Pedagogia della vita personale: tra la carne e la parola. Contributi per una fondazione fenomenologica della pedagogia: ricerca teorica e ricerca empirica alla luce della filosofia di Edith Stein

This dissertation presents four distinct parts, independent as four different essays. However these four essays are related one another through the fil rouge of a look upon the educational problem guided by phenomenology. Educational problem and problems: the radical question about the sense of educating (phenomenology of education) but also the contextual question about what a concrete educational phenomenon (a kindergarten, for example) is; a theoretical and an empirical research, distinct but strictly connected, essential one another just in the name of phenomenology. All the four parts try to offer some contribution to a phenomenological foundation of pedagogy. The first essay, Wide-eyed. Phenomenological notes for research in education, presents some thoughts to found phenomenologically the empirical research in education, a research within educational contexts, with a pedagogical, orienting and formative approach. The second essay, Edith Stein and ‘Bildung’ phenomenon, presents the thought of an extraordinary philosopher (born in Breslau, 1891, and died in Auschwitz, 1942), exponent of the early phenomenological movement, who also studied philosophy of education. This essay presents her contribution to the theory of Bildung (education) but also tries to read the whole steinian production through a pedagogical perspective, referring especially to her philosophical anthropology, and also to the question of community, the relationship between phenomenology and metaphysics, and the problem of a Christian philosophy. The third essay, What is generated in kindergartens? An empirical research inspired to phenomenology in the kindergartens associated to FISM of Mantua, presents an empirical research projected and conducted through a method inspired to phenomenology (and tries to prove it), such as explained in the two previous essays. The fourth essay, Custodian of sense. Educator between educational challenge and good life promise, describes an essential profile of educator, as a person and a professional of Bildung, i. e. of the personal education of every single being. A phenomenological philosophy offers the possibility of a pedagogy in personal life, made up of flesh, action and contingence, but also of word, reflection and theory.