Elucidates the major components of Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics found in his later work.

El presente artículo se centra en el análisis de la lectura de la filosofía política platónica que Hans-Georg Gadamer realiza en su conferencia Plato und die Dichter (1934). Se planteará como hipótesis propia que, en los diálogos platónicos, tanto el filosofar como el poetizar habilitan el acceso a la comprensión del carácter sagrado de la justicia, la dimensión política de la legalidad de la musa poética y la percepción de lo sagrado como necesidad humana que permanece encubierta al modo (...) de lo innecesario. Por otro lado, sobre el final se prestará atención al concepto de phrónēsis en relación a la facultad humana del juicio y como instrumento necesario para la realización práctica del devenir del ser político del hombre en el Estado. (shrink)

This paper proposes a new interpretation of Gadamer’s problematic appropriation of Platonic metaphysics. It argues that Gadamer, attempting to respond to the challenge posed by Heidegger’s interpretation of Platonic metaphysics and of its role in the history of Being (Seinsgeschichte), downplayed the transcendence of Platonic Forms. Gadamer achieves a reconfiguration of this transcendence and its transposition into what I call here a plane of immanence through two hermeneutic gestures: 1) interpreting Forms in light of Greek mathematics and (...) especially in light of the structure of the sum-number; 2) introducing temporality and historicity in the Medieval doctrine of transcendentals by giving priority to the Beautiful over the Good. I contend that, Platonically speaking, this amounts to the rejection of νοήσις in favor of διάνοια, and that this raises issues concerning the problem of finitude and the potential limits of linguisticality (Sprachlichkeit). (shrink)

La hermenéutica de Dilthey ha legado a la historia de la filosofía una profunda tematización del problema de la vivencia humana. En ella, se lleva a cabo un análisis de la experiencia desde el juego dado entre la totalidad de la vida histórica y la vivencia concreta y particular. Tomando estas ideas como base, la filosofía de la vivencia elaborada por dicha tradición se orienta hacia la dilucidación de una ontología de la vida, cuya pretensión es la de indagar en (...) la naturaleza fáctica de la propia experiencia. Esta herencia es apreciable en la hermenéutica de la facticidad explicitada por Heidegger y en la ontología hermenéutica planteada por Gadamer. El objetivo del presente ensayo será el de recuperar la reflexión diltheyana que da cuenta de un modo de comprensión específico de la experiencia. Ello nos permitirá desvelar las dinámicas propias de la comprensión y la vivencia, distinguiendo este análisis frente al modelo fenomenológico. (shrink)

Many despair at trying to understand something’s meaning and express dissatisfaction with language wholesale. What if some things simply are not understandable? Thich Nhat Hanh coined interbeing to name the fundamental principle of interdependence defining Buddhist ontologies, and uses interbeing to dislodge despair resulting from rigid expectations of how things must be. Thich also criticized a standard view of language as generating those rigid expectations. Drawing upon classical humanist traditions, Hans-Georg Gadamer promoted a hermeneutics whereby interpreters overcome existential alienation. (...) In his theory of understanding meaning, Gadamer rehabilitated language as having its being in revealing aspects of truth. By situating Gadamer’s hermeneutics within Thich’s interbeing, I develop limits of understanding that facilitate freedom from despair about meaning and language. Thich and Gadamer both taught that the quest for stability within change is misguided. This requires rigorous attention to the limits of understanding. Attention to these limits serves to liberate people from clinging to the illusion that all things are understandable and despair accompanying the incapacity to understand some things. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to explore Gadamer’s early reflections on Plato’s utopian thought and its potential topicality. In the following section, I will show how areté, understood as a hermeneutical and existential virtue, is dialectically related to ethics and politics in Gadamer’s phenomenological reception of Plato’s philosophy. I argue that, in Gadamer’s eyes, Socratic-Platonic self-understanding enables human beings to be aware of their political responsibilities, to recognize how they are existentially and mutually related to the (...) other, and to clarify dialectically their own existential possibilities in order to transcend their inherited world of values. In the third section, I aim to show how these are the grounds on which Gadamer’s initial thoughts on the utopian dimension of Platonic political philosophy developed, mainly through his further critical account of the works on the German “political Plato” published in Germany between 1927 and 1933, i.e., Kurt Singer’s Platon, der Gründer (1927), Julius Stenzel’s Platon. Der Erzieher (1928), and Kurt von Hildendrandt‘s Platon, Der Kampf des Geistes um die Macht (1933). Then, in the fourth section, I will express my own views on the relevance of reconsidering how the notions of areté, phrónesis, and andreía are already related in Plato’s dialogues, complementing the insights on Gadamer’s interpretation of areté in section two. My purpose is to go beyond Gadamer’s reading and provide us with a more solid ground to address his late reflections on political courage and its relations with his dialectical understanding of Platonic utopia as a myth. Therefore, I will explore the problem of civil disobedience, a topic that was actually not at the centre of Gadamer’s concerns, as a genuine mode of utopian political action which can enact a true deviation from the sophistic pólis and its understanding of power. Finally, in the conclusion, I will characterize Gadamer’s portrait of Platonic utopia as a dialectical myth which enables human beings to recognize when politics are being reduced to mere power abuse by the State and also suggest why Gadamer’s approach to utopias is still relevant today. (shrink)

El ser en su riqueza se expresa en el lenguaje que emana también del ser. El lenguaje emergió de su olvido en la filosofía griega, gracias a las ideas cristianas de encarnación y trinidad que le hicieron más justicia. El mayor milagro del lenguaje no estriba en que la palabra aparezca en su ser externo, sino en el hecho de que lo que emerge y se manifiesta sea siempre palabra. La vuelta de Gadamer al final de Verdad y método, (...) en torno a la evidencia de que el ser de lo bello consiste en presentarse, ilustra la estructura universal del ser mismo. Apalabrar a lo que es el ser mismo. Lo que determina y hace posible la interpretación es el presentarse del ser de lo que es. (shrink)

O pensamento filosófico moderno geralmente considerou os preconceitos como juízos sem fundamentação e que levam a mal-entendidos. Contudo, Hans-Georg Gadamer pretende restituir o potencial produtivo e o caráter condicionante dos preconceitos para a compreensão a partir de sua hermenêutica filosófica. Deste modo, o presente artigo retomará a discussão desenvolvida por Gadamer em Verdade e Método, sobretudo na segunda parte, e dará ênfase aos seguintes aspectos: a descoberta da estrutura prévia da compreensão (posição prévia, visão prévia e concepção prévia) (...) e o círculo hermenêutico, presentes na tarefa da compreensão; elucidará os conceitos de verdade e método à luz da hermenêutica filosófica; abordará a concepção pejorativa atribuída aos preconceitos pela Aufklärung - Iluminismo - e, por último, desenvolverá algumas das razões pelas quais os preconceitos são condição para a compreensão. Em vias de argumentar que, como seres finitos e históricos e pertencentes à tradição, a compreensão não se restringe ao ideal de ciência da modernidade. (shrink)

Nosso ensaio procura explorar as relações entre os pensamentos de Foucault e Gadamer nos contextos da hermenêutica e da ética do cuidado de si. Num primeiro momento apresentamos os desdobramentos do cuidado de si e os exercícios espirituais da filosofia antiga e o acesso à verdade como forma de vida. O segundo momento é dedicado a elaborar uma leitura sobre a hermenêutica compreendida como uma experiência ética originária baseadas nas contribuições de Gadamer, Heidegger e Schmidt. Nossas considerações finais (...) são dedicadas a pensar as relações entre o cuidado de si e a hermenêutica através da retomada de uma ética originária desdobrada na analítica sobre o ethos, aqui compreendido como a morado do Ser. (shrink)

In this chapter, I analyze how Gadamer criticizes in his review "Die neue-Platoforschung" [1933] both Stenzel's and Singer's reading of the "political Plato" through his own interpretations of the concepts of paideía and utopia. This Gadamer's early insight is a seminal exercise for his later theoretical developments in texts like Plato und die Dichter [1934] and Platos Staat der Erziehung [1942].// How to cite this item: Bey, Facundo. (2020). “Paideía y utopía en la crítica de Hans-Georg Gadamer (...) al Platón de Julius Stenzel y Kurt Singer”. In Y. Benítez Ocampo (ed.) Intersecciones. Reelaboraciones de la filosofía contemporánea y la estética filosófica. [Kindle Cloud Reader Version]. Editora Cravo: Porto. Retrieved from: amazon. (shrink)

This book addresses the alleged divide between the humanities and sciences. Rather than bridging the divide from the side of the sciences and phenomenology, Andrew Fuyarchuk proposes to close the distance with Gadamer’s hermeneutics, liberating the inner word from the theological paradigms and rethinking it in terms of a phenomenology of the senses and cognitive and evolutionary sciences.

In this essay, the author maintains that Gadamer’s affirmation of the relation among art, truth, and beauty is less a sign of conservatism or nostalgia than it is a key to his innovative and insightful examination of our experience of art. Gadamer’s approach to both the truth claim and the beauty of art flows from his association of the being of art with enactment (Vollzug). Yet, increasingly over the course of his writings, Gadamer appears to relinquishes talk (...) of art in this sense as a ,work‘ in favor of an emphasis on the kinship between art and the phenomenon of play. In light of this shift, it is argued that Gadamer’s conception of the truth claim and beauty of art may best be understood not as properties of a product or artifact, of something already enacted and thus complete in itself, but, instead, as nothing other than the very enacting of that freedom which he finds at the heart of human play. (shrink)

I revisit the Derrida-Gadamer debate in order to analyze more closely the problem of the foundation of reason and of interpretation. I explore the theme of play as a metaphor of non-foundation in both philosophers and analyze how both extract this quality from their readings of Plato’s Phaedrus . Does Derrida not essentialize the game by declaring that the playful experience of a Gadamerian dialogue must produce a metaphysical presence in the form of a hermeneutic intention? I find that (...) the circular structure of understanding permits – for both philosophers – no clear signifiant either in speech or in writing. The game of interpretation produces – in changing endlessly between reading and rhetoric – an endless chain from one signifier to the next signifier without ever imitating a divine logos. (shrink)

It almost seems that you can't be taken seriously as a critical thinker today if you are not au fait with the works of Foucault, Derrida, and other French intellectuals. But there is an alternative tradition for those who fear that deconstruction leads only to nihilism. Reconstructing Theory introduces the key thinkers of this alternative tradition—Gadamer, Habermas and Luhmann—and provides succinct outlines of their major works. It investigates their contributions to social and cultural theory, and also analyses the influences (...) of Jauss, Iser and Peter and Christa Burger on literary theory. Whether you are a student of philosophy, literature, society or culture, you will find this book not only an accessible but a provocative introduction to the influential and controversial writings of some the major modern social and cultural theorists. It may after all be possible to do more than despair at our inability to explain the world. (shrink)

El ser en su riqueza se expresa en el lenguaje que emana también del ser. El lenguaje emergió de su olvido en la filosofía griega, gracias a las ideas cristianas de encarnación y trinidad que le hicieron más justicia. El mayor milagro del lenguaje no estriba en que la palabra aparezca en su ser externo, sino en el hecho de que lo que emerge y se manifiesta sea siempre palabra. La vuelta de Gadamer al final de Verdad y método, (...) en torno a la evidencia de que el ser de lo bello consiste en presentarse, ilustra la estructura universal del ser mismo. Apalabrar a lo que es el ser mismo. Lo que determina y hace posible la interpretación es el presentarse del ser de lo que es. Being in its richness expresses itself in language, which itself emanates from Being. Language emerged from its oblivion in Greek philosophy thanks to the Christian ideas of incarnation and trinity, which did it more justice. Language's greatest miracle does not rest on the fact that the word appears in its external being, but on the fact that that which emerges and manifests itself is always word. Gadamer's turn at the end of Truth and Method, regarding the evidence according to which beauty's being consists of presenting itself, illustrates the universal structure of Being itself. Bespeaking what is Being itself. What determines and make possible interpretation is the presentation itself of the being of what is. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ: Cet article propose une analyse détaillée des considérations de Hans-Georg Gadamer sur l’herméneutique théologique proprement dite. Pensée dans et pour la foi chrétienne, la conception de l’herméneutique théologique qu’il met en avant se veut essentiellement une herméneutique du texte biblique. Les réflexions de Gadamer sur ce thème nous conduisent cependant tout droit dans sa théorie de la littérature. La question directrice devient celle de la nature du texte religieux (entendons : du texte biblique, reçu en son unité (...) canonique) en tant que texte éminent, dont la structure singulière est mise en relief au moyen d’une éclairante comparaison avec les textes poétique, philosophie et juridique. L’Écriture, en tant qu’elle répond à la structure textuelle de la promesse, exige du lecteur une forme particulière d’appropriation qui trouve sa réalisation exemplaire dans la prédication. Toutefois, contre une lecture (Ommen, Eberhard, etc.) qui insiste sur la discontinuité de l’herméneutique théologique de Gadamer avec sa propre oeuvre philosophique, je soutiens la thèse de leur foncière cohérence. ABSTRACT: This paper offers a detailed analysis of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s considerations on theological hermeneutics proper. Thought within and for the Christian faith, the conception of theological hermeneutics he puts forward is mainly understood as a hermeneutics of the biblical text. However, Gadamer’s reflections on this theme bring us straight to his theory of literature. The guiding question becomes that about the nature of the religious text (meaning : the biblical text, received in its canonical unity) as eminent text, which peculiar structure is thrown into relief through an enlightening comparison with the poetical, the philosophical and the legal text. The Scripture, in that it has the textual structure of a promise, requires from the reader a particular form of appropriation, which finds its exemplary fulfillment in preaching. Against a reading that emphasizes discontinuity between Gadamer’s theological hermeneutics and his own philosophical work (Ommen, Eberhard, etc.) I defend the thesis of their fundamental coherence. (shrink)

RESUMEN El objetivo es analizar la hermenéutica filosófica de Hans-Georg Gadamer con vistas a considerar la posibilidad de llevar a cabo una lectura intercultural a partir de sus planteamientos. Se cuestiona la lectura intercultural que de la hermenéutica de Gadamer lleva a cabo Ram Adhar Mall. Con Gadamer, pero más allá de él, se detectan las posibilidades y limitaciones de su concepto humanista de cultura y se ensaya un modo de autosuperación hermenéutica de la cultura en la (...) interculturalidad. ABSTRACT The objective of the article is to analyze the philosophical hermeneutics of HansGeorg Gadamer in order to explore the possibility of an intercultural reading based on his proposals. It questions the intercultural reading of Gadamer’s hermeneutics carried out by Ram Adhar Mall. With Gadamer but going beyond him, the paper identifies the possibilities and limitations of his humanist concept of culture and attempts a form of hermeneutical overcoming of culture in interculturalism. (shrink)

Se recogen en este estudio algunas observaciones relativas a la naturaleza referencial del arte como símbolo, partiendo de las consideraciones de Cassirer y Gadamer. La inquietud es determinar si la abstracción le resta a la obra de arte su carácter mimético y por tanto, su naturaleza simbólica; dado que el símbolo se ha asumido en ocasiones como un indicador del mundo conocido.

This dissertation investigates the possibility of a systematic yet non-methodological grounding for knowledge within the framework of hermeneutics. In opposition to formalistic and scientistic construals of philosophy, I argue that philosophy is essentially non-formalistic, nuanced, and contingent, characterized by circularity, ambiguity, and paradox. In rejecting formalized fixed positions and emphasizing circularity and contingency, I am concerned nevertheless to ensure that my account does not dissolve into random flux or empty indeterminacy. I look to articulate, therefore, a middle space between radical (...) closure and radical openness in an account I have termed anchored openness. ;In developing this account, I contrast it with other models of this middle space. In the accounts of Hegel and Derrida, the outcome is a one-sided extremism which proves unacceptable. The concept of the hermeneutic circle furnishes a valuable preliminary account, but it cannot provide the full elaboration of this perspective. Gadamer's account comes close to striking the appropriate balance between extremist poles and articulating the middle space, but because of its problematic objectivist and relativist implications, it also proves inadequate as a model of anchored openness. ;For a more salutary model that avoids the deficiencies of these accounts, I turn finally to Kant's Critique of Judgement. Through an analysis of the aesthetic judgement, I find the systematic yet open principles needed for this account: mediation and openness, subjective universality, and grounded free play. I conclude by suggesting possible future directions for the development of these principles. (shrink)

“Apel and Gadamer’s Philosophical Hermeneutics”. This paper seeks to reconstruct the core of Apel’s criticism of Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics. In order to achieve this, three texts post-Transformation of Philosophy by Apel are analyzed. All of them go beyond the debate between hermeneutics and critique of ideology. Throughout the paper I will attempt to demonstrate that the concepts introduced by Apel offer the possibility of an enlightened or critical normative hermeneutics.

Shan Shui art is a traditional style of Chinese landscape painting that has had a lasting impact on Chinese culture. This paper attempts to view a masterpiece of this genre of art – the artwork entitled ›Hermit Dwelling in the Qingbian Mountains‹ by Wang Meng – from the perspective of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s philosophy of art in order to show how such an artwork can convey an ontological insight for those who experience it. Instead of viewing the artwork as simply (...) an aesthetically pleasing landscape and thereby relegating the experience to the realm of feeling as is common in modern Western approaches to art, I argue that the artwork is best understood as imparting meaning into our lives by opening up a new perspective on reality. Specifically, I show the Daoist principles and concepts that underlie shan shui art at work in Wang Meng’s (c. 1308–1385) masterpiece. The Gadamerian approach adopted provides an appropriate avenue to respect Wang Meng’s artwork and other paintings in the shan shui genre on their own terms for those embracing a contemporary Western aesthetic sensibility. (shrink)

The article presents Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutics as an attempt to return to the classical ideal of the art of good speaking, in which the purpose of speech is seen as an intertwining of truth and goodness. Rhetoric understood in this way opposes its sophistic antithesis, which is directed at defending the speaker’s individual ratios and interests, ‘truth’ constructing, manipulating the audience’s beliefs and seductive qualities of style. The text analyzes selected issues of hermeneutics – truth taken as aletheia, the (...) hermeneutic circle and language, relating them to the classical stages of speech preparation – inventio, dispositio and elocutio. In this way, rhetoric and hermeneutics will be shown as disciplines founded on ethics. (shrink)

Since the publication of Wahrheit und Methode in 1960 (Tfibingen), Gadamer's hermeneutics has called forth a varied and fruitful response from the Continent, without receiving anything near the same attention from the English-speaking world. Though E. D. Hirsch thought Gadamer sufficiently important in 1965 to merit an early rebuttal and rehabilitation (Validity in Interpretation [New Haven, Conn., 1967], pp. 245-64), Wahrheit und Methode remained unread in England and America, partly because a translation was not available until 1975 (Truth (...) and Method, ed. Garrett Barden and John Cumming [New York]). Even after that date, Gadamer's influence on Anglo-American debate has been largely secondhand, filtering in through such figures as Paul Ricoeur and Jiurgen Habermas. But a renewed interest in the question of what we are to make of tradition, no doubt spurred in large measure by deconstruction's effort to unmake it, has lent Gadamer a new pertinence. One sign that his stock is on the rise is the publication of Joel Weinsheimer's Gadamer's Hermeneutics, a much needed and admirably written introduction to Truth and Method that should push its value even higher. -- JSTOR (June 12, 2012.). (shrink)

Resumen: En La actualidad de lo bello, Gadamer hace una referencia reveladora a la improvisación musical y a la importancia de la escucha musical, además de poner en primer plano la necesidad de justificación del arte. Situando este debate a través de Goethe y Platón, junto con las Lecciones de Estética de Adorno de finales de la década de 1950 y una discusión sobre Nietzsche y la Antigüedad, es posible establecer que lo que está en juego es la afinación, (...) así como una tensión que invita a un debate ulterior tanto sobre la detención del amante en Carson como el demorarse en Heidegger. Al revisar la hermenéutica gadameriana de la programación y la interpretación musical, incluida la improvisación y el desafío de la nueva música, las reflexiones de Gadamer sobre la cultura musical en el contexto de la cultura social y su reflexión no solo pueden ser leídas a través de Platón y Goethe, sino también a partir de las concepciones de "lo bello" en Hölderlin y Rilke. Se trata de una "conversación" cultural en la que la contribución del público puede estar en tensión con la programación musical progresiva, además de la dinámica de respuesta que surge en la energeia de la improvisación tanto para el intérprete como para el oyente.// Abstract: Gadamer’s On the Relevance of the Beautiful makes telling reference to musi-cal improvisation and the importance of musical listening in addition to fore-grounding the need for justification. Situating this discussion via Goethe and Plato along with Adorno’s late 1950s lectures on Aesthetics together with a discussion of Nietzsche and antiquity, what is at stake is attunement and a tension which invites a discussion of Carson on the lover’s arrest and Heidegger on tarrying. By reviewing Gadamer’s hermeneutic of musical pro-gramming and performance, including improvisation and the challenge of new music, Gadamer may be read on music culture in the context of social culture and his reflection not only via Plato and Goethe but Hölderlin and Rilke on ‘the beautiful.’ At work is a cultural ‘conversation’ where audience input can be in tension with progressive musical programing along with the dynamic of response emergent in the energeia of improvisation for performer and listener. (shrink)

Gadamer's Dialectical Hermeneutics affirms the continuity between Gadamer's interest in Plato and his hermeneutics by focusing on the role of dialectic for Gadamer's own conception of understanding. Highlighting the productive and on-going nature of the dialectical tension at the heart of hermeneutics clarifies the roles that truth, good, practice, theory, and dialogue play in Gadamer's thought and emphasizes his desire to recover the practical nature of philosophy.

Gadamer's Ethics of Play examines the ethical dimensions of understanding by focusing on the concept of dialogical "play" in Hans-Georg Gadamer's Truth and Method. The book is accessible to an undergraduate audience, while also being relevant to ongoing debates among Gadamer scholars.

Hans-Georg Gadamer is one of the leading philosophers in the world today. His philosophical hermeneutics has had a major impact in a wide range of disciplines, including the social sciences, literary criticism, theology and jurisprudence. Truth and Method, his major work, is widely recognised to be one of the great classics of twentieth-century thought. In this book Georgia Warnke provides a clear and systematic exposition of Gadamer's work, as well as a balanced and thoughtful assessment of his views. (...) Warnke gives particular attention to the ways in which Gadamer's work has been taken up and criticised by literary critics, social theorists and philosophers, such as Hirsch, Habermas and Rorty. She thus provides an introduction to Gadamer which demonstrates the relevance of his work to current debates in a variety of disciplines. This book will be invaluable to students and specialists throughout the humanities and social sciences, as well as to anyone who is interested in the most important developments in contemporary thought. (shrink)

The success of the early music movement has long raised questions about performing historical works: Should musicians perform on period instruments and try to reconstruct the original style? If a historically “authentic” performance is impossible or undesirable, what should be the goal of the early music movement? I turn to Gadamer to answer these questions by constructing the outlines of a hermeneutics of early music performance. In the first half of the paper, I examine Gadamer’s critique of historical (...) reconstruction and argue that this critique sheds light on mistaken tendencies and misunderstandings within the early music movement, but it does not discredit the movement as such. In the second half of the paper, I attempt to show how Gadamer’s dialogical account of historical consciousness provides a framework for understanding what historically informed performance is seeking to accomplish, as well as its advantage over a Nietzschean approach. (shrink)

Several prominent contemporary philosophers, including Jürgen Habermas, John Caputo, and Robert Bernasconi, have at times painted a somewhat negative picture of Gadamer as not only an uncritical traditionalist, but also as one whose philosophical project fails to appreciate difference. Against such claims, I argue that Gadamer’s reflections on art exhibit a genuine appreciation for alterity not unrelated to his hermeneutical approach to the other. Thus, by bringing Gadamer’s reflections on our experience of art into conversation with key (...) aspects of his philosophical hermeneutics, we are able to better assess the viability of Gadamer’s contributions to contemporary discussions of difference and alterity. -/- Sections two through six focus on key concepts in Gadamer’s account of art’s dynamic ontology and our experience of art. Such concepts include the play structure of art, hermeneutic identity, tarrying with a work, and contemporaneity. The opening sections provide not only a discussion of these central themes, but they also (1) draw attention to the various ways in which difference and otherness are integral to Gadamer’s account, and (2) utilize relevant musical examples that prepare the reader for a more focused discussion of a Gadamerian approach to free jazz in section seven. By highlighting how Gadamer’s understanding of art possesses a dialogical play structure, is characterized by identity and difference, requires actively engaged spectators and auditors, and is amenable to what many criticize as an unintelligible musical expression, viz. free jazz, Gadamer’s project is shown as other-affirming and open to ambiguity and dynamism. That is, the essential structures and concepts characterizing Gadamer’s reflections on art are likewise central to his overall hermeneutical project, and hence are not rightly described as un-attuned to difference or other-negating. Rather, Gadamer’s philosophical project upholds difference, since it requires a dialogical interplay between self and other that creates the possibility for a transformative experience. (shrink)

"Gadamer’s Repercussions is a terrific collection of essays. While Gadamer is not the most precise of philosophers, he turns out, in this book at least, to be among the most generative. The essays prove that Gadamer’s idealizing of dialogue can actually be put in practice by careful attention to the frameworks he addresses. I was most impressed by the essays that situate his ethics, his aesthetics, his relation to romanticism, his understanding of the relation of law and (...) morality, his engagements with Fascism, and several aspects of his vexed relationship with postmodern thinking, especially on the possibility of dialogue."—Charles Altieri, author of The Particulars of Rapture "Gadamer is well known for his insistence that every reading is a new reading and every act of understanding a pathway to new understanding. Krajewski’s carefully assembled volume applies these maxims to the understanding of Gadamer himself. By focusing on his intellectual and political background as well as his long-range influence and repercussions, the book opens new vistas for assessing one of the philosophical giants of the twentieth century."—Fred Dallmayr, author of Dialogue Among Civilizations. (shrink)

This book deals with the question of understanding religion and its relationship with politics in the context of developing countries. It reviews specific theories, such as modernisation theory, marxism, liberalism, hermeneutics and critical approach to explain questions related to religion and religious traditions. The book focuses on the recent attempts to theorise religion by Jurgen Habermas. It argues modernisation and orthodox Marxian theory are inadequate in understanding the recent spurt of religious phenomenon in politics. It discusses Hans-Georg Gadamer’s view (...) to show a way forward regarding dialectical hermeneutics in facilitating a dialogue between different traditions and religions. The book is of interest to students, scholars, practitioners of development, and all those who concern themselves with the questions of religion, tradition, modernity and secular well-being in developing countries such as India and beyond. (shrink)

This chapter presents Gadamer’s conception of language and of its role in the process of understanding. The chapter begins by explaining what Gadamer means when he says that language is characterized by an essential “self-forgetfulness” [Selbstvergessenheit] and how this relates to his account of the fore-structure of the understanding. Next, it explains what it means to conceive of a linguistic presentation (e.g., a poem or a lecture) as a hermeneutic event and how this conceptualization is essential to (...) class='Hi'>Gadamer’s account of understanding and of the dialectical unity between language and being. The chapter ends by considering how Gadamer’s analysis of conversation further clarifies what it means to be open to the event of language. (shrink)

Gadamer insists that we can never abandon our own ‘horizon’ and transpose ourselves into or reconstruct an artist’s historical context, and re-experience a work’s original meaning. Our context-bound values and beliefs, or prejudgments, are a necessary condition for all understanding, but we can become aware of them in the attempt to understand works of art of the past, and achieve a fusion of horizons. But what of contemporary forgeries of artworks from the past, produced by someone sharing our own (...) horizon? Forgers tend to exaggerate the qualities or properties of a work that their generation particularly appreciates. Only when interpreters are able to recognize the forger’s prejudgments, which render his work different from that of the horizon he seeks to imitate, does the true meaning of the forger’s work become apparent, as – famously – in the case of Van Meegeren’s imitations of ‘Vermeers.’ Contemporary forgeries are a good test of whether we are able to recognize our prejudgments. (shrink)

This essay is concerned with Gadamer’s reflections on solidarity and practice as found in several of his later writings. While Gadamer offers a robust explanation of practice, practical reason, and how both are operative in solidarities, his investigations of solidarity are in no way systematic. He does, however, distinguish two aspects of solidarity, viz. what one might call “natural solidarity” and “avowed solidarity”. In contrast to natural solidarities, avowed solidarities require an intentional decision and commitment to act with (...) others for a common cause. Since Gadamer’s writings on solidarity are more sketches than detailed treatises, we will bring his work into dialogue with feminist and political philosopher Sally Scholz. Scholz has devoted significant research to the concept of political solidarity. Like Gadamer, Scholz too is concerned with how we engage natural others and how our present practices harm and exploit them. By bringing Scholz’s and Gadamer’s work into dialogue, we gain a better understanding of different facets and types of solidarity, how they interrelate and influence one other, and how their interrelations might help to effect positive social and political changes for all who inhabit this world. (shrink)

Se trata de investigar en Gadamer el vínculo entre el culto a los muertos, los pasados posibles, las tradiciones abiertas, y el criterio hermenéutico. Para ello se procede atendiendo a la aplicación de tales vectores a la filosofía de la historia, la historia de la filosofía y la nueva koiné hermenéutica actual. Desde tal perspectiva, nuestra investigación profundiza, sobre todo en Verdad y Método, en la reinterpretación de las raíces helénicas de la verdad ontológica (alétheia) y del lenguaje conectivo (...) (lógos), que son propios del tiempo-espacio hermenéutico y su futuro anterior. (shrink)

In this work, I have compared the views of Hans Georg Gadamer and Emmanuel Levinas on various concepts of culture and understanding of the ‘man’ within the framework of Western civilization with the help of three of their essays. In two lectures of Gadamer—‘Culture and Peace’, delivered at Salzburg in 1980, and ‘Man and His Hand in Modern Civilization’, delivered in Munich in 1978—and several essays by Emmanuel Levinas such as ‘The Philosophical Determination of the Idea of Culture’ (...) (1983). If both authors are critical of the rational based on the technique and calculation of the concept of culture inherited from the Enlightenment, and further, if this concept is embodied in the bourgeois and later in industrial societies, as retraced in the first chapter, the authors differently see the way out of the dehumanizing crisis of the modern era. (shrink)

Gadamer's Truth and Method: A Polyphonic Commentary offers a fresh look at Gadamer's magnum opus, Truth and Method, which was first published in German in 1960, translated into English in 1975, and is widely recognized as a ground-breaking text of philosophical hermeneutics. The volume features essays from fourteen scholars--both established and rising stars--each of which cover a portion of Truth and Method following the order of the text itself. The result is a robust, historically and thematically rich polyphonic (...) reading of the text as a whole, valuable both for scholarship and teaching. (shrink)

When Gadamer elaborates his conception of philosophical hermeneutics as a transcendental inquiry, he appeals to Aristotle’s practical philosophy as a “model”, which can elucidate his own conceptualization of understanding as intrinsically bound to the specific circumstances of every interpretation. The explicit formulation of the analogy between Aristotelian ethics and philosophical hermeneutics provides a framework that clarifies Gadamer’s principal intention; it also reveals some of the crucial tensions inherent in the Aristotelian conception of practical philosophy and its relation to (...) praxis and phronêsis. In the 1970s, however, Gadamer suggests a practical transformation of hermeneutics, claiming for it the role of an “heir of the older tradition of practical philosophy”. Against Gadamer’s late “turn”, construed as a deviation from the initial analogy, I defend Aristotle’s practical philosophy as an exemplary model for philosophical hermeneutics, but I also maintain that the two projects pursue distinct epistemic goals. (shrink)

Gadamer has written several powerful studies of Platonic dialectic. His emphasis on shared understanding, the fusing of horizons and other hermeneutic notions are partially drawn from a study of Plato’s elenctic dialogues. However, Socrates in Gorgias makes a claim about the imperative of self-refutation that not only complicates our understanding of Socratic method, but Gadamer’s reading of it as well. This article is meant to explore just how the imperative of self-refutation causes difficulty for Gadamer’s understanding of (...) dialectic, especially his distinction between authentic and inauthentic dialectic. After considering the nature of ‘refutation’, this article will examine whether Gadamer’s notions of shared understanding, the ‘facts of the matter’, and self-understanding help us to resolve this problem. It shall be concluded that the teacher must take any refutations of his/her own views seriously, but has no special obligation to refute (introspectively) any of their own views, even those beliefs, theories, principles or criteria that enable him to guide the argument. (shrink)

In contrast to Kant's aesthetic, Gadamer proposes a fundamentally different way of understanding our experiences of art. One that is not restricted by the dichotomy between subjectivity and objectivity: A work of art is not simply an object created by an artist, but a "world" in which all the "players" participate. This conception of art is inspired by the performing arts; but how much is it relevant to other forms of art? Gadamer never explored this question fully. It (...) is of interest, therefore, to expand the analysis of Gadamer on two fronts: first, new forms of art such as installations and video games; second, artistic practices in East Asia, notably, the Japanese art of kintsugi and Chinese art of seals. The analysis of these forms of art not only helps broaden the scope of Gadamer's theory, but shows also that the insights found in his works are more relevant than ever. (shrink)

Over the last eighty years, studies in play have carved out a small, but increasingly significant, niche within the social sciences and a rich repository has been built which underscores the importance of play to social, cultural, and psychological development. The general point running through these works is a philosophical recognition that play should not be separated from the trappings of everyday life, but instead should be seen as one of the more primordial aspects of human existence. Gadamer is (...) one philosopher frequently associated with interest in play. In his magnum opus, Truth and Method (1960), Gadamer insisted the significance of play to human understanding is not merely recreational, but rather it discloses the full context of any given situation by promoting a freedom of possibilities within the horizon of one’s own life-world (i.e. the world directly and immediately experienced). As such, his philosophical analysis of play was essential to his overall project of philosophical hermeneutics as it can explain how meaning is not derived from something essential within a text, but rather considered from a full range of possibilities. There are good reasons to expand on that understanding of play within philosophical studies and we suggest one way to do so is to compare Gadamer’s treatment of play with similar ideas from thinkers often associated with other philosophical schools. Although there are other candidates (e.g. Wittgenstein’s language games) for such an analysis, we limit our comparison here to the notion of transaction, as treated by the American pragmatist John Dewey in his volume Knowing and the Known (co-authored with Arthur Bentley in 1949). Because Dewey tied his conception of transaction to an overarching philosophy of inquiry, we believe comparing it to Gadamer’s use of play can highlight the deep philosophical import of this concept to the understanding of philosophical inquiry. (shrink)

La obra es un estudio de una de las nociones fundamentales en la filosofía de Gadamer, el concepto de aplicación. Se intenta dar cuenta de la manera en que dicho concepto viene a solucionar, o tal vez sería mejor decir, a disolver, en la reflexión del siglo XX, el problema que enfrentaban las ciencias históricas en el siglo XIX para convertirse en conocimiento objetivo. Dicho problema consistía en dos importantes dificultades vinculadas entre sí: la imposibilidad de disponer de un (...) objeto independiente, el pasado “tal cual ocurrió” para confrontar la adecuación de las visiones del mismo constituidas desde el presente, por un lado, y la imposibilidad de erradicar la perspectiva del presente (intereses, ideologías, etc.)en los relatos históricos. Para abordar este problema, Gadamer acomete nada menos que una revisión de las categorías fundamentales en las cuales se inserta esta dificultad, esto es, las nociones de conocimiento, realidad y verdad modeladas, a través de Kant, de acuerdo a la perspectiva de la moderna ciencia de la naturaleza. Un paso fundamental será entonces examinar el problema del valor cognitivo del arte, esto es, elucidar las nociones de realidad y experiencia a partir de la experiencia artística, para extender luego estas conclusiones a la historia y el lenguaje. En el marco de esta revisión se perfila el concepto de aplicación, el cual destaca que nuestra condición de agentes históricos, insertos en una tradición y en una comunidad lingüística, no es un obstáculo, sino justamente la condición que hace posible que podamos comprender lo diferente a lo propio, ya sea en la forma de la alteridad histórica, lingüística o meramente personal. La tesis de la obra que presentamos es que la estructura de la aplicación, con la consecuente historicidad que acarrea, se presenta de manera semejante tanto en las macro-estructuras de la comprensión (comprensión de textos, de la tradición, del arte) como en las estructuras de un nivel inferior o más básico, como la realización de juicios y la comprensión de conceptos, punto que se elabora, en esta obra, a través de una comparación con las ideas del segundo Wittgenstein. (shrink)