3. Philosophical hermeneutics

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Zimmermann
Keyword(s):  
Life Experience ◽  
Detailed Examination ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
Philosophical Hermeneutics ◽  
The World ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
German Philosopher ◽  
Truth And Method ◽  
Hans Georg Gadamer ◽  
Basic Movement

Philosophical hermeneutics refers to the detailed examination of human understanding that began with the German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900–2002). In his book, Truth and Method, Gadamer drew together many of the previously discussed insights from Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Husserl, and Heidegger to provide an extensive description of what understanding is. ‘Philosophical hermeneutics’ outlines Gadamer’s key views: he believed that our perception of the world is not primarily theoretical but practical; he regarded understanding as the basic movement of human existence that encompasses the whole of life experience; language is central to shaping our understanding of the world; mediation is the heart of the hermeneutic experience; and application is its soul.

Islamic Intellectualism

2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Norman K. Swazo
Keyword(s):  
Philosophical Hermeneutics ◽  
Movement Theory ◽  
Western Modernity ◽  
Textual Interpretation ◽  
Double Movement ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
German Philosopher ◽  
Truth And Method ◽  
Hans Georg Gadamer ◽  
Qur'anic Interpretation

The Pakistani scholar Fazlur Rahman disagreed with the German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer on elements of philosophical hermeneutics as they bear upon interpretation of texts ‒ in this case, the interpretation of the Qur’ān. Rahman proposed a “double-movement” theory of Qur’ānic interpretation through which he hoped for the revival and reform of Islamic intellectualism in its encounter with Western modernity, but also with difference from Islamic orthodoxy’s conceptualization of ijtihād. In this paper, I examine Rahman’s concerns as they relate to Gadamer’s general approach to understanding history and textual interpretation. Rahman argued that if Gadamer’s thesis concerning the forestructure1 of human understanding is correct, then Rahman’s theory has no meaning at all. I conclude that there is reason to see Rahman’s theory as consistent with Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics, albeit with some modification given Rahman’s focus on psychologism and objectivity as part of his approach to Qur’ānic interpretation. It is the tyranny of hidden prejudices that makes us deaf to what speaks to us in tradition. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method

Islamic Intellectualism

2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Norman K. Swazo
Keyword(s):  
Philosophical Hermeneutics ◽  
Movement Theory ◽  
Western Modernity ◽  
Textual Interpretation ◽  
Double Movement ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
German Philosopher ◽  
Truth And Method ◽  
Hans Georg Gadamer ◽  
Qur'anic Interpretation

The Pakistani scholar Fazlur Rahman disagreed with the German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer on elements of philosophical hermeneutics as they bear upon interpretation of texts ‒ in this case, the interpretation of the Qur’ān. Rahman proposed a “double-movement” theory of Qur’ānic interpretation through which he hoped for the revival and reform of Islamic intellectualism in its encounter with Western modernity, but also with difference from Islamic orthodoxy’s conceptualization of ijtihād. In this paper, I examine Rahman’s concerns as they relate to Gadamer’s general approach to understanding history and textual interpretation. Rahman argued that if Gadamer’s thesis concerning the forestructure1 of human understanding is correct, then Rahman’s theory has no meaning at all. I conclude that there is reason to see Rahman’s theory as consistent with Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics, albeit with some modification given Rahman’s focus on psychologism and objectivity as part of his approach to Qur’ānic interpretation. It is the tyranny of hidden prejudices that makes us deaf to what speaks to us in tradition. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method

Gadamer, Hans-Georg (1900–2002)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Wright
Keyword(s):  
Being And Time ◽  
Philosophical Hermeneutics ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Paul Celan ◽  
The Core ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
Important Publication ◽  
Truth And Method ◽  
Absolute Knowledge ◽  
Hans Georg Gadamer

Hans-Georg Gadamer is best known for his philosophical hermeneutics. Gadamer studied with Martin Heidegger during his preparation of Being and Time (1927). Like Heidegger, Gadamer rejects the idea of hermeneutics as merely a method for the human and historical sciences comparable to the method of the natural sciences. Philosophical hermeneutics is instead about a process of human understanding that is inevitably circular because we come to understand the whole through the parts and the parts through the whole. Understanding in this sense is not an ‘act’ that can be secured methodically and verified objectively. It is an ‘event’ or ‘experience’ that we undergo. It occurs paradigmatically in our experience of works of art and literature. But it also takes place in our disciplined and scholarly study of the works of other human beings in the humanities and social sciences. In each case, understanding brings self-understanding. Philosophical hermeneutics advocates a mediated approach to self-understanding on the model of a conversation with the texts and works of others. The concept of dialogue employed here is one of question and answer and is taken from Plato. Such understanding never becomes absolute knowledge. It is finite because we remain conditioned by our historical situation, and partial because we are interested in the truth that we come to understand. By grounding understanding in language and dialogue as opposed to subjectivity, Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics avoids the danger of arbitrariness in interpreting the works of others. Gadamer’s most important publication is Wahrheit und Methode (Truth and Method) (1960). He also published four volumes of short works, Kleine Schriften (1967–77), containing important hermeneutical studies of Plato, Hegel, and Paul Celan among others. His many books and essays are collected into ten volumes (Gesammelte Werke). Gadamer was widely known as a teacher who practised the dialogue which is at the core of his philosophical hermeneutics.

Textual Intercourse: Gadamer’s Penetration Into the Depths of Understanding

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexis Deodato S. Itao ◽  
Jiolito L. Benitez
Keyword(s):  
Martin Heidegger ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
Truth And Method ◽  
Dialogic Interaction ◽  
Text Language ◽  
Hans Georg Gadamer ◽  
Intimate Exchange ◽  
Human Rationality

As rational animals, human beings not only have the ability to think but also the capacity to understand. Human rationality is constituted by thinking and understanding. The immediate connotation of rationality, however, is almost always thinking. Hence, to speak of man as an animal rationale is to speak of man as a thinking being. But following his mentor Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer insists that man does not only think, but most importantly understands. To understand is an essential part of being human, of being rational. But what understands? What does it mean to understand? The issue of human understanding is not something simply epistemological; rather, it is something hermeneutical. That is to say, understanding always relates to the act of interpretation. In his monumental work Truth and Method, Gadamer diligently considers the matter of human understanding from a purely hermeneutical perspective. This paper, then, aims to synthesize Gadamer’s hermeneutical theory and argues that for Gadamer, human understanding is essentially characterized by a kind of textual intercourse, that is, a dialogic interaction or an intimate exchange of horizons between an interpreting subject and a text which, in very broad terms, can refer to any object of interpretation. Keywords – understanding, interpretation, hermeneutics, text, language, dialectic

Historical Truth in the Hermeneutics of T. S. Eliot

2018 ◽  
Vol 111 (2) ◽  
pp. 264-288
Author(s):  
Ryan R. Holston
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
Human Sciences ◽  
Philosophical Hermeneutics ◽  
Religious Truth ◽  
The World ◽  
Truth Claims ◽  
Historical Truth ◽  
Hans Georg Gadamer

AbstractA small number of scholars have noted T. S. Eliot's anticipation of the hermeneutical theory later articulated by the philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer. Eliot similarly concerns himself with the epistemological assumptions of positivism in the human sciences and the implications of objectivizing texts and other cultural phenomena by adopting the attitude of the scientific observer. For both thinkers, this represents an approach to social life which either distorts or altogether misses the truth claims of those whose ideas are to be interpreted. Furthermore, Eliot develops a theory of understanding that is similar to the historicizing of interpretation that one finds later in Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics. However, among those who have observed these affinities, a key difference has been neglected. In his effort to confront such secularizing forces in the human sciences, Eliot comes to embrace an intellectualist philosophy of history, which relies on a tenuous dualism between the metaphysical and the physical, while Gadamer's philosophy of history collapses the dichotomy between the world of ideas and the existential realm. Thus, Eliot ultimately identifies what transcends history exclusively with the realm of the spirit. This essay argues that as the mature Eliot struggled with the empirically reductive tendencies of the human sciences and aimed to save religious truth from their deterministic assaults, he increasingly retreated to an intellectualism that misconceived the ultimate basis of religious truth. Consequently, the existing literature neglects the intellectualism that defines Eliot's understanding of truth within history and the more concrete understanding of that encounter that one finds in Gadamer's thinking.

Ricoeur, Paul (1913–2005)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John B. Thompson ◽  
Roger Savage
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Philosophical Anthropology ◽  
Paul Ricoeur ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Philosophical Hermeneutics ◽  
Philosophical Orientation ◽  
German Philosopher ◽  
Hans Georg Gadamer

Paul Ricoeur was one of the leading thinkers of the second half of the twentieth century and in the later part of his life was considered by some to be France’s greatest living philosopher. Along with the German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer, Ricoeur was one of the main contemporary exponents of philosophical hermeneutics: that is, of a philosophical orientation that places particular emphasis on the nature and role of interpretation. While his early work was strongly influenced by Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology, he became increasingly concerned with problems of interpretation and developed – partly through detailed inquiries into psychoanalysis and structuralism – a distinctive hermeneutical approach. In some of his subsequent writings Ricoeur explored the role of imagination in metaphor, narrative, and social and political life. In his later work, Ricoeur turned his attention to a philosophical anthropology of the capable human being, which was the context for his explorations into the self’s ethical constitution, the role of memory and forgetting in history, and issues of justice and recognition.

Gadamerian and Chinese Philosophical Reflections on the Developments of Chung-ying Cheng’s Post-Dialogue Onto-hermeneutic Philosophy

2021 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 341-356
Author(s):  
Lauren F. Pfister
Keyword(s):  
Gospel Of John ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Hermeneutic Philosophy ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
Truth And Method ◽  
Contemporary Chinese ◽  
Hans Georg Gadamer ◽  
Philosophical Writings ◽  
Chinese Philosophers

Abstract In light of developments in Chung-ying Cheng’s (1935-) onto-hermeneutic philosophy during the years after his dialogue with Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900–2002) took place in Heidelberg in May 2000, I explore several new issues related to Cheng’s understanding of Gadamer’s hermeneutic philosophy. First of all, I argue that Cheng has not addressed the vital concept of the “inner word” in Gadamer’s Truth and Method, and point toward some of its fecund hermeneutic significance, especially with regard to its characterization of Sprache/Language and its dynamics within human understanding. Secondly, I underscore the fact that Cheng (and the majority of other contemporary Chinese philosophers) have not understood the profound impact of Christian philosophical writings in Gadamer’s work, particularly in his claim that Christian ontology offers an alternative to ancient Greek ontologies that are “categorically significant.” Finally, I describe and analyze the development of a new theistic understanding of reality within Cheng’s post-dialogue publications, suggesting ways of critically advancing his claims in the light of Gadamer’s account of the “inner word” and the Christian ontological claims grounded in the logos-theology as presented in the prologue to the Gospel of John.

Ricoeur, Paul (1913–2005)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John B. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Paul Ricoeur ◽  
Philosophical Hermeneutics ◽  
Philosophical Orientation ◽  
Paul Ricœur ◽  
German Philosopher ◽  
Hans Georg Gadamer

Paul Ricoeur is one of the leading French philosophers of the second half of the twentieth century. Along with the German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer, Ricoeur is one of the main contemporary exponents of philosophical hermeneutics: that is, of a philosophical orientation which places particular emphasis on the nature and role of interpretation. While his early work was strongly influenced by Husserl’s phenomenology, he became increasingly concerned with problems of interpretation and developed – partly through detailed inquiries into psychoanalysis and structuralism – a distinctive hermeneutical theory. In his later writings Ricoeur explores the nature of metaphor and narrative, which are viewed as ways of creating new meaning in language.

HISTORICAL TRANSFORMATIONS OF HERMENEUTICS M. HEIDEGGER

2020 ◽  
pp. 31-41
Author(s):  
Vira Dubinina
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
Philosophical Hermeneutics ◽  
Fundamental Ontology ◽  
Main Work ◽  
The World ◽  
Ontological Foundation

Hermeneutics of presence, developed by M. Heidegger, and possible ways of its further transformation are considered. This tendency was embodied and developed in the project of philosophical hermeneutics H.-G. Gadamer, who focuses not on the analytics of presence, but on the language as a horizon of meaning and understanding. A comparative analysis of these theories shows that the understanding of hermeneutics as an ontological interpretation of presence is completed not only in the framework of ontological discourse, but also in the representation of language as an independent agent, which is also the most developed topos of existence. The analytics of presence is the main content of Heidegger’s main work, and at the same time it should become the basis of the fundamental ontology, which grows directly from such hermeneutics and, in a sense, is its substantive mode. Such a theory is an understanding that is carried out not as an act of thinking, but as a way of staying, a special Dasein modus, which is given not so much epistemologically as existentially. Although Gadamer lacks the required hermeneutic analytics of the language, he never departs from his postulate of the linguistic nature of understanding. For him, the soil on which human existence is built as understanding is initially language, while Heidegger comes to language through speech, which is seen as the existential-ontological foundation of language. Language, according to Gadamer, is an a priori condition for any act of understanding, the space for its implementation and, at the same time, the result, expressed in the total “stipulation” of the world by the word.

scholarly journals THE IMPORTANCE OF PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY FOR MEDICINE

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 451-454
Author(s):  
Dimitar Mirchev
Keyword(s):  
William James ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Philosophical Anthropology ◽  
Modern Medicine ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
Human Organism ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Comprehensive Knowledge ◽  
The World ◽  
German Philosopher

Nowadays we have a need not only for means of existence but also means of a better existence. Medicine is one such tool, hence the requirements of it are constantly increasing. Modern medicine, as an integrative science, needs comprehensive knowledge of the human being, based on the philosophical science as well as on the accumulated empirical knowledge in the medical field, because no discipline individually is able to answer the questions of the meaning of human existence. Therefore, for the most precise knowing of human beings, wide knowledge is necessary, consisting of philosophical and medical notions about the processes that take place in the human organism, aided by philosophical anthropology. Anthropology serves as the foundation of all sciences concerning human knowledge, origin and culture - medicine, ontology, history, archeology, ethnology, etc. In order to understand the main aspects of a specific science and, particularly philosophical anthropology and its relation to medicine, it is necessary to clarify the notion of philosophical anthropology. The multifaceted nature of the question of the essence of man and his attitude to the world around him finds expression in the formation of philosophical anthropology as the main direction in philosophy. In the history of human thought, the term "philosophical anthropology" is used with double meaning. On one hand, anthropology comprises ancient and modern philosophical views of man, which, although not developed as a self-study, contain a certain understanding of the nature of man as an individual and person. on the other hand, this concept is entirely determined by the emphasis on man as a subject of philosophical reflection. The different aspects and diversity of human existence require an objective research and an authoritative answer to the question of the meaning of human life and place of human beings. In a certain sense, all fundamental problems of philosophy can be reduced to the question, what is the essence of man and his place in being and the world. Based on the unique human nature, different philosophical schools and directions attempt to respond to the fundamental question of the meaning of life. The affirmation of contemporary philosophical anthropology as an independent science in the 20s of the twentieth century is largely due to the german philosopher Max Scheler (1874-1928) and his fundamental work "The Human Place in the Cosmos". Significant contributions to the development of anthropology have also Kant, Plesner, Gellen, Pascal, Ortega and Gasset, Ludwig Feuerbach, Karl Jaspers, William James, Erich Rothacker, as well as the anthropological ideas and views in the theories of the different directions in medicine, psychology, sociology, biology, ecology etc.

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