In the academic year 1920-1921 at the University of Freiburg, Martin Heidegger gave a series of extraordinary lectures on the phenomenological significance of the religious thought of St. Paul and St. Augustine. The publication of these lectures in 1995 settled a long disputed question, the decisive role played by Christian theology in the development of Heidegger’s philosophy. The lectures present a special challenge to readers of Heidegger and theology alike. Experimenting with language and drawing upon a wide range of now (...) obscure authors, Heidegger is finding his way to Being and Time through the labyrinth of his Catholic past and his increasing fascination with Protestant theology. A Companion to Heidegger's Phenomenology of Religious Life is written by an international team of Heidegger specialists. (shrink)

Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutics contributes in an essential way to the understanding that truth cannot be adequately explained by scientific method. Hermeneutics then is not a method of interpretation, but is an investigation into the nature of understanding, which transcends the concept of method.

Hans-Georg Gadamer [Obituary]February 11, 1900–March 13, 2002With a profound sense of loss, we bid adieu to Professor Hans-Georg Gadamer, founding father of contemporary hermeneutics, interpreter par excellence, and honorary member of the International Institute for Hermeneutics.

This article reviews the book Genealogia i emancypacja. Studia nad współczesną filozofią polityki [Genealogy and Emancipation: Studies on Contemporary Political Philosophy].

Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit is a careful description of the progressive unfolding of Spirit. Its dialectic is the education of consciousness. There are three stages of unhappy consciousness: external beyond, changing individual, and achieved reconciliation. Being aware of its own mutability, the self yearns for reconciliation, which can only come from the external beyond, from the unchanging. The quest of unhappy consciousness for reconciliation is characterized by the three stages of devotion, sacramental desire and labour, and self-mortification. The self, constituted (...) by what is other, is never able to achieve lasting satisfaction; it desires the unity of self-consciousness. Through the experience of itself, the self comes to a clearer self-awareness and transgresses its own limits. (shrink)

Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit is a careful description of the progressive unfolding of Spirit. Its dialectic is the education of consciousness. There are three stages of unhappy consciousness: external beyond, changing individual, and achieved reconciliation. Being aware of its own mutability, the self yearns for reconciliation, which can only come from the external beyond, from the unchanging. The quest of unhappy consciousness for reconciliation is characterized by the three stages of devotion, sacramental desire and labour, and self-mortification. The self, constituted (...) by what is other, is never able to achieve lasting satisfaction; it desires the unity of self-consciousness. Through the experience of itself, the self comes to a clearer self-awareness and transgresses its own limits. (shrink)

Paul RicoeurFebruary 27, 1913–May 20, 2005It is with great sorrow that I note the death of Paul Ricoeur, Honorary Member of the International Institute for Hermeneutics.

Thinking with Paul Ricœur is a great pleasure and an even greater challenge. The more we seem to understand his life project, the more perplexed we are when facing the inescapability of the incompleteness, incomprehensibility, and impenetrability of what calls for thinking. Ricœur remains a faithful companion on the way to understanding oneself and reaching the inaccessible, despite the unprecedented progress of psychology, psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, and religion.

Thinking with Paul Ricœur is a great pleasure and an even greater challenge. The more we seem to understand his life project, the more perplexed we are when facing the inescapability of the incompleteness, incomprehensibility, and impenetrability of what calls for thinking. Ricœur remains a faithful companion on the way to understanding oneself and reaching the inaccessible, despite the unprecedented progress of psychology, psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, and religion.

Hermeneutics promotes an awareness of the interpretive character of the world. With regard to the difficult and complex relationship between philosophy and theology,hermeneutics calls for critical rethinking of the Heideggerian postulate to exclude theology from philosophy on the grounds of the autonomy of philosophy, and to exclude philosophy from theology on Barthian revelational positivist grounds.Heidegger‟s philosophy has a long history of being interpreted as an invitation to theology to think about God and religion in a new, non metaphysical way. Reexamining (...) the question of the meaning of Being,Heidegger inspired a search for new paths of thinking God outside the established onto-theological tradition.I will argue that both exclusions—philosophy from theology, theology from philosophy—are hermeneutically untenable. (shrink)

This article reviews the book Genealogia i emancypacja. Studia nad współczesną filozofią polityki [Genealogy and Emancipation: Studies on Contemporary Political Philosophy].

Andrzej Wierciński’s "Existentia Hermeneutica: Understanding as the Mode of Being in the World" is absolutely innovative in its reflection on the hermeneutic relationship between philosophy and theology. It represents a profound analysis of the whole tradition of philosophical hermeneutics and Catholic theology, which drew upon the former for a new account of the problematic of faith.

It is an attempt to exemplify the style of Wierciński’s scientific approach. The first part (A. Zamojski) presents his concept of the peculiarity of the specific human nature which is polarized into the animal side versus the human potential. The second part (R. Stefański) describes the anthropological concept of ideological development with the focus on the notion of ideological control subsystem. The latter can be employed as a tool of surveying the internal consistency of social organizations.

Late in his life, Hans-Georg Gadamer was asked to explain what the universal aspect of hermeneutics consisted in, and he replied, enigmatically, “in the _verbum interius_.” Gadamer devoted a pivotal section of his magnum opus, _Truth and Method_, to this Augustinian concept, and subsequently pointed to it as a kind of passkey to his thought. It remains, however, both in its origins and its interpretations, a mysterious concept. From out of its layered history, it remains a provocation to thought, expressing (...) something about the relation of language and understanding that has yet to be fully worked out. The scholastic idea of a word that is fully formed in the mind but not articulated served Augustine as an analogy for the procession of the Trinity, and served Thomas Aquinas as an analogy for the procession between divine ideas and human thought. Gadamer turned the analogy on its head by using the verbum interius to explain the obscure relation between language and human understanding. His learned interpretation of the idea of the inner word through Neoplatonism, Lutheranism, idealism, and historicism may seem nearly as complex as the medieval source texts he consulted and construed in his exegesis, but the profoundity of his insights are unquestioned. In unpacking Gadamer's interpretive feat, John Arthos provides an overview of the philosophy of the logos out of which the _verbum interius_ emerged. He summarizes the development of the _verbum _in ancient and medieval doctrine, traces its path through German thought, and explains its relevance to modern hermeneutic theory. His work unfolds in two parts, as an expansive intellectual history and as a close analysis and commentary on source texts on the inner word, from Augustine to Gadamer. As such, this book serves as an indispensable guide and reference for hermeneutics and the intellectual traditions out of which it arose, as well as an original theoretical statement in its own right. “Consummately researched, lucidly written, and persuasively argued throughout, __The Inner Word_ _succeeds brilliantly in bringing to light this neglected but pivotal matter in Gadamer’s work. Arthos is learned in the best ‘humanist’ way, for he succeeds in creating something new of his own that will speak eloquently to all of us.” —_Walter Jost, University of Virginia_ “Gadamer suggests that the Christian idea of incarnation is a key to his hermeneutics, but does not explain his position in a detailed or systematic manner. Arthos brings his considerable knowledge of hermeneutics and rhetoric to bear on Gadamer's insight, recounting the rich intellectual history to which Gadamer gestures, and providing an extended and detailed exegesis of this pivotal point in the third part of _Truth and Method_. Gadamer's account of 'linguisticality,' Arthos explains, can best be understood through his use of a complex metaphor—the ‘inner word.’ Arthos matches his erudition with clear and clean prose, and his account exemplifies, rather than just describes, Gadamer's hermeneutical philosophy. Any scholar interested in Gadamer's philosophy should have this book on his or her shelf.” —_Francis J. Mootz III, William S. Boyd Professor of Law, William S. Boyd School of Law_ “Arthos's strength lies for me in his careful reading of the sources. He effectively commands the literature on the subject. This work shows in a sophisticated way the legacy of trinitarian theology for philosophical hermeneutics. The very complex task of illuminating the phenomenon of the _verbum interius _and indicating its centrality for philosophical hermeneutics is accomplished by John Arthos with great sensitivity to the subject matter.” —_Andrzej Wiercinski, The International Institute for Hermeneutics_. (shrink)

Since the late 1980s, there has been a considerable growth in the numer of Polish contributions to the Latin American archaeoastronomy. Much of this interest in archaeoastronomy is an outcome of the scientific activities of Professor Andrzej Wiercinski who in the 1970s was fascinated with the claims for sophisticated Megalithic astronomy advocated by early British archaeoastronomers. The paper provides a brief description of the greatest Polish achievements in the field of Latin American archaeoastronomy.