudice worth mentioning beside the two highlighted above are our everyday experiences and unverified opinions of people about things. On our everyday experiences, it is obvious that as we experience a thing or come in contact with it, some opinions are formed in our minds about the thing. It is true that a book should not be judged by the cover, but experiential facts shows that the cover of a book also can be a point of attraction or repulsion to a reader because the encounter with the cover makes the reader develop some prejudices about it. And to understand the work, he must approach it with these initial prejudices that open up the reader to enter into dialogue with the text. Another is the opinions of other persons about the object of our study. These opinions, though unverified also enable us form prejudices about the object. And as one tries to understanding the work through interpretation, he comes along with these prejudices. In the process of fusion of the horizon, the unnecessary prejudices will be filtered off while the necessary ones will bring about a harmony between the interpreter’s views and that of the object of study thereby leading to understanding which will transcend both the initial views of the interpreter and the object of interpretation.

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when there is a harmony between the parts and the whole and the inability of realising this harmony results in lack of understanding.

The circle of the hermeneutic circle according to Gadamer is not formal in nature, neither is it subjective nor objective. The circle “describes understanding as the interplay of the movement of tradition and the movement of the interpreter.”¹²⁴ Our understanding of a text proceeds from the communality that binds us to the tradition. This circle is not a methodological circle as was the case in Schleiermacher and Dilthey, it describes an ontological structural element in understanding. It is fundamental to all understanding as it leads to the unity of meaning of an object thereby making it intelligible. This is what our author calls “fore-conception of completion”. Essentially, the fore- conception according to Schmidt “implies circularity of understanding and the circularity presupposes unity of meaning.”¹²⁵ Thus, where harmony or unity of meaning cannot be constituted, then the object cannot be intelligible. Elaborating further Gadamer writes:

So when we read a text we always follow this complete presupposition of completion, and only when it proves inadequate, i.e. the text and seek to discover in what way it can be remedied ... for the important thing to note is that their proper application cannot be detached from the understanding of the textual content.¹²⁶

The anticipation of completion guides all our understanding in specific contents. The reader’s understanding is likewise guided by the constant transcendent expectations of meaning that proceeds from the relation of the truth of what is being said. When we read a transmitted text there is always this assumption in us that the writer is better informed than us with our previously formed meaning. However, when accepting what the author has written as true fails, efforts will be made to understand the text further either psychologically or historically as having another meaning. The fundamental hermeneutic requirement here is the fore-understanding of the interpreter. This determines the kind of unified meaning that will be realised.

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Hermeneutics is based on polarity of familiarity and strangeness which is on what the interpreter already knows about a thing and on that which he seeks to know. Differently put, it depends on the fore-understanding the hermeneut has and the story that the text tells him. But in-between the familiarity and strangeness is “the intermediate place between being and historically intended separate object and being part of a tradition.”¹²⁷ This is the home of hermeneutics and it is where the interpretation is made for a new meaning to emerge.

It is however good to note that the primary work of hermeneutics is to clarify the conditions in which understanding takes place and not to develop a procedure or method of understanding. These conditions which the interpreter must bring to bear on the text must be given and not seen as procedures or methods. Hence the interpreter does not have the prejudices or fore-meaning he brings to interpretation at his disposal. And he does not even know which of the prejudices he has that will be productive and can lead to understanding and the ones that are unproductive that could lead to misunderstanding. The separation between the productive and unproductive prejudices takes place in understanding itself. How this happens is what Gadamer refers to as ‘temporal distance.’

Reacting to the earlier definition of understanding as the reproduction of an original production, Gadamer asserts that this is possible because of the difference between the interpreter and the author created by historical distance. It is on this assertion we can say that the understanding of a reproduced work is superior to that of the original work. Nevertheless he advised that it is not proper to even talk of superior understanding whether in referring to superior knowledge because of clearer ideas or in the sense of fundamental superiority that the consciousness has over the unconsciousness of nature. According to him “it is enough to say that we understand in a different way, if we understand at all.”¹²⁸

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In line with Heidegger who in his ontological hermeneutics saw time as positive value, Gadamer opines that “time is no longer primarily a gulf to be bridged, because it separates, but it is actually the supportive ground process in which the present is rooted.”¹²⁹ The efforts of the interpreter should not be to overcome temporal distance but rather see it as a positive and productive possibility of understanding. We must realize that the distance is filled with the continuity of custom and tradition. The temporal distance lets the true meaning of the object to emerge. It should be noted here that the meaning of a text or any work of art is never finished. He calls this an infinite process because through it errors are excluded continuously and it keeps emerging as a new source of understanding. Temporal distance filters and reveals elements of new meaning and in itself continuous to undergo constant movement and extension. In this movement and extension it filters all illegitimate prejudices and allows the legitimate prejudices that can lead to understanding to emerge.

Again for Gadamer it is only temporal distance that can help us distinguish between false and true prejudices. While the false prejudices lead us to misunderstanding, the true prejudices lead to understanding. The logical structure that could lead us to this all-important distinction is the questions raised. Questions, because they open up and keep open possibilities. Through questioning our prejudices are opened up, the false prejudices are suspended and as this happens, our true or legitimate prejudices enable us reach the understanding of the text or work of art.