Hermeneutics Of History Research Articles

The Lacuna of Hermeneutics: Notes on the Freedom of Thought

Abstract In this article I argue not only for the value of hermeneutics today but also, and especially, how the crucial gesture of hermeneutics is that of changing the subject for the sake of our today. Surveying briefly the main lines of hermeneutical positions along its history and critiques, and connecting these critiques to the discrepancy between theory and practice, between interpretation and the need to change the world, the article proposes that our reality today, reshaped through globalization and the virtual, is performed as a hermeneutics of history. The challenge for today’s hermeneutics is to work out categories for understanding the present as on-going in a world that tends to capture and distort more and more the meaning of freedom of thought. In the final section, I propose a hermeneutics of the on-going, of gerundive time, partially under the inspiration of Paul Celan, as a response that develops the meaning of the freedom of thought. A defense of nearness and how to think in narrow nearness to the on-going is discussed.

“L’énigme du passé”. Vers les fondements du rapport entre l’histoire et la psychanalyse

Cet article se propose d’aborder, en deux temps, les fondements de la relation entre l’histoire et la psychanalyse, en tant que “pratiques disciplinaires” qui ont affaire au passé. Dans un premier moment, je regarde de près les différents rapports noués entre l’histoire et la psychanalyse, de même que les usages qu’on a faits de la psychanalyse dans les démarches historiennes, afin de situer le contexte et la problématique. Dans un second temps, je tâche de montrer que, dans La mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli, Ricœur avance une thèse importante sur les fondements du rapport entre la psychanalyse et l’herméneutique de l’histoire. A l’aide d’une phénoménologie de la mémoire blessée, il identifie une structure fondamentale de l’existence collective qui sert de base à ce rapport. En dernier lieu, je cherche à déterminer la portée de cette structure qui prend la forme d’un traumatisme originaire de l’existence collective, en traçant une analogie avec le concept psychanalytique d’après-coup.

Traduire le passé : enjeux et défis d’une opération historiographique

Cet article se propose de réfléchir sur les rapports possibles entre l’herméneutique de l’histoire et la théorie de la traduction, tels qu’ils sont développés, esquissés, voire suggérés par Paul Ricœur, en prenant comme point de départ la question de la traduction du passé. Il s’agirait de vérifier de cette manière si ce syntagme de « traduction du passé » – que l’on trouve dans son article de 1998 intitulé “La marque du passé” – peut constituer l’intitulé d’un programme cohérent de l’herméneutique ricœurienne de l’histoire ou s’il reste au niveau des métaphores qui invitent à un vague conceptuel facile.

Hegel's Hermeneutics of History

“To him who looks at the world rationally, the world looks rational in return. The relation is mutual.” This emblematic sentence illustrates Hegel's philosophy of history as a hermeneutics of history which, opposed to the apriorism explicitly rejected, searches for its “empirical” verification in trying to “accurately apprehend” history. The much-celebrated “end of history” is not so much an empirical assertion about historical reality as a methodological requirement for an interpretative strategy founded upon the logical category of “true” or “genuine infinity”.

Le soi et la vérité de l'œuvre d'art selon Hans-Georg Gadamer

The Gadamerian ontology of the work of art appears as a first phaenomenological sketch of the notion of “being-in-the-world” that the hermeneutics of history in Truth and Method will develop further and the hermeneutics of language make explicit. In the experience of art “the Self” is, on the one hand, the intentional vector because of the way art is made and also because of the contemplation of the spectator (theoros), and on the other it is the truth of the work which is precisely in accordance with itself in its ipseity, in the successful plenitude of its configuration as “autostance” (Selbständigkeit), and that has undoubtedly a sacral meaning. It is so because of the fascinating coincidence of sensible qualities and affects that are usually seen as opposite, therefore incompatible. The knowing of the world appears in the work of art as a first initiation to its truth.

The Vicissitude of Completeness: Gadamer's Criticism of Collingwood

The purpose of this article is to examine Gadamer's criticism of Collingwood's re‐enactment. A parallel concern is the evaluation of Collingwood's hermeneutics of history. Given that Collingwood can be read as a hermeneutic thinker, what is the impact of Gadamer's critique of re‐enactment? My response to this question focuses on the dual significance of completeness for hermeneutics. The fore‐conception of completeness, on the one hand, presupposes meaningfulness. The incompleteness of meaning, on the other hand, shows that the finite human can never arrive at a perfect explanation. The fusion of horizons is created by the tension that exists between completeness and incompleteness. According to Gadamer, the lack of a clear distinction between the two notions of completeness leads Collingwood to a historicist position exemplified by re‐enactment. I review Collingwood's books to demonstrate that, pace Gadamer, both notions of completeness are central to Collingwood's philosophy, guaranteeing the hermeneutical stance of his thought. However, what substantiates Gadamer's dissatisfaction with re‐enactment is Collingwood's insufficient grasp of the difference between human historicity and the practice of professional history. I argue that while Collingwood is correct to indicate the inferential procedure of the writing of a political history, he nevertheless forgets that the historian is still a finite human being conditioned by historical situatedness.

Hermeneutics of History in the Theology of Edward Schillebeeckx

Hermeneutics of History in the Theology of Edward Schillebeeckx

Teología de la liberación: análisis de su método

The expression «Iiberation theology», means, if understood in a broad sense, a reflection over the Christian faith as a result of concern for justice and the compromise of liberation from misery and oppression. This general standpoint is susceptible to various interpretations and accentuations. Hence, the importance of a study of methodological character with the aim of pointing out the reach and the implications of the different attempts. With this general consideration as a background, the author centres his writing in the analysis of the method in the liberation theology in the way it is conceived and practised by Gustavo Gutierrez, Hugo Assmann, Juan Luis Segundo, Leonardo Boff. Jon Sobrino, etc. All of them understood the liberation theology as being a reflection over and parting from the liberation praxis. It is for this reason that the author begins his analysis by examining the notion of praxis which may be found in these authors and particularly, the place they give to the social sciences as «first word» which comes before the «second word» of theology. This permits, on the one hand, a demonstration of the relation between this movement and others which have preceded it -(namely the secularization theology)- and on the other, point out the position that the repercussion of the marxist interpretation of the historical future occupies in this liberation theology. As a result, a fundamental conclusion is reached: this liberation theology implies more than anything, hermeneutics of history which are considered as a process which has its axis in the poor man who is identified with the oppressed. These hermeneutics of history, in turn, start off in hermeutics of the Gospel, inspired in party, by an understanding of the «hermeneutics circle» inherited from Bultmann although it is actually transferred to a collective context The Christian message is interpreted parting fram the social praxis which has a social compromise with the poor man in the above mentioned sense, and with the struggles and efforts aimed at his liberation. The question here is a political re-reading of the Gospel which, in fact, as pointed out by the Instruction of the Ho/y Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, leads to assertions which move away from the Christian faith. The author finally goes on to analyse critically the concept of science and the vision of the relations between theory and praxis which characterize this liberation theology, as well as some of its metaphysical-theological presuppositions especially the distinction and relations between different levels of liberation already established by Gustavo Gutierrez and his assertions about history's unity and about the centralness of the socio-political movement which are characteristics of the whole of this movement. Going back to the first perspectives, the studies ends with sorne indications of a positive character about the context in which will be carried out all reflection, which, on receiving the impulse of privileged concern for justice, aspires to be authentic theology.