Culture and self-management of life: the hermeneutics of self-understanding of university professors about their emotional pain

Abstract

The culture of dualisms encourages and promotes the disconnection of individuals from their self-determination and self-management of life. The lapses in the dissociation between emotion and reason, inspired by Platonism and demanded in modernity, reach erroneous levels in our days, giving rise to suffering. Based on this understanding, this study proposes some reflections about the influence of the university culture in the self-management of life and the participation of this relationship in the psychological suffering of university professors. For that, the neuroscientific investigations of Antonio Damásio, were used on feelings of pain and pleasure as motivating forces of culture and the reflections of Baruch Espinosa for the surprising predictions regarding the theory of affects that predict 20th and 21st century neuroscience knowledge. To carry out this trajectory, affective hermeneutics was used to interpret the narratives of professors, as this approach allows dialogue as an intersubjective mediation, enabling the understanding of the real in its meaning, that is, the subjective meaning that each one gives to what is happening. Coping with problems is possible through the training and development of professors for self-determination and self-management of life, which requires the search for a new pedagogical horizon that welcomes and supports other guiding perspectives of culture. And this in search of the support of guiding meanings of new knowledge that incorporate emotional demands, aiming to overcome the dichotomies and ambiguities advocated by the paradigm of consciousness.