Gadamer's Hermeneutics Research Articles

Gadamer and the Body Across Dialogical Contexts

Recently, especially in Gadamerian hermeneutics, dialogue has functioned as a philosopher's stone. The theory of dialogue informs phenomenology-"in the exchange of words, the thing meant becomes more and more present";1 philosophy of mind-"thinking is the dialogue of the soul with itself ';2 philosophy of language-"language has its true reality in dialogue";3 philosophical anthropology-(quoting Holderlin) "dialogue is what we are";4 history of philosophy-the "hermeneutical reorientation of dialectic (which had been developed by German Idealism as the speculative method) toward the art of living dialogue... represented a correction of the ideal of method";3 and, naturally, the philosophy of interpretation-"tradition is genuine partner in dialogue, and we belong to it, as does the I with the Thou."6 Dialogue is so philosophically ubiquitous that Gadamer's claim that hermeneutics' "modesty consists in the fact that for it there is no higher principle than this: holding oneself open to the conversation" looks like false modesty. Given the weight put on the power of dialogue, we need to look carefully at its nature to understand how (and if) dialogue can perform all these philosophical functions. Is dialogue a univocal phenomenon? Or are there different kinds of dialogue, perhaps sharing certain features but differing on others. Gadamer himself acknowledges that although "tradition is a genuine partner in dialogue," "a text does not speak to us in the same way as does a Thou."8 We need to understand the variety of forms dialogue can take, and the consequences and limitations of each. This essay is a small start to that larger project. I will concern myself here with "dialogues" with works of art. My conclusion is that although philosophers recently have looked to dialogue as a model for what occurs in the encounter with a work of art (as well as in the encounter with a tradition or a text), because they have failed to appreciate the role the body plays in constituting the encounter, they have failed to sufficiently distinguish the different forms of dialogue. Once one appropriately considers the role of the dialogical body, one realizes there are important differences between dialogues with other people and dialogues with works of art. Throughout this essay I will focus on Gadamer's theory of art and dialogue and, in the final part, I will evaluate whether he has an account of the body that could "flesh out" his account of dialogue. I conclude that he might, but it is not explicit in his writings; still, it may be implicit in his differentiation between what occurs in the presence of static works of arts, and what occurs in the festival-like event of theater. The first part of the essay addresses the applicability of the model of dialogue to the encounter with works of art. There are two main features that facilitate this analogy. First, in dialogue subjectivity is displaced. One enters into dialogue, but one does not control the progression of the dialogue. A genuine dialogue is a genuinely social act-it is irreducible to explanation in terms of one person's activity. Dialogue is a form of play, and in play "the real subject of the game is not the players, but the game itself."9 Gadamer claims that the give and take of dialogue operates on the model of question and answer. We are always interpreting the content of an exchange as a viable answer to a legitimate question. This turn raises new questions requiring new answers. Just as the question and the answer belong together, so do the exchanges of interlocutors. Still, it would seem that such a model would not apply to works of art, for the "interlocutor" in this case is an inert object. But how it is with artwork, and especially with the linguistic work of art? How can one speak here of a dialogical structure of understanding? The author is not present as an answering partner, nor is there an issue to be discussed as to whether it is this way or that. Rather, the text, the artwork, stands in itself. …

Psychosis, language and literature

There have always been debates about possible correlations between creative genius and mental illness, not only among psychiatrists but also among scientists of art and literature. Especially modern literary texts may show formal similarities to psychotic speech, which leads to the question, whether not only artists, but also people in psychotic states are able to create literature. This article points out the loosened semantic stability in psychotic speech, which equals a loss of common ground in the use of signs and symbols. In terms of Gadamer's hermeneutics, texts produced by psychotic people cannot be understood, they are mere form. Even in hermetic literary texts, the semantic code can be offended, but in deliberate artistic intention, which finds its communicative purpose in breaking the symbolic order.

Understanding Gadamer

The Philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer, edited by Lewis Edwin Hahn, the twenty-fourth volume in the “Library of Living Philosophers”—a series founded in 1938 by Paul Arthur Schlipp, the aim of which has been to represent some of the world's greatest living philosphers. In keeping with this tradition, the 600-page Gadamer volume contains an invaluable and lengthy autobiographical sketch by Gadamer himself, long with wide-ranging critical and interpretive essays by twenty-nine scholars. The essays address the foundations of philosophical hermeneutics, the significance of beauty, art, and aesthetics to hermeneutic theory, theSocratic-Platonic sources of Gadamer's outlook, the relationship between Gadamer's hermeneutics and the characteristic perspectives of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, questions concerning Gadamer'sconnection to political affairs in twentieth-century Germany, and the nuances of Martin Heidegger's profound influence on Gadamer's thought. The essays divide evenly into those which take issue with Gadamer and those which interpretively and sympathetically elaborate on Gadamerian themes. Of the twenty-nine authors, twenty-six were teaching at North American colleges and universities at the time of writing.

FROM WEIMAR MOVEMENT CHOIR TO NAZI COMMUNITY DANCE: THE RISE AND FALL OF RUDOLF LABAN'S FESTKULTUR

Rudolf Laban is known as the catalyst of the diverse German Ausdruckstanz (expressive dance) scene which contributed to the cultural vibrancy of the Weimar Republic. With the accession to power of the Nazi regime in 1933, Laban's career initially continued its upward path, culminating in 1934 with responsibility for all German dance as head of the Deutsche Tanzbiihne. However, Laban's status was short-lived. In 1936 his dance production Vom Tauwind und der Neuen Freude (Of the Spring Wind and the JNew Joy) was banned by Josef Goebbels, the Minister for Enlightenment and Propaganda, following his attendance at the dress rehearsal. Factors in Laban's dance history which may throw light on this career continuity and abrupt censure remain only partially explored.' Elucidating this continuity and censure became the central concern in an enquiry initiated through this question: Could an argument be developed that amongst Laban's eclectic philosophical influences an ideological thread could be traced that allowed a continuity between the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich? Published accounts of Laban and the Nazi period suggested possible threads. In particular, two points which appeared on the periphery of Martin Green's discussion of Asconan culture were moved centre-stage in this enquiry. Firstly, Laban's similarities to vdlkisch thought became a lens through which to view both his continuity and censure, and secondly, Laban's 'unpolitical' position could be explored in greater depth.2 Using Gadamer's hermeneutics, an interpretation was created based on contemporaneous writings together with an analysis of Of the Spring Wind and the New Joy. This choice of methodology was selected as many Third Reich source materials are missing, destroyed or simply absent: much was not written down, relying instead on verbal orders and discussions. A hermeneutic approach, allowing an imaginative enquiry of extant materials, provided an alternative

The Origins of a Theory of Career Decision‐making: a case study of hermeneutical research

AbstractThis article analyses a recently completed research project, to answer the question, on what were the findings based? It draws on the hermeneutics of Gadamer to explore the relationship between researcher and research subject in qualitative educational research. It argues that all qualitative research findings are simultaneously subjective and objective, being essentially constructed interpretations of data which are partly, but only partly, external to the researcher. Yet many contemporary educational researchers tend to focus almost exclusively on either the subject matter under investigation or upon the standpoint of the researcher him/herself. A simultaneous combination of both is necessary to understand the nature of research findings.

That's Classic! A Gadamerian Defence of the Classic Text in Sociology

Many in sociology believe the discipline to be ill served by its classic authors, and that there are now good strategic and cognitive reasons to dispense with the canon. To some, in this more heterogeneous, postmodern world, Marx, Weber and Durkheim have outlived their usefulness and inhibit rather than encourage the growth of sociology. Using Gadamer's hermeneutics as a resource this paper challenges such claims, arguing instead that classic texts are an important and valid product of the human sciences. Classic texts illuminate the real nature of the present by showing how much it still shares with the past. To jettison classic texts would not democratise, but impoverish the discipline.

Hermeneutic philosophy. Part I: Implications of its use as methodology in interpretive nursing research.

Increasingly, nurses use the philosophy of hermeneutics, especially Heideggerian and Gadamerian hermeneutics, to inform interpretive research. However, application of the work of these philosophers to interpretive nursing research has proved problematic as it fails to recognise, or act upon, obligations inherent in their work. Through a review of hermeneutically informed nursing research, methodological implications regarding the use of hermeneutic philosophy are examined in relation to: (i) the need to address forestructures and pre-understandings; (ii) checking interpretations with research participants; (iii) seeking objectivity, consensus and accuracy in textual interpretation; (iv) evaluating interpretations; and (v) gaining entry into the hermeneutic circle. This review suggests that despite obligations inherent in Heideggerian and Gadamerian hermeneutic philosophy, nurses fail to actualise these obligations in their research. In following Heidegger, nurses need to make the scientific theme secure by working out their forestructures in terms of the phenomenon under investigation. Those following Gadamer need to accept that interpretation seeks to manifest textual meanings rather than individual ones. And, whether following Heidegger or Gadamer, the way to make manifest textual meanings is to engage with the text within the hermeneutic circle by continuing to address forestructures and pre-understandings and by considering their influences upon the research.

Hermeneutics and the Voice of the Other: Re-reading Gadamer's Philosophical Hermeneutics. By James Risser

Hermeneutics and the Voice of the Other: Re-reading Gadamer's Philosophical Hermeneutics. By James Risser

Hearing voices, talking difference: A dialogic approach to anti-oppressive practice

This article starts from an acknowledgement of the centrality of the idea of 'anti-oppressive' practice (AOP) to social work and of the difficulty in implementing AOP in the context of social work education, training and practice. It is suggested that hermeneutic philosophy may have some contribution to make to social work thinking and practice (cf. Whan, 1986; Henkel, 1995) and that a conception of practice grounded in a theory of dialogic understanding may help practitioners to frame a more adequate response to situations of oppression and inequality. After 'locating' my account by providing a brief outline of the hermeneutic framework from which my own ideas derive (Gadamer, 1979), I move on to look at the potential contribution of a dialogic model of understanding to a developing anti-oppressive practice in social work. In particular, I draw a connection between the dialogic approach associated with Gadamerian hermeneutics and the politics of empowerment articulated by the black feminist writer, Patricia Hill Collins (1991).

Hermeneutics Between Gadamer and Heidegger

How does Gadamer's hermeneutics stand in relation to the work of Heidegger? The answer to this question does not appear to be complicated in the least, since Gadamer himself, in a number of his texts, has been quite explicit about the connection of his own work with that of Heidegger.1 According to these texts, Gadamer sees himself united with Heidegger in a generalized way in taking over Heidegger's ontological determination of understanding found in the analytic of Dasein. From Gadamer's perspective, both he and Heidegger take hermeneutics to be a hermeneutics of existence, or, to be more precise using Heidegger's language from the early 1920's. a hermeneutics of facticity, of factical life caught in the act of interpreting itself. Hermeneutics is a matter of fetching life back to itself-a return to what is there (Da)2-from its own decline. Throughout his writings, Gadamer never abandons this notion of hermeneutics.3 The issue then that seemingly divides Gadamer from Heidegger-and here I follow Gadamer's remarks at the outset of "Text and Interpretation"-would seem to pertain to Heidegger's Kehre where, for Heidegger, the question of Being shifts from an attempt to articulate the meaning of Being that remains tied to the sphere of transcendental reflection to the history of the forgetfulness of Being and with it a confrontation with the language of metaphysics. This shift to the history of the forgetfulness of Being is tantamount to a shift to a thinking of Being itself, which Gadamer explicitly draws back from.4 But let us consider this issue more carefully and not assume that the difference between Gadamer and Heidegger is so evident. In point of fact Gadamer has also said that the focus on the concept of historically effected consciousness (Wirkungsgeschichtliches BewuBstein) gave the appearance that he remained captive to the standpoint of the early Heidegger, but actually his intention was to adhere to the line of questioning of the later Heidegger and to make it available in a new way.5 This first complication in stating what unites and divides Gadamer and Heidegger is easy to explain. Gadamer does indeed follow Heidegger into his later thinking in part because he reads the hermeneutics of facticity in such a way that it is not something that the later Heidegger ever abandoned. According to Gadamer, the way into the turn was, of course, the movement of thinking away from a transcendental mode of questioning, but this by itself does not constitute a break from Heidegger's initial question and the corresponding thematic for the question. The way into the turn can be seen as a subtle shift within the analysis of Dasein. For the later Heidegger Being as a whole "could not be read from Dasein as the place of understanding of Being." But this is not to say that Dasein is no longer exemplary. According to Gadamer: "For the rekindling of the question of Being it was the "there" of human existence, the Da of Da.sein, that was of essential importance, not so much the priority of the Being of Dasein.26 In this reading of Heidegger, the matter of thinking in the turn is simply the thought of the "there" as the scene of an event and not primarily as the site of an activity of Dasein. Along the way, of course, Heidegger had to resist being led astray that would follow from any accommodation to the language of metaphysics. In the context of this resistance Heidegger not only renounced the transcendental self-apprehension of his fundamental ontology, but engaged the work of Holderlin, which among other things aided Heidegger in conceiving a work of art as a genuine coming-topass of truth. Such a happening of truth, always understood in terms of the ontological constitutive function of earth, constitutes the "there" of the work: a self-situating presence, setting itself entirely outside ourselves. But being set outside ourselves does not mean that the human is unrelated to this happening; on the contrary, Gadamer tells us, somewhat in the language of the hermeneutics of facticity, that in this happening of the "there" the order of Being and life is not "washed away" but is given back to the one who stands in relation to Being. …

Nursing research methodology: transcending Cartesianism.

Nurses involved in research are concerned with methodological issues. This paper explores the Cartesian debate that has polarized the discourse on nursing research methodology. It is argued that methodologies exclusively based on objectivism, one pole of the Cartesian debate, or subjectivism, the other, do not provide nurses with adequate research foundations to understand the complexity of the lifeworld of nursing practice. This paper provides nurse researchers with an alternative methodological perspective, Gadamerian hermeneutics, which is in harmony with the clinical world of nursing practice.

The Father of Modern Hermeneutics in a Postmodern Age

A REINTERPRETATION OF SCHLEIERMACHER'S HERMENEUTICS Friedrich Schleirermacher is generally recognized father of modern hermeneutics. This means that hermeneutics a science or, rather, an art, of understanding such originates from Schleiermacher. Before him, there were only specialized hermeneutics: philological, biblical, and legal. However, this also implies that, in this postmodern age, Schleiermacher's hermeneutics has become something passe, something safe to aufheben if not prudent to ignore. For it is widely believed to be a psychological one, which is doubly mistaken from a postmodern point of view: appealing to myth of given and being ahistorical. This essay aims to challenge this position. Its central theme is that Schleiermacher's unique contribution to hermeneutics is neither his psychological nor his grammatical interpretation but his conception of hermeneutics an artful movement between two. Since grammatical side is little contested, I shall focus on psychological side, which, I shall argue, is neither pre-linguistic nor ahistorical has so often been charged. My conclusion is that predominately Gadamerian postmodern hermeneutics goes to extreme in criticizing psychologism, evil twin of Schleiermacher's hermeneutics, while Schleiermacher's hermeneutics itself, properly understood, is a perfect antidote to both evils. Is Schleiermacher's Hermeneutics Psychological? Schleiermacher's hermeneutics consists of grammatical and psychological interpretations. The former understands the discourse and how it has been composed in terms of its language, and latter understands it as a presentation of thought.I Given this well-known fact, we may wonder how people have come to believe that Schleiermacher's hermeneutics is mainly psychological. Heinz Kimmerle tries to provide an answer by presenting Schleiermacher's early manuscripts on hermeneutics. His conclusion is that, while Wilhelm Dilthey and Rudolf Bultmann are largely responsible for propagation of misconception of Schleiermacher's hermeneutics, misconception itself is to be attributed to Schleiermacher's student Friedrich Lucke. Lucke's edition of Schleiermacher's Hermeneutics, upon which Dilthey and Bultmann based their interpretations, includes only Schleiermacher's later manuscripts.2 According to Kimmerle, however, those manuscripts reflect later Schleiermacher's sorry surrender of his early insightful conception of hermeneutics closely oriented to structure of language.3 Thus, Kimmerle sees his mission in including early manuscripts into Schleiermacher's Hermeneutics mainly restorative. It aims to render the substantially convincing and positive thoughts in Schleiermacher's earlier sketches . . . accessible and, if possible, fruitful for current philosophical reflection on phenomenon of understanding.4 He believes that Schleiermacher's early linguistically oriented hermeneutics is compatible with Gadamer's hermeneutics. In his view, had Gadamer regarded this part of Schleiermacher of positive value for Gadamer's own problematic, it could have been of direct benefit, especially in conclusion of his [Gadamer's] book where language is considered [the universal] medium of hermeneutical experience.'5 Such a distinction between early and later Schleiermacher, however, is an exaggeration to say best. For fact is that, from start to finish, Schleiermacher insists on double character of understanding: psychological and grammatical. In his very first draft of 1809-1810, he claims that hermeneutics proceeds from two entirely different points: understanding by reference to language and understanding by reference to one who speaks (68). This view he maintains later in his Second Academy Address of 1829, where he argues that full understanding requires both of these operations, and no interpreter can fully understand if he leans so much to one side that he is completely unable to make use of what other side offers (204). …

The meaning of survival: The early aftermath of a near‐death experience

An estimated 9 million adults in this country may have had a near-death experience (NDE), yet little research has been focused on the early aftermath of this extraordinary phenomenon. The purpose of this interpretive study was to appropriate and make visible how patients who had an NDE during a cardiac or respiratory arrest understood and experienced this early period of survival. Gadamerian hermeneutics (1975/1990) informed and guided the study. This interpretation demonstrates that NDEs and their early aftermath can be the positive, life-enhancing experiences that the common lore and most research tend to depict, yet they can also be unpleasant and distressing experiences fraught with emotional pain and angst.

Interpretation and Understanding in Hermeneutics and Deconstruction

It seems that Derrida objects to Gadamer's hermeneutics on the grounds that it is, as Gadamer puts it, "a discipline that guarantees truth," taking it as something that partakes in the "metaphysics of presence." However, this criticism is based on a misunderstanding of the nature of hermeneutic truth. It would be on target if hermeneutic truth were some kind of universal condition of correspondence. Gadamer has tried to correct this conception of hermeneutic truth in his various attempts at opening a dialogue with deconstructionism. In this article, the author argues that in a possible debate between hermeneutics and deconstructionism, there are good reasons to judge in favor of the former.

Hermenêutica e teoria crítica: iluminismo como política

O presente artigo, analisando a hermenêutica de Gadamer e a teoria crítica de Horkheimer e Marcuse, procura mostrar que, se se concebe a sociedade moderna do ponto de vista do político, é possível elaborar uma teoria da modernidade em que ambas, em vez de se oporem, sejam complementares.

Poetic Dwelling in Gadamer's Hermeneutics

L'A. montre qu'une conception de la poesie comme maison du langage est au fondement de «Verite et methode» de Gadamer, une theorie differente de celle de Heidegger qui ouvre toute une hermeneutique de l'experience artistique. L'A. montre la maniere dont cette conception de Gadamer est liee a sa theorie de la facticite

A disaster for everyone to see: An interpretive analysis of a failed is project

The New Zealand Education Department attempted to implement a centralized payroll system in 1989. The difficulties that the department experienced were broadcast on national radio and television and publicised on the front page of The New Zealand Herald. In the end, the centralized payroll system was scrapped by the government. This paper examines this case study using the critical hermeneutics of Gadamer and Ricoeuer. Critical hermeneutics, as an integrative theoretical framework, combines both framework, combines both interpretive and critical element, and addresses those social and organizational issues, which are key to the successful implementation of information systems. This paper suggests critical hermeneutics as a conceptual foundation for information systems implementation research.

Suppose Theory Is Dead

Joel Weinsheimer SUPPOSE THEORY IS DEAD Let me begin with a simple and no doubt simplistic fiction: Theory is dead. By confessing this to be a fiction at the outset, I mean to make my job easier by obviating any need for documentation or argument . Evidence for the demise of theory could be offered, of course, but anything like proof would depend so much on questions of definition that it would doubdess end up inconclusive.1 In any case I am really not interested in demonstrating here whether the reports of theory's death are much exaggerated or substantially accurate. Rather, I want in what follows simply to make the presumption and to speculate about what the future holds for literary criticism if it turns out to be somehow true that something generally called literary theory has in some undefined sense had its day. Moreover, I want to read the posttheoretical future of literature as if Gadamer held its key. Now this may seem paradoxical in one respect. If literary theory is dead, it hardly seems promising to consult yet another theorist. This objection, however, can be quickly met. Gadamer is not a literary theorist.2 In Truth and Method he had little to say about literature as such; and theory (in the form of methodology, at least) was one of his main targets. Obviating this immediate objection, however , merely raises a larger one. Thirty years after the publication of his great work, Gadamer has still had relatively little impact on literary criticism in the United States.3 The reasons for this are many, but most relevant to thinking about the future of literature is that Gadamer's hermeneutics culminated in no "new and improved" method for interpreting literature or anything else. Not only did Gadamer not tell his readers how they could understand better (better than the author or even better than their predecessors), but the man who wrote "we Philosophy and Literature, © 1992, 16: 251-265 252Philosophy and Literature understand differently, if we understand at all" neglected to mention how we should go about understanding differently. And given the ravening appetite for difference, the rage for innovation typical of theory in the last two decades, Gadamer's silence was unforgivable. On the implications of philosophical hermeneutics Gadamer is perfectly explicit. "These consequences," he says, "do not need to be such that a theory is applied to practice so that the latter is performed differently—i.e., in a way that is technically correct. They could also consist in correcting (and refining) the way in which constandy exercised understanding understands itself" (p. 266).4 It is not that Gadamer has nothing new to offer, then. What he offers is a new understanding of understanding, and what is new about it is that it is a specifically nontheoretical conception of what it means to understand. As Gadamer shows, the practice of understanding neither has been, nor ultimately can be, unpacked in any theory of it. And yet, however untheoretical, understanding is not thereby precluded. Gadamer affirms the ultimate autonomy of practice as such—that is, he affirms that understanding can and does succeed even without the imprimatur of theoretical selfconsciousness . The implications for literature follow from this affirmation : literary study in the wake of theory will come to a new selfunderstanding . It will understand itself, without defensiveness or embarrassment, as practical criticism. The very words summon memories of I. A. Richards and American Formalism, and that past is hardly what I envision for the future of literature—a return to the halcyon days before theory entered the world and all our woe. Rather, if "practical criticism" seems to represent all the pretheoretical naivete we thought we had gotten beyond, I mean to assert that everything that currently goes by the name of theory did not in fact get us beyond anything—certainly not "beyond interpretation ," still less "beyond formalism"—as Culler's and Hartman's titles would seem to promise. Theory did not transport us beyond formalist practical criticism because formalism was in fact not pretheoretical at all, and will seem so only to those who date the dawning of theoretical consciousness from the publication ofSpeech and Phenomena or The...

Meta-diagnosis: towards a hermeneutical perspective in medicine with an emphasis on alcoholism.

This essay argues that making a diagnosis in medicine is essentially a hermeneutic enterprise, one in which interpretation skills play a major part in understanding a disease. The clinical encounter is an event comprised of two 'voices'; one is the voice of science which is grounded in empiricism, the other is that of human experience, which is grounded in story-telling and the interpretation of those stories. Using two 'voices', one from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-III-Revised, which describes 'alcohol abuse' and 'alcohol dependence', and the other, that of Claire, a character in Edward Albee's play, A Delicate Balance, who is conversing with her brother-in-law, Tobias, I apply principles from Hans-Georg Gadamer's hermeneutics to the clinical diagnostic process. The essay will demonstrate that we overlook an enormous amount of information about alcoholism by an over-reliance on 'objective data' and that our hope for understanding alcoholics is in listening to their voices, and sharing the interpretation of their experiences with them.

Freedom, truth and history: an introduction to Hegel's philosophy

The philosopher G.W.F. Hegel (1771-1831) is now recognized to be one of the most important modern thinkers. His influence is to be found in Marx's conception of historical dialectic, Kierkegaard's existentialism, Dewey's pragmatism and Gadamer's hermeneutics and Derrida's deconstruction. Until now, however, it has been difficult for the non-specialist to find a reasonably comprehensive introduction to this important, yet at times almost impenetrable philosopher. With this book Stephen Houlgate offers just such an introduction. His book is written in an accessible style and covers a range of topics: the philosophy of history, logic and phenomenology, political philosophy, aesthetics and the philosophy of religion. In the course of the book the author relates Hegel's ideas to those of many other thinkers, including Luther, Descartes, Kant and Thomas Kuhn. This book should be of interest to students and teachers of continental philosophy and history of philosophy.