The essay “Was ist der Mensch?” appeared for the first time in December 1944 in the German magazine with a hundred years of tradition edited by the publisher J. J. Weber Illustrierte Zeitung Leipzig [Illustrated Magazine Leipzig]. This special cultural edition, entitled Der europäische Mensch [The European Man], which was distributed exclusively abroad, was to be the last volume of the magazine after its final regular issue in September 1994 (No. 5041). Only in 1947, the text was republished, with the (...) same pagination, in a compilation made by J. J. Weber, Vom Wahren, Schönen, Guten. Aus dem Schatz europäischer Kunst und Kultur [On the True, the Beautiful, the Good. From the Treasury of European Art and Culture]. The publisher was expropriated in 1948, and three years later the company was finally removed from the German commercial registry. “Was ist der Mensch?” has never been released in any of Gadamer’s books or separately published in a journal; it also does not appear within the 10 volumes of his Gesammelte Werke [Collected Works]—the only exception is an Italian translation included in a volume devoted to Gadamer’s views on education and the notion of Bildung (cf. Gadamer 2012). The aim of this translation is to make accessible this Gadamer’s quest for the occidental interpretations of human self-consciousness, which has until now been almost unknown and in which, for the first time, Gadamer shows, from a theoretical standpoint, not only his early—although implicit—keen interest in Max Scheler’s anthropology (particularly Scheler’s considerations on the basic historical types of the occidental man’s self-perception in accordance with the basic and underlying concept of human history that still have powerful effectiveness in modern times), but also—at the historical threshold of the imminent ending of World War II—his own concern regarding possible philosophical answers to the question: “What is man?” Cf. especially Scheler 1926 (GW 9, 120–144); 1928 (GW 9, 7–71); 1929 (GW 9, 145–170). All commenting annotations to Gadamer’s text are authored by the editor and translator. (shrink)

El presente artículo está dedicado al trabajo de Hans-Georg Gadamer titulado “Prometeo y Pandora”, publicado originalmente en español en 1949 en el volumen Goethe. 1749 - 28 de agosto – 1949, editado por la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de la Universidad de Cuyo, Argentina. En primer lugar, se ofrece una introducción en la que se presenta el contexto original histórico-intelectual de su edición, traducción y publicación, los antecedentes filosóficos del texto dentro de la obra de Gadamer (...) (conferencias y artículos previos sobre el tema), una presentación breve de las fuentes y de los temas que trata el texto, así como una serie de aclaraciones sobre las correcciones que se realizaron para esta edición crítica. En segundo lugar, se ofrece una nueva edición de “Prometeo y Pandora”. Este ensayo es uno de los dos primeros trabajos de Gadamer que fueron traducidos al castellano y, a su vez, una de las primeras traducciones de las producciones de Gadamer a una lengua extranjera. //--// The following investigation focuses on the article of Hans-Georg Gadamer entitled “Prometheus and Pandora”, originally published in Spanish in 1949, in the book: "Goethe. 1749 – 28th August – 1949", edited by the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the University of Cuyo, Argentina. Firstly, an introduction is offered in which is presented the original historical-intellectual context of its edition, translation and publication, the philosophical background of the text within Gadamer’s work (conferences and previous articles on the subject), a brief description of the sources and topics encompassed in the text, as well as a series of clarifications on the corrections made for the current critical edition. This essay is one of the first two works by Gadamer that were translated into Spanish and, in turn, one of the first translations of Gadamer's productions into a foreign language. (shrink)

English title: Gadamer's interpretation of the Aristotelian Protrepticus. -/- Abstract: The aim of this paper is to present and analyse the main hypotheses of Hans-Georg Gadamer in his 1928 essay Der aristotelische Protreptikos und die entwicklungsgeschichtliche Betrachtung der aristotelischen Ethik, emphasizing the Gadamerian reception of the notions of phrónēsis, hēdonḗ and, to a lesser extent, phýsis. It will be attempted to show that in this early work of Gadamer there is more than a methodological and interpretative (...) debate regarding the Protrepticus and the Aristotelian ethics. Lastly, the paper argues that it is possible to read in the main arguments of this early essay the first intellectual maturation of relevance of Gadamer, expressed in the form of a critical dialogue with his great masters (Paul Natorp, Nicolai Hartmann, Martin Heidegger, Paul Friedländer), departing from the new interpretative possibilities that philology and phenomenology opened to his studies on the ethical-political philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. The theoretical consequences of this early article would have both paved the way of Gadamer’s next theoretical interventions regarding Platonic political philosophy as well as for the future developments of philosophical hermeneutics. /// -/- Resumen: El objetivo de este artículo es presentar y analizar las principales hipótesis de Hans-Georg Gadamer en su ensayo de 1928 Der aristotelische Protreptikos und die entwicklungsgeschichtliche Betrachtung der aristotelischen Ethik, poniendo énfasis en la recuperación gadameriana de las nociones de phrónēsis, hēdonḗ y, en menor medida, phýsis. Se intenta demostrar que en este trabajo temprano de Gadamer hay, en términos metodológicos e interpretativos, más que una discusión con Werner Jaeger con relación al Protréptico y a la ética aristotélica. Finalmente, este artículo sostiene que es posible leer en las principales argumentaciones del ensayo la primera maduración intelectual de relevancia de Gadamer, expresada en forma de diálogo crítico con sus grandes maestros (Paul Natorp, Nicolai Hartmann, Martin Heidegger, Paul Friedländer), a partir de las nuevas posibilidades interpretativas que la filología y fenomenología le abrieron para el estudio de la filosofía ético-política de Platón y Aristóteles. Las consecuencias teóricas de este temprano artículo habrían signado tanto el camino de sus siguientes intervenciones teóricas en tono a la filosofía política platónica como también los futuros desarrollos de la hermenéutica filosófica. (shrink)

After the publication of Wahrheit und Methode in 1960, Hans-Georg Gadamer, a celebrated student of Martin Heidegger, received rapidly a worldwide response for his intellectual genius by fusing different philosophical horizons into a coherent and rational perspective which he calls ‘philosophical hermeneutics.’ In his attempt to construct philosophical hermeneutics, Gadamer criticizes historicism, romantic hermeneutics and modern subjectivism since they disregard ontological structure of historical understanding. By claiming that prejudgment (or fore-understanding) is the basis for a genuine understanding, (...) he contends that we can overcome false prejudgment only by having recourse to the subject matter of the texts and by understanding texts on the model of dialogue which happens between the partners questioning themselves on the basis of a subject (sache). For him, understanding oneself and others happens as an event of dialogue simply because understanding takes place within the world of language. Language gets concretized and temporalized by the give and take of words. In other words, language is not a mere system of signs, but rather is uncoveredness of beings and the way within which human Dasein realizes himself. Since historical tradition which supports every event of understanding discloses itself only within language and language is a matter of sharing and participating, understanding is historical and temporal. Here the words “historicity” and “temporality” do not refer merely to “being in the history and time.” This is to approach the event of understanding from chronological and universal notion of time. Historicity and temporality are basically the distinctiveness of disclosedness of beings. Philosophical thoughts, scientific theses, trends which effect the course of history constitute the historicity of understanding by creating a sort of discontinuity in the continuity of history. Hence historicity is the basis for the formation of fore understanding and prejudgment. Philosophical hermeneutics tries to show how the continuity of history and traditions occurs through discontinuity (historicity) of understanding. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ: Cette dissertation met en relief quelques-unes des incidences majeures de l’herméneutique philosophique de Hans-Georg Gadamer sur la manière dont la théologie contemporaine se définit comme discipline. Après avoir éclairé la philosophie gadamérienne à la lumière de sa filiation avec Wilhelm Dilthey, Edmund Husserl et Martin Heidegger, je propose une étude des principales thèses herméneutiques de Gadamer en prenant comme fil conducteur la question de la nature de la vérité herméneutique. Suit une analyse détaillée des considérations gadamériennes (...) de l’herméneutique théologique proprement dite. Contre une lecture qui insiste sur la discontinuité de l’herméneutique théologique de Gadamer avec sa propre œuvre philosophique, je soutiens la thèse de leur foncière cohérence. Je formule enfin, dans une visée prospective, quelques questions fondamentales à partir desquelles se dégagent des idées directrices pour la compréhension de soi de la théologie. ABSTRACT: This dissertation brings to attention some of the major effects of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics on the way contemporary theology as a discipline defines itself. After having introduced Gadamer’s philosophy in light of its filiation to Wilhelm Dilthey, Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger, I propose a study of his main hermeneutical theses, following the lead of the question of the nature of hermeneutical truth. Then comes a detailed analysis of Gadamer’s reflections on theological hermeneutics proper. Against a reading that emphasizes discontinuity between Gadamer’s theological hermeneutics and his own philosophical work I defend the thesis of their fundamental coherence. In a prospective intention I finally set out key questions that bring out guiding ideas for theology’s self-understanding. (shrink)

In "Truth and Method" Hans Georg Gadamer revealed hermeneutics as one of the foundational epistemological elements of history, in contrast to scientific method, which, with empiricism, constitutes natural sciences’ epistemology. This important step solved a number of long-standing arguments over the ontology of history, which had become increasingly bitter in the twentieth century. But perhaps Gadamer’s most important contribution was that he annulled history’s supposed inferiority to the natural sciences by showing that the knowledge it offers, though (...) different in nature from science, is of equal import. By showing history’s arrant independence from the natural sciences, the former was furnished with a new-found importance, and thrust on an equal footing with the latter—even in a distinctly scientific age such as ours. This essay intends to show that the idea of history’s discrete ontology from science was prefigured almost a century earlier by Benedetto Croce. Croce and Gadamer show compelling points of contact in their philosophies, notwithstanding that they did not confer equal consequence to what may be identified as Gadamer’s principal substantiation of history’s epistemology—hermeneutics. Of course this essay does not aspire to be exhaustive: the thought of both philosophers is far too dense. Nevertheless, the main points of contact shall be outlined, and, though concise, this essay seeks to point out the striking similarities of these two cardinal philosophers of history. (shrink)

Resumen: Este texto introduce la primera traducción al español de los textos Schönheit [Belleza] de Hans-Georg Gadamer (trabajo escrito en los años ’70 y que vio la luz en alemán póstumamente en 2007) y Schönheit und Bürgerlichkeit [Belleza y burguesía] de Odo Marquard, publicado también en 2007 como respuesta demorada al trabajo del filósofo de Marburgo. Gadamer explora el desarrollo histórico del concepto de belleza en los siglos XIX y XX, poniendo énfasis en que la belleza siguió (...) y seguirá siendo no sólo un concepto estético sino un concepto normativo. Por su lado, Marquard contextualiza las ideas de Gadamer en su marco de producción original y realiza un análisis crítico de las mismas a partir de sus propias tempranas contribuciones a una teoría de las “ya no bellas artes”.// Abstract: This text introduces the first Spanish translation of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s Schönheit [Beauty] (work written in the 1970s and posthumously published in German in 2007) and Odo Marquard’s Schönheit und Bürgerlichkeit [Beauty and Bourgeoisie], published also in 2007 as a delayed response to Gadamer’s views. Gadamer explores the historical development of the concept of beauty in the 19th and 20th centuries, emphasizing that beauty continued and will continue to be not only an aesthetic concept but also a normative concept. For his part, Marquard contextualizes Gadamer’s ideas in their original production framework and performs a critical analysis of them based on his own early contributions to a theory of the “no longer beautiful arts”. (shrink)

El 27 de septiembre de 1943, Hans-Georg Gadamer publicó un breve pero significativo ensayo en el periódico conservador Leipziger Neueste Nachrichten und Handels-Zeitung, titulado “Wissenschaft als Beruf. Über den Ruf und Beruf der Wissenschaft in unserer Zeit”. El artículo, que recuperaba en medio de la Segunda Guerra Mundial el problema del valor y posición de la ciencia y la filosofía, nunca fue reimpreso en su obra completa, ni en los diez tomos editados por la editorial Mohr Siebeck ni (...) tampoco por separado en libros o revistas. Debido a su relevancia filosófica, política e histórica, se ofrece aquí, en primer lugar, una introducción crítica al contexto y principales contenidos de este texto, especialmente por medio del análisis de su confrontación con la actualidad a través de referencias explícitas e implícitas a la conferencia Wissenschaft als Beruf de Max Weber de 1917. En segundo lugar, se ofrece aquí su primera traducción del alemán al castellano.// This article introduces the first Spanish translation of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s overlooked 1943 essay Wissenschaft als Beruf. Über den Ruf und Beruf der Wissenschaft in unserer Zeit. Engaging Max Weber’s seminal 1917 lecture Wissenschaft als Beruf, Gadamer criticizes the bureaucratization and instrumentalization of modern science, recovering the question of research’s value amidst World War II’s catastrophes and National Socialism’s totalitarian rule. Never reprinted in Gadamer’s complete works, the text articulates an early critique of technocratic rationalization, affirming science’s need to reclaim its originary mission. By analyzing Gadamer’s confrontation with the present through overt and covert references to Weber, the introduction situates the essay’s historical and intellectual backdrop, develops its core arguments and traces echoes in Gadamer’s later works addressing contemporary challenges. This first Spanish translation unveils a forgotten text where Gadamer confronts modern science’s distortion, calling for the recovery of its existential and cultural meaning. (shrink)

To cope with the intersubjective and communicative deficiencies of Heidegger's Analytics of Existence, Hans-Georg Gadamer developed a theory of language whose nature is at one time phenomenological and ontological. Inspired by Plato's dialectics and Aristotle's ethical and rhetorical works, Gadamer sees human linguistic capabilities as the defining trait of all that is human. Language lives in conversation, dialogically structuring all social and cultural relations. Language is the ambit in which human beings and their historical world take place. (...) In Gadamer's thought, logos replaces being as the ontological support. In such a way, Gadamer's hermeneutical philosophy seeks to fill the void opened by the 20th Century deconstruction of Metaphysics. (shrink)

El presente artículo se centra en el análisis de la lectura de la filosofía política platónica que Hans-Georg Gadamer realiza en su conferencia Plato und die Dichter (1934). Se planteará como hipótesis propia que, en los diálogos platónicos, tanto el filosofar como el poetizar habilitan el acceso a la comprensión del carácter sagrado de la justicia, la dimensión política de la legalidad de la musa poética y la percepción de lo sagrado como necesidad humana que permanece encubierta al (...) modo de lo innecesario. Por otro lado, sobre el final se prestará atención al concepto de phrónēsis en relación a la facultad humana del juicio y como instrumento necesario para la realización práctica del devenir del ser político del hombre en el Estado. (shrink)

Heidegger, Philosophy, and Politics: The Heidelberg Conference Autor: Jacques Derrida, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, Edited by Mireille Calle-Gruber, Translated by Jeff Fort, Foreword by Jean-Luc Nancy, Editorial: Fordham University Press, Fecha de Publicación: 2016, Formato: Hardback $85.00, Páginas: 116, Reviewed by: Facundo Bey (Universidad Nacional de General San Martín / CONICET-Universidad de Buenos Aires).

In this essay, I analyze Romare Bearden’s art, methodology, and thinking about art, as well as his attempt to harmonize his personal aesthetic goals with his sociopolitical concerns. I then turn to Hans-Georg Gadamer’s reflections on art and our experience (Erfahrung) of art. I show how Bearden’s approach to art and the artworks themselves resonate with Gadamer’s critique of aesthetic consciousness and his contention that artworks address us, make claims upon us, and even reveal truth. Lastly, I (...) discuss Gadamer’s emphasis on the spectator’s active yet non-mastering role in the event of art’s address—an event that implicates the spectator and has the potential to transform him or her. This leads to a discussion of Gadamer’s notion of the type of self-(and world) understanding that occurs through aesthetic experience. I close by returning to Bearden in order to discuss how his art unearths a crucial feature of our being-in-the-world. I call this feature “world-unmasking” and show how it expands and enriches Gadamer’s account. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ: Cet article propose une analyse détaillée des considérations de Hans-Georg Gadamer sur l’herméneutique théologique proprement dite. Pensée dans et pour la foi chrétienne, la conception de l’herméneutique théologique qu’il met en avant se veut essentiellement une herméneutique du texte biblique. Les réflexions de Gadamer sur ce thème nous conduisent cependant tout droit dans sa théorie de la littérature. La question directrice devient celle de la nature du texte religieux (entendons : du texte biblique, reçu en son (...) unité canonique) en tant que texte éminent, dont la structure singulière est mise en relief au moyen d’une éclairante comparaison avec les textes poétique, philosophie et juridique. L’Écriture, en tant qu’elle répond à la structure textuelle de la promesse, exige du lecteur une forme particulière d’appropriation qui trouve sa réalisation exemplaire dans la prédication. Toutefois, contre une lecture (Ommen, Eberhard, etc.) qui insiste sur la discontinuité de l’herméneutique théologique de Gadamer avec sa propre oeuvre philosophique, je soutiens la thèse de leur foncière cohérence. ABSTRACT: This paper offers a detailed analysis of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s considerations on theological hermeneutics proper. Thought within and for the Christian faith, the conception of theological hermeneutics he puts forward is mainly understood as a hermeneutics of the biblical text. However, Gadamer’s reflections on this theme bring us straight to his theory of literature. The guiding question becomes that about the nature of the religious text (meaning : the biblical text, received in its canonical unity) as eminent text, which peculiar structure is thrown into relief through an enlightening comparison with the poetical, the philosophical and the legal text. The Scripture, in that it has the textual structure of a promise, requires from the reader a particular form of appropriation, which finds its exemplary fulfillment in preaching. Against a reading that emphasizes discontinuity between Gadamer’s theological hermeneutics and his own philosophical work (Ommen, Eberhard, etc.) I defend the thesis of their fundamental coherence. (shrink)

In the present work is addressed three defining aspects of the question hermeneutics as didactic and condition to generate a shared horizon of meaning. In the first place the dialog between the text, author and reader. Second, the opening of the horizon of meaning through the question and its radical ontological. Third, the role of tradition in the construction of rational discourse and breaking through a language polysemic. Finally, we conclude that the dialog that opens horizon and shared sense is (...) the only capable of building long-term consensus and, specifically, solutions. (shrink)

Este artigo constitui uma reflexão acerca desta central e controversa afirmação contida na terceira parte de Verdade e Método segundo a qual "ser que pode ser compreendido é linguagem". Depois de apresentar uma tríplice leitura dessa mesma afirmação, concretamente na sua dimensão platónica, kantiana, e hegeliana, o artigo procura sobretudo desenvolver uma leitura ontológica da mesma. É assim que, partindo dessa tríplice leitura, o presente trabalho intenta justificar e fundamentar a Ontologia hermenêutica de Gadamer, a qual considera ser, para (...) além de diferente, mais autêntica que a Onto-teologia aristotélica e a Ontologia fundamental heideggeriana. Dessa forma, o artigo intenta fazer, a partir da obra de Hans-Georg Gadamer, uma descrição da Hermenêutica filosófica a partir da afirmação segundo a qual "ser que pode ser compreendido é linguagem". /// Aim of the present article is to reflect upon this central and controversial statement, taken from the third part of Truth and Method, according to which "being that can be unterstood is language". After presenting three possible readings of the above mentioned statement, namely the Platonic, the Kantian, and the Hegelian, the article proceeds to develop an onto logical reading of the same passage. Thus, on the basis of these readings, the article both justifies and grounds the gadamerian hermeneutical ontology, which it considers as being different from and more authentic than both the Aristotelian onto-theology and the Heideggerian fundamental ontology. The paper, finally, describes how the notion of philosophical Hermeneutics, as it is found in the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer, is summarized in the affirmation according to which "being that can be unterstood is language". (shrink)

This study sheds light on Gadamer’s hermeneutical thought by means of an analysis of the fundamental concept “image” (Bild). The central hypothesis of this study consists in regarding Gadamer’s philosophy as a defense of an holistic model for human sciences, which can be regarded in opposition to an atomistic model. Whereas atomism states that social phenomena should be reduced to singular actions, holism claims that there are substantial or ontological differences between individual and social phenomena or facts. Thus, (...) the concept of aesthetic image enables us to understand the way how the meaning of human experience is constituted holistically. The structures of Fürsichsein and reference (Struktur der Verweisung) demonstrate the holistic character of the image. (shrink)

By Focusing on Hans-Georg Gadamer’s magnum opus Truth and Method, this paper aims to show how understanding itself — including the understanding of artworks, texts, tradition, and living speech — can be understood as a kind of game or dialogical play-process which requires crucial ethical conditions to be met if it is going to succeed. Success, in terms of the communication of meaning, requires that the players (or interlocutors) commit to a genuine participation with each other in which (...) they “open” themselves to each other’s “claims to truth,” take each other seriously, listen, respond and question, and stand prepared to risk their old prejudices, learn from each other, and be transformed in the process. (shrink)

L'oeuvre philosophique de Hans-Georg Gadamer offre des concepts éclairants pour penser les rapports de la modernité occidentale avec son héritage religieux. Elle jette notamment une lumière précieuse sur la relative rupture avec la religion qui marque la réalité sociopolitique contemporaine de plusieurs cultures de l'Ouest. Dans la présente contribution, il sera question de la place que peut occuper, dans la perspective de Gadamer, la religion (au sens générique du terme) dans l'ethos occidental. Mon propos consistera dans un (...) premier temps à souligner brièvement la pertinence de l'herméneutique gadamérienne pour la mise en relief de la place que conserve la religion dans la situation herméneutique de l'Occident actuel, en prenant pour concept phare celui de travail de l'histoire (Wirkungsgeschichte). Je chercherai, dans un deuxième temps, à dégager, à partir des écrits plus tardifs de Gadamer, quelques indications sur le rôle que peut jouer la religion dans le devenir solidaire de l'humanité. (shrink)

Gadamer's Truth and Method: A Polyphonic Commentary offers a fresh look at Gadamer's magnum opus, Truth and Method, which was first published in German in 1960, translated into English in 1975, and is widely recognized as a ground-breaking text of philosophical hermeneutics. The volume features essays from fourteen scholars--both established and rising stars--each of which cover a portion of Truth and Method following the order of the text itself. The result is a robust, historically and thematically rich polyphonic (...) reading of the text as a whole, valuable both for scholarship and teaching. (shrink)

In this work, I have compared the views of Hans Georg Gadamer and Emmanuel Levinas on various concepts of culture and understanding of the ‘man’ within the framework of Western civilization with the help of three of their essays. In two lectures of Gadamer—‘Culture and Peace’, delivered at Salzburg in 1980, and ‘Man and His Hand in Modern Civilization’, delivered in Munich in 1978—and several essays by Emmanuel Levinas such as ‘The Philosophical Determination of the Idea of (...) Culture’ (1983). If both authors are critical of the rational based on the technique and calculation of the concept of culture inherited from the Enlightenment, and further, if this concept is embodied in the bourgeois and later in industrial societies, as retraced in the first chapter, the authors differently see the way out of the dehumanizing crisis of the modern era. (shrink)

Hans-Georg Gadamer argues that consciousness not only historically constrains experience but also allows strangeness to intelligibly speak to it. This historically effected and effective consciousness features in Gadamer’s idea that a common language is unearthed for the interpretive horizons of those involved in dialogue with each other through a logic of question and answer. I argue, however, that this reveals a conceptual uncertainty about evaluating progress in interpretive understanding. Gadamer’s failure to escape from this uncertainty risks (...) the possibility of a problematic relativism. Effectively, even if sufficient interpretation occurs when horizons are infinitely structured, this does not preclude incoherence between a horizon’s elements. (shrink)

The essay reflects on how Hans-Georg Gadamer and Karl Barth view interpretation of the Christian Bible. It proceeds in three main sections. The first contends that Gadamer secularizes Christian theology, and that this has drawbacks for the sort of reading his hermeneutic can give to Christian Scripture. The second part turns to Barth, arguing that the whole structure of his approach to the Bible factors in theological commitment, with benefits for the readings he can deliver. The final (...) part makes a case that contemporary reflection on interpretation can nonetheless glean important insights from Gadamer, especially regarding the readerly reception of texts, because his perspective has a certain sort of richness that Barth’s cannot match. The overall suggestion emerging from the interrogation of these two thinkers is that phenomenology and theology might learn from one another, that they each contribute something valuable to discussions of biblical interpretation. (shrink)

Martin Heidegger’s critique of modernity, and his vision of what may come after it, constitutes a sustained argument across the arc of his career. Does Hans-Georg Gadamer follow Heidegger’s path of making possible “another beginning” after the modern age? In this article, I show that, in contrast to Heidegger, Gadamer cultivates modernity’s hidden resources. We can gain insight into Gadamer’s difference from Heidegger on this fundamental point with reference to his ambivalence toward and departure from two (...) of Heidegger’s touchstones for postmodernity, namely, Friedrich Nietzsche and Friedrich Hölderlin. We can appreciate and motivate Gadamer’s proposal to rehabilitate modernity by juxtaposing his rootedness in Wilhelm Dilthey and Rainer Maria Rilke with Heidegger’s corresponding interest in Nietzsche and Hölderlin. This difference in influences and conceptual starting points demonstrates Heidegger and Gadamer’s competing approaches to the modern age, a contrast that I concretize through a close reading of Gadamer’s choice of a poem by Rilke as the epigraph to Truth and Method. (shrink)

As rational animals, human beings not only have the ability to think but also the capacity to understand. Human rationality, so to speak, 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 is understanding? 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. (shrink)

This chapter presents a conception of understanding where understanding emerges out of the joint experience of conversation. On this conception, understanding requires more than the pre-reflective acquisition of shared social meanings – a conception of understanding historically highlighted by existential phenomenologists. Beyond this, it requires what occurs in genuine conversation, namely, that one put one’s pre-reflective social meanings at risk in the process of critical self-reflection. Drawing from the hermeneutic phenomenology of Hans-Georg Gadamer, I argue that conversation is (...) that joint experience that gives rise to such critical self-reflection and that it is conversation’s play-structure in particular that makes it a source of understanding in this sense. (shrink)

Martin Heidegger’s preparation of the question of human existence was the focus of his seminal work Being and Time, first published in 1927. This paper refers to Heidegger’s phenomenological work through Heidegger’s colleague and friend Hans-Georg Gadamer to focus on how Heidegger prepares the question of Being and the problem of language in his later work. In his conversation with the Japanese scholar professor Tezuka, the meaning of language in the west appears to restrict an understanding of Being (...) by conceptualising it ad infinitum. To the Japanese the simple term “what is” appears to be closer to Being because it does not attempt to conceptualise it. Therefore, Heidegger, Gadamer and Tezuka’s discussion about ontology concludes that language does get in the way of understanding Being. (shrink)

This article aims to readdress Hans-Georg Gadamer's first encounter with Plato's philosophy through his earlier academic journey, the direct and indirect influence exerted by his celebrated mentors at the University of Marburg, and his early publications. For this, I will resort not only to his intellectual biography, but also to neglected texts of Gadamer, such as his 1922 doctoral thesis, reviews and articles published between 1924 and 1928, correspondence, both edited and unpublished, philosophical interviews, as well as (...) archive footage. I will seek to determine the role of his early mentors around Plato’s interpretation through the analysis of the evolution of Gadamer's theoretical positions in order to elucidate his critical reassessments. In the conclusions, I will make an attempt to deepen on Gadamer's process of reception, rupture and emancipation around the then-dominant interpretations of Marburg neo-Kantianism, especially on the link between the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, as well as the transformative character of Gadamer’s approach to the phenomenology of Scheler and Heidegger, and his incursion into classical philology. (shrink)

Can we gain knowledge by reading literature? This essay defends an account of reading, developed by Stanley Cavell and Hans-Georg Gadamer, that phenomenologically describes the experience of acquiring self-knowledge by reading literary texts. Two possible criticisms of this account will be considered: first, that reading can provide other kinds of knowledge than self-knowledge; and, second, that the theory involves illegitimately imposing subjective meaning onto a text. It will be argued, in response, that the self-knowledge gained in reading allows (...) one to gain other sorts of knowledge too, and that the reading process described by Gadamer and Cavell avoids excessive subjectivism. (shrink)

In his book Mind and World, John McDowell intends to overcome the oscillation between two approaches that seek to mediate the relationship between the minds and the world, on the one hand we have the myth of the giving saying that thoughts need coercion from the outside world, and on the other side we have the coherentism that presents the idea that only one belief can justify another belief. To defend its approach and naturalize conceptual capabilities, situating spontaneity in nature (...) without reducing it within the realm of law. Human nature would then be a second nature which is not only formed from the abilities acquired at birth but which are also formed from the Bildung. In taking these notions, McDowell brings the discussion of Han-Georg Gadamer's ideas about the experience of openness to the world through language. In this way, the intention of the present article is to discuss about the implications of the notions of Bildung and second nature in the work of McDowell seeking a greater clarification from the influence and the interpretations of Gadamer. (shrink)

Debates in feminist political philosophy often focus on what problematic(s) to use in order to understand normative ideals, gendered differences, and their histories. For the purposes of this chapter, I will contrast two important problematics in these debates, the procedural/deliberative politics in the tradition of Critical Theory, represented here by Seyla Benhabib, and the poststructuralist or postmodern politics, represented here by Judith Butler. The goal of the contrast will be to set up the contribution that Gadamer’s work can make (...) to contemporary feminist philosophy. (shrink)

_Wittgenstein_ presents a concise, comprehensive, and systematic treatment of Ludwig Wittgenstein's thought from his early work, _Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus,_ to the posthumous publication of _On Certainty_, notes written just prior to his death. A substantial scholarly addition to our understanding of one of the most original and influential thinkers of the twentieth century, by renowned Wittgenstein scholar, Hans Sluga Proposes an original new interpretation of Wittgenstein's work Written to also be accessible to readers unfamiliar with Wittgenstein's thought Includes discussion of (...) the social and political background and contemporary relevance of Wittgenstein's thoughts. (shrink)

Loneliness in medicine is a serious problem not just for patients, for whom illness is intrinsically isolating, but also for physicians in the contemporary condition of medicine. We explore this problem by investigating the ideal physician-patient relationship, whose analogy with friendship has held enduring normative appeal. Drawing from Talbot Brewer and Nir Ben-Moshe, we argue that this appeal lies in a dynamic form of companionship incompatible with static models of friendship-like physician-patient relationships: a mutual refinement of embodied virtue that draws (...) both persons together. The ideal physician-patient relationship has a dialectical character that fosters each member's improvement of phenomenologically recognizing and embodying moral virtues. A key component of this dynamic is a commitment to the common goal of the patient's health, realized through joint interactivities and conversations over time. The physician's presence to the patient's suffering—understood best as an alienating phenomenological condition for the patient—orients and discloses possibilities for virtuous caregiving by structuring the meanings of the goals, conversations, and joint narrative constitutive of their relationship. Presence to suffering, paradoxically, is perhaps an important prerequisite for this dynamic partnership. These activities dialectically build an interpretive horizon of understanding through which moral goods and character refinement—in and for the other—may become revealed for both persons in their shared being-in-the-world. This analysis of suffering, mood, and revealing of (possible) moral goods has implications for addressing the modern problem of loneliness for patients and physicians, who are increasingly inhibited from building flourishing relationships with each other. (shrink)

Debates in feminist political philosophy often focus on what problematic(s) to use in order to understand normative ideals, gendered differences, and their histories. For the purposes of this chapter, I will contrast two important problematics in these debates, the procedural/deliberative politics in the tradition of Critical Theory, represented here by Seyla Benhabib, and the poststructuralist or postmodern politics, represented here by Judith Butler. The goal of the contrast will be to set up the contribution that Gadamer’s work can make (...) to contemporary feminist philosophy. (shrink)

First published in 1949 expressly to introduce logical positivism to English speakers. Reichenbach, with Rudolph Carnap, founded logical positivism, a form of epistemofogy that privileged scientific over metaphysical truths.

The project of grounding necessity in essence often goes together with the model of essence that assimilates the constitutive essence of an object to the definition of it. The paper argues that if the grounding project is to succeed, the definitional model must be questioned. Like any object whatever, a concrete individual is necessarily identical to that individual. It is argued that this necessity can have an essential ground only if the primitive identity property of it or its thisness is (...) essential to it, and the thisness is in its constitutive essence while not in the definition of it. A concrete individual is in essence partly definable but not fully explainable, for the definition of it forms a crucial part of its constitutive essence, but the constitutive essence includes something fundamental beyond definition or explanation. The definitional model must give way to a model of essence that accommodates this. (shrink)

When we participate in political debate or protests, we are judged by how we look, which clothes we wear, by our skin colour, gender and body language. This results in exclusions and limits our freedom of expression. The Politics of Becoming explores radical democratic acts of disidentification to counter this problem. Anonymity in masked protest, graffiti, and online de-bate interrupts our everyday identities. This allows us to live our multiple selves. In the digital age, anonymity becomes an inherent part of (...) everyday communication. Through our smart devices we express our selves differently. As cyborgs, our identities are disrupted and reassembled. We curate self-representations on social media, create avatars, share selfies and choose the skin colour of our emojis. The Politics of Becoming encourages us to engage in a revolution of the self. Democratic pluralism is not only a matter of institutional design but also about how we express our identities. Inner revolutions change our personal realities and plant a seed for democratic futures. (shrink)

The present study aimed to develop effective moral educational interventions based on social psychology by using stories of moral exemplars. We tested whether motivation to engage in voluntary service as a form of moral behavior was better promoted by attainable and relevant exemplars or by unattainable and irrelevant exemplars. First, experiment 1, conducted in a lab, showed that stories of attainable exemplars more effectively promoted voluntary service activity engagement among undergraduate students compared with stories of unattainable exemplars and non-moral stories. (...) Second, experiment 2, a middle school classroom-level experiment with a quasi-experimental design, demonstrated that peer exemplars, who are perceived to be attainable and relevant to students, better promoted service engagement compared with historic figures in moral education classes. (shrink)

The work of Thomas White represents a systematic attempt to combine the best of the new science of the seventeenth century with the best of Aristotelian tradition. This attempt earned him the criticism of Hobbes and the praise of Leibniz, but today, most of his attempts to navigate between traditions remain to be explored in detail. This paper does so for his ontology of accidents. It argues that his criticism of accidents in the category of location as entities over and (...) above substances was likely aimed at Francisco Suárez, and shows how White’s worries about the analysis of location were linked with his broader cosmological views. White rejects real qualities, but holds that the quantity of a substance is somehow distinct from its bearer. This reveals a common ground with some of his scholastic interlocutors, but lays bare a deep disagreement with thinkers like Descartes on the nature of matter. (shrink)

Radical democratic thinking is becoming intrigued by the material situatedness of its political agents and by the role of nonhuman participants in political interaction. At stake here is the displacement of narrow anthropocentrism that currently guides democratic theory and practice, and its repositioning into what we call ‘the nonhuman condition’. This Critical Exchange explores the nonhuman condition. It asks: What are the implications of decentering the human subject via a new materialist reading of radical democracy? Does this reading dilute political (...) agency? Or should this be seen, on the contrary, as an invitation for new voices and demands to enter into democratic assemblages? How might engagement with the more-than-human disrupt or extend theories of radical democracy? Hans Asenbaum and Amanda Machin discuss the human democratic subject both through radical democratic and new materialist lenses. They suggest that a new materialist decentred subject does not lose agency but further gains political responsibility in radical democracy. Jean-Paul Gagnon highlights the possibility of becoming through loss. In losing our anthropocentric arrogance—our understanding of being other and better than animal—we become more connected and discover our place in human-nonhuman assemblages. Melissa Orlie agrees that something can be gained through renouncing dominant human fantasies and presents a ‘radical democratic naturalism’. By renouncing land violence and acknowledging nature’s subjectivity, we can further nonexploitative radical democratic politics. This is where the notion of ‘tidalectic’ processes introduced by James L. Smith is helpful. Focusing on water and the Indigenous knowledges around rivers, he considers how democracy and community can be reimagined as plural, cyclical and attentive to the nonhuman with which the human is inevitably entangled. Diana Leong offers a different approach. Considering the nonhuman from the perspective of Black Studies demands an awareness to how blackness has long been constituted as non- or partially human. (shrink)

This paper looks at the critical reception of two central claims of Peter Auriol’s theory of cognition: the claim that the objects of cognition have an apparent or objective being that resists reduction to the real being of objects, and the claim that there may be natural intuitive cognitions of nonexistent objects. These claims earned Auriol the criticism of his fellow Franciscans, Walter Chatton and Adam Wodeham. According to them, the theory of apparent being was what had led Auriol to (...) allow for intuitive cognitions of nonexistents, but the intuitive cognition of nonexistents, at its turn, led to scepticism. Modern commentators have offered similar readings of Auriol, but this paper argues, first, that the apparent being provides no special reason to think there could be intuitions of nonexistent objects, and second, that despite his idiosyncratic account of intuition, Auriol was no more vulnerable to scepticism than his critics. (shrink)

The present study aims to examine the relationship between the cortical midline structures (CMS), which have been regarded to be associated with selfhood, and moral decision making processes at the neural level. Traditional moral psychological studies have suggested the role of moral self as the moderator of moral cognition, so activity of moral self would present at the neural level. The present study examined the interaction between the CMS and other moral-related regions by conducting psycho-physiological interaction analysis of functional images (...) acquired while 16 subjects were solving moral dilemmas. Furthermore, we performed Granger causality analysis to demonstrate the direction of influences between activities in the regions in moral decision-making. We first demonstrate there are significant positive interactions between two central CMS seed regions—i.e., the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC)—and brain regions associated with moral functioning including the cerebellum, brainstem, midbrain, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex and anterior insula (AI); on the other hand, the posterior insula (PI) showed significant negative interaction with the seed regions. Second, several significant Granger causality was found from CMS to insula regions particularly under the moral-personal condition. Furthermore, significant dominant influence from the AI to PI was reported. Moral psychological implications of these findings are discussed. The present study demonstrated the significant interaction and influence between the CMS and morality-related regions while subject were solving moral dilemmas. Given that, activity in the CMS is significantly involved in human moral functioning. (shrink)

Current radical democratic politics is characterized by new participatory spaces for citizens’ engagement, which aim at facilitating the democratic ideals of freedom and equality. These spaces are, however, situated in the context of deep societal inequalities. Modes of discrimination are carried over into participatory interaction. The democratic subject is judged by its physically embodied appearance, which replicates external hierarchies and impedes the freedom of self-expression. To tackle this problem, this article seeks to identify ways to increase the freedom of the (...) subject to explore its multiple self. Understanding the self as inherently fugitive, the article investigates participatory, deliberative and agonistic concepts of self-transformation. As all of them appear limited, it introduces a transformative perspective in democratic thought. Enriching the transformative perspective with queer and gender theory, the article generates the concept of a politics of becoming, which, through radical democratic practices of disidentification, advances the freedom of the subject to change. (shrink)

Resting state networks comprise several brain regions that exhibit complex patterns of interaction. Switching from eyes closed (EC) to eyes open (EO) during the resting state modifies these patterns of connectivity, but precisely how these change remains unclear. Here we use functional magnetic resonance imaging to scan healthy participants in two resting conditions (viz., EC and EO). Seven resting state networks were chosen for this study: salience network (SN), default mode network (DMN), central executive network (CEN), dorsal attention network (DAN), (...) visual network (VN), motor network (MN) and auditory network (AN). We performed functional connectivity (FC) analysis for each network, comparing the FC maps for both EC and EO. Our results show increased connectivity between most networks during EC relative to EO, thereby suggesting enhanced integration during EC and greater modularity or specialization during EO. Among these networks, SN is distinctive: during the transition from EO to EC it evinces increased connectivity with DMN and decreased connectivity with VN. This change might imply that SN functions in a manner analogous to a circuit switch, modulating resting state relations with DMN and VN, when transitioning between EO and EC. (shrink)

Introduction to a collection of essays that celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Quine's paper "Two Dogmas of Empiricism". Contributor: Herbert Schnädelbach, Paul A. Boghossian, Kathrin Glüer, Verena Mayer, Christian Nimtz, Åsa Maria Wikforss, Hans-Johann Glock, Peter Pagin, Tyler Burge, Geert Keil und Donald Davidson.

The Handbook of Metaphysics and Ontology reflects the conviction that the history of metaphysics and current work in metaphysics and ontology can each throw valuable light on the other. Thus it is designed to serve both äs a means of making more widely accessible the results of recent scholarship in the history of philosophy, and also äs a unique work of reference in reladon to the metaphysical themes at the centre of much current debate in analyüc philosophy. The work contains (...) more man 450 shorter articies on specific themes and methods in metaphysics and ontology, together with biographical essays summarizing the thinking of the most important philosophers within the traditions dealt with. In addition, it contains about 20 longer survey arücles mapping out both historically and systemadcally the main areas of metaphysics and ontology. AU contributions have been speciaüy commissioned for this project from leading authorities in their respective fields. A special feature of the work is the pardcular attention that is paid to topics and issues of relevance to contemporary philosophical debates. The work includes also a series of arücles on the logical and mathematical tools of metaphysics and on the applications of metaphysical ideas within linguisdcs, psychology, cognitive science, and mathemadcs. (shrink)