The Event Of Meaning In Gadamer S Hermeneutics

This book presents the first detailed treatment of Gadamer’s account of the nature of meaning. It argues both that this account is philosophically valuable in its own right and that understanding it sheds new light on his wider hermeneutical project. Whereas philosophers have typically thought of meanings as belonging to a special class of objects, the central claim of Gadamer’s view is that meanings are events. Instead of a pre-existing content that we must unearth through our interpretive efforts, for Gadamer the meaning of a text is what happens when we encounter it in the appropriate way. In events of meaning the world makes itself intelligibly present to us in a manner that is uniquely and irreducibly bound up with the concrete situation in which we find ourselves. When we recognize that Gadamer thinks of meaning in this way, we are better positioned to appreciate what his wider views amount to and how they hang together. Gadamer’s accounts of interpretive normativity, the aspectival character of understanding, and the nature of essences, for example, snap into more vivid relief when we see them as outgrowths of his underlying conception of meanings as events. The Event of Meaning in Gadamer’s Hermeneutics will especially appeal to researchers and advanced students working in hermeneutics, phenomenology, and the philosophy of language. More broadly it will be of interest to humanities teachers and researchers concerned with the question of how texts from distant cultures can be relevant to readers here and now.

"This book presents the first detailed treatment of Gadamer's account of the nature of meaning. It argues both that this account is philosophically valuable in its own right and that understanding it sheds new light on his wider hermeneutical project. Whereas philosophers have typically thought of meanings as belonging to a special class of objects, the central claim of Gadamer's view is that meanings are events. Instead of a pre-existing content that we must unearth through our interpretive efforts, for Gadamer the meaning of a text is what happens when we encounter it in the appropriate way. In events of meaning the world makes itself intelligibly present to us in a manner that is uniquely and irreducibly bound up with the concrete situation in which we find ourselves. When we recognize that Gadamer thinks of meaning in this way, we are better positioned to appreciate what his wider views amount to and how they hang together. Gadamer's accounts of interpretive normativity, the aspectival character of understanding, and the nature of essences, for example, snap into more vivid relief when we see them as outgrowths of his underlying conception of meanings as events. The Event of Meaning in Gadamer's Hermeneutics will especially appeal to researchers and advanced students working in hermeneutics, phenomenology, and the philosophy of language. More broadly it will be of interest to humanities teachers and researchers concerned with the question of how texts from distant cultures can be relevant to readers here and now"--

'This volume presents carefully selected essays from Gadamer's Kleine Schriften. The seven essays comprising Part 1 contain Gadamer's discussion of hermeneutical reflection. Part 2 consists of six essays dealing with phenomenology, existential philosophy, and philosophical hermeneutics.

In this book, internationally recognized scholars in philosophical hermeneutics discuss various aspects of language and linguisticality. The translations of Hans-Georg Gadamer's two recent essays provoke a preliminary discussion on the philosopher's polemic claim in Truth and Method--"Being that can be understood is language." Topics addressed by the contributors include the relationship of rituals to tradition and the immemorial; the unity of the word; conversation; translation and conceptuality; and the interrelationship between the art of writing and linguisticality. This work is of critical importance to anyone interested in Gadamer's claims regarding the boundaries of language, the transition from the prelinguistic to linguistic realms, and the role of rituals in this transition.

Hans-Georg Gadamer is depicted as a paradoxical figure in the literature. When his work is approached by itself, outside the history of hermeneutics, he is generally presented as the disciple of Martin Heidegger whose main theoretical contribution lies in having transposed his ontological hermeneutics into the sphere of the human sciences. Usually the master-student relation ends with a break between the two brought about by the student s desire to become herself a master. In Gadamer and Heidegger s case the possibility of such a symbolic parricide has always excluded by the scholarship. When Gadamer s work is approached in context, in the history of hermeneutics the position of the literature changes radically and he, not Heidegger, is revered as the central figure of hermeneutic theory in the 20th century, his teacher s work s well as those of Friedrich Schleiermacher and Dilthey his immediate forerunners being regarded as mere preambles to the great hermeneutic theory proposed by Truth and Method. While the works of those following him as addenda or footnotes to it. In most histories and historical introductions, textbooks and anthologies of hermeneutics the texts chosen as indicative for the subsequent development of hermeneutics after Truth and Method are texts relating in a direct manner to Gadamer s work if not dedicated explicitly and exclusively to it. The present book aims to dismantle this paradox by showing, on the one hand, that Gadamer s translation of Heidegger involved, as he himself says, a series of essential alterations to the original which make philosophical hermeneutics a more coherent and better articulated hermeneutic theory, one offering a more faithful description of the phenomenon of understanding than Heidegger s. And, on the other hand, by taking the dossier of the famous encounter between Gadamer and Derrida as its cue, it aims to show that this does nevertheless not mean that it would be an unsurpassable achievement in the field. For, in light of Derrida s deconstruction, it becomes apparent that, although necessary, every step forward from Heidegger as well as from Schleiermacher and Dilthey Gadamer takes is problematic in itself."

This title, first published in 1991, opens with an account by Gadamer of his own life and work and their relation to the achievements of hermeneutics. Building upon the key theme of dialogue, Gadamer and Hermeneutics provides a series of essays, either linked Gadamer to other major contemporary philosophers or focusing on a given Gadamerian theme. This book will be of interest to students of literary theory.

Gadamer's philosophic hermeneutics raises the question concerning which of several conflicting interpretations is more accurate. Since the cognizer's Vorurteile (pre-judgements) necessarily effect the resulting interpretation, the problem is the legitimization of Vorurteile within understanding. Through an analysis of the structures of effective historical consciousness and an examination of the process of understanding within the hermeneutic situation, it is argued that Gadamer is able to avoid the problem of indeterminacy by implicity presenting a hermeneutic truth criterion. This criterion, it is argued, is the einleuchtende Ansicht der Sache selbst (the enlightening perspective of the subjectmatter itself). This permits the identification of a linguistically and historically bounded truth within the temporal limits of human consciousness.

Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002), one of the towering figures of contemporary Continental philosophy, is best known for Truth and Method, where he elaborated the concept of "philosophical hermeneutics," a programmatic way to get to what we do when we engage in interpretation. Donatella Di Cesare highlights the central place of Greek philosophy, particularly Plato, in Gadamer's work, brings out differences between his thought and that of Heidegger, and connects him with discussions and debates in pragmatism. This is a sensitive and thoroughly readable philosophical portrait of one of the 20th century's most powerful thinkers.