Critical Neurohermeneutics

The article supports the proposal for a critical neurohermeneutics. For this purpose it begins by considering the recently coined term «neurohermeneutics» and the various meanings it contains. The article then explores neurohermeneutics as the hermeneutics of neuroscience, and identifies some of the main limitations of naturalistic neuroethics that arise from the deficit of critical hermeneutics in its approaches. Finally, critical hermeneutics is defended as the necessary foundation of neuroethics.

The Paulo Freire System

This article discusses the origins and structure of what for the lack of a better term I will call the ‘Paulo Freire System’. Focusing on the historical experience of Angicos which catapulted Freire to world fame as an adult educator, a major claim of this article is that Freire’s work was a much more ambitious and revolutionary project than transforming adult education and literacy training becoming another landmark in the history of popular education in the region. The Angicos experience connecting public education with popular culture, the system that Freire and associates imagined in the sixties aimed for a profound and revolutionary transformation of public education in Brazil. With his exile in 1964, popular education becomes a model that could deeply affect public education worldwide. Represented theoretically in the pages of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, a pedagogical classic of the twenty first century, education is for Freire critical hermeneutics, addressing the dilemmas of citizenship building with a postcolonial ethics.

Quraish Shihab’s Quranic Exegesis on Interreligious Harmony and its Relevance to the Contemporary Western Hermeneutics

This paper discusses Quraish Shihab's Quranic Exegesis and its relevance to the hermeneutics framework of Martin Heidegger and Jurgen Habermas to trace Islamic moderation in Indonesia. The issue of interreligious harmony is the main theme of discussion. The type of library research is used in this research, where data is drawn from books, journal articles, and audio-video files. This paper is divided into three parts. The first part presents Quraish Shihab's qur’anic exegesis on inter-religious harmony, which was delivered at Lentera Hati and written in some of his works. The second part of the paper discusses Heidegger's facticital hermeneutics and Habermas's critical hermeneutics. The third part tries to integrate the qur’anic exegesis of Shihab with the hermeneutics concepts of Heidegger and Habermas. This effort of relevance is divided into two points of analysis. The first point juxtaposes Shihab and Heidegger in existentialist philosophical analysis. The second point juxtaposes Shihab and Habermas in intersubjective communication analysis. The paper shows the stringing network of meaning expressed by Quraish Shihab with contemporary western hermeneutics. Therefore, the paper argues that the religious thought of contemporary Indonesian exegete, M. Quraish Shihab, is relevant to the philosophical thoughts of contemporary philosophers, such as Heidegger and Habermas.

From Commodity to Capability Fetishism: Human Development as a Harmonisation of Social and Territorial Cartographies

The development discourse has been thrown into a disarray and paradigmatic quagmire by the impasse of neo-liberal transnational social cartographies. There are calls within the development discourse fraternity to deterritorise the concept of development so as to grapple with it sufficiently and effectively. Failure to adhere to this call, various development discourses have been accused of methodological territorialism. This paper uses critical hermeneutics to argue that the trajectory from Trickle Down and Basic Needs Theory to Human Rights, Capability and Functionings approaches to development is fundamentally a paradigm shift from territorial to social cartographies. This paper further argues that despite the significance of social cartographies occasioned by neo-liberal globalisation, territorial cartographies as envisaged by structuralists, post-structuralists, post-developmentalists, post-colonialists and global ethnographers are still vital because of their thorough critique of the power discourse behind structures that disadvantage individuals. The paper contends that in order to realise engendered development, it is pertinent to ultimately look at the individual who is the basic ingredient of a moral society (ethical individualism) as well as the structures and strictures that disempower and vulnerablelise individual moral agents.

Symbols and narratives of Europe: Three tropes

Throughout history, attempts have been made to identify Europe as a geographical, political, social, and cultural entity. Recent efforts to establish key symbols and narratives of Europe have focused on a set of central signifying elements, even if there is a wide and contradictory range of ways to define, structure, and interpret them. An introductory remark on the current debate on the need for renewed European self-reflection paves the way for some conceptual clarifications of my approach to concepts like culture, meaning, identity and mediation. A methodological reflection accompanies this on how to use semiotic tools in cultural studies based on critical hermeneutics. The concept of culture used here is based on the signifying practice of mediating meaning-making, linking imagination to communication in a triangular dynamic between texts, subjects, and contexts. Examples are given from two research projects on a broad and diverse range of European symbols and narratives, illustrating such interpretive research results. European identifications are crystallized and spun around three dominant tropes: supreme universality, resurrection from division, and communicative mobility. Their intricate tensions and interrelations attest to how deeply Europe remains a highly contested and dynamic meaning cluster.

Proceso de implementación de la Cruzada Nacional contra el Hambre como estrategia comunitaria para abatir la inseguridad alimentaria

Este artículo es resultado de una investigación sobre las contradicciones discursivas del proceso de implementación de la política alimentaria Cruzada Nacional contra el Hambre como estrategia comunitaria; teniendo como objetivo evaluar su proceso de implementación para encontrar los obstáculos que limitan su eficiencia. El diseño de la investigación propone una metodología mixta utilizando la estadística descriptiva y la hermenéutica critica desde un estudio descriptivo, interpretativo y explicativo. Los sujetos de estudios fueron 63 beneficiarios de 27 comedores que operan en la ciudad de Culiacán, Sinaloa, México y 27 mediadoras comunitarias que son operadoras del programa social y que pertenecen a las localidades donde están insertos los comedores. Dentro de los resultados se encuentran la necesidad de políticas alimentarias que respondan al contexto sociocultural donde está siendo implementadas y mecanismos de operación basados en una comunicación interactiva entre los actores sociales. This article is the result of an investigation into the discursive contradictions of the implementation process of the National Crusade against Hunger food policy as a community strategy; aiming to evaluate its implementation process to find the obstacles that limit its efficiency. The research design proposes a mixed methodology using descriptive statistics and critical hermeneutics from a descriptive, interpretive and explanatory study. The study subjects were 63 beneficiaries of 27 canteens that operate in the city of Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico and 27 community mediators who are operators of the social program and who belong to the localities where the canteens are inserted. Among the results are the need for food policies that respond to the sociocultural context where they are being implemented and operation mechanisms based on interactive communication between social actors.

Jaka pedagogika krytyczna jest (nie)możliwa w Polsce i dlaczego? (Esej metakrytyczny z Henrym A. Giroux w tle)

The text undertakes the problematics situated between modernity and tradition regarding the reception of H.A. Giroux’s works in Poland, in a view of furthering the study of pedagogy and educational praxis. First, the author outlines the beginnings of openness towards critical pedagogy. What is underscored here is the 1980s’ main inspiration drawn from the resistance paradigm. Then, the author proceeds to the current state of Giroux’s reception in Poland. He illustrates differences among particular examples and levels of the said reception of Giroux’s pedagogy and of the scholar’s theoretical background. The emphasized disputes pertain especially to transcending metaphysics and relativism as a challenge faced by hermeneutical criticism and critical hermeneutics. Additionally, the “critical” horizon of the main handbook of pedagogy used in Polish universities is discussed. The author point to the wasteful efforts at instigating the breakthrough in the reception of critical pedagogy and he exemplifies them by an instance of misbegotten analysis of the allegedly delayed critical pedagogy of work. As a particularly positive example the author presents a new effort at developing critical hermeneutics (and radical praxis) for pedagogy by Andrzej Wierciński. In the concluding part written “in lieuof conclusions,” four lists of critical problems’ dislocations are provided; the problems are both convergent and related to one another, thereby redefining current research objectives and pertain to practical applications in educational praxis.

Pour une historisation des traductions*: L’herméneutique critique de Jean Bollack

The article attempts to present the challenges of Jean Bollack’s critical hermeneutics. This method of translation recommends that, to be effective, the philological examination which aims to bridge the gap between the work and its translation, must be strengthened by a critical interpretation. Not separating the work of translation from the work of interpretation, the reading of the source text requires its historization. A radical historization aims to know its subsequent representations without ignoring the moment of its creation. In short, the historization of textual meaning becomes the condition of its interpretation. Placed in the double tradition of the author and the translator, critical hermeneutics confronts their horizons of expectation in the search for the meaning of the original. Historically determined, it offers a critical approach to the source text, which takes into consideration its reception at various times and the «conflict of interpretations» caused by its readings.