ABSTRACT
When I read a philosophical text, my perspective is largely influenced by the philosophical tradition of phenomenology. This tradition is concerned with how human beings perceive and interact with the world and others, which tells us something about what it means to be human and to be educated. In this way, having a phenomenological ‘lens’ on texts allows me to read the texts in order to understand phenomena we cannot readily observe in the real world. The extract is an example of writing in which such phenomena, namely, ‘listening’ and ‘inner struggle’, are foregrounded and discussed philosophically. My focus in reading and analysing Herbart’s texts was on discovering how Herbart understands educative teacher-learner interaction, on which basis I aimed to draw conclusions about the nature of the teacher’s listening in moral education.
