Hans-Georg Gadamer is widely recognized as the leading exponent of philosophical hermeneutics. The essays in this collection examine Gadamer's biography, the core of hermeneutical theory, and the significance of his work for ethics, aesthetics, the social sciences, and theology. There is full consideration of Gadamer's appropriation of Hegel, Heidegger and the Greeks, as well as his relation to modernity, critical theory and poststructuralism.

Two key themes structure the work of French philosopher of science Gilbert Simondon: the processes of individuation and the nature of technical objects. Moreover, these two themes are also at the heart of contemporary debates within Ethics and Bioethics. Indeed, the question of the individual is a key concern in both Virtue Ethics and Feminist Ethics of Care, while the hyper-technical reality of the present stage of medical technology is a key reason for both the urgency for and the success (...) of the field of Bioethics. And yet, despite its potential for thinking about these issues, Simondon’s philosophy remains largely unknown. Rather than exploring Simondon’s complex ontology for itself, the aim of this paper is to establish what contribution his work can make in Ethics and Bioethics on two essential questions: the relational structure of the self and the nature of the human-technology relation. I argue that Simondon’s re-conceptualization of the individual harmonizes with perspectives in Feminist Bioethics (particularly the Ethics of Care) and points toward what I call an “open” Virtue Ethics that takes relations to be essential. In order to establish this connection, I explore at length the relational approach to Feminist Bioethics offered by Susan Sherwin’s work. I argue that a Simondonian account of technology and of the individual furthers the relational understanding of the self, offers a characterization of Virtue Ethics that is in harmony with the Ethics of Care, and clarifies a notion of responsibility that is implicated in the complex reality of the modern technological milieu. (shrink)

This essay argues that the practice ofmedicine is not a phronetic activity in theoriginal Aristotelian sense of that term. Jonsen andToulmin are two philosophers who have conflated thetechne of medicine with phronesis. Thisconflation ignores Aristotle's crucial distinctionbetween techne and phronesis and his useof the medical analogy. It is argued that medicalreasoning is similar to phronesis but does notexemplify it. Phronesis will not save thelife of medical ethics. The concept could be utilized as amoral prosthetic.

In this paper, an attempt is made to develop an understanding of the essence of illness based on a reading of Martin Heidegger’s pivotal work Being and Time. The hypothesis put forward is that a phenomenology of illness can be carried out through highlighting the concept of otherness in relation to meaningfulness. Otherness is to be understood here as a foreignness that permeates the ill life when the lived body takes on alien qualities. A further specification of this kind of (...) otherness can be found with the concept of unhomelike being-in-the-world. Health, in contrast to this frustrating unhomelikeness, is a homelike being-in-the-world in which the lived body in most cases has a transparent quality as the point of access to the world in understanding activities. The paper then proposes that the temporal structure of illness can be conceptualised as an alienation of past and future, whereby one’s past and future appear alien, compared with what was the case before the onset of illness. The remainder of the paper follows two paths as regards the temporality of illness. The first path explores the temporality of the body in relation to the temporality of the being-in-the-world of the self. One way of understanding the alienating character of illness is that nature, as the temporality of our bodies, ceases to obey our attempts to make sense of phenomena: the time of the body no longer fits into the time of the self. The second path explored in the paper is that of narrativity. When we make sense of the present, in relation to our future and past, we do so in a special manner, namely, by structuring our experiences in the form of stories. Illness breaks in on us as a rift in these stories, necessitating a retelling of the past and a re-envisioning of the future in an effort to address and change their alienated character. These stories, however, never allow us to leave the silent otherness of our bodies behind. They are stories nurtured by the time of nature at the heart of our existence. It is then claimed that the idea of life’s being a story must be understood in a metaphorical sense, and an exploration of how phenomenology addresses the metaphoric quality of its conceptuality is ushered in. It is pointed out that metaphors can be systematically related to each other and that they always have a founding ground in the orientation and basic activities of the lived body. Therefore, if the concepts used in working out a phenomenological theory of health and illness are, to a certain extent, metaphorical, one could, nevertheless, claim that the metaphoric qualities of the phenomenological concepts are primary in referring back to the lived body and the way it inhabits the world. (shrink)

The relevance of the Aristotelian concept ofphronesis – practical wisdom – for medicine and medical ethics has been much debated during the last two decades. This paper attempts to show how Aristotle’s practical philosophy was of central importance toHans-Georg Gadamer and to the development of his philosophical hermeneutics, and how,accordingly, the concept of phronesiswill be central to a Gadamerian hermeneutics of medicine. If medical practice is conceived of as an interpretative meeting between doctor and patient with the aim of restoring (...) the health of the latter, then phronesis is the mark of the good physician, who through interpretation comes to know the best thing todo for this particular patient at this particular time. The potential fruitfulness of this hermeneutical appropriation of phronesis for the field of medical ethics is also discussed. The concept can be (and has been) used in critiques of the conceptualization of bioethics as the application of principle-based theory to clinical situations, since Aristotle’s point is exactly that problems of praxis cannot be approached in this way. It can also point theway for alternative forms of medical ethics, such as virtue ethics or a phenomenological andhermeneutical ethics. The latter alternative would have to address the phenomena of healthand the good life as issues for medical practice. It would also have to map out in detail the terrain of the medical meeting and the acts of interpretation through which phronesis is exercised. (shrink)

This classic and controversial book examines the roots of the idea of virtue, diagnoses the reasons for its absence in modern life, and proposes a path for its recovery.

Fredrik Svenaeus' book is a delight to read. Not only does he exhibit keen understanding of a wide range of topics and figures in both medicine and philosophy, but he manages to bring them together in an innovative manner that convincingly demonstrates how deeply these two significant fields can be and, in the end, must be mutually enlightening. Medicine, Svenaeus suggests, reveals deep but rarely explicit themes whose proper comprehension invites a careful phenomenological and hermeneutical explication. Certain philosophical approaches, on (...) the other hand - specifically, Heidegger's phenomenology and Gadamer's hermeneutics - are shown to have a hitherto unrealized potential for making sense of those themes long buried within Western medicine. Richard M. Zaner, Ann Geddes Stahlman Professor of Medical Ethics, Vanderbilt University. (shrink)

How should we define ‘health’ and ‘disease’? There are three main positions in the literature. Naturalists desire value-free definitions based on scientific theories. Normativists believe that our uses of ‘health’ and ‘disease’ reflect value judgments. Hybrid theorists offer definitions containing both normativist and naturalist elements. This paper discusses the problems with these views and offers an alternative approach to the debate over ‘health’ and ‘disease’. Instead of trying to find the correct definitions of ‘health’ and ‘disease’ we should explicitly talk (...) about the considerations that are central in medical discussions, namely state descriptions and normative claims . This distinction avoids the problems facing the major approaches to defining ‘health’ and ‘disease’, and it more clearly captures what matters in medical discussions. (shrink)

Germund Hesslow has argued that concepts of health and disease serve no important scientific, clinical, or ethical function. However, this conclusion depends upon the particular concept of disease he espouses; namely, on Boorse's functional notion. The fact/value split embodied in the functional notion of disease leads to a sharp split between the science of medicine and bioethics, making the philosophy of medicine irrelevant for both. By placing this disease concept in the broader context of medical history, I shall show that (...) it does capture an essential part of modern medical ideology. However, it is also a self-contradictory notion. By making explicit the value desiderata of medical nosologies, a reconfiguration of the relation between medicine, bioethics, and the philosophy of medicine is initiated. This, in turn, will involve a recovery of the caring dimensions of medicine, and thus a more humane practice. (shrink)

Ontology has been traditionally guided by sophia, a form of knowledge directed toward that which is eternal, permanent, necessary. This tradition finds an important early expression in the philosophical ontology of Aristotle. Yet in the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle's intense concern to do justice to the world of finite contingency leads him to develop a mode of knowledge, phronsis, that implicitly challenges the hegemony of sophia and the economy of values on which it depends. Following in the tradition of the early (...) Heidegger's recognition of the ontological significance of Aristotle's Ethics and of Gadamer's appropriation of phronsis for hermeneutics, this article argues that an ontology guided by phronsis is preferable to one governed by sophia. Specifically, it suggests that by taking sophia as its paradigm, traditional philosophical ontology has historically been determined by a kind of knowledge that is incapable of critically considering the concrete historico-ethico-political conditions of its own deployment. This critique of sophia is accomplished by uncovering the economy of values that led Aristotle to privilege sophia over phronsis. It is intended to open up the possibility of developing an ontology of finite contingency based on phronsis. Such an ontology, because it is guided by and must remain responsible to the concrete individual with which it is engaged, would be ethical at its very core. (shrink)

Germund Hesslow has argued that concepts of health and disease serve no important scientific, clinical, or ethical function. However, this conclusion depends upon the particular concept of disease he espouses; namely, on Boorse's functional notion. The fact/value split embodied in the functional notion of disease leads to a sharp split between the "science" of medicine and bioethics, making the philosophy of medicine irrelevant for both. By placing this disease concept in the broader context of medical history. I shall show self-contradictory (...) notion. By making explicit the value desiderate of medical nosologies, a reconfiguration of the relation between medicine, bioethics, and the philosophy of medicine is initiated. This, in turn, will involve a recovery of the caring dimensions of medicine, and thus a more humane practice. (shrink)

Written in the 1960s, TRUTH AND METHOD is Gadamer's magnum opus. Looking behind the self-consciousness of science, he discusses the tense relationship between truth and methodology. In examining the different experiences of truth, he aims to "present the hermeneutic phenomenon in its fullest extent.

In his recent edition, with translation and commentary, of Aristotle, Eth. Nic. VI, Hans-Georg Gadamer reproposes his interpretation of Aristotle's practical philosophy as a model for his own hermeneutics, confirming in this way his tendency to identify practical philosophy with the intellectual virtue of phronesis. Furthermore, although he recognizes the primacy attributed by Aristotle to the theoretical life, Gadamer tends to undervalue it and to consider phronesis and sophia at the same level. In particular he believes that the theoretical life (...) was for Aristotle an ideal accessible only to the gods. Unlike Heidegger, who refuses Aristotle's position because of the primacy of theoretical life, but appropriates his practical philosophy, Gadamer thinks that today is still possible to follow Aristotle, but only if we reduce that primacy. The article shows how, according to Gadamer, what Aristotle says about theoretical life, if rightly understood, can still be accepted. /// Na sua edição recente, com tradução e comentário ao Livro VI da Ética a Nicómaco de Aristóteles, Hans-Georg Gadamer reaflrma a sua interpretação dafllosofia prática de Aristóteles como modelo para a sua hermenêutica, confirmando deste modo a sua tendência a identificar a filosofia pratica de Aristóteles com a virtude dianoética da phronesis. Além disso, e apesar de reconhecer o primado atribuido por Aristóteles à vida teorética, Gadamer tende a desvalorizá-lo e a considerar a phronesis e a sophia como estando no mesmo piano. Gadamer parece especialmente convencido de que a vida teoretica para Aristóteles constitui um ideal apenas acessivel aos deuses. Ao contrário de Heidegger, que refuta a posição de Aristóteles por causa do primado atribuido à vida teorética, mas se apropria da sua filosqfia prática, Gadamer pensa ser ainda possivel seguir Aristóteles, para o efeito apenas se exigindo uma redimensionação desse primado. Enfim, o artigo demonstra como, segundo Gadamer, aquilo que Aristoteles diz acerca da vida teorética pode, se correctamente entendido, ser aceite ainda hoje. (shrink)

Winner of the 2014 Edward Goodwin Ballard Award for an Outstanding Book in Phenomenology, awarded by the Center for Advance Research in Phenomenology. -/- Merleau-Ponty and the Paradoxes of Expression offers a comprehensive reading of the philosophical work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, a central figure in 20th-century continental philosophy. -/- By establishing that the paradoxical logic of expression is Merleau-Ponty's fundamental philosophical gesture, this book ties together his diverse work on perception, language, aesthetics, politics and history in order to establish the (...) ontological position he was developing at the time of his sudden death in 1961. Donald A. Landes explores the paradoxical logic of expression as it appears in both Merleau-Ponty’s explicit reflections on expression and his non-explicit uses of this logic in his philosophical reflection on other topics, and thus establishes a continuity and a trajectory of his thought that allows for his work to be placed into conversation with contemporary developments in continental philosophy. The book offers the reader a key to understanding Merleau-Ponty's subtle methodology and highlights the urgency and relevance of his research into the ontological significance of expression for today's work in art and cultural theory. (shrink)

In these essays, Gadamer justifies the reasons for a philosophical interest in health and medicine, and a corresponding need for health practitioners to enter into a dialogue with philosophy.

The first book in English on Gadamer's relationship to Heidegger, this study illustrates the philosophical power Gadamer's thinking has achieved by departing from Heidegger's at certain crucial moments.