Training and horizon of expectations

Abstract

This article, of an essayistic character, contextualizes the contemporary crisis caused by both the neoliberal orientation of education, limited to market interests, and by the introduction of information technologies in educational systems, which eliminate the deliberative capacity of the subject, amidst an abandonment of the modern tradition of education, whose core is autonomy. Then, the theoretical-methodological resources of Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics and Koselleck's categories of space of experience and horizon of expectations are adopted to critically evaluate the inheritance of Western formative experience and to assess what remains valid. The critiques force the decentering of autonomy and lead to a reworking of this concept that sustains its validity, requiring from the subject the ability to creatively explore his needs, to ethically reflect on the totality of his life, and to apply universalistic norms with sensitivity. Such re-elaboration projects onto the horizon of expectations a creation of the self, as self-determination, the cleavage point of an ethical-aesthetic education, capable of opening up to unexplored possibilities, not preconceived in structured models of behavior.