ABSTRACT
The problem of meaning has hovered around the edges of learning theory without having been fully incorporated into it, despite its obvious relevance. Not all scholars have neglected this topic. For example, Mezirow (1988, p. 223) defines meaning as “a process of construing or appropriating a new or revised interpretation of the meaning of one’s experience as a guide to decision and action” (also see Mezirow, 1991, pp. 12–13). Likewise, according to Dahlgren (1984, pp. 23–24), to “learn is to strive for meaning, to have learned something is to have grasped its meaning.” Both of these definitions relate learning to the hermeneutical process. But both imply (although this is probably not the authors’ intention) that experience has a meaning, which is open to debate.
