Contributions to Hermeneutics – serie

This volume explores the possibilities and pressures of the language of revelation on human understanding. The volume brings together theologians who approach the interactions of revelation and hermeneutics with different perspectives, including various forms of phenomenology and comparative theology.

This volume explores the possibilities and pressures of the language of revelation on human understanding. The volume brings together theologians who approach the interactions of revelation and hermeneutics with different perspectives, including various forms of phenomenology and comparative theology.

Technology globalizes markets, customs, the exchange of information, and economic flows but also – as Heidegger reminds us – revolutionizes the way we relate to bodies, to life, and to earth, by way of introducing both unprecedented opportunities and great dangers.

Technology globalizes markets, customs, the exchange of information, and economic flows but also – as Heidegger reminds us – revolutionizes the way we relate to bodies, to life, and to earth, by way of introducing both unprecedented opportunities and great dangers.

This book offers a new and original hypothesis on the origin of modal ontology, whose roots can be traced back to the mathematical debate about incommensurable magnitudes, which forms the implicit background for Plato’s later dialogues and culminates in the definition of being as dynamis in the Sophist. Incommensurable magnitudes – also called dynameis by Theaetetus – are presented as the solution to the problem of non-being and serve as the cornerstone for a philosophy of difference and becoming. This shift also marks the passage to another form of rationality – one not of the measure, but of the mediation. The book argues that the ontology and the rationality which arise out of the discovery of incommensurable constitutes a thread that runs through the entire history of philosophy, one that leads to Kantian transcendentalism and to the philosophies derived from it, such as Hegelianism and philosophical hermeneutics.Readers discover an insightful exchange with some of the most important issues in philosophy, newly reconsidered from the point of view of an ontology of the incommensurable. These issues include the infinite, the continuum, existence, and difference. This text appeals to students and researchers in the fields of ancient philosophy, German idealism, philosophical hermeneutics and the history of mathematics.

This book offers a new and original hypothesis on the origin of modal ontology, whose roots can be traced back to the mathematical debate about incommensurable magnitudes, which forms the implicit background for Plato’s later dialogues and culminates in the definition of being as dynamis in the Sophist. Incommensurable magnitudes – also called dynameis by Theaetetus – are presented as the solution to the problem of non-being and serve as the cornerstone for a philosophy of difference and becoming. This shift also marks the passage to another form of rationality – one not of the measure, but of the mediation. The book argues that the ontology and the rationality which arise out of the discovery of incommensurable constitutes a thread that runs through the entire history of philosophy, one that leads to Kantian transcendentalism and to the philosophies derived from it, such as Hegelianism and philosophical hermeneutics.Readers discover an insightful exchange with some of the most important issues in philosophy, newly reconsidered from the point of view of an ontology of the incommensurable. These issues include the infinite, the continuum, existence, and difference. This text appeals to students and researchers in the fields of ancient philosophy, German idealism, philosophical hermeneutics and the history of mathematics.

This book investigates the methodological issues raised by the encounter between Islamic thought and contemporary philosophical hermeneutics.

This book investigates the methodological issues raised by the encounter between Islamic thought and contemporary philosophical hermeneutics. It features essays that examine why and how current Muslim thinkers refer to Continental philosophy. The contributors put the universality of the hermeneutic order to the test with three different approaches.The first looks at exegetical aspects. It addresses contemporary thinkers from the Islamicate world who have engaged critically or not with main representatives or key concepts of philosophical hermeneutics. The second presents an interpretative analysis. The essays here present attempts at using philosophical hermeneutics in order to develop new interpretations of canonical or traditional ensembles of texts such as the Qur’an and the Hadith as well as legal, spiritual, and philosophical corpuses from the Islamicate world. The third looks at different political and critical issues.The clear and sound reference to religion ofIslamic thought makes its entanglement with philosophical hermeneutics a burning challenge for all parties involved. Is it true, as some contend, that philosophical hermeneutics can help interpret Islamic thought anew? This book reveals how the two philosophies are likely to expand each other’s horizons and influence each other’s conceptual frameworks. It features revised papers from an International Conference.

This book challenges the standard view that modern hermeneutics begins with Friedrich Ast and Friedrich Schleiermacher, arguing instead that it is the dialectic of reflective and teleological reason in Kant’s Critique of Judgment that provides the actual proto-hermeneutic foundation.

This book challenges the standard view that modern hermeneutics begins with Friedrich Ast and Friedrich Schleiermacher, arguing instead that it is the dialectic of reflective and teleological reason in Kant’s Critique of Judgment that provides the actual proto-hermeneutic foundation.

This volume explores Hans-Georg Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics within a musical context. It features contributions from philosophers, musicians, educators, and musicologists from a variety of backgrounds, and sheds light on both the hermeneutic nature of music and the musicality of hermeneutics. Contributors to this volume hermeneutically think with music to uncover its fundamentally hermeneutic character, and by thinking with Gadamer in a musical context, explore ways in which hermeneutics may be understood to possess an inherent musicality. Gadamer's thought is taken up in a variety of musical contexts including improvisation, musical performance, classical music, jazz, and music criticism.This first volume to explore Gadamer's hermeneutics in a musical context breaks new ground by challenging musical concepts and by pushing Gadamer's thought in new directions. It appeals to philosophers engaged with Gadamer's thought (and philosophical hermeneutics more broadly), as well as philosophers of music, musicologists, and musicians interested in critically engaging with the practice of performing and listening to music.

This volume explores Hans-Georg Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics within a musical context. It features contributions from philosophers, musicians, educators, and musicologists from a variety of backgrounds, and sheds light on both the hermeneutic nature of music and the musicality of hermeneutics. Contributors to this volume hermeneutically think with music to uncover its fundamentally hermeneutic character, and by thinking with Gadamer in a musical context, explore ways in which hermeneutics may be understood to possess an inherent musicality. Gadamer's thought is taken up in a variety of musical contexts including improvisation, musical performance, classical music, jazz, and music criticism.This first volume to explore Gadamer's hermeneutics in a musical context breaks new ground by challenging musical concepts and by pushing Gadamer's thought in new directions. It appeals to philosophers engaged with Gadamer's thought (and philosophical hermeneutics more broadly), as well as philosophers of music, musicologists, and musicians interested in critically engaging with the practice of performing and listening to music.

It addresses all reading practices found today: casual and unreflective reading, close and scholarly reading with re-reading, the analysis of literary art, and sacred text study and memorization.

This text is the first comprehensive attempt in decades to integrate reading into the philosophical discussion of the synthesis of experience more generally. It offers a comprehensive critique of three disciplinary approaches to reading: philosophical, literary and empirical/neuroscientific, while developing an innovative and unifying phenomenological account. It discusses texts from a variety of contemporary and historical contexts. It is inclusive, treating non-fiction alongside fiction, literary art alongside everyday texts, and narrative alongside thematic discourse. It addresses all reading practices found today: casual and unreflective reading, close and scholarly reading with re-reading, the analysis of literary art, and sacred text study and memorization. In the current intellectual landscape, the book is unique in bringing all these aspects together in a philosophically coherent discussion. The book provides a critique of philosophical accountsof text meaning and linguistic experience by philosophers from Husserl and Ingarden to Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Arendt, Gadamer and Derrida, and examines the positions of contemporary ‘naturalizing’ phenomenologists, such as Varela and Thompson. Also treated are neuroscientists such as Dehaene, and theorists of consciousness such as Kintsch, Flanagan and Dennett. Finally, this volume engages with psychological, linguistic, structuralist, ‘theory of mind’ and ‘experiential’ approaches in literary studies, from Bühler and Hamburger to Fludernik, Herman and Kuzmičová. It appeals to students and researchers working in these fields.

This book addresses death and immortality by paralleling Plato’s philosophy of ‘becoming like God’ through exercising one’s intellect and virtues, with the Greek archaic and heroic way of gaining immortal glory through remarkable deeds.

This book addresses death and immortality by paralleling Plato’s philosophy of ‘becoming like God’ through exercising one’s intellect and virtues, with the Greek archaic and heroic way of gaining immortal glory through remarkable deeds. In doing so, this study focuses on the explicit and implicit references to earthly immortality and heroism in Plato’s dialogues, arguing for a distinction between the Time-bound ontology of the glory-seeking individual and the Being-centered ontology of the philosopher. Such an underlining of the ontological discrepancy between the ways of the hero and those of the philosopher makes this book a novel academic contribution. The dual focus discloses the clash of ontologies yet also reveals an implicit existential turmoil in Ancient Greek culture as to the anxieties surrounding one’s potential immortality. This title appeals to students and researchers working in Ancient philosophy and existentialism.

This book reveals how hermeneutics has experienced unprecedented attention under the leadership of Heidegger, Gadamer and Ricoeur, after long being confined to a restricted field of disciplines focused on understanding discourse. The author confronts the following questions: What is understanding? How to interpret a work of art? Can we decipher nature? How to orient yourself in space?This monograph reveals how hermeneutics leaves the refuge of erudition to become a new field of philosophical exploration centered on the life of the spirit, on modes of existence and on traditions. It proposes an in-depth renewal of hermeneutics through a close dialogue with semiotics, pragmatism and the social sciences with the aid of three guiding ideas. The first, anthropological, makes interpretation a fundamental activity of humans in their ordinary activities, before making it a set of techniques in the service of scientific knowledge. The second, pragmatist, reserves interpretation for a reflective understanding confronted with problematic meanings. The third, epistemological, extends the field of investigation of hermeneutics beyond the text (nature, others, space, the work of art, the social world, etc.). Alongside researchers, this book serves as an advanced introduction to the field and appeals to upper undergraduates and graduate students.

This edited volume covers the debates, discussions and controversies surrounding the foundations of legal hermeneutics, the question of methods and legal techniques of interpretation, and the conditions for a fair legal interpretation. Primary questions addressed in this work include:Are there legal methods of interpretation more appropriate than others? Can we do without any method of interpretation and leave complete freedom in the assessment of legal texts to the Judge? Is legal interpretation solely an act of will of the Judge? The substantial contributions are written by philosophers and jurists working in the history of legal hermeneutics: the Ancients (Juridico-Talmunic law, Roman law), the Middle-Ages (Roman-Canonical law), the Modern (Schleiermacher, Savigny, Ecole de l'Exégèse) and the contemporary era (Betti, Gadamer, Dworkin, Ricoeur, Fisch).  The book is aimed at students and researchers working in philosophy and legal theory.

At a time when translation has become a central concern across the humanities, this book offers a distinctive philosophical intervention, approaching translation through classical philosophical concepts while also rethinking those very concepts through the lens of translation. Organized around three major themes — universality, negativity, and temporality — it argues that these are not only fundamental dimensions of a concept of translation, but also the basis for what it defines as "translation as concept": a framework that captures both the reflective and transformative character of language. At the heart of the book lies the claim that philosophy of translation necessarily calls into question the foundations and conditions of philosophical practice itself. The author revisits major figures in German philosophy, including Humboldt, Schleiermacher, Benjamin, and Hegel, while also addressing contemporary discussions of translation and language. Originally written in Italian and translated for this new edition, the book also contains an additional section composed in English, enacting a multilingual, multilayered practice in which translation converges with the experience of self-translation and exophonic writing. Intended mainly for scholars and students of continental philosophy of language, hermeneutics, and classical German philosophy, this volume will also be of interest to readers in translation studies, linguistics, and cultural studies, as well as translators engaged with the theory of translation.

This monograph develops the concept of anti-hermeneutics and diagnoses the age of COVID-19 as one marked by anti-hermeneutics. Crist describes and defines the concept of anti-hermeneutics as constituting an active resistance to many of the hermeneutic principles or virtues that Gadamer has affirmed throughout his life and works. This includes an emphasis on conversation or dialogue for genuine interpretation and understanding, the cultivation of practical and social reason, and the call for solidarity in the world with others. Furthermore, anti-hermeneutics promotes the outsourcing of individual decision and judgment, encourages conformism, and participates in the corruption of language as the medium of hermeneutic experience. Ultimately, anti-hermeneutics marks the condition for the impossibility of a community’s collective ability to interpret, understand, and come into agreement with one another. After developing this account of anti-hermeneutics, the author discusses in specific terms how the age of COVID-19 is profoundly anti-hermeneutical. The latter part of this book focuses on how anti-hermeneutics has played a significant role in how we have collectively approached, and continue to approach, pandemic lockdowns, masks, COVID-19 vaccines, and censorship. While these topics are still considered by many to be controversial, the claim is that avoiding these discussions is itself an anti-hermeneutical gesture, and in doing so, will only exacerbate the modern hermeneutical crisis. The concept of anti-hermeneutics will be of scholarly interest for those who are familiar with or actively research Gadamerian philosophical hermeneutics. However, this book will be accessible and of interest to any generally educated person with an interest in philosophical approaches to COVID-19.

This book reassesses Gadamer’s hermeneutics by bringing it into a dialogue with John McDowell’s minimal empiricism. It employs the resources of McDowell’s minimal empiricism to address the transcendental and ontological presuppositions for objective experience and understanding, while retaining Gadamer’s emphasis on the historicity of understanding. By means of the dialogue with McDowell, the book develops a hermeneutical conception of objectivity and perceptual experience, which also entails reinterpretations of Gadamer’s notions of tradition, practical wisdom and meaning. The book explores the philosophical space beyond the analytic-Continental divide and demonstrates that hermeneutics is not limited to a reflection on understanding as it is practiced in the human sciences, but can be revived as a distinct and cogent philosophical approach with a transcendental and ontological dimension.Thaning's book is a richly detailed, well-argued and coherent presentation of a defensible, and potentially very important, philosophical position. It demonstrates an impressively deep understanding of the literature both from the phenomenological tradition and from the part of the analytical tradition, inspired by Wilfred Sellars, to which John McDowell belongs. Being a substantial philosophical achievement in its own right, the book raises far-reaching questions that will be of interest to a wide audience.Dr. Steven Crowell, Rice University, Houston (USA) Morten Thaning’s book is an important contribution to the discourse of philosophical hermeneutics. Thaning extensively discusses a topic, which recent debates have touched upon, but which up to now has not been the subject matter of concentrated scholarly work: the relation between Gadamer’s hermeneutics and McDowell’s empiricism. With Thaning’s interpretation Gadamer’ work can be read anew as concerning the problem of hermeneutical objectivity.Prof. Dr. Günter Figal, University of Freiburg (Germany)

Hermeneutics and Phenomenology in Paul Ricoeur: Between Text and Phenomenon calls attention to the dynamic interaction that takes place between hermeneutics and phenomenology in Ricoeur’s thought. It could be said that Ricoeur’s thought is placed under a twofold demand: between the rigor of the text and the requirements of the phenomenon. The rigor of the text calls for fidelity to what the text actually says, while the requirement of the phenomenon is established by the Husserlian call to return “to the things themselves.” These two demands are interwoven insofar as there is a hermeneutic component of the phenomenological attempt to go beyond the surface of things to their deeper meaning, just as there is a phenomenological component of the hermeneutic attempt to establish a critical distance toward the world to which we belong. For this reason, Ricoeur’s thought involves a back and forth movement between the text and the phenomenon. Although this double movement was atheme of many of Ricoeur’s essays in the middle of his career, the essays in this book suggest that hermeneutic phenomenology remains implicit throughout his work. The chapters aim to highlight, in much greater detail, how this back and forth movement between phenomenology and hermeneutics takes place with respect to many important philosophical themes, including the experience of the body, history, language, memory, personal identity, and intersubjectivity.

This book reassesses Gadamer’s hermeneutics by bringing it into a dialogue with John McDowell’s minimal empiricism. It employs the resources of McDowell’s minimal empiricism to address the transcendental and ontological presuppositions for objective experience and understanding, while retaining Gadamer’s emphasis on the historicity of understanding. By means of the dialogue with McDowell, the book develops a hermeneutical conception of objectivity and perceptual experience, which also entails reinterpretations of Gadamer’s notions of tradition, practical wisdom and meaning. The book explores the philosophical space beyond the analytic-Continental divide and demonstrates that hermeneutics is not limited to a reflection on understanding as it is practiced in the human sciences, but can be revived as a distinct and cogent philosophical approach with a transcendental and ontological dimension.Thaning's book is a richly detailed, well-argued and coherent presentation of a defensible, and potentially very important, philosophical position. It demonstrates an impressively deep understanding of the literature both from the phenomenological tradition and from the part of the analytical tradition, inspired by Wilfred Sellars, to which John McDowell belongs. Being a substantial philosophical achievement in its own right, the book raises far-reaching questions that will be of interest to a wide audience.Dr. Steven Crowell, Rice University, Houston (USA) Morten Thaning’s book is an important contribution to the discourse of philosophical hermeneutics. Thaning extensively discusses a topic, which recent debates have touched upon, but which up to now has not been the subject matter of concentrated scholarly work: the relation between Gadamer’s hermeneutics and McDowell’s empiricism. With Thaning’s interpretation Gadamer’ work can be read anew as concerning the problem of hermeneutical objectivity.Prof. Dr. Günter Figal, University of Freiburg (Germany)

This book presents a critical and systematic study of the possibility to consider and practice Freud’s psychoanalysis as a form of depth hermeneutics.

This study recapitulates basic developments in the tradition of hermeneutic and phenomenological studies of science. It focuses on the ways in which scientific research is committed to the universe of interpretative phenomena. It treats scientific research by addressing its characteristic hermeneutic situations, and uses the following basic argument in this treatment:  By demonstrating that science’s epistemological identity is not to be spelled out in terms of objectivism, mathematical essentialism, representationalism, and foundationalism, one undermines scientism without succumbing scientific research to “procedures of normative-democratic control” that threaten science’s cognitive autonomy. The study shows that in contrast to social constructivism, hermeneutic phenomenology of scientific research makes the case that overcoming scientism does not imply restrictive policies regarding the constitution of scientific objects.

This book analyzes the hermeneutics of place, raising questions about central issues such as textuality, dialogue, and play. Issues such as how we dwell in place, how place is imagined, created, preserved, and lost, and how philosophy itself exists in place have become central.

This book aims to provide fresh perspectives on Vattimo and Zabala’s groundbreaking foundational text, Hermeneutic Communism, from 2011. The contributors to this collection of essays explore various facets of Vattimo and Zabala’s “anarchic hermeneutics” and “weak communism” in order to investigate the concepts resulting from them, such as “framed democracies,” “armed capitalism” and “conservative impositions.” Vattimo and Zabala’s text is one of the most innovative contributions to the current debate on Communism, in which authors such as Badiou, Negri, and Rancière have been the protagonists so far.The unique and original contribution of Vattimo and Zabala’s position consists in letting politics evolve from one of the anarchic origins of hermeneutics: the end of truth. This triggers the essential question of how far politics is possible without truth. One of the essential, methodologically innovative characteristics of this collection is its dialogical, hermeneutical form, which is achieved by inserting Vattimo and Zabala’s personal reactions to each essay in the book. By responding to each chapter in turn, Vattimo and Zabala establish a hermeneutic dialogue with the contributors. Thus hermeneutics will not only be a central topic, but also an epistemological, concrete application of Vattimo and Zabala’s theories. An indispensable critical tool for students, researchers, professors, activists and general readers interested in the philosophical and political debate on Communism, which encompasses a wide variety of disciplines such as philosophy, political science, sociology, postcolonial studies, critical theory and Latin American studies. Offering an innovative first analysis of the new concepts of Hermeneutic Communism, this book represents a vital contribution to the understanding of the intriguing interrelation between philosophical hermeneutics and political communism.“A very much needed and refreshing perspective for all those interested in rethinking radical politics beyond both political Eurocentrism and philosophical imperialism." (Chiara Bottici, New School of Social Research, and author of Imaginal Politics)“The book offers much food for thought both for those who have given up hope and for those who have been fighting for a better world for some time…The contributions to Making Communism Hermeneutical may be seen as step in the direction of a much-needed change in thinking.” (David Block, ICREA Research Professor in Sociolinguistics, Universitat de Lleida)

Hermeneutics and Phenomenology in Paul Ricoeur: Between Text and Phenomenon calls attention to the dynamic interaction that takes place between hermeneutics and phenomenology in Ricoeur’s thought.

This book presents a critical and systematic study of the possibility to consider and practice Freud’s psychoanalysis as a form of depth hermeneutics.