Labyrinth: An International Journal for Philosophy, Value Theory and Sociocultural Hermeneutics
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Gibt es so etwas wie weibliche und männliche Werte? Versuch einer alltagssprachlichen Interpretation
No full textIs there something as masculine and feminine values? Attempt of an everyday language approach
The aim of the paper is to answer a question that has often been raised but not thoroughly explored, namely, whether there are masculine and feminine values. In axiology values are mostly considered in a gender-blind way, while in feminist critique, e.g., in difference feminism, there is a valorization of the feminine but a differentiated axiological consideration is not undertaken. By the use of the hermeneutic method of interpretation and linguistic analysis, as well as of an axiological and feminist critical approach, the paper will unfold some ambiguities, and respectively the possible answers of the question, by showing the crucial importance of the value system, which defines the order of discourse and thus legitimizes or puts in question the sociocultural order
On Gadamer\u27s Heteronomy Argument: The "Irruption" of Reality vs. its "Strategic Excision"
Full text linkThe aim of this paper is to find out whether Gadamer is entitled to hold together his finitist commitment to the heteronomy of art and thought, and his advocacy of an "endless conversation with itself" of humankind. We focus on three texts: Gadamer’s dismissal of Carl Schmitt’s outside-in account of the heteronomy implied by the "irruption of reality" in the play Hamlet and, as Archimedean point, Shakespeare’s "excision of reality" according to Stephen Greenblatt, and its inside-out heteronomic consequences. The results: Schmitt’s approach restricts Gadamer’s argument on the "endless dialogue", Gadamer’s rejoinder aggravates his own argumentative fragility, and Greenblatt’s perspectivation discloses a non-sequitur. The inspection of these texts attests that heteronomy per se does not entail any openness to "creative" interpretations, that a universalized logos endiéthetos is a chimera, and that there cannot be any "infinite conversation" which would sustain the Gadamerian interplay of question and answer
Aus-einander-setzung zwischen Hermeneutik und Dekonstruktion und Gadamers Solidaritätsverständnis
Full text linkAus-einander-setzung between Hermeneutics and Deconstruction and Gadamer\u27s Concept of Solidarity
This paper will analyze the debate between Gadamer and Derrida and Gadamer\u27s concept of solidarity. The previous research literature focused only on their first debate, which could only lead to limited results, even though the exchange between these two philosophers continued after the first debate. In addition, Gadamer revised a large part of his speech, which caused the first debate with Derrida, for publication. In this way, the accentuation of concepts and themes that Derrida found problematic in the published version differs considerably from that in Gadamer\u27s real speech. For this reason, this paper will consider Gadamer\u27s original manuscript, which is preserved in Deutsches Literatur Archiv in Marbach. My point is that in Derrida\u27s funeral oration for Gadamer, Uninterrupted Dialogue, can be found some shared points of view between both philosophers, namely their interpretation of Paul Celan\u27s poems. By means of their Celan interpretations, I will demonstrate that it is not good will that unites all human beings, but their existential fate to find death. Here we encounter the problem of solidarity in Gadamer\u27s work, since in his interpretation of Celan he considers death (or mortality) to be the "ultimate solidarity" of human beings, whereas in his other texts he defines solidarity as a kind of friendship. Hence, Gadamer\u27s understanding of solidarity is discussed in the last part of this paper. My argument is that the concept of solidarity and that of belonging are interconnected in Gadamer\u27s texts and that in this point the concept of openness shows its fundamental role
On hermeneutical openness and wilful hermeneutical ignorance
Full text linkIn this paper I argue for the relevance of the philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer for contemporary feminist scholarship on epistemic injustice and oppression. Specifically, I set out to argue for the Gadamerian notion of hermeneutical openness as an important hermeneutic virtue, and a potential remedy for existing epistemic injustices. In doing so I follow feminist philosophers such as Linda Martín Alcoff and Georgia Warnke that have adopted the insights of Gadamer for the purpose of social and feminist philosophy. Further, this paper is positioned in relation to a recent book chapter by Cynthia Nielsen and David Utsler in which they argue for the complementarity, and intersecting themes and concerns of Gadamer\u27s hermeneutics and Miranda Fricker\u27s work on epistemic injustice. However, Nielsen and Utsler solely focus on Fricker\u27s conception of epistemic injustice and the two forms of epistemic injustice, testimonial injustice and hermeneutical injustice, that she identifies. In this paper I expand their analysis by considering other forms of epistemic injustice such as wilful hermeneutical ignorance and contributory injustice. Thus, this paper contributes to the budding literature on the relevance of Gadamer\u27s work for the debates pertaining to epistemic injustice and oppression by expanding such analysis to other forms of epistemic injustice, and by further arguing for the strength of Gadamer\u27s work in terms of offering relevant insights for the reduction and remedy of existing epistemic injustices
The Italian tradition of hermeneutics and the problem of artistic truth
Full text linkThis contribution thematizes the Gadamerian legacy in the context of the Italian philosophical debate, attempting to understand whether this debate can contribute to rethink the vitality of the hermeneutic tradition and the future of its possible developments. When, in 1972, Gianni Vattimo, one of the key figures in contemporary Italian thought, published his seminal translation of Truth and Method, Gadamerian themes began to circulate, in Italy, based on a specific interpretation: The Italian hermeneutic debate received the project of Truth and Method as a kind of philosophical defense of the humanistic tradition. As the inventor of the "weak thought," Vattimo defended the idea that the \u27weakening\u27 of the project of the world\u27s scientific rationalization could enhance other experiences related to truth, namely humanistic, artistic, literary, and religious ones. Just like then, the triumph of scientific rationality and calculative thinking places contemporary hermeneutics in front of a daunting task. One must ask whether hermeneutics, in order to remain faithful to the Gadamerian project, should remain essentially a project of metatheoretical foundations of textual interpretation, endowed with a historically and linguistically informed approach, or it should rather radically rethink its relationship to the problem of \u27method.\u27 To avoid this deflation of the Gadamerian tradition, one possible way forward is to orient hermeneutic research toward a \u27hard\u27 and philosophically grounded idea of objectuality/objectivity, but at the same time not methodologically sterile, that is, not flattened on the methods of the \u27hard sciences\u27
Sustainable Canons: Gadamer\u27s Hermeneutics and Theatre
No full textThis essay investigates Gadamer\u27s hermeneutic theory and its application to theatre. Attention to Gadamer\u27s views of theatre and performative interpretation provides a foundation to theorize a more sustainable canon. Classics that constitute a sustainable canon operate within a tradition through a community of interpretation that continually returns to interpret them anew. This structure also describes the theatrical repertoire. Several of Gadamer\u27s central themes find easy analogues on stage: play, the history of effect (Wirkungsgeschichte), the participation of an audience in the fusion of horizons, and art\u27s making present continuity the past. Gadamer provides a framework for understanding the work of interpretation of a dramatic text as a shared participatory event. In particular, Gadamer\u27s hermeneutic theory can make sense of the how performance history makes discoveries that "sticks" to a script, particularly as when and how it enters and influences the canon. Gadamer\u27s hermeneutics help to interpret how innovative performance choices and stage spectacle are part of a play\u27s meaning; these interpretive interventions in drama\u27s reception history are significant and not simply ornamentation to some "truth of the play" accessed only via the reenactment of the original compositional context. Occasional reparative interpretations of the canon, in turn, help to sustain the community
Geography of Boredom. On Bogomil Raynov\u27s Travelling in Everyday Life
Full text linkThе aim of the paper is to present the problem of boredom in Bogomil Raynov’s fourth book Travelling in Everyday Life (1945). The interpretation of boredom in the novel is seen as based on the idea of a mismatch between expectation and experience. The expectation of the individual turns out to be modeled by the mass commercialization of the 20th century. The "cultural industry" replaces the sublime ideas of the romantic poetics with superfluous clichés, which deny the world its unpredictability, its unexpectedness. It is these kinds of clichés that are subject of irony in Bogomil Raynov\u27s novel – false expectations create a false feeling of boredom. Boredom as a problem has been rarely discussed either by Bulgarian authors, or by Bulgarian literary historians, therefore this paper tries not only to focus scholars’ attention on it, but also to interprete it
Wirkungsgeschichte and Background Metaphorics: A Reading of the Gadamer-Blumenberg Debate about Secularization
Full text linkThe purpose of this paper is twofold: firstly, it aims to analyze the philosophical debate between Gadamer and Blumenberg concerning the notion of secularization, which, in the author\u27s view, has received less attention than it deserves; secondly, it intends thereby to shed light on an ontological ambiguity in Gadamer\u27s hermeneutics, unintentionally detected by Blumenberg in his reply to Gadamer\u27s review of The Legitimacy of the Modern Age. The importance of the paper is both historical-philosophical and theoretical: it spells out different aspects of a philosophical discussion whose relevance concern not only the secularization debate, but more generally the philosophy of history and the role of metaphors in understanding. The most relevant original contribution consists in the usage of Blumenberg\u27s notion of background metaphorics as a tool for interpreting the role of the notion of history of effects in Gadamer\u27s hermeneutics
L\u27injustice épistémique : questions de vérité et méthode
No full textThis article proposes the comparison of two methods of analysis, semiotics, and hermeneutics, to address contemporary issues in ethical and political philosophy, through the study of the phenomenon of epistemic injustice. Conceptualized by Fricker (2007), epistemic injustice is synonymous with the denial of the value of knowledge that an individual possesses because of prejudices about the social group to which he or she belongs or is affiliated. When epistemic injustice is studied in the empirical world, it poses some crucial issues in terms of interpreting the meaning that the individual gives to the experience of injustice that he or she experiences.
Although the interpretation of injustice is central to the understanding of the phenomenon itself, little research in ethical and political philosophy addresses these aspects, because of the failure to sufficiently mobilize analytical methods such as semiotics and hermeneutics. However, these two methods, usually used in other fields to deal with these aspects, allow us to question the treatment and the interpretative scope of the epistemic injustice by the different interlocutors involved in the interaction in which it is reconducted.
The comparison of these two methods in the analysis of epistemic injustice finally allows us to argue in favor of the hermeneutic method, as defined by Gadamer and rethought by Code (2003), to enhance Gadamer\u27s legacy through the analysis of ethical and political issues in human sciences research
Gadamer\u27s Gorgias: The Imperative of Self-Refutation
No full textGadamer 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