The Martin Eger Research Program: Principles of Philosophical Hermeneutics in Science Education

Abstract

This text begins with a theoretical research program that seeks to map the tradition of Philosophical Hermeneutics (PH) in Science Education (SE), producing syntheses of works by different authors who assumed the PH in SE. The objective is to present research programs that articulated PH and SE as we tailored our own research program based on them. We started with the research on the work of Martin Eger, one of the pioneers in this discussion in English, who proposed a Philosophy of Science Education (PSE). The justification for this program is that PH provides arguments for understanding the role of language, which contributes to facing the daily challenges of teachers in Natural Sciences teaching and learning. In this text, based on a brief discussion of PH as developed by Hans-Georg Gadamer, we have studied Martin Eger's work. Some of the concepts proposed by Gadamer, such as the hermeneutic circle and the expansion and fusion of horizons, as well as the triple hermeneutics, proposed by Eger, have supported the understanding of the language of Natural Sciences, thus undoing the separation between subject and object; in this way, students, teachers in training, professors and researchers in Education and Science Education, as well as scientists, can be seen as interpreters of the Natural Sciences. By bringing together the work of Natural Sciences and the work of art in a cascade of interpretations throughout the production of scientific knowledge and its learning by students, Eger's academic production provides arguments to understand the very history of Science Teaching, by rescuing paths and reviews. At the same time, it brings inspiration to think about the present.