Gadamer and the Fusion of Horizons

Abstract

Hans‐Georg Gadamer is often criticized for his account of the fusions of horizons as the ideal resolution of dialogue. I argue that in fact it is an excellent account of the successful resolution of dialogue, but only in light of a proper understanding of what Gadamer means by ‘horizon’ and how then horizons are fused. I do this by showing how Gadamer is drawing on the technical sense of ‘horizon’ found in Edmund Husserl’s and Martin Heidegger’s phenomenologies. In the process I show why a prominent criticism of Gadamer’s account of the fusion of horizons, a criticism presented most forcefully by E. D. Hirsch, is mistaken.     

Gadamer and Scholz on Solidarity: Disclosing,Avowing, and Performing Solidaristic Ties with Human and Natural Others

ABSTRACT

This essay is concerned with Gadamer’s reflections on solidarity and practice as found in several of his later writings. While Gadamer offers a robust explanation of practice, practical reason, and how both are operative in solidarities, his investigations of solidarity are in no way systematic. He does, however, distinguish two aspects of solidarity, viz. what one might call “natural solidarity” and “avowed solidarity”. In contrast to natural solidarities, avowed solidarities require an intentional decision and commitment to act with others for a common cause. Since Gadamer’s writings on solidarity are more sketches than detailed treatises, we will bring his work into dialogue with feminist and political philosopher Sally Scholz. Scholz has devoted significant research to the concept of political solidarity. Like Gadamer, Scholz too is concerned with how we engage natural others and how our present practices harm and exploit them. By bringing Scholz’s and Gadamer’s work into dialogue, we gain a better understanding of different facets and types of solidarity, how they interrelate and influence one other, and how their interrelations might help to effect positive social and political changes for all who inhabit this world.     

Self-Formation and the speculative: Gadamer and Lacan

Abstract

Gadamer’s project in Truth and Method is as much about truth in the human sciences as it is about human subjectivity, for, following Heidegger, he claims that truth is reducible to method (technical rationality) only if one is misled by old Enlightenment subject/object dualisms. Posing the question of the possibility and nature of truth in scientific thinking, where a strict division between subjective and objective has fallen away, Gadamer belongs, as one of its inaugural figures, to an alternative tradition of philosophical complexity, which implicates environmental systems (culture, ideology, institutions), embedded in language, in the constitution of human subjectivity.

With these theoretical shifts in mind, what caught my attention in a press report concerning the trial of (subsequently convicted) serial killer, Stewart Wilken (“Boetie Boer”), was the strangely anachronistic question that dominated the front page of a Port Elizabeth newspaper: “Boetie: Is he Sick or Evil?” This question, in my view, harks back to a questionable framework of Enlightenment autonomy, which depends upon the easy technical rationality of clear-cut dichotomies. In what follows I hope to show that in acknowledging the role of complex interrelations between cultural and other systems, a tradition of philosophical complexity justifiably claims a more adequate framework for understanding self-formation than that underpinning the discourses at work in Wilken’s trial. I shall draw on Gadamer’s hermeneutic model of an “embedded” subject, which is based on his speculative model of “play” outlined in Truth and Method, and supplement this with Lacan’s psychoanalytic account of subject formation.     

Recovering Selves

SUMMARY

This is an ethnographic study of a therapeutic-community drug treatment program comprised of mostly court-mandated clients. It explores how women interact with treatment practices and the language of recovery. I argue that deep and inherent contradictions exist between treatment practice and the needs of drug-using women. In particular I investigate the gender and race implications of drug treatment as a moral project aimed at self-reinvention. I also examine tensions between normalizing power and punishment in the therapeutic community. Treatment is analyzed in the therapeutic community as reflective of broader cultural and neoliberal values that privilege notions of family, community, and responsibility. I claim that the treatment ideal of the self-reliant, active citizen is profoundly problematic for women and mothers     

The Concept of the Subject in the Philosophical Hermeneutics of Hans‐Georg Gadamer

Abstract

Certain critics, e.g. Manfred Frank and Hans‐Herbert Kögler, claim that Hans‐Georg Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics reduces the individual subject to a mere instrument of history and tradition, the latter reproducing themselves through the subject. However, Gadamer also emphasizes the active role of the subject in shaping and creating history and tradition. In this article I argue that the critics mistakenly emphasize a one‐sided conception of history. By incorporating both active and passive aspects of the subject, Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics provides the means by which the individual may be conceived more aptly in an interdependent, dialectical relation to their corresponding historical, cultural, and social context.     

Theology as a human science: Reflections on Gadamer’s Truth and Method

Abstract

Gadamer’s attempt to ’rehabilitate tradition in general clarifies that which theology and the human sciences have in common since he claims that the rehabilitation of tradition is crucial for all human science enquiry. His systematic unfolding of the hermeneutical process described in Truth and Method is discussed under three headings: The meaning of tradition and how the idea of tradition may be rehabilitated; how do we know in the human sciences? and, the nature of theological reflection as part of the human sciences. Gadamer’s hermeneutics helps to transcend the antithesis between reason and tradition. It offers a more appropriate way to understand cultural and historical texts and broadens the purview of the human sciences. It is within this broader understanding of the human sciences that theological reflection comes to itself.     

“Polarity,Paradox and the Organizing Process in Development”; Parent-Infant Psychotherapy and Child Analytic Technique: In Honor of Louis Sander

ABSTRACT

A child analysis and a subsequent family therapy are presented and discussed in terms of Sander’s monumental contributions to infant-parent development and clinical theory. I draw on earlier discussions with Sander on these topics and note how his insights validate a certain kind of child analytic technique I practice.     

Gadamer,Heidegger, play,art and the appropriation of tradition

Abstract

The present paper is an investigation into the links between Gadamer’s conception of the mode of being of art in terms of ‘play’, and related models in the thought of some of his philosophical precursors, notably Kant and Heidegger. Due attention is given to the shift, in Gadamer’s work, to a less subject-oriented approach to art, compared to those of Kant and Schiller, and the extent to which his own views were shaped by Heidegger’s move away from subjectivism is emphasized. The place of the concept of ‘tradition’ in Gadamer’s work is also examined with a view to casting light on his own appropriation of the (art-)philosophical tradition. Lastly, an interpretation of a specific instance of innovative art practice (the multi-installation, Body II - Sublimation, which was exhibited at this year’s KKNK at Oudtshoom, South Africa) is attempted in light of what the investigation into ‘art as play’ and the role of tradition has yielded.     

Spacing Unpredictability: Action as an Operating Tool in Richard Serra's Work

The paper deals with notions of complexity in art and architecture. On the basis of a recent sculp\tural work by Richard Serra, Torqued Ellipses (1997), the notion of complexity is investigated in terms of how it situates the viewer, and affects our sense of space and time. Serra's work is analyzed in terms of the artist's working method, the production of the work, and finally the ''external relations'' which connect it to the viewer and the context. In each of these steps, the notions of complexity and unpredictability are shown to have a formative role. This gives his work a relevance for several fields using working processes as methods. The relations between space and time, object and context, are redefined in Serra's work, which also gives it a more specific importance for architectural theory and practice.     

Hermeneutics and historical consciousness: An appraisal of the contribution of Hans-Georg Gadamer

Abstract

In this introductory article to the volume of the South African Journal of Philosophy in tribute of Hans-Georg Gadamer, the author, first, makes a few remarks about the nature of hermeneutics and Gadamer’s views on the universality of the hermeneutical experience. This universality is, in particular, explained from the perspective of the “linguistic turn” in Gadamer’s thought. Secondly, there is a brief discussion of certain particular aspects of Gadamer’s contribution. Aspects of that contribution that are emphasized are: Gadamer’s reevaluation of prejudice, authority and tradition, his idea of “Wirkungsgeschichte”, his idea of meaning as a process rather than a given entity, his analogy between game-playing and the interpretation of art, and his dialogical conception of interpretation. The author concludes by developing his own estimate of the main thrust of Gadamer’s contribution. This contribution consists of the way in which Gadamer’s thought, on the one hand, represents a demonstration and embodiment of the kind of historical consciousness so typical of our times, but, on the other hand, also accomplishes this exemplification of historical consciousness while imaginatively avoiding the kind of relativistic historicism so typical of many other manifestations of the same trend.     

Trust and Betrayal from a Husserlian Standpoint

Abstract

This paper provides an interpretation of trust and betrayal within political communities from the perspective of Husserl’s concept of social communities. I situate the paper amidst Margaret Gilbert’s theory of political obligations, arguing that at least one outside conception of trust fills a gap left in her theory. More specifically, I argue for the supplementary fit that Karen Jones’s conception of trust understood as ‘basal security’ provides for Gilbert. From there, I tie this conception of trust and betrayal to Husserl’s notions of ‘original belief’ and socio-cultural crisis. There is thereby a phenomenological elucidation of features within the social world that allow such crises to occur in the first place.     

Wide and narrow scope

In this paper I present an original and relatively conciliatory solution to one of the central contemporary debates in the theory of rationality, the debate about the proper formulation of rational requirements. I begin by offering my own version of the “symmetry problem” for wide scope rational requirements, and I show how this problem necessitates the introduction of a normative concept other than the traditional notions of reason and requirement. I then sketch a theory of rational commitment, showing how this notion solves the symmetry problem as I’ve presented it. I also show that the concept of rational commitment is one we already appeal to in common sense discourse, and that it is necessary for vindicating comparative judgments of rationality.     

Wish You Were Queer: Exploring the Potential of Queer Play Parties to Arouse Social Change

Abstract

This article explores how the practice of BDSM sex parties within the queer community can inspire social structure alternatives conducive to sustainability. Drawing from the notion that the dominant social order of neoliberal hetero-patriarchy undermines our ability to address sustainability challenges as a collective, I demonstrate how the same culture disproportionately alienates the queer community. Taking from the theory of subaltern counterpublics, I highlight how social structures created at BDSM queer sex parties challenge dominant cultures and create spaces of inclusivity and radical participation, specifically through communication. These are key criteria called for in commons management, relevant for sustainable futures.     

From Ethics to Aesthetics: A Reconsideration of Buddhist Monastic Rules in the Light of Michel Foucault's Work on Ethics

This article considers the recent debate over the nature of Buddhist ethics largely conducted by scholars who have argued in different ways that Buddhist ethics may be assimilated to or may correspond with different forms of western ethical theory.

I argue that the interpretation of Buddhist texts, and in particular the Vinaya, in light of western ethical theory creates misunderstanding. I argue that in each case of a supposed ethical dilemma, Buddhist ethics should be seen as empirical, since the ultimate point of reference for the choices involved in a proposed action lies in the purity and wholesomeness of each individual action.

My approach follows Foucault's argument for scepticism with regard to the notions of a universal nature or of a universal rationality. I argue that it is not instructive to read Buddhist texts against generalized standards. Rather, it is more productive to regard ethics as creating a space for the ethical, not in a normative sense but one arising from personal practice as related to individual circumstances.

At the same time, this article outlines the role of beauty and its role in ethical formation. I suggest that one interpretation of Theravada Buddhism has regarded beauty as a form of sensuous pleasure, which is seen as a danger for someone on the spiritual path. However, an alternative reading of such texts is more sympathetic to the educative role of beauty.     

Expression,Truth, Predication,and Context: Two Perspectives

Abstract

This paper considers the challenge to understanding another that comes from the view that language is, in Cristina Lafont’s phrase, ‘world‐disclosing’. If different speakers understand and refer to the world from different holistically structured worldviews, it seems to follow that there can be no mutual understanding unless there is significant overlap between ‘worlds’. Gadamer’s hermeneutics, I claim, blocks this consequence while maintaining that language is indeed world‐disclosing. By holding that language is a medium in which the distinction between interpretation and object of interpretation is paradoxically both maintained and overcome, Gadamer shows us that the interpreter always thinks the object of interpretation as both transcending and immanent in her worldview. Mutual understanding becomes a matter of mutual recognition of such worldview‐(but not language‐) transcendent objects. Truth and meaning may on this view be characterized as ‘objective’, while retaining a significant element of relativity.     

The ‘Practical Turn’ and the Convergence of Traditions

Abstract

This paper explores the idea that the structure of intentionality is fundamentally the structure of a practice, not the structure of a language, or some quasi-linguistic system of representational entities. I show how and why neo-Fregean theory of content is committed to this practical turn. Mis-representation is often thought to be problematic for the neo-Fregean, but I show not only that it accommodates the phenomena better than the representationalist position, but also that the idea of error that the representationalist wants with empty singular terms is redundant, for it has no role to play in explaining the systematicity of thought.     

Confucian Ethics and the Critique of Ideology

The debate between Hans-Georg Gadamer and Jürgen Habermas provides a fresh perspective from which Confucian philosophy may be approached. In this paper, focusing on the Lunyu (Analects), I argue that the sayings of Confucius reflect an essentially 'conservative' orientation, finding in tradition a reservoir of insight and truth. There is a critical dimension to it in that ethical reflection and self-cultivation would enable the individual to challenge particular claims of tradition. However, can self-cultivation transcend tradition as a whole and enable the individual to effect radical change? Following the strategy of Habermas' critique of Gadamer, what happens if tradition is systemically corrupt? In this discussion, rather than taking tradition generally I will focus on the concept of ritual (li) to suggest how the Lunyu seeks to crystallise the wisdom of the past into an ethical guide. The conclusion I draw is in the main a Gadamerian one. Committed to a critical appropriation of tradition, Confucian philosophy seeks ethical renewal from within, on the premise that through incremental change self-cultivation can make a real difference in the quest for moral excellence.     

On the Lack of Direction in Rayo’s The Construction of Logical Space

Abstract

I argue that Agustín Rayo’s symmetric ‘just is’ statements cannot be defined in terms of notions like essence, grounding or metaphysical truth-conditions. I go on to argue that one of these latter notions, which allow us to express an asymmetric relationship between facts, is needed to do some of the work that Rayo intends ‘just is’ statements to do, such as stating reductionist claims.