EXISTENTIALISM

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Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002)

• Truth and Method (1960)
• Overview Not all truth is encapsulated in the
  scientific method there is a genuine truth of
  art and cultural products that lies beyond any
  single methodology.

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Who was Hermes?

• A messenger of the gods
• Hermeneuin to interpret
• Hermeneutics the art of interpretation
• Note that Hermes tells lies as well as truths.

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Background to Gadamers Hermeneutics

• Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911)historicism, Edmund
  Husserl (1859-1938)phenomenology, and Martin
  Heidegger (1889-1976)ontology
• Dilthey developed hermeneutics as the method of
  all Geisteswissenschaften
• Philosophy of human life with a focus on
  historically lived experience
• This lived experience is finite so cultural
  understanding can never be absolute
• For Gadamer, Dilthey was not free from the
  influence of the scientific method (pp. 6-7) and
  for this reason we must free ourselves from his
  influence (p. 158)

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Edmund Husserl (1859-1938)

• The Founder of Phenomenology
• Etymological definition phainomenon logos
  the study of that which appears (to
  consciousness as it appears)
• A method of doing philosophy
• a descriptive clarification of the things
  themselves
• not a set of doctrines, There is no the one
  phenomenology (Heidegger)

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Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)

• Gadamer studied with Heidegger (1924-28) who
  directed his habilitation thesis Platos
  Dialectical Ethics
• Fused the traditions of hermeneutics and
  phenomenology in Being and Time (1927)
• Showed understanding to be the fundamental
  ontological existential of Dasein
• The Phenomenology of Dasein is a hermeneutic in
  the primordial significance of the word, where it
  designates the business of interpreting.

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Reading Gadamers Truth and Method

• Introduction
• Central problem of hermeneutics understanding
  understanding
• U is not only a concern of science, but belongs
  to the human experience of the world in general
• U pervades all human relations to the world
• Thus there is an experience of truth (of U) that
  transcends the scientific domain, e.g., truth
  experienced in philosophy and art
• A key sentence p. 340

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Part One The Question of Truth as it Emerges in
the Experience of Art

• 1. Transcending the Aesthetic Dimension
• 1. The significance of the Humanist Tradition for
  the Human Sciences
• (A) The Problem of Method
• Mills Logic and the distinction between the
  natural sciences (Naturwissenschaften) and the
  moral sciences (Geisteswissenschaften)
• The inductive method is the method for both
• It establishes regularities in order to make
  predictions
• It is free from metaphysical assumptions

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• Whats wrong with applying the inductive method
  to the human sciences?
• Quote p. 342
• Human sciences are not inferior to the natural
  sciences
• In German Classicism (Herder) we find the goal of
  the human sciences expressed in the key concept
  of Bildung

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• (B) The Guiding Concepts of Humanism
• (i) Bildung (Self-formation, education, or
  cultivation)
• Herder rising up to humanity through culture
• Central features of Bildung
• That by which and through which one is formed and
  becomes completely ones own
• The return to oneself
• Keeping oneself open to what is other

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3. Retriving the Question of Artistic Truth

• Self-understanding always occurs through
  understanding something other than the self
  (342).
• Our concern is to view the experience of art in
  such a way that it is understood as experience
  (Erfahrung) (343).

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II The Ontology of the Work of Art and Its
Hermeneutic Significance

• 1. Play as the Clue to Ontological Explanation
• (A) The Concept of Play
• Goal beyond subject and object free the concept
  from subjective meaning
• Play is the mode of being of the work of art
  itself
• the work of art has its true being in the fact
  that it becomes an experience that changes the
  person who experiences it (p. 103)

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• Metaphorical use of play suggest a to-and-fro
  movement that is not tied to any goal that would
  bring it to an end (p. 104)
• The mode of being of play is self-presentation.
• Play is serious, repetitive, medial, and
  structured.

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2. Aesthetic and Hermeneutic Consequences

• On literary art
• Literature is the place where art and science
  merge. (345).
• The phenomenology of reading (345)
• Gadamers thesis (p. 115) and its ontological
  consequences
• meaning of work of art lies in the experience
• Interpretation is not a re-creation of the
  creative act
• The idea of a unique, correct interpretation is
  absurd

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(D) Reconstruction and Integration as Hermeneutic
Tasks

• A phenomenology of reading? (p. 156)
• Hermeneutics must absorb aesthetics.
• Understanding must be conceived as part of an
  event in which meaning occurs, the event in which
  the meaning of all statementsthose of art and
  all other kinds of traditionis formed and
  actualized (346).

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Reconstruction and Integration

• Schleiermacher
• Reconstruction of work in U as originally
  constitutedrestoring the original world,
  tradition, and circumstances
• Gs Critique R is important, but given the
  historicity of our being its nonsensical to
  think we can restore the past
• What is reconstructed is not the original.

• Hegel
• Recognizes the futility of Ss aesthetics and
  views the historical approach as an external
  activity
• U involves philosophy, the highest form of
  absolute mind, integrating the historical into
  the self-consciousness of spirit.

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4. Elements of a Theory of Hermeneutic Experience

• 1. The elevation of the Historicity of
  Understanding to the Status of a Hermeneutic
  Principle
• (A) The Hermeneutic Circle and the Problem of
  Prejudices
• (i) Heideggers Disclosure of the Fore-Structure
  of Understanding

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The Question of Being in Heidegger

• Human being is a being whose very being is in
  question.
• The hermeneutical structure of the question
• In order to ask a question we must have some
  initial pre-understanding or Foreconception.
• Every seeking gets guided beforehand by what is
  sought.

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The Hermeneutical Circle

• How can we grasp anything new if we can only
  grasp it in terms of what we already know?
• Not closed or vicious, but involves a certain
  relatedness backward and forward
• In the circle is hidden a positive possibility of
  the most primordial kind of knowing...(p. 269).

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I pity the fool who don't use the hermeneutical
circle!
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The Way of Interpretation

• What does Gadamer say about the interpreter?
• Focus on the things themselves, e.g., works of
  art, such as texts (347)
• Be aware of Fore-projections, not arbitrary
• Be open to new meanings, but not all
• The constant process of new projection
  constitutes the movement of understanding and
  interpretation. (347)
• All that is asked is that we remain open to the
  meaning of the other person or text (p. 271).

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A. The Problem of Prejudices

• What is prejudice?
• A judgment beforea judgment that is rendered
  before all the elements that determine a
  situation have been fully examined (p. 273).
• Thus it can be positive or negative, and is not
  necessarily a false or unfounded judgment.

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(ii) The Discrediting of Prejudice by the
Enlightenment

• How did the Enlightenment view prejudices?
• Two types
• Due to overhastiness
• Due to human authority
• The prejudice against prejudice needs to be
  removedremoving it opens the way to an
  appropriate understanding of the finitude which
  dominates not only our humanity but also our
  historical consciousness (p. 277). This is the
  staring point of historical hermeneutics.
• The romantic critique of the Enlightenment
  itself ends in Enlightenment (p. 277).

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On Reason and Subjectivity

• Reason exists for us only in concrete,
  historical terms (p. 277).
• The focus of subjectivity is a distorting
  mirror. The self-awareness of the individual is
  only a flickering in the closed circuits of
  historical life. That is why the prejudices of
  the individual, far more than judgments,
  constitute the historical reality of his being
  (p. 278).

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B. Prejudices as Conditions of Understanding

• (i) The Rehabilitation of Authority and Tradition
• There are legitimate prejudices.
• Authority is not antithetical to reason.
• It is not blind obedience, but rather an
  acknowledgment of knowledge (thus it includes
  freedom and reason).
• This is the essence of authority claimed by the
  teacher, the superior, the expert.All education
  depends on this (p. 281).
• Prejudices is the way a tradition operates.
  Hermeneutical csness must let itself be addressed
  by tradition.

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Does this make sense?
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What is the hermeneutic significance of temporal
distance?

• To best understand something, one must be
  adequately removed so that there are no
  conflicting interests beside understanding.
• Time is no longer primarily a gulf to be bridged
  because it separates it is actually the
  supportive ground of the course of events in
  which the present is rooted (297).
• Distance allows the observed to be observed in
  more proportion and scope.

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On the Real and True Meaning of a Text

• What is the criterion of correct understanding?
• The harmony of all the details of the whole
• A shared agreement
• The real meaning of the textis always
  co-determined also by the historical situation of
  the interpreter and hence by the totality of the
  objective course of history (296).
• the meaning of a text goes beyond its author
  (always). That is why understanding is not merely
  a reproductive but always a productive activity
  as well (351).
• the true meaning of a text or a work of art is
  never finished it is in fact an infinite
  process (298).

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How to Interpret a Book

• A Caveat Against Method (295, 359)
• Hermeneutical Requirements
• 1a. Focus on the things themselvesthis is the
  first, last, and constant task of the
  interpreter (269).
• 1b. A text must be understood in its own terms
  (292).
• 1c. A text to be interpreted puts a question to
  the interpreter (363).
• 2. Be open, listen, and let yourself be addressed
  by the traditionary text, a Thou (351-53).
• Objectively
• Reflectively
• Openly

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• 3. Avoid arbitrary prejudices, but recognize that
  there are legitimate ones (e.g., the prejudice
  of completeness, 294).
• 4. Understand the whole in terms of the parts and
  the parts in terms of the whole.
• 5. Harmonize all details with the whole this is
  the criterion of correct understanding.
• 6. Work towards a shared meaning by strengthening
  the arguments of a text. (292)
• 7. Be conscious that you are always already
  affected by history. (This is the principle of
  the history of effect.)

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The Principle of History of Effect

• we are always already affected by history. It
  determines in advance both what seems to us worth
  inquiring about and what will appear as an
  object of interpretation (300).
• Consciouness of being affected by history is
  primarily consciousness of the hermeneutical
  situation (301).
• To be historically means that knowledge of
  oneself can never be complete (301).

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On Language

• The guiding idea of the following discussion is
  that the fusion of horizons that takes place in
  understanding is actually the achievement of
  language (370).
• The linguisticality of understanding is the
  concretion of historically effected
  consciousness (391).

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The Universal Aspect of Hermeneutics (469)

• Being that can be understood is language (470).
• For mans relation to the world is absolutely
  and fundamentally verbal in nature, and hence
  intelligible. Thus hermeneutics is, as we have
  seen, a universal aspect of philosophy, and not
  just the methodological basis of the so-called
  human sciences (471).
• What the tool of method does not achieve must be
  achieved by a discipline of questioning and
  inquiring, a discipline that guarantees truth
  (366).