Contribution To Hermeneutics Research Articles

Assessing the Relationship Between Human Well-being and Ecosystem Services: A Review of Frameworks

Focusing on the most impoverished populations, we critically review and synthesise key themes from dominant frameworks for assessing the relationship between well-being and ecosystem services in developing countries. This requires a differentiated approach to conceptualising well-being that appropriately reflects the perspectives of the poorest-those most directly dependent on ecosystem services, and their vulnerability to external and policy-driven environmental change. The frameworks analysed draw upon environmental sciences, economics, psychology, sociology, and anthropology, and were selected on the basis of their demonstrated or potential ability to illustrate the relationship between environmental change and human well-being, as well as their prevalence in real world applications. Thus, the synthesis offered here is informed by the various theoretical, methodological, and hermeneutical contributions from each field to the notion of well-being. The review highlights several key dimensions that should be considered by those interested in understanding and assessing the impact of environmental change on the well-being of the world's poorest people: the importance of interdisciplinary consideration of well-being, the need for frameworks that integrate subjective and objective aspects of well-being, and the central importance of context and relational aspects of well-being. The review is of particular interest to those engaged in the post-2015 development agenda.

A Licenciatura em História: lugar hermenêutico para pensar sentidos de uma aula.

Este ensaio trata de algumas questões vinculadas à licenciatura em História, a partir de contribuições da hermenêutica filosófica de H-G Gadamer e W. Dilthey. A partir desta abordagem se reconfigura o lugar da licenciatura no cenário das universidades que, no Brasil, têm privilegiado a pesquisa em detrimento da formação do professor, inclusive desvinculando pesquisa e docência. Logo, as questões que ficam dizem respeito a: Por que fazemos pesquisa em história? A quem ela se dirige? Qual é sua função? O estudo contribui para pensarmos o vínculo indissociável entre ensino e pesquisa, recolocando a licenciatura em História como um lugar hermenêutico para pensar sentidos de uma aula e sua produtividade histórica, como nos ensina H-G Gadamer.

FROM MULTICULTURALITY TO INTERCULTURALITY: CAN INTERCULTURAL BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS BE OF ANY ASSISTANCE?

This paper, as well as other papers presented at the same interdisciplinary colloquium1 form part of the theoretical reflection of a research project with the title “Utilising hermeneutics in the move from multiculturality to interculturality: Intercultural Bible reading as case study.”2 In the present contribution the problem that is investigated is identified, and the possible contribution of biblical hermeneutics is indicated. A preliminary discussion of key concepts such as “culture”, “multiculturality” and “interculturality” is also presented here.

Andries van Aarde – A sideways glance: His theological and hermeneutical contribution to the South African scene

This article pays tribute to Andries van Aarde’s theological and hermeneutical contribution. His research unfolds in three phases: a narrative reading of the text, a social scientific investigation of the context and an ‘ideal construct’ of the historical Jesus. Despite the theoretical nature of these inquiries, Van Aarde indicates convincingly their practical value for the church and society on the whole.

Hermeneutical contributions to the history of science: Gadamer on ‘presentism’

This article examines how Hans G. Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics can contribute to contemporary debates on the concept of ‘presentism’. In the field of the history of science, this term is usually employed in two ways. First, ‘presentism’ refers to the kind of historiography which judges the past to legitimate the present. Second, this concept designates the inevitable influence of the present in the interpretation of the past. In this paper, I argue that both dimensions of the relationship between the present and the past are explored by Hans G. Gadamer in Truth and Method and other texts. In the first place, Gadamer’s critique of historicism calls into question the anti-presentist ideal of studying the past for ‘its own sake’. In the second place, Gadamer’s thesis that all understanding inevitably involves some prejudice poses the question of the inherent “present-centredness” of historical interpretations. By examining Gadamer’s hermeneutics, I seek to provide historians with new arguments and perspectives on the question of ‘presentism’.

Global Bioethics, Collective Identities and the Limits of Rationality

Abstract This paper is in two parts, both of which are concerned to explore the justificatory presuppositions and limits of the idea of a universal framework for bioethical judgments; a global bioethics. The first part takes up the issues of the meaning and justification of global bioethics. After distinguishing the different ways in which global bioethics may be understood, various strategies for justifying the project are described. It is argued that in the absence of an actual global consensus on the content of the framework, a procedure for establishing what that content should be is required. This requirement is explored by outlining the contributions of Hermeneutics and Critical Theory. This part of the paper concludes with the view that one central presupposition of the project of global bioethics is that there is, or could be, a global consensus about the general norms of reason and discourse that disagreements over the ethical content of the framework should observe. Part two of the paper aims to explore one aspect of the rational limit to global bioethics that is revealed by the interplay between it and the claims of collective identity that groups of people make. The paper concludes that because of its ‘existential connotations' identity may be resistant to rational scrutiny, which paradoxically may not be irrational. Those for whom the ‘language of identity' gives way to the ‘language of interests' may well be able to engage in compromise and negotiation towards consensus on ethical principles and values.

Hermenêutica e Psicoterapia

Abstract The aim of this paper is to reflect the contribution of Philosophical Hermeneutics to Psychotherapy. We first start by clarifying the meaning of Philosophical Hermeneutics and by analyzing its object. Second, finding a support in the two most important names of contemporary Hermeneutics, both H.G. Gadamer and Paul Ricœur, we reject the naturalism to which Psychotherapy reduces itself insofar as it does not take into account the close connection between man ‘s world-of-life and its temporal, linguistic and narrative dimension. Indeed, the very center of the contribution of Hermeneutics lies in the constitution of identity through ethical, linguistic and institutional mediation.

Para comprender el sentido práctico de las acciones de salud: contribuciones de la Hermenéutica Filosófica

Health actions have a powerful techno-scientific armory invested in their instrumental success. Conversely, they have a fragile conceptual basis for the understanding and transformation of the practical sense of health-disease-care processes that especifically take place nowadays. This essay intends to identify the potential contributions of philosophical hermeneutics to overcome such fragility. With this purpose and through contemporary hermeneutics, the recovery of the aristotelian distinction between theory, technique and praxis and its repercussions is discussed, for a systematic treatment of the practical reason of health actions. Against this backdrop, the following stands out: the dialogic essence of understanding-interpreting human acts; the fusion of horizons as the movement of realization of those processes of understanding; and happiness projects, existential guide to everyday life, as the impulse and the possibility of openness of the reason to the practical sense of health actions.

Who is the Lifelong Learner? Globalization, Lifelong Learning and Hermeneutics

The aim of this essay is to elaborate on the inner connection between three such diverse entities as lifelong learning, globalization and hermeneutics. After placing lifelong learning in a societal context framed by globalization, my intention is to reflect on the prerequisites for introducing a hermeneutical contribution to the understanding of lifelong learning. First, it is stated that globalization is the most profound horizon today for explaining the current interest we experience in both lifelong learning and hermeneutics. Second, from these links to on globalization, we can also expect to find new links between lifelong learning and hermeneutics. Third, the predominant configuration of lifelong learning according to the logics of globalization and virtues of flexibility is demonstrated, and thereafter criticized mainly from the perspectives of philosophical anthropology. Finally, an alternative configuration of meaning and identity formation in lifelong learning is proposed by utilizing a reformulated theory of interpretation made possible thanks to recent metamorphosis inside the hermeneutical tradition itself.

Ruth: A Continental Commentary (review)

Reviewed by: Ruth: A Continental Commentary Gerald West Ruth: A Continental Commentary, by André LaCocque. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004. 187 pp. $28.00. I have long been a fan of André LaCocque's work, and this commentary is no exception. Originally written in French for the CAT series, this English version (translated by K.C. Hanson, with the assistance of LaCocque) takes its place in the Continental Commentary series. What is immediately striking about LaCocque's commentary on Ruth is its overt advocacy for a particular orientation to and reading of Ruth. Most commentaries are more restrained, allowing the commentary form to constrain the author's preferred interpretation. LaCocque's commentary, then, is more than a survey of the existing state of scholarship, though it does provide a detailed and comprehensive account of current scholarship. What I particularly appreciated is the inclusion by LaCocque of many of the more marginal readings of Ruth, though he did miss some African ones. The particular orientation LaCocque advocates is that Ruth is to be read as subversive literature. He repeats this point again and again in his excellent "Introduction," where he catalogues the many and varied ways in which the book of Ruth is subversive. For example, he argues that "[a] book such as Ruth is subversive by definition: it insists on the role of women in the Israelite community; on the Moabite origin of its central heroine and of her illustrious descendant, David; as well as on a liberal interpretation of the Torah" (p. 26). While the first of these subversions is important to LaCocque's particular reading of Ruth, it is the remaining three subversions that are central. LaCocque argues that Ruth is a hermeneutical contribution to the power struggle of the Second Temple community within which the dominant religio-political position was that of the ethno-orthodox scribes, who legitimated their authority through a conservative and controlling exegesis of the Torah. Ruth enters this polarized and contested social site with a novella which subverts this dominant position by demonstrating a counter-exegesis of the Torah, in which the Torah is characterised by a hesed that redeems rather than a power that controls. [End Page 153] LaCocque's advocacy of a particular reading, however, does not prevent him from engaging with the many other readings the remarkable book of Ruth has evoked. LaCocque locates himself carefully within the existing scholarly literature, both within and beyond biblical scholarship, and dialogues with it in detail. Indeed, I found I appreciated other readings more fully precisely because LaCocque engaged with them so carefully in order to make his own position clear. The "Introduction," though a little disorienting in its reiterative construction, does provide an excellent overview of Ruth scholarship, not in the form of a catalogue of accomplishments, but in the form of an extended engagement with a particular interpretive position. This was refreshing and partially redeemed the commentary form for me. One of the fruits of the death of the author, albeit as LaCocque says a "greatly exaggerated" "death" (p. 14), is that it has given a new generation of biblical scholars the opportunity to actually read the biblical text. The socio-historical questions which gave birth to our discipline were shaped by close and careful readings of the text. But for most of its existence as a modern discipline, socio-historical reconstruction has determined our reading of the text. Postmodern literary critics have, at the very least, returned the text to us, and while some may go no further than close and careful readings of the text, others do move from literary engagement to socio-historical engagement, but this time with their own questions alongside those they have inherited from the discipline. LaCocque's commentary likewise begins with his own attempt to make sense of Ruth as text, a quest which leads him, as it has led others, behind the text to the world that may have produced it, the post-Nehemiah Second Temple setting. Another significant feature of LaCocque's commentary is his sensitivity to contemporary society and the issues it confronts. Throughout the commentary LaCocque is profoundly aware of "the other," both within the book of Ruth and within our world...

The hermeneutics of branding

An increasing body of scholarship, particularly in marketing, has drawn on a wide variety of theoretical traditions to address the implications of brands as social texts. Taken together this research proposes that: brands exist as symbols in popular culture with their meanings contingent on particular cultural contexts; that consumers may resist meanings originally conceived by managers or agencies; that brands embody stories constructed both by the companies that produce them and by their consumers; that brands have histories. In this paper, we engage these topics from the perspective of hermeneutical inquiry. The linguistic, historical tradition in hermeneutics — which continues to play a role in contemporary theory through, for example, reader response and reception theory — offers a rich interpretive tradition and method that contributes to our developing understanding of brands. Following from recent research in marketing, we regard brands to be one of the most text-like artifacts of contemporary business culture and therefore appropriate for a demonstration of the potential contribution of hermeneutics. To this end, we emphasise three hermeneutic concepts: intention, the horizon of expectations and reception. From these categories, we derive the more pragmatic terms of trace, arc and collective interpretation to move towards a hermeneutical theory of branding. This approach allows us to explain the ways in which the meaning of a brand changes over time (giving branding a historical dimension) and how managerial intention intersects interpretations made by multiple constituencies. We contend that a deeper understanding of brands in terms of their past and present meaning increases the opportunities to realise a brand's potential.

South African Explanations of Political Violence 1980-1995

During the 1980's and the early 1990's South Africa experienced disturbing political violence of an unprecedented scope, intensity and nature. It was disturbing because it entailed acts of horrifying brutality, notably the ‘necklace' and the massacre, all of this against the background of ‘civilized' and measured com promise and negotiation. It stubbornly continued despite the unbanning of the liberation political organisations, and the holding of ‘free and fair' elections in April 1994. And it was unprecedented in a whole range of ways, but mainly because of the fact that it was intracommunal, or black- on- black, violence. It was the first time that Black political organisations had turned on each other rather than their white oppressors. For our purposes, what is interesting is the range of responses emanating from South African social scientists in explaining this new phenomenon. Historically, explaining Black political violence in South Africa has had a difficult time of it. Starting with Pierre van den Berghe in 1962, predictions of imminent revolution against the apartheid regime have been so regularly and frequently proved wrong, that a whole industry has arisen in explaining quiescence rather than violence (P. van den Berghe, 1965). The first cluster of theories spawned by the 1976 schools uprising, as Frank Molteno noted in his 1979 review, were analytically disappointing, if not crudely racist. Subsequent overviews by Manganyi & du Toit in 1990, and Beinart in 1992 have born evidence of considerably greater sophistication (Molteno, F (1979).; Manganyi, N & A du Toit, (1990); Beinart, W (1992)). Nevertheless, as I shall show, most have remained within quite conventional theoretical and structuralist parameters. Many have their roots in the earlier dominant Marxism of the 1970's. In this sense they tend towards structural and class determinism, towards absolutist notions of power, and absolutist moral judgement of both apartheid and the individuals associated, however indirectly, with it. In consequence, Black incumbents of apartheid structures were inevitably depicted as willess and powerless puppets dancing to the tune of omnipotent White masters. In this context, it was wrong to talk of black- on- black violence, since one side of this equation, in reality, represented white interests. Much of this analysis also started from quite easy notions of the origins of violence. In this view it was sufficient to show (objective) conflicts of interest, or contra diction, in order to conclude that violence had been adequately explained. Against this background the more hermeneutic contribution by Andre du Toit to the debate stands out as theoretically innovative, nuanced and bold. This is not to say that it is with out problems. But I do wish to present a picture of a social theorist of considerable imagination and subtletly. Looking back over these theories, it would be tempting to say that the first category of structuralist accounts, should be supplemented with the second category of hermeneutic, accounts. But simply adding theoretically discrepant accounts together is too easy. It is only when the whole notion of structure, employed in the first category, is rethought in post-structuralist form, that an integration of the two elements becomes feasible. This paper follows a Giddensian line in pursuing this reconceptualization. S. Afr. J. Philos. Vol.20(1) 2001: 102-123

Steps towards the whole horizon: J. L. Mehta's contributions to hermeneutics and phenomenology

Steps towards the whole horizon: J. L. Mehta's contributions to hermeneutics and phenomenology

Herméneutique et philosophie pratique de l'histoire : la question de l'application

Gerard Raulet, Hermeneutics and the Practical Philosophy of History : the Question of its Application ; Inseparable from the constitution of sense, the moment of application poses the question of the contribution of hermeneutics to a practical philosophy of history. Critical theory has tried to clarify the articulation of knowledge and practical interests, thus making the historical dimension of this application the real vehicle of synthesis and of objectivity. This socialization of hermeneutics implies, however, its materialization. The transcendental affinity resides in the already historical figures of the man-nature dialectic. The importance of this « objective-real » hermeneutics is revealed when the hermeneutics of social interests fails to produce a consistently normative orientation. In this « post-modern » context of the decomposition of sense, the objective-real hermeneutics offers a way out : confronted with a history which becomes once again a « natural history », it continues to see allegories of sense and redirects the practical philosophy of history on a philosophical foundation of symbolic forms.

The hermeneutics of postmodernity: figures and themes

Prologue: Toward a Poststructuralist Phenomenology Part One: Figures One. A Critique of HirschOs Validity Two. Method in Interpretation Three. HusserlOs Hermeneutical Contribution to the Explanation-Understanding Debate Four. Merleau-Ponty and Postmodernity Five. RicoeurOs Philosophy of Metaphor Six. Ricoeur and the Hermeneutics of the Subject Seven. Beyond Seriousness and Frivolity: A Gadamerian Response to Deconstruction Part Two: Themes Eight. Metaphysics as Myth Nine. Dialogue on Metaphoe Ten. The Hermeneutis of (Inter) Subjectivity, or: The Mind-Body Problem Deconstructed Eleven. The Philosophic Centrality of the Imagination: A Postmodern Approach Index

Who is the True Prophet?

Krister Stendahl and the colleagues assembled around him at Harvard Divinity School have contributed to the fact that the history-of-religion approach has taken a sure foothold in NT studies in the United States. In the countries of its origin this approach is in sad decline, even in the homeland of the “History-of-Religion School.” A major part of the heritage of that school has been the refusal further to abuse biblical studies for apologetic reasons lest one make the biblical environment merely a negative foil to the claim of superiority for the experience and message of Jesus and the primitive church. The attack on Christian triumphalism in exegesis and the insistence on the integrity of the historically particular, indeed of the peculiar, has been one of Krister Stendahl's hermeneutical contributions to the exegetical pursuit.

Dialectical and hermeneutical psychology

Dialectical and hermeneutical contributions to psychology are reviewed separately for the countries Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. Then, selected contributions are presented more extensively from the areas of family, socialization, and therapy; behavior therapy; educational psychology; research methods; and general psychology. Particularly in the area of family and socialization, dialectical and hermeneutical approaches have contributed to the application of, and reflection upon, therapy as a research method. The impact of dialectical and hermeneutical thought on Scandinvian psychology is too diverse to talk about any specific school, in either of the two traditions. Some main points of emphasis are, though: the qualitative study of individual cases, particularly through therapy; the focus on the internal unity of individual acts with the historical and material context of the act; the impact of the dominating mode of production upon every sphere of human life; the focus on issues of interpretation, particularly the relation of appearance and essence; and the conception of the object of psychology as a developing individual in a historical world.

Johann Gustav Droysen and the Development of Historical Hermeneutics

The present interest in hermeneutics has drawn some attention to a nineteenth-century German liberal historian who, until recently, has wallowed in an obscurity lighted by little more than his notorious reputation for political opportunism and scholarly expediency: Johann Gustav Droysen (18081884).1 The consistency and integrity of Droysen's political stance will no doubt receive greater recognition as a more balanced assessment of nineteenth-century German liberalism continues to gain ground.2 And while it is true that Droysen's considerable scholarly labors were all imbued with and shaped by an explicit political commitment, nevertheless the hermeneutical underpinnings of those labors certainly deserve the more considered evaluation they are now beginning to enjoy. Indeed, while the earlier tendency to honor Wilhelm Dilthey for the first attempt at a scholarly legitimation and employment of historical hermeneutics is by no means dead,3 it is becoming clear that the honor is more appropriately paid to Droysen. Typical of the growing recognition granted Droysen for his hermeneutical contribution are recent analyses by Hans Georg Gadamer and Thomas