In this article, the author attempts to explain, the occurrence of Husserl and Heidegger's phenomenological interpretation of phenomenology there is a fundamental similarity. I have taken the approach is to analyze the phenomenology of Husserl and Heidegger's interpretation of the occurrence of the phenomenon of learning among the "place" concept. The author describes the place as a transcendental phenomenology of Husserl's main themes occur, and occur as the body phenomenology of Heidegger's interpretation of the main issues between the two fundamentally (...) identical. As between the two identical, Husserl's transcendental subjectivity as the transcendental place of the load are, in Heidegger's place as a body load there who have basically similar. Furthermore, Husserl and Heidegger on the concept of the world the concept of the transcendental field, as well as Husserl's "consciousness of the world and the occurrence of the construct" and Heidegger's "understanding and interpretation", a fundamentally similar. In this paper, I will attempt to show that there is a fundamental similarity between Husserl's genetic phenomenology and Heidegger's hermeneutic phenomenology. I will do this by analyzing the concept of "genesis" in Husserl's genetic phenomenology and also in Heidegger's hermeneutic phenomenology. I will show that there is a fundamental similarity between the transcendental genesis as the main topic of Husserl's genetic phenomenology and the ontological genesis as the main topic of Heidegger's hermeneutic phenomenology. Due to the similarity between them, there is a fundamental similarity between Husserl's transcendental subjectivity as the bearer of the transcendental genesis and Heidegger's Dasein as the bearer of the ontological genesis. Moreover, there is a fundamental similarity Husserl's concept of the world and Heidegger's concept of the a priori field, between "world consciousness and genetic constitution" in Husserl and "understanding and interpretation "in Heidegger. (shrink)

This paper applies the framework of epistemic injustice to the context of the asylum process, arguing that asylum seekers are typically at risk of this kind of injustice, which consists in their not being considered credible and not being listened to due to prejudices toward their social identity. More specifically, I address hermeneutical injustice in the adjudication of LGBTQ asylum claims, as well as the possibility of developing practices of hermeneutical justice in this context. I start with a general (...) analysis of epistemic injustice in the asylum process, examining the different ways in which stereotypes and prejudices hinder the process. Next, I focus on hermeneutical injustice in LGBTQ cases. In section 3, I expand on the possibility of developing hermeneutical justice in this context. Finally, I conclude by hinting at hinge epistemology as a feasible framework for research on hermeneutical injustice and justice, and at broader theoretical themes stimulated by this reflection. (shrink)

This dissertation discusses friendship in relation to self-identity in the thought of Paul Ricoeur. Its main claim is that Ricoeur's notion of self-identity designates a hermeneutically mediated experience, and that this complex experience can only be illumined by a phenomenology that is sensitive to ethical aspects. Another finding is that, according to Ricoeur, whatever we do, say, or write, takes on the form of narrative experience. Finally, the dissertation shows that what looks like the force of the discourse, (...) driving author to reader, and readers to one another, is in fact the force of philia, and that the latter is a source that nourishes practical wisdom exercised in relations with others. The call to friendship is a call to esteem for the being-like-me, a call to recognize a likeness beyond question and doubt, which relates selfhood and alterity, sameness and difference. (shrink)

This article grows out of and hopes to remain a part of a conversation in which Jews and Christians ponder over the manner in which they can contribute to the public good from the richness of their Scriptures and traditions. It suggests a thoughtful hermeneutic that is simultaneously faithful to ancestral traditions and open to the contributions of all thoughtful individuals and groups within a diverse society.

The topic of this dissertation is one that has been in the forefront of contemporary metaphysics in the Anglo-American philosophical tradition, namely, the problem of personal identity through time. Although we generally believe that we remain the same persons throughout our lives, the answers to questions concerning just what it is that remains the same about us prove to be elusive. Contemporary debate on the subject has its roots in the challenges posed by Locke and Hume to theories which (...) assert that persisting and substantial selves, or souls, constitute the ground for personal identity, and their efforts to suggest alternative theories based on such concepts as memory and causality. It is remarkable that a similar debate, aroused by the "non-self" doctrine of the Buddha, occupied a central position in Indian philosophical discourse during the last centuries B.C.E. and the first millennium C.E. While much historical and philological research has been devoted to Buddhist approaches to this problem, the task of interpreting these materials in the light of recent refinements of philosophical method has not yet been undertaken. It is this task to which the present thesis is devoted, drawing on the works of such Buddhist philosophers as Vasubandhu and Santaraksita, and their Brahmanical opponents such as Uddyotakara, as well as recent contributions to the debate on personal identity by Chisholm, Parfit and others. The dissertation is divided into three main sections: Part One, in six chapters, traces out the history of the problem of personal identity in Indian philosophy, and is especially concerned with the role played by refinements of Indian philosophical method in the developments discussed; Part Two presents a selection of the most important Buddhist and Brahmanical contributions to the problem, newly translated from the Sanskrit for the present dissertation; and Part Three includes three supplementary essays on personal identity in the work of Derek Parfit and Steven Colline, Buddhist idealism, and Buddhist hermeneutics. (shrink)

Using a historical and biographical perspective, this paper examines the structural elements and cultural signs of contemporary social events and problems in Turkey in order to understand their basic features. Hermeneutics is used in order to understand contemporary Turkey by way of its historical background and prominent biographies. Two basic epic texts were interpreted using Gadamarian hermeneutics with the help of key concepts such as gaza1 and gaza cult. Semiotics is used to examine key concepts as binary opposites. (...) Dialectics is used to understand these concepts as the unity of binary opposites coexisting at the same time and place. It is concluded that the contemporary cultural values and biographies explored are linked to their historical past and Islam seems to be more influential on hybrid identities than on ethnic status. (shrink)

How should an acknowledgement of contingency affect our understanding of moral identity? The book considers various ways of thinking about this question in contemporary moral and political theory. Drawing on the work of Gadamer, Ricoeur, Taylor and others, it defends a realist but pluralist 'strong hermeneutic' view.

This collection of essays explores the meaning of the interpretive turn in the philosophy of the human sciences for a variety of contemporary philosophical debates. While hermeneutics seems to be firmly established as a tradition and methodology in the human sciences, interpretive philosophy seems to be under increasing pressure in recent philosophical trends such as the "posthuman turn," the "nonhuman turn," and the "speculative turn." Responding to this predicament, this book shows how hermeneutics is gaining new force and (...) fresh applications today by bringing together a group of leading interpretive philosophers to address such timely topics as the entanglement of social science, culture, and politics in liberal capitalist societies, the extremism with which some identities are held within those societies, the possibility of genuine, non-relativist dialogue in a "post-truth" era, the nature of the strong moral judgments people tend to make in that era, the significance of interpretation for understanding nonhuman life forms, and the inherently hermeneutic dimension of such practices as work and productive action, testimony and witnessing, and measurement in scientific practice. Updating the Interpretive Turn will be of interest to researchers working in critical social science, social philosophy, ethical theory, environmental philosophy, philosophy of work, philosophy of testimony, philosophy of measurement, and philosophical hermeneutics itself. (shrink)

The Vatican's Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and in the World, issued in 2004 to reinterpret biblical creation accounts, were not as successful as they might have been. Instead of focusing attention on social structures of gender domination, the document criticizes feminist theories, which, supposedly, lead to tensions between sexes or tend to destroy family values. I have tried to reinterpret the same cardinal biblical creation accounts by (...) means of an historical-critical approach, etymological interpretation and hermeneutics, and to show how sexual and gender identities are unintentionally constructed by the authors of these accounts and how structures, appearing in these accounts as `structures of sin' have affected the interpretation of these identities in the same Bible and in the world of formation of the New Testament. The story of `primordial sin' in this case is a metaphor of socialization, for the metaphor of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, is to be understood as the tree of knowledge of opinions, rooted in society, tradition, culture, concerning what is good and what is evil, acceptable and unacceptable. (shrink)

This paper employs Ricoeur’s hermeneutic approach to examine how fundamentalist religious communities shape personal and social identity. His biblical hermeneutics is used to analyze how narrative texts of various genres open a ‘fundamentalist’ world, while also challenging his monolithic emphasis on written texts. I argue that a wider variety of texts as well as rituals and other media must be examined, which all inform and display the fundamentalist world in important ways. Second, I employ his analysis of the (...) formation of identity and action to understand how identity is framed and prescribed by fundamentalist communities for their members. Finally, I draw on Ricoeur’s account of symbolism and move from first to second naïveté to provide an account of how fundamentalist communities respond to modernity and the threat of Enlightenment rationality. I argue that, contra what Ricoeur proposes, earlier mythic language was highly polyphonic and not understood literally. Fundamentalist communities move to more literalist understandings in response to modernity. Thus, while Ricoeur’s hermeneutic approach is richly useful for a philosophical approach to religious fundamentalism, the close examination of this phenomenon enables a broadening of Ricoeur’s work on religion, symbolism and identity. (shrink)

Concerned with the issue of the I-thou encounter and the question of how to overcome the problem of the confrontation that occurs in the worldly existence among individuals, the Japanese philosopher Ueda Shizuteru (1926-), a leading member of the Kyoto School, addressed this issue in his phenomenology of the self. Ueda develops his ideas as a hermeneutical practice in the reading of the well-known Zen classic parable Ten Ox-Herding pictures, given that Zen Buddhism is the main tradition upon which he (...) critically and creatively draws. In accordance with Zen, Ueda argues that the emptied self is a non-self self boundlessly open and compassionate. As a result, the selfless self is open to the other in such a way that a genuine encounter with the other can take place. In the encounter, the closed ego realizes that its self-identity includes also its self-negation, such that, for the selfless self the other’s concerns are one’s concerns. The main aim of this contribution is to look at Ueda’s understanding of the interpersonal relations in what he conceives as a twofold world, that is, the worldly existence and the infinite openness that imbues this existence. In the infinite openness, the fundamental difference between self and other disappears into the state where the individual becomes emptiness while maintaining their “otherness” as separate and distinct. It means that the nullified self still preserves its identity, the other is accepted as different, and at the same time both share this common selfless ground. Thus, a particular conception of identity arises in which we can trace its roots back to Nishida Kitarō’s notion of “self-contradictory identity” (矛盾的自己同一 mujunteki jikodōitsu) and Nishitani Keiji’s “non-duality of self and other” (自他不二 jitafuni). According to the first, each of us, as individual bodies, also contains absolute negation within. The latter refers to a mode of being where self and other are one and simultaneously each one remains what it is in itself, probably inspired in Mahāyāna Buddhist logic whereby two different things are neither one nor two and yet both one and two. Given that the identification of the subject with its context and the emphasis on the sameness can entail the risk of suppressing other’s alterity and subordinating the individual to the whole, these views have been regarded as ambivalent. Therefore, the criticism and implications of this standpoint of “contradictory identity” are also examined. However, the assumption here is that due to the ethical import of this standpoint, it could certainly be of interest if applied to social and intercultural relations. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I explore the significance of remembering, especially in its communal form, and its relationship to narrative identity by examining the practices that make possible the formation and transmission of a heritage. To explore this issue I use Martin Heidegger and Paul Ricoeur, who have dedicated several of their major works to remembrance and forgetting. In comparing Heidegger and Ricoeur, I suggest that Ricoeur's formulation of the identity of a subject and a community offers an alternative (...) to Heidegger's account. For, if Heidegger's critique of subjectivity offers the possibility of a new relationship to history and community, it nevertheless overlooks the possibility of a humanism that is not tied to a metaphysical account of subjectivity. By contrast, the positive work of remembrance can recover heretofore concealed possibilities through our being faithful to the past, and saving it from the destructive forces of time. To show how the fragility of memory preserves the past against the destructive work of time and brings with it the hope of a better future, I emphasize one specific theme--namely, the debt we owe to the dead, which dissertations the possibility for ethical consideration of an historical community. In this regard, this dissertation pursues two goals. The first task is to elucidate how Heidegger's and Ricoeur's phenomenological projects understand the intimate connection between remembrance and the creation of a community. The second goal of this dissertation is to show how Ricoeur is able to respond to the problems that Heidegger's ontological account of memory raises. The completion of these two tasks will contribute to a phenomenological hermeneutics of memory and forgetting. (shrink)

The euro crisis has hit “Europe” (the European Union, or EU) at its root. Economic harshness, social unrest and political turmoil betray a deeper problem: a weak pan-European sense of belonging — a common political identity thanks to which European citizens may regard each other as equals, and therefore as deserving of recognition, trust, and solidarity. This paper explores interculturalism from an analogical perspective, looking at the harmonious interplay between human rights and cultural plurality, as a possible source of (...) trust and solidarity among European citizens. Only a common — even if analogical — political identity, whereby European citizens regard each other, if not as “siblings” at least as “cousins,” can make the sacrifices required to overcome the crisis meaningful — and therefore less unlikely to happen. (shrink)

The article focuses on the in-between of the voluntary and the involuntary in Ricoeur’s hermeneutics of the self. From the triad of passivity, through the intentional act, the author analyzes the empty place in Ricoeur’s hermeneutics of voluntary actions that can appear to be involuntary, such as actions motivated by passions but which nonetheless remain in the self’s responsibility and in the domain of forgiveness. In Ricoeur’s hermeneutics, character belongs to the realm of sameness and the absolute (...) involuntary. The author thus emphasizes the possible ways in which we may work on our character and the problems of equating narrative identity with the self and identity. The story of our life cannot be reduced to our lived story nor to our narrative identity, since it also involves involuntary events that do not necessarily say much about who the self is. (shrink)

Captured in narrative textual form through open-ended and tape-recorded interview conversations, visitor experience was interpreted to construct a description of visitors' relationships to place while at the same time providing insights for those who manage the national park. Humans are conceived of as meaning-makers, and outdoor recreation is viewed as emergent experience that can enrich peoples' lives rather than a predictable outcome of processing information encountered in the setting. This process-oriented approach positions subjective well-being and positive experience in the ongoing (...) processes and activities that comprise our life pursuits rather than in particular end states toward which behaviors might be directed as in the case of end state frameworks. Several themes emerged in the interpretation across narratives including a relationship of stewardship/sense of respectful mitigation, socially constructed dimensions of the wilderness concept, which both converged with and deviated from definitions in The Wilderness Act of 1964, humans positioned as both part of wilderness and separate from it, description of a process whereby people form a relationship to protected places, and an awareness among visitors of the overarching management dilemma of how to balance human visitation with protection. Management insights and general implications that emerged from the overall interpretation such as using narrative illustration to enhance visitor education were summarized. It is suggested that the particularities of the setting, in conjunction with the process-oriented creation of meaning via varying levels of physical and social interaction with the setting each play important roles, perhaps at different times, for visitors' relationships to places within the Park. The process of forming long-term relationships to places is highlighted as the common thread running through the interpretation. The value of the national park is seen to lie in these relationships, which are time and context dependent, not necessarily in the attributes of the park, many of which are generic to other protected areas in North America. The dissertation concluded with an evaluation of this interpretation based on these implications and insights and provided direction for further research to learn about the processes involved with forming relationships to protected places. (shrink)

Listening is crucial to reaching multicultural understanding. Borrowing from the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer we develop a hermeneutics of listening. To listen we must risk our prejudices, but these prejudices constitute our very identity. In this paper we attempt to answer the question, “Why Listen?” if listening is such a potentially dangerous activity.

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 a theme 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. (shrink)

The creation of the state of Israel was the outcome of the Zionist movement, which originated in Europe and was itself inspired by fundamental European ideas—Enlightenment, national self-determination, democracy and socialism. From its earliest days Zionism was primarily a secular movement that rejected the religious establishment and religious way of life of the Jews in the Diaspora. In many respects, however, the founders of the state and the principles on which they founded its institutions—the political, judicial, economic, social, and educational—were (...) rooted in the ethical values and cultural practices of the Jewish tradition which they had apparently rejected. To explain this complex process of secularization of a very ancient religious and cultural tradition—which many see as an unresolved or unresolvable conflict between two opposing systems of thought—I draw on the hermeneutic philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer and especially on his Truth and Method (1960). Culture, according to Gadamer, is a continuous flow of tradition within what he called “the horizon.” People, he argued, create and live within a given cultural tradition, but they are at the same time its interpreters, enlarging it by adopting elements from various cultures and ideologies, or “horizons.” From this hermeneutic perspective, the founders of modern Israel and their successors were the active interpreters of the Jewish tradition within the larger historical context of the European Enlightenment. I illustrate this process of cultural interpretation by focusing on the secularization of the Jewish holidays, specifically on the way the Kibbutz movement, a leading symbol of the new Israel, re-interpretated Jewish holidays like Passover, Shavuot (Pentecost) and Yom Kippur, and gave these religious festivals a secular-Israeli content. However, this dynamic pioneering stage of secularization may be said to have ended by the 1980s. From then on, the secular identity of Israeli society has been undergoing a variety of radical changes. (shrink)

Rewilding is an increasingly popular strategy in landscape management, yet it is also controversial, especially when applied in culturally 'layered' landscapes. In this paper I examine what is morally at stake in debates between proponents of rewilding and those that see traditional cultural landscapes as worthy of protection. I will argue that rewilding should not only be understood as a conservation practice, but that we also need to understand its hermeneutic aspect. Rewilding implies a radical non-anthropocentric normative reinterpretation of landscape (...) and human history that calls for a critical re-examination of the cultural identities that are based on that history. (shrink)

The concept of the subject is at the core of many social movements that attempt to empower disadvantaged groups by identifying a basic subjectivity underlying and uniting such groups. Though otherwise supportive of such movements, recent continental philosophers and social theorists such as Althusser, Derrida, and Butler have criticized such notions of subjectivity, arguing that they presuppose false and harmful ideas of unity and substantiality as the ‘true’ essence of these groups. In this paper, I propose that one possibility for (...) resolving this debate can be found in the work of Western Marxists such as Georg Lukács, Theodor Adorno, and Walter Benjamin. I argue that they ground an authentically subjective selfhood on the distinct meaningfulness of individual consciousness. Identifying phenomenological motifs in the way they describe consciousness, I suggest that they define meaning by the way different particular experiences recall or relate to one another. By interpreting the many possible meanings of experience, subjects are able to build up an image of themselves, while collective subjectivity can be grounded on the exegesis of shared experiences. Because such meaningfulness is genuinely sui generis, emerging within consciousness, action in accordance with such images counts as autonomous; at the same time, meaning is sufficiently fluid that there can never be one single correct interpretation of it. Ultimately, the Western Marxists suggest, it is in the constant formulation and reformulation of images of oneself through reinterpretation of one’s experience that constitutes subjective selfhood. (shrink)

Surah al-Mâûn is one of those disputed surahs of the Holy Qur’an. To begin with, it’s a matter of controversy whether the Surah belongs to the Mecca or Medina periods of Prophecy. Beside those who believe that the Surah, which consists of seven verses, was revealed at Medina in total, while there are also some mufassirs who think that three verses of the Surah were revealed at Mecca, and the remaining at Medina. It’s obvious that the origin of the dispute (...) is the differentiation among various riwayats coming from the Sahabah. Furthermore, various arguments have been made about the meaning of such words as “sahûn” and “mâûn” included in the Surah; and the identity of the people mentioned in the Surah is a severely disputed question. This study prefers trying to understand the dispute by focusing on its historical background than solving it. By that, we analyze and understand the data, from which the dispute arises; thus, try to make it more comprehensible. The reason why we prefer focusing to understand the dispute than solving it is our wish to set forth an example of hermeneutical approach to the Holy Qur’an. By that example, our objective is to emphasize the significance of the comprehensive approach to the Qur’anic tafsir in general. As a matter of fact, such an endeavor will show that we need a new point of view not only for the Surah al-Mâûn but for any problems faced in the field of Qur’anic tafsir. We believe that this point of view is the original point of view of the first generation, whom history made us forgot. (shrink)

The ante rem structuralist holds that places in ante rem structures are objects with determinate identity conditions, but he cannot justify this view by providing places with criteria of identity. The latest response to this problem holds that no criteria of identity are required because mathematical practice presupposes a primitive identity relation. This paper criticizes this appeal to mathematical practice. Ante rem structuralism interprets mathematics within the theory of universals, holding that mathematical objects are places in (...) universals. The identity problem should be read as challenging this claim about universals. However, what mathematical practice presupposes is only relevant to what is true according to the theory of universals, if one takes it for granted such a theory offers the best interpretation of mathematics. In the current context, taking this for granted begs the question. Therefore, the appeal to mathematical practice in response to the identity problem is illegitimate. (shrink)

In this paper we develop a hermeneutic approach to the concept of competence. Patient competence, according to a hermeneutic approach, is not primarily a matter of being able to reason, but of being able to interpret the world and respond to it. Capacity should then not be seen as theoretical, but as practical. From the perspective of practical rationality, competence and capacity are two sides of the same coin. If a person has the capacity to understand the world and give (...) meaning to the situation, he or she is able to make decisions, and is thus competent. People can fail in the area of practical rationality. They can feel ill at ease, uncomfortable or not at home in the situation. Under such conditions, they appear as incompetent, and urge caregivers to respond in such a way that their competence can be raised. The issue is not how to measure their incompetence, but how to help them to become more competent, that is to get a practical grip on their situation and to be able to live out their lives in such a way that they develop their identity in relations with others. From a hermeneutic point of view, assessing a patient's capacity implies focusing on the patient's way of meaning making and regarding her behavior from the perspective of practical rationality. The focus should not be on the assessment as a matter of fact, but on improving capacity. This requires allowing the patient to experience the world meaningfully and affording her, in the context of a supportive and trustful institutional environment, the possibility of developing a personal narrative where her choices are expressed verbally or non-verbally. (shrink)

Religious identity has, in recent times, become an important point of inquiry because of the growing awareness of religious diversity. On the one hand, this reality of diversity has served as an impetus to return to the roots of one’s religion. On the other hand, others have called for a more pluralist stance, out of the need to open up to other traditions. In light of this polarity, I argue that one can commit to one’s religion while opening up (...) to the religious other in a way that does not threaten one’s own tradition. This is done through a hermeneutic analysis of the religious identity, taking off from Paul Ricoeur’s phenomenological hermeneutics – how this identity is formed and informed by the different significations of meaning within the tradition, and how the believer interacts with this tradition to construct his or her own narrative identity, through his or her imagination, mapping out the constellations of possible human action that root themselves in the necessity in encountering and working with the religious other, for this necessity is constitutive of one’s commitment to the tradition, embodied in the biblical narratives that call for this encounter. In sum, it is possible to be committed to one’s faith conviction while being hospitable to the religious other because it is constitutive of religion itself to encounter its other, and it is in this encounter that faith is truly understood as conviction. (shrink)

In this article I will reflect on interreligious dialogue and the tensive relation between openness and identity from a theological perspective. First, I consider the so‐called theology of religions and the threefold soteriological typology of exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism. Second, I address one of the main criticisms of this approach, namely that the soteriological approach amounts to a perversion of the virtue of openness. This critique is articulated especially within particularism, a model which sets out to move beyond the (...) soteriological fixation of the classical theology of religions. Because this relatively new model has not yet been analyzed systematically in the relevant literature, I will analyze some of its main tenets. I focus especially on the way this model sets out to alter the terms of the discussion on the dialogical tension between openness and commitment by claiming that hermeneutical openness should precede soteriological appreciation. Third, I turn to comparative theology as a fertile expression of particularism. Comparative theology presents itself as a genuinely adequate way to understand and appreciate the otherness of the religious other without losing sight of one's own identity. Moreover, comparative theology gives a new twist to the discussion on the dialogical tension between openness and commitment. Whereas the classical theology of religions seems to be actuated by the conviction that it is both possible and necessary to come to a final and definite soteriological appreciation of the religions, comparative theology sees interreligious encounter first and foremost as an ongoing conversational process, which can yield preliminary results only. It is my contention that this marks the nature of real and authentic dialogue. (shrink)

In this article, I sketch out something of a manifesto for the writing of queer theology. Beginning with a glimpse of the ways that anxieties about non-normative bodies and sexualities implicate all queer identity and practice, I then suggest ways that an awareness of the values and practices of the bondage, discipline, dominance and submission, sadomasochism community can illuminate the indecency of theological reflection. I believe that kink represents a valuable approach to meaning-making which holds great possibilities for the (...) theological discipline, particularly its unique relationship to social and interpersonal power dynamics, as well as its willingness to ‘dig around in the dirt’ of those things which are scary or taboo and find satisfying, sexy ways of relating to that fear. Above all, I hope to provoke new ways of thinking that challenge our easy answers about what progressive or liberative theology might look like, with deliberate attention to what is indecent in our frameworks. (shrink)

Are all forms of difference contained in what is, or is there some form of difference that escapes, negates, or constitutes what is? Parmenides and Heraclitus may have had the greatest effect on how philosophy has answered this question. This paper shows that Heraclitus is not a partisan of difference: identity and difference are mutually generative and equally fundamental. For his part, Parmenides both makes an argument against opposing being and non-being in the False Road Story, and then uses (...) precisely this opposition to put up signs on the Way of Truth. The paper responds to this impasse by making the case that the poem’s philosophical character is didactic, rhetorical, and mythological, which is why both these signs, and the opposition between non-being and being, are presented as names created by mortals. (shrink)

Collective memory has been a notoriously difficult concept to define. I appeal to Paul Ricoeur and argue that his account of the relationship of the self and her community can clarify the meaning of collective memory. While memory properly understood belongs, in each case, to individuals, such memory exists and is shaped by a relationship with others. Furthermore, because individuals are constituted over a span of time and through intersubjective associations, the notion of collective memory ought to be understood in (...) terms of the way that memory enacts and reenacts networks of relations among individuals and the communities to which they belong, rather than in terms of a model that reifies either individuals or groups. Ricoeur’s account can show sources of oppression and offers ways to respond to them. (shrink)

While in agreement with Miranda Fricker’s context-sensitive approach to hermeneutical injustice, this paper argues that this contextualist approach has to be pluralized and rendered relational in more complex ways. In the first place, I argue that the normative assessment of social silences and the epistemic harms they generate cannot be properly carried out without a pluralistic analysis of the different interpretative communities and expressive practices that coexist in the social context in question. Social silences and hermeneutical gaps are misrepresented if (...) they are uniformly predicated of an entire social context, instead of being predicated of particular ways of inhabiting that context by particular people in relation to particular others. I contend that a more nuanced—polyphonic—contextualization offers a more adequate picture of what it means to break social silences and to repair the hermeneutical injustices associated with them. In the second place, I argue that the particular obligations with respect to hermeneutical justice that differently situated subjects and groups have are interactive and need to be determined relationally. That is, whether individuals and groups live up to their hermeneutical responsibilities has to be assessed by taking into account the forms of mutual positionality, relationality, and responsivity (or lack thereof) that these subjects and groups display with respect to one another. The central argument is developed through an examination of what in race theory and in contemporary epistemologies of ignorance has been termed “white ignorance”; that is, the kind of hermeneutical inability of privileged white subjects to recognize and make sense of their racial identities, experiences, and social positionality. (shrink)

The question of personal identity lies in the question: In virtue of what is a person correctly considered the same person throughout a life‐course? This chapter shows that this question is central to the thought of Dilthey, Martin Heidegger, Hans‐Georg Gadamer, Ricoeur, as well as other thinkers in the hermeneutic tradition. Despite the deep differences among hermeneutic thinkers on the topic of personal identity, there are areas of common ground that enable us to formulate a general view that (...) is distinctively hermeneutic. Heidegger rejects the conception of the self as a substance. Gadamer asks about the nature of understanding and how it is possible, and addresses these questions by drawing on the fundamental ontological approach of Heidegger's question of the being of Dasein. Ricoeur goes beyond the proto‐narrative accounts of identity by distinguishing different levels at which life can be seen as having a narrative structure. (shrink)

In the heated debates over identity politics, few theorists have looked carefully at the conceptualizations of identity assumed by all sides. Visible Identities fills this gap. Drawing on both philosophical sources as well as theories and empirical studies in the social sciences, Martín Alcoff makes a strong case that identities are not like special interests, nor are they doomed to oppositional politics, nor do they inevitably lead to conformism, essentialism, or reductive approaches to judging others. Identities are historical (...) formations and their political implications are open to interpretation. But identities such as race and gender also have a powerful visual and material aspect that eliminativists and social constructionists often underestimate.Visible Identities offers a careful analysis of the political and philosophical worries about identity and argues that these worries are neither supported by the empirical data nor grounded in realistic understandings of what identities are. Martín Alcoff develops a more realistic characterization of identity in general through combining phenomenological approaches to embodiment with hermeneutic concepts of the interpretive horizon. Besides addressing the general contours of social identity, Martín Alcoff develops an account of the material infrastructure of gendered identity, compares and contrasts gender identities with racialized ones, and explores the experiential aspects of racial subjectivity for both whites and non-whites. In several chapters she looks specifically at Latino identity as well, including its relationship to concepts of race, the specific forms of anti-Latino racism, and the politics of mestizo or hybrid identity. (shrink)

Based on an analysis of double hermeneutics in the human sciences, a distinction between a weak and a strong rhetorical analysis of human-scientific research is introduced, taking account of the self-reflective character of hermeneutic interpretation. The paper argues that there are three hermeneutic topics in the research process for human-scientific experience, which are associated with applying specific rhetorical tools. The three topics are described under the following rubrics: (a) bridging the gap between experience-near and experience-distant concepts; (b) achieving integrity (...) of the cultural objects dispersed in different interpretive strategies; and (c) taking into consideration that an important task of hermeneutic interpretation in human-scientific research is to give an account of the object's immanent narrative coherence. The paper is written in the conviction that a kind of re-methodologization of philosophical hermeneutics which does not rehabilitate epistemological foundationalism can provide a new philosophical identity to the human sciences. (shrink)

Miranda Fricker’s account of hermeneutical injustice and remedies for this injustice are widely debated. This article adds to the existing debate by arguing that theories of recog- nition can fruitfully contribute to Fricker’s account of hermeneutical injustice and can provide a framework for structural remedy. By pairing Fricker’s theory of hermeneutical injustice with theories of recognition, I bring forward a modest claim and a more radical claim. The first concerns a shift in our vocabulary; recognition theory can give a name (...) to the seriousness of the long-term effects of hermeneutical injustice. The second claim is more radical: thinking of hermeneutical injustice as preventing what I call “self-recogni- tion” provides a structural remedy to the phenomenon of hermeneutical injustice. Because hermeneutical injustice is first and foremost a structural injustice, I contend that every virtue theory of hermeneutical justice should be complemented by structural remedies in terms of recognition. Finally, what I argue sheds light on the seriousness of cases of exclusion of and discrimination against women in academia and helps to draw our attention to new ways to combat such problems. (shrink)