This book is a formidably compelling source of insights for those who are interested in subjects ranging from moral philosophy, social justice, hermeneutics and education. It reconciles traditional theories of ethics by re-framing them through hypertextual techniques, bringing together contrasting and contradictory ethical views.

We observed that despite international declarations on child-rights, outsourced domestic girl-child labour still persists. Raising the question whether outsourced domestic girl-child labour constitutes hermeneutical injustice, we respond affirmatively. Relying on two indigenous victimology-narratives that are newspaper reports, we expose some of the horrors that the victims of outsourced domestic girl-child labour suffer. Comparing these reports with other victimology-narratives of hermeneutical injustice as reported by Miranda Fricker and Hilkje Hänel, we argue that the victims of outsourced domestic girl-child labour (...) suffer a hermeneutical gap and hermeneutical interference; and that the perpetuators of this practice, help to foster what we call ‘hermeneutical obstruction’. We recommend different counteracting measures such as: a radical feminization of educational curricula, which will allow for the introduction of the relevant hermeneutical resources that female children need in making sense of their experiences, into the classrooms and other places of learning; establishing feminist liberation agencies in all schools, religious institutions and hospitals, as ways of increasing the level of awareness about the rights of the girl-child in children and adults; feminizing legislation and legislative processes, to allow for the enactment of laws to protect the rights of the girl-child; and campaigning for a more rigorous enforcement of child-rights laws. (shrink)

An important feature of contemporary biblical studies is the movement of many interpreters in a direction that leads from historical to literary criticism and then from classical to structural literary criticism.

Hermeneutics, or the science of interpretation,is well accepted in the humanities. In thefield of education, hermeneutics has played arelatively marginal role in research. It isthe task of this essay to introduce thegeneral methods and findings of Paul Ricoeur'shermeneutics. Specifically, the essayinterprets the usefulness of Ricoeur'sphilosophy in the study of domination. Theproblem of domination has been a target ofanalysis for critical pedagogy since itsinception. However, the role of interpretationas a constitutive part of ideology critique isrelatively understudied and it is (...) here thatRicoeur's ideas are instructive. Last, theessay radicalizes Ricoeur's insights in orderto realize their potential to disruptasymmetrical relations of power in education. To this extent, the author contributes to thebuilding of a critical brand of hermeneutics,or the interpretation of domination. (shrink)

This article develops a new approach for theorizing about hermeneutical injustice. According to a dominant view, hermeneutical injustice results from a hermeneutical gap: one lacks the conceptual tools needed to make sense of, or to communicate, important social experience, where this lack is a result of an injustice in the background social methods used to determine hermeneutical resources. I argue that this approach is incomplete. It fails to capture an important species of hermeneutical injustice which (...) doesn’t result from a lack of hermeneutical resources, but from the overabundance of distorting and oppressive concepts which function to crowd-out, defeat, or preempt the application of a more accurate hermeneutical resource. I propose a broader analysis that better respects the dynamic relationship between hermeneutical resources and the social and political contexts in which they are implemented. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to engage with C. Thi Nguyen’s characterization of the echo chamber and to propose two things. First, I argue that a proper reading of his concept of echo chamber should make use of the notion of ignorance in the form of a structural epistemic insensitivity. My main contention is that ignorance as a substantive structural practice accounts for the epistemically deleterious effects of echo chambers. Second, I propose that from the talk of ignorance we (...) should be able to see echo chambers in terms of their more harmful impacts in our daily lives. To do that, I argue that we should think of echo chambers as tools to promote hermeneutical domination. If my representation of Nguyen’s concept is accurate, I believe we can see some important theoretical consequences stemming from the way Nguyen understands it. (shrink)

In Epistemic injustice, Miranda Fricker employs the critical concept of hermeneutical injustice. Such injustice entails unequal participation in the epistemic practices of a community that often results in an inability of dominated subjects to understand their own experiences and have them understood by their community. I argue that hermeneutical injustice can be an aspect of institutions as well communites?to the extent that they too engage in epistemic practices that seek to understand the problems and experiences of their constituents. (...) My primary example is the case of development theory and international development agencies where human beings were objectified in undesirable ways by the prevailing neoliberal economic theories that guided development practice. Here economic theory and the power to achieve its vision of unconstrained economic growth were combined in various organizations. Consequently such organizations systematically misunderstood the problems of the very people they were supposed to help. I argue that if hermeneutical injustice can be the result of the intersection of science and organizations, we need to create more participatory ways of gleaning information about social ills to alleviate institutionally mediated hermeneutical injustice. (shrink)

Hermeneutics and Deconstruction provides an assessment of two dominant modes of thinking and writing in continental philosophy today. It addresses central issues in the theory of interpretation and in the strategies of textual reading. Placed in the context of contemporary philosophical practice, this volume raises the question of the “end” of philosophy and offers different ways of understanding how the question of “closure” in philosophy can itself open up a whole range of philosophical activities. Special attention is given to the (...) practice of interpretation in the areas of science, perception, and literature, and to the dimensions of hermeneutic understanding with respect to being, life, and the world. An investigation of how history is interpreted and read as a text provides access to one of the significant differences between hermeneutic understanding and deconstructionist practice. A section is devoted to the controversy concerning the value and the achievement of deconstruction. The writings of Heidegger and Derrida are juxtaposed and examined. And the volume concludes with several indications of new directions in continental philosophy and various versions of what a post-Derridean reading might entail. (shrink)

This article explores the promises of critical hermeneutics as an innovative method and philosophy within the human sciences. It is argued that its success depends on its ability to articulate a theory of meaning with one of action and experience as well as its capacity to renew our understanding of the problem of ideology. First, critical hermeneutics must explain how cultural messages ‘show and hide’; that is, how the ambiguity of meaning always allows for a group to represent itself while (...) opening the door for distortion and domination. Second, critical hermeneutics ought to show how action can be best understood as opposing performances driven by ideological-moral views. Through an analysis of social movements, for instance, it is shown that any attempt to do justice could also and easily create exclusion. Third, critical hermeneutics has to clarify how tension and dualism within meaning and action are not to be dissociated from the self-interpretation of concrete individuals. A theory of experience is thus required in order to explain why the autonomy of the subject is finally at stake with regard to the problem of ideology. (shrink)

Hermeneutical injustice, as a species of epistemic injustice, is when members of marginalized groups are unable to make their experiences communicatively intelligible due to a deficiency in collective hermeneutical resources, where this deficiency is traditionally interpreted as a lack of concepts. Against this understanding, this paper argues that even if adequate concepts that describe marginalized groups’ experiences are available within the collective hermeneutical resources, hermeneutical injustice can persist. This paper offers an analysis of how this can (...) happen by introducing the notion of hermeneutical excess: the introduction of additional concepts into collective hermeneutical resources that function to obscure agents’ understanding of the lived experiences of marginalized groups. The injustice of hermeneutical excesses happens not due to hermeneutical marginalization (the exclusion of members of marginalized groups from the construction of hermeneutical resources), but rather hermeneutical domination: when members of dominant groups have been inappropriately included in the construction of hermeneutical resources. By taking as exemplary cases the concepts of “reverse racism” and “non-consensual sex” this paper shows how such excesses are introduced as a kind of defensive strategy used by dominant ideologies precisely when progress with social justice is made. (shrink)

The pattern of universality and redemption capsizes in the realm of politics. This chapter discusses the relationship of hermeneutics and politics in light of several moments in Western culture and philosophy. It bases this inquiry on Hans‐Georg Gadamer's ideas of hermeneutics, and begins with a discussion of his ontological commitments in order to assess their bearing on the question of politics. Gadamer sees agreement as the ontological outcome of conversations because it is antecedent to the conversation as well as its (...) only goal. Tradition is the source of questions, the tribunal that stipulates the criteria that will validate claims. If we accept that power and the concepts it uses possess both the weight of a dominant reasoning and its criteria to validate claims, then the characterization of politics carries with it the question of tradition and all its potentialities and concomitant problems. (shrink)

The practice and character of biblical hermeneutics, tied as they are to cultural history, are presently undergoing a postmodern phase of reassessing a long hermeneutic development. This chapter aims to show that the history of biblical interpretation is largely determined by the loss of this correspondence in modernity, and by the postmodern attempts to recover this crucial link between mind and being through the existential phenomenology of Martin Heidegger and the hermeneutic philosophies of Hans‐Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur, among others. (...) While these philosophers no longer ground the correspondence between consciousness and being in God, they nevertheless insist that language testifies to such a correspondence. For the postmodern, post‐metaphysical interpreter, language becomes “the medium through which consciousness is connected with beings”. Clearly, biblical hermeneutics in the academy is no longer simply dominated by a modernist paradigm. (shrink)

In contemporary philosophy and psychology there is an ongoing debate around the concept of theory of mind. Theory of mind concerns our ability to understand another person. The two approaches that dominate the debate are “Theory Theory” (TT) and “Simulation Theory” (ST). This paper explores the connection between theory of mind and hermeneutics. Although both speak of the nature of understanding, and the way we gain and organize our knowledge of others, certain aspects of Schleiermacher’s hermeneutics reflect a theory approach, (...) long before TT itself was developed. In contrast, Dilthey’s hermeneutics reflects a simulation approach. In contrast to both of these approaches, I propose a contextual theory, as a parallel to Gadamer’s work in hermeneutics, and as a view that offers the basis for an important critique of both TT and ST. (shrink)

ONE of the most important and central claims in Hans-George Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics is that all understanding involves not only interpretation, but also application. Against an older tradition that divided up hermeneutics into subtilitas intelligendi, subtilitas explicandi, and subtilitas applicandi, a primary thesis of Truth and Method is that these are not three independent activities to be relegated to different sub-disciplines, but rather they are internally related. They are all moments of the single process of understanding. I want to explore (...) this integration of the moment of application into hermeneutic understanding which Gadamer calls the "rediscovery of the fundamental hermeneutic problem." For it not only takes us to the heart of what is distinctive about philosophical hermeneutics but it reveals some of the deep problems and tensions implicit in hermeneutics. First, I want to note some of the central features of what Gadamer means by philosophical hermeneutics. Then I can specify the problem that he is confronting when dealing with application. This will enable us to see what Gadamer seeks to appropriate from Aristotle, and especially from Aristotle's analysis of phronesis in book VI of the Nicomachean Ethics, in elucidating the sense in which all understanding involves application. Gadamer certainly realizes that "Aristotle is not concerned with the hermeneutical problem and certainly not with its historical dimension, but with the right estimation of the role that reason has to play in moral action", and yet Gadamer claims that "if we relate Aristotle's description of the ethical phenomenon and especially the virtue of moral knowledge to our own investigation, we find Aristotle's analysis is in fact a kind of model of the problems of hermeneutics". But Gadamer's own understanding, interpretation, and appropriation of Aristotle has much richer consequences. It is itself a model of what he means by hermeneutical understanding. It is an exemplar of effective-historical consciousness, the fusion of horizons, the positive role of temporal distance, how understanding is part of the process of the coming into being of meaning, the way in which tradition "speaks to us" and makes a "claim to truth" upon us, and what it means to say that "the interpreter dealing with a traditional text seeks to apply it to himself." Furthermore, when we see how Gadamer appropriates Aristotle's text, we gain a deeper understanding of why the Geisteswissenschaften are moral-practical disciplines in the sense in which the Ethics and the Politics are practical disciplines, and why Gadamer thinks that "hermeneutic philosophy is the heir of the older tradition of practical philosophy" whose chief task is to "justify this way of reason and defend practical and political reason against the domination of technology based on science." Gadamer's own understanding of philosophical hermeneutics can itself be interpreted as a series of footnotes and reflections on his decisive intellectual encounter with Aristotle, an encounter to which he frequently refers and which was initiated by his participation in Heidegger's seminar on the Nicomachean Ethics. (shrink)

In this paper, linguistic-analytic philosophy has been identified as the dominant methodology in the philosophy of sport. The hermeneutics of sport is contrasted with linguistic-analytic philosophy by analyzing Heidegger’s view of Truth. In doing so, two views of philosophy are compared: ontology or description. Sport hermeneutics’ task has to do with description. Hermeneutical explanations of sport attempt to describe the facticity of sport. Such a facticity is formed by three moments: embodiment, capabilities, and tradition. They are not components of (...) sport that can be identified as essential components but rather, they are identifiable only for analytic purposes. These three above-mentioned elements cannot be identified as elements, because they are intrinsically intertwined forming a unitary network of meaning. The task of sport hermeneutics is to describe the different relationships that compose such a network of meaning. In doing so, sport is a humane activity linked to the constitutive human task of making sense of reality by projecting meaning into it. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact that developments in transhumanist technologies may have upon human cultures, and to do so by exploring a potential debate between Habermas and the transhumanists. Transhumanists, such as Nick Bostrom, typically see the potential in genetic and other technologies for positively expanding and transcending human nature. In contrast, Habermas is a representative of those who are fearful of this technology, suggesting that it will compound the deleterious effects of the colonisation of (...) the lifeworld, further constraining human autonomy and undermining the meaningfulness of the lifeworld by expanding the technological control and manipulation of humanity. It will be argued that these opposed positions are grounded in fundamentally different understandings of the consequences of scientific and technological advance. On one level, the transhumanists remain confident that the lifeworld has within it the resources necessary to find meaning and purpose in a society deeply infused by genetic technology. Habermas disagrees. On another level, the difference is articulated by Horkheimer and Adorno in Dialectic of Enlightenment, primarily by challenging what may be understood as a Baconian faith in science as a project for the domination of nature. While the transhumanists broadly embrace this faith, Habermas returns to something akin to Horkheimer and Adorno’s pessimistic scepticism. (shrink)

The interrogation of the problematic character of established traditions has become an increasingly dominant feature of contemporary political and social discourse. Gadamer's discussion of tradition takes on an often-unacknowledged utility in light of these discussions by both observing the subtle ways in which tradition persists even in times of social change while also placing an emphasis on the volitional (hence, risky and contingent) character of engagements with tradition. Gadamer's approach allows for a fidelity to tradition that nonetheless allows for a (...) critical, emancipatory engagement with it, a precursor to the more explicitly political projects of hermeneutic thinkers such as Luigi Pareyson and Gianni Vattimo. This hermeneutic lineage offers our modern age a chance to embrace a new and more authentic relationship with the traditions in which we always-already find ourselves situated by giving us the opportunity to make those traditions speak to the challenges of our tumultuous present. (shrink)

The current challenges of implementing responsible innovation can in part be traced back to the assumptions behind the ways of thinking that ground the different pre-existing theories and approaches that are shared under the RI-umbrella. Achieving the ideals of RI, therefore not only requires a shift on an operational and systemic level but also at the paradigm-level. In order to develop a deeper understanding of this paradigm shift, this paper analyses the paradigm-level assumptions that are being brought forward by the (...) different conceptualizations of RI. To this purpose it deploys a pragmatic stance on paradigms that allows discerning ontological and axiological elements shared by the RI community and an accompanying critical hermeneutic research approach that enables the profiling of paradigmatic beliefs and assumptions of accounts of RI. The research surfaces the distance of four salient RI accounts from the currently dominant techno-economic innovation paradigm RI seeks to shift. With this, our contribution helps to raise the self-awareness of the RI community about their presuppositions and the paradigm level barriers and enablers to reaching the RI ideal. This insight is needed for a successful transition to responsible research and innovation practices. (shrink)

This paper is broadly concerned with the question of what epistemic decolonization might involve. It is divided into two parts. The first part begins by explaining the specifically epistemic problem to which calls for epistemic decolonization respond. I suggest that calls for decolonization are motivated by a perceived epistemic crisis consisting in the inadequacy of the dominant Eurocentric paradigm to properly theorize our modern world. I then discuss two general proposals, radical and moderate, for what epistemic decolonization might involve. In (...) the second part, I argue that the inadequacy of Eurocentric epistemic resources constitutes a hermeneutical injustice caused by an irreducible form of epistemic oppression. I then argue that addressing this form of epistemic oppression requires thinking ‘outside’ of the Eurocentric paradigm because the paradigm might fail to reveal and address the epistemic oppression sustaining it. This lends further plausibility to the radical proposal that epistemic decolonization must involve thinking from ‘outside’ the Eurocentric paradigm, but also accommodates the moderate proposal that adopting critical perspectives on Eurocentric thought is an important part of epistemic decolonization. (shrink)

This article re-examines the theoretical basis for environmental and heritage interpretation in tourist settings in the light of hermeneutic philosophy. It notes that the pioneering vision of heritage interpretation formulated by Freeman Tilden envisaged a broadly educational, ethically informed and transformative art. By contrast, current cognitive psychological attempts to reduce interpretation to the monological transmission of information, targeting universal but individuated cognitive structures, are found to be wanting. Despite growing signs of diversity, this information processing approach to interpretation remains dominant. (...) The article then presents the alternative paradigm of hermeneutics through the works of Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger and Gadamer, to provide a broader interpretation of interpretation. This not only captures the essence of Tilden’s definition but construes heritage interpretation as a more inclusive, culturally situated, critically reflexive and dialogical practice. (shrink)

I distinguish between two senses in which feminists have argued that the knower is social: 1. situated or socially positioned and 2. interdependent. I argue that these two aspects of the knower work in cooperation with each other in a way that can produce willful hermeneutical ignorance, a type of epistemic injustice absent from Miranda Fricker's Epistemic Injustice. Analyzing the limitations of Fricker's analysis of the trial of Tom Robinson in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird with attention to (...) the way in which situatedness and interdependence work in tandem, I develop an understanding of willful hermeneutical ignorance, which occurs when dominantly situated knowers refuse to acknowledge epistemic tools developed from the experienced world of those situated marginally. Such refusals allow dominantly situated knowers to misunderstand, misinterpret, and/or ignore whole parts of the world. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact that developments in transhumanist technologies may have upon human cultures (and thus upon the lifeworld), and to do so by exploring a potential debate between Habermas and the transhumanists. Transhumanists, such as Nick Bostrom, typically see the potential in genetic and other technologies for positively expanding and transcending human nature. In contrast, Habermas is a representative of those who are fearful of this technology, suggesting that it will compound the deleterious (...) effects of the colonisation of the lifeworld, further constraining human autonomy and undermining the meaningfulness of the lifeworld by expanding the technological control and manipulation of humanity. It will be argued that these opposed positions are grounded in fundamentally different understandings of the consequences of scientific and technological advance. On one level, the transhumanists remain confident that the lifeworld has within it the resources necessary to find meaning and purpose in a society deeply infused by genetic technology. Habermas disagrees. On another level, the difference is articulated by Horkheimer and Adorno in Dialectic of Enlightenment, primarily by challenging what may be understood as a Baconian faith in science as a project for the domination of nature (where nature is an infinitely malleable material, to be dominated and shaped, without adverse consequences, purely for the purposes of human survival). While the transhumanists broadly embrace this faith, Habermas returns to something akin to Horkheimer and Adorno’s pessimistic scepticism. (shrink)

In this article, the nursing health history is revisited with a hermeneutic lens to uncover means by which this tool can better serve nursing practice. It is argued that further distanciation from the developmental and medical model is necessary to accurately uncover health and history in the nurse–client encounter. Based on the works of prominent hermeneutic philosophers, such as Heidegger, Gadamer, Merleau‐Ponty, Ricoeur, and Taylor, four orientations to health history and nursing are explored: orientation to caring, orientation to narrative, orientation (...) to time, and orientation to the body. The nursing health history is used as a vehicle for illuminating the usefulness of a hermeneutic perspective in everyday nursing practice. This article reveals views of health, history, and health history that are already known to nurses and the nursing milieu but are concealed by more dominant outlooks. The hermeneutical perspective presented in this article can help to reveal the important dimensions of everyday nursing practice and foster a richer attunement with the complex health experiences of individuals. (shrink)

The article reflects on the symbolic forms of domination developed in the social environment and the real games of power that they are hidden behind the representations in nowadays. It approaches the relation that the medias has in the representation context, being an instrument of domination for the processes ofconstruction of the important meanings for the structure of a society. The study calls the attention for the problematic theoretician presented for the philosopher Pierre Bourdieu, writing on the agent (...) and society, through the antagonism and exclusion between itself. Others two philosophers worked in the research are Michel Foucault and Jürgen Habermas. Thinking on individuals separately, we have that as the participant ones to be responsible in all the constructionof ethical values, politicians, cultural among others that they guide the collective context. However, we will only get success in this question, if we know how to analyze the “search of the real”. (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)

The increasing interest in Hegel among legal scholars can be attributed to three recent developments. First, there is a slow but sure historicist turn in legal studies that is unsettling legal formalists and positivists. This turn—initiated by legal realists decades ago and deepened by the Critical Legal Studies movement in our own time—radically calls into question objectivist claims about procedure, due process, and the liberal view of law. Second, there are a growing number of serious reexaminations of the basic assumptions (...) and fundamental presuppositions of dominant forms of liberalism not only among critics but also by many prominent liberal thinkers themselves. These reexaminations take the form of immanent critiques of liberalism as well as creative revisions of liberalism. Third, a new emerging subject matter has seized the imagination of some legal theorists: the complex cultures of liberal societies (including the subcultures of the liberal legal academy). For the first time in American legal studies, the crucial roles of race and especially gender are receiving wide attention as legitimate spheres of legal inquiry into what constitutes the ways of life that circumscribe the operations of power in the legal systems of liberal societies. (shrink)

The article reflects on the symbolic forms of domination developed in the social environment and the real games of power that they are hidden behind the representations in nowadays. It approaches the relation that the medias has in the representation context, being an instrument of domination for the processes ofconstruction of the important meanings for the structure of a society. The study calls the attention for the problematic theoretician presented for the philosopher Pierre Bourdieu, writing on the agent (...) and society, through the antagonism and exclusion between itself. Others two philosophers worked in the research are Michel Foucault and Jürgen Habermas. Thinking on individuals separately, we have that as the participant ones to be responsible in all the constructionof ethical values, politicians, cultural among others that they guide the collective context. However, we will only get success in this question, if we know how to analyze the “search of the real”. (shrink)

The article reflects on the symbolic forms of domination developed in the social environment and the real games of power that they are hidden behind the representations in nowadays. It approaches the relation that the medias has in the representation context, being an instrument of domination for the processes ofconstruction of the important meanings for the structure of a society. The study calls the attention for the problematic theoretician presented for the philosopher Pierre Bourdieu, writing on the agent (...) and society, through the antagonism and exclusion between itself. Others two philosophers worked in the research are Michel Foucault and Jürgen Habermas. Thinking on individuals separately, we have that as the participant ones to be responsible in all the constructionof ethical values, politicians, cultural among others that they guide the collective context. However, we will only get success in this question, if we know how to analyze the “search of the real”. (shrink)

Literature on epistemic injustice has grown tremendously as an increasingly rich and diverse body of work in recent years. From the point of view of intercultural and anticolonial discussions, contemporary contributions have also helped to illuminate how epistemic injustice and other forms of cultural domination might be related to essential processes within the structures of colonial and racial supremacy. -/- This proposal aims to contribute to such relevant and illuminating discussions by focusing on the role that language and culture (...) might have in phenomena of epistemic injustice, particularly, hermeneutical injustice. Despite the central role played by semantics in epistemic injustice studies, the question about whether certain languages could also themselves be the recipients of epistemic injustice has been rather undertheorized. Simultaneously, recent movements to advocate for minority language rights, such as the Linguistic Human Rights Movement (LHR), raise important questions in this connection. -/- In the present paper, I argue that attending to the intercultural context reveals a new sort of hermeneutical injustice, one that, surprisingly, has never been articulated before. In particular, I am referring to a kind of HI that is essentially “linguistic” and “culture-specific”. I will be presenting two different subtypes for this kind of hermeneutical injustice: The first concerns the possibility of considering certain languages themselves as genuine objects of hermeneutical injustice, while the second has to do with certain specific culturally-established expressions or forms of talking. (shrink)

The dominance of the medical-model in American psychiatry over the last 30 years has resulted in the subsequent decline of the “talking cure”. In this paper, we identify a number of problems associated with medicalized psychiatry, focusing primarily on how it conceptualizes the self as a de-contextualized set of symptoms. Drawing on the tradition of hermeneutic phenomenology, we argue that medicalized psychiatry invariably overlooks the fact that our identities, and the meanings and values that matter to us, are created and (...) constituted by our dialogical relations with others. While acknowledging the importance of medical and pharmaceutical interventions, we suggest that it is only by means of the dialogical interplay of the talking cure that the client can both recognize unhealthy and self-defeating ways of being and be opened up to the possibility of new meanings and self-interpretations. (shrink)

The scientific transformation of the hermeneutic art has been the common goal for the various formalist-structuralist programs of interpretation that have dominated human studies in our century - such as New Criticism in literary analysis, the formalist programs in art history and musicology, the Gestalt and Freudian psychology, structuralism in linguistics and anthropology, etc. In this volume, these formalist-structuralist programs shall be called structural programs of interpretation in Europe and America.

Hermeneutics, in its phenomenological mode, has become one of the dominating issues in contemporary philosophical discours. Hans-Georg Gadamer, the leading exponent of phenomenological hermeneutics, develops his theory in his monumental work Truth and Method1, by regarding hermeneutics as an exploration of both the archaeology of human understanding and constitutive role of language in experience. In this paper, we have presented a brief exposition of Gadamer's views, giving an emphasis on how human understanding of objects inevitably mingles with its traditions or (...) prejudices. Following Gadamer, we also have offered a systematic account of the role of language upon our overall understanding and building of an impersonal criterion of the truth and meaning of experiences. And finally we have critically examined Habermas* critique of Gadamer's failure to see language as a camouflage of domination of stronger experiences and the fact that the history of understanding is systematically distorted by this domination. (shrink)

Hermeneutics, in its phenomenological mode, has become one of the dominating issues in contemporary philosophical discours. Hans-Georg Gadamer, the leading exponent of phenomenological hermeneutics, develops his theory in his monumental work Truth and Method1, by regarding hermeneutics as an exploration of both the archaeology of human understanding and constitutive role of language in experience. In this paper, we have presented a brief exposition of Gadamer's views, giving an emphasis on how human understanding of objects inevitably mingles with its traditions or (...) prejudices. Following Gadamer, we also have offered a systematic account of the role of language upon our overall understanding and building of an impersonal criterion of the truth and meaning of experiences. And finally we have critically examined Habermas* critique of Gadamer's failure to see language as a camouflage of domination of stronger experiences and the fact that the history of understanding is systematically distorted by this domination. (shrink)

Drawing upon the thought of Giorgio Agamben, this essay focuses upon the potential of a single act to change a political order. Agamben’s writings retain the possibility for a paradigmatic gesture that opens a space for a politics not founded on a form of belonging grounded in a particular property, such as national identity. To illustrate this event this essay turns to Agamben’s construction of whatever-being, which is constructed hyper-hermeneutically. This term is chosen deliberately. Whatever-being retains a hermeneutic structure, but (...) is constructed through singular paradigmatic examples. These examples are evidence for whatever-being’s existence as a pure singularity, unable to be reduced to a particular quality. Such examples are gestures that allow future modes of belonging to separate themselves from oppressive foundations and dominating constructions of political existence, through revealing the possibility of a new way of being that does not require a revolutionary “zero hour” to be brought about. (shrink)

This paper endeavors to explore and expand the communicative potential of silence from non-Western cultural spaces, of Asian-indigenous worldviews as hermeneutical key to critical and cosmic consciousness. Specifically, it speaks of the llokano cosmic Nakem (cosmic self or cosmic sense of being). At the core of the llokano Nakem is a cosmic impulse that situates this indigenous culture's resilience within the dissipating ecological integrity. Just like in other Asian classical texts, e.g., Taoism where it speaks of a heavenly Dao (...) which is the origin and the law that sustains everything in the world, the Ilokano cosmic self lays at core of cultural belief-an ontology that is deeply founded on the tradition of silence. By seeking out a decisive break from dominant frameworks, this paper argues for the possibility of articulating alternative cultural and linguistic experiences as a political imperative towards a democratized world. (shrink)

This book takes the novel approach of framing Political Obligation as a situation rather than a problem. By doing so, Political Obligation is not considered as an issue to be solved, but a central condition of existence to be investigated and understood. The book launches a hermeneutic inquiry into how this relationship of obligation is constructed through encounters in which the citizen comes face-to-face with the existential manifestations of the State. The book first discusses the dominant approaches to Political Obligation (...) to elucidate the benefits of an existential hermeneutical approach. The notion of encounter is then developed into a hermeneutic approach capable of uncovering and interpreting the arguments, ideas, and narratives of obligation as are communicated in political communities. Finally, the limitations of this approach are considered in reference to the concerns of the Post-truth era. (shrink)

In this article I consider some central aspects of the naturalist philosophy of science and science and technology studies in dealing with the contested status of technoscience in medicine. Focusing on the concepts of realism and representation, I argue that theories of science-as-practice in naturalist philosophy of science should expand their scope so as to reflect more thoroughly on the social and political context of technoscience. I develop a hermeneutic of technomedical objects in order to highlight the internal connectedness between (...) social action, material agency, and the actions of scientific communities. The framework thus developed is used to re-consider the genomic turn in medicine. Pointing to the discrepancies between socially dominant representations of genomic technology and the actual interventions brought about through those technologies, I raise the question of how and where to address problems of theory and policy. (shrink)

Caste is a multidimensional reality in history and society, and it has manifested itself through varieties of structures of domination which are simultaneously cultural, economic, political and ideological as caste has also been related in complex ways with structures of class and gender domination. These structures of domination have led to the annihilation of self and society. This led Ambedkar to challenge us for annihilating caste. For Ambedkar, annihilation of caste calls for the realization of each person (...) as an individual and not just a caste person. It also calls for the destruction of caste privileges, discrimination and their scriptural legitimation. However, this call for annihilation mainly has been a structural project without enough attention to the project of transformation of consciousness—self and social. There is a hint of this in Ambedkar’s Annihilation of Caste when he urges us to realize each one of us as unique individuals beyond the holes of caste which is further deepened in his Buddha and His Dhamma. Transformation of consciousness is also suggested in Adi Shankara’s treatise on self, Atmastakam. The essay engages itself with Ambedkar, Shankara, Gandhi and Sri Aurobindo, among others, as they help us in the transformation of caste domination and present a new hermeneutics of self-realization and social liberation. It deals with the simultaneous challenges of structural transformation of caste as well as consciousness of caste at the levels of both self and society which can draw on multiple sources of critique, creativity and transformations in India and the world. Brahminism is the poison which has spoiled Hinduism. You will succeed in saving Hinduism if you will kill Brahminism. There should be no opposition to this reform from any quarter. It should be welcomed even by the Arya Samajists, because this is merely an application of their own doctrine of guna-karma. Whether you do that or you do not, you must give a new doctrinal basis to your religion—a basis that will be in consonance with liberty, equality and fraternity; in short, with democracy. I am no authority on the subject. But I am told that for such religious principles as will be in consonance with liberty, equality and fraternity, it may not be necessary for you to borrow from foreign sources, and that you could draw for such principles in the Upanishads. Whether you could do so without a complete remoulding, a considerable scraping and chipping off from the ore they contain, is more than I can say. (Ambedkar, 2002[1936], p. 303). (shrink)

The paper compares the hermeneutical strategies of the radical and magisterial branches of Reformation. The author detects the peculiarities of the hermeneutical principles and ways of understanding the biblical text which were offered by Menno Simons, a recognized Anabaptist leader, and compares these principles and ways with their counterparts practiced by Luther and other figures of the classical Reformation. Although the radical reformers did not create a holistic theology, their interpretative strategy is quite significant for understanding the phenomenon (...) of the “Protestant hermeneutics.” -/- Menno Simons’ interpretative system is rarely mentioned in the contemporary historical/philosophical and theological discussions. The author of this article argues that such omission is caused by the domination of one-dimensional stereotypes: the overwhelming majority of the researchers who speak about the Protestant hermeneutics tend to present this area as narrowed and somewhat impoverished as they reduce it to the hermeneutics of Luther and Calvin. -/- The article demonstrates that Menno Simons developed an applied interpretative strategy borrowed from some examples found in the Gospels. This hermeneutical system was founded upon the theocentric idea of personal Revelation and living Presence and thus inevitably led to: (1) “the Bible interprets itself” principle; (2) the search for “the clear meaning of the Scripture” – something that could be different from the original meaning. An interpretative model developed as the result was based on: (a) a holistic approach, (b) applied hermeneutics, (c) corporate hermeneutics, (d) hermeneutics of obedience. Thus it is possible to speak about an independent approach that has an important place in the history of the Protestant hermeneutics. (shrink)

This paper applies a Ricœurian ethics in a two-fold personal/societal critique, choosing as a case study the representation of an “other” in a newspaper article. The personal critique uses a historical narrative as a window. Through it, we see hysterical stories about national enemies—in this case the Greek Cypriots—imposing themselves upon the developing consciousness of a growing child. I describe my awakening—through Ricœur’s idea of the creativity of language—from the spell of these dominant normative national narratives to the possibility of (...) re-reading them creatively. Ricœur’s blueprint for engagement with such narrative structures holds out the promise of reading them in an ethical manner, and this is achievable through his linguistic hospitality. From there, this study, analyzing the ethical predicaments of mainstream journalism from the perspective of critical media studies, problematizes the issue of otherness in the news. The example taken up, a current Turkish newspaper article covering a Turkish Cypriot Parliamentarian’s remarks in session regarding the experiences of 1974 Cyprus, reveals how this otherization is actually constructed under the name of the journalistic profession. This essay then borrows a Ricœurian ethical perspective with a view to making news language more hospitable, repositioning both news organizations and news items alike within Ricœur’s ethical paradigm of leading a good life with and for others within just institutions. This conceptualization of the news item itself as a just institution is a change that journalists could make in order to bring the news more in line with a Ricœurian sense of ethics and away from the current dominant practices in mainstream journalism. (shrink)

If humans are created in the image of a trinitarian God, then we might consider that the fundamental ontology of humans would be relational, furthermore to some degree perichoretic. If perichoresis is somehow reflected in human relations, perichoresis should be evident analogically in our social relations, theology, and various disciplines of thought. This relational concept of the Church Fathers failed to be further developed because the concept of the Trinity fell from theological focus over the centuries. Today subtle but radical (...) changes are occurring in the field of social psychology and communications theory. Whereas it was once common for modern paradigms to dominate the field, social constructionists have begun to react against the preponderance of typically modern themes as the primacy of the subject or ontological discourse framed exclusively in the language of subject-subject. On the other hand, their work offers a unique opportunity for Christian theology to expand its understanding of perichoresis. For Kierkegaard the relationship itself becomes a positive third term that intensifies the polarities and therefore suggests an alternative tripartite consideration: subject-relationship-subject. From this tripartite relational structure of humanity as differentiated-unity, I am positioned to develop a logic of spirit and explore the possibility of analogia spiritus—the non-reflexive transformational dynamic facilitating holistic change and meaning—as the essential dynamic within perichoresis. This in turn reveals that these dynamics active as human spirit can be analogically correlated in mutual co-conditioning reciprocity in relation to the Trinity and the Eternal activity of the Spirit and Christ. (shrink)

This article questions the aptness of ‘discourse analysis’ as a label for our field, and prefers the less reductionist concept of ‘Discourse Interpretation’. It does this through drawing on ideas from the field of philosophical hermeneutics – the theory and practice of interpreting texts. It operationalizes and adapts the construct of the Interpretive Arc from the philosophy of Paul Ricoeur in order to address issues that are central to discourse work, including that of how we warrant the validity of our (...) textual interpretations. The Interpretive Arc consists of six inter-linked phases, which the article presents and exemplifies through discussion of a single text – the story of Babel. Phase 1 of the arc defines readers as being in a state of Estrangement before the text because of the distancing created by its written or technological form. Phase 2 is that of Pre-view, the state of opinion or knowledge that readers bring to a text. At phase 3, a first reading forms readers’ Proto-understanding, their initial ‘guess’ at what the text means. Then processes of Analysis test and evidence the validity of alternative readings, limiting the interpretations which can plausibly be taken from a text. Three byways of interpretive analysis are challenged and discarded: the dominance of author intention, structuralist analysis and limitless polysemy. Analysis then leads into 5, the phase of informed Understanding of the matter or injunction of the text, of what is disclosed or unfolded before the text. The Interpretive Arc is completed in phase 6, Ownership. Here, through processes of critique of their own and the text’s ideologies and of fresh listening, readers are led to a new self formed by the matter of the text. There is a dialectic amongst Analysis, Understanding and Ownership, with each informing and modifying the other. The approach emphasizes interpretation as the heart of discourse work. The 3000-year-old narrative of Babel is a subject as well as an object here. It contributes to the matter of the article and its interpretation is interwoven with the theoretical substance. The story is shown to be an integrated narrative abounding in sophisticated linguistic techniques which show a delight in language. The traditional Christian and Western interpretation of Babel – as an affront to God which results in the curse of multilingualism – is challenged. A re-constructed interpretation informed by intertextual evidence reads the fault of Babel to be the people’s refusal to spread through the earth. Babel can be interpreted as a manifesto against the monolingual and monocultural impetus of empires ancient and contemporary. The multilingual outcome is a positive affirmation of sociocultural and linguistic diversity. (shrink)

Medical ethics nowadays is dominated by a conception of ethics as the application of moral theories and principles. This conception is criticized for its depreciation of the internal morality of medical practice and its narrow view of external morality. This view reflects both a lack of interest in the empirical realities of medicine and a neglect of the socio-cultural value-contexts of medical ethical issues, including the creative development of a broader philosophical framework for a practicable medical ethics. Several alternative approaches (...) and conceptions have been proposed. The unified clinical ethics theory, developed by Graber and Thomasma, is an interesting attempt to synthesize these alternative approaches. It correctly identifies as the crucial problem the present disconnectedness of medical ethics from theoretical philosophy as well as the practice of medicine. In this paper, however, it is argued that the unitary theory should take more serious attention to the hermeneutic character of medicine as well as ethics. This implies that the unitary theory must in fact transform itself into aninterpretive clinical ethics theory. The theoretical characteristics and practical consequences of an interpretive theory of medical ethics are discussed in the present paper. (shrink)

This chapter begins by sketching an account of morally responsible agency and the general conditions under which it may fail. We discuss how far individuals with psychiatric diagnoses may be exempt from morally responsible agency in the way that infants are, with examples drawn from a sample of diagnoses intended to make dierent issues salient. We further discuss a recent proposal that clinicians may hold patients responsible without blaming them for their acts. We also consider cognitively impaired subjects in the (...) light of related issues in moral and political theory, asking whether they have been unjustly excluded from liberal conceptions of political community due to their presumed lack of agency. (shrink)

This study explores the connection between dominant psychological type preferences and reader interpretations of biblical texts. Working in type-alike groups, a group of 40 Anglican clergy were invited to employ their strongest function to engage conversation between Mark’s account of Jesus sending out the disciples and the experience of ministry in today’s world. The data supported the hermeneutical theory proposed by the SIFT approach to biblical interpretation and liturgical preaching by demonstrating the four clear and distinctive voices of sensing, (...) intuition, feeling and thinking. (shrink)