THE CONSTRUCTION OF (SELF) KNOWLEDGE AND THE HUMAN EXPERIENCES AS PRACTICAL WISDOM

This essay addresses the issue of knowledge of truths through human experiences, opposing the current idea of separation between theory and practice, science and everyday life, or even subject and object. Modern science claims a safe, neutral, and accessible experience, subjecting the validity of wisdom to its proof and field of analysis. Approaching human experience as valid knowledge implies considering subjectivity, meanings, history and stories, and the memory of events, which are impossible to capture using hegemonic scientific methods. Thus, a hermeneutic theoretical-qualitative study of an ancient traditional work of yoga, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, was conducted. Based on Hans-Georg Gadamer's concept of experience, the following assumptions for knowledge as practical wisdom are highlighted: repetition and resignification, open-mindedness, ethical and righteous action and remembrance in the present (abhyasa, vairagya, sraddha, virya, smrti, samadhiprajna). It analyzes, in the set of that ancient text, the concept of experience as learning and liberation from human ignorance/suffering. Bhogaapavargatam has the purpose of objective manifestation of phenomena. The learning process is discussed as a constant movement of discernment through ruptures with biases, the remembrance of the self in a network of relationships, and the recognition of human reason frontiers. The traditional teaching of yoga enables the perspective of self-knowledge as an experience of detachment, not as indifference, but as a perception of the interdependence of relationships. It expands the horizons for the continuous (and infinite) construction of knowledge of truths mediated by human experience.