Abstract:
Culture as a dynamic system of meaningful relations can naturally accommodate a hermeneutic analysis. In this essay, the notion of Gadamer’s hermeneutics as involving interpretable meaning throughout experiential reality permits a natural concordance with an understanding of culture as meaningful. The Gadamerian idea that prejudices inform the horizons that make our experiences intelligible is applied to the view that culture is both a self-enclosed structure that is given by one’s horizon and one that continuously points past this horizon in genuine dialogue. Nevertheless, in seeing culture as a coherent system that transcends itself, we are consequently faced with a dilemma regarding the evolution of one’s cultural horizons: whether past horizons can survive the creation of novel ones through dialogue. However, this may be resolved through Gadamer’s understanding of the functions of sameness and difference within horizonal evolution, and how these functions feature in the distinction between a shared ontological ground and the horizons through which the ground is interpreted. Ultimately, we showcase how it is noncontradictory to suppose that culture is both self- and other-referential.
Keywords:
Gadamer, hermeneutics, culture, interpretation, meaning, horizon, relativism
How to cite:
Larrauri Pertierra, Iñaki Xavier. “On Gadamerian Hermeneutics: Fusions of Horizons, Dialogue, and Evolution(s) within Culture as Dynamic System of Meaning.” Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture 4, no. 4 (2020): 45-62. https://doi.org/10.14394/eidos.jpc.2020.0040.
Author:
Iñaki Xavier Larrauri Pertierra
School of Philosophy and Theology, University of Notre Dame
ND24, 2 Croke Street, Fremantle, WA 6959, Australia
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1244-6934
ixpertierra@gmail.com
References:
Beiner, Ronald. “Gadamer’s Philosophy of Dialogue and Its Relation to the Postmodernism of Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida, and Strauss.” In Gadamer’s Repercussions: Reconsidering Philosophical Hermeneutics. Edited by Bruce Krajewski, 145-57. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003. Proquest Ebook Central.
Cheng, Chung-Ying. “Receptivity and Creativity in Hermeneutics: From Gadamer to Onto-Hermeneutics (Part One).” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 42, nos. 1-2 (2015): 10-41. https://doi.org/10.1111/1540-6253.12188.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Philosophical Hermeneutics. Translated and Edited by David E. Linge. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1976.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Truth and Method. 2nd revised edition. Translated by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall. New York: Continuum, 2004.
George, Theodore. “The Promise of World Literature.” Internationales Jahrbuch für Hermeneutik 13, no. 1 (2014): 128-143.
Kogler, Hans-Herbert. “Dialogue and Community: The Ethical Claim of Tradition.” Journal of the Philosophy of History 8, no. 3 (2014): 380-406. https://doi.org/10.1163/18722636-12341281.
Krajewski, Bruce, ed. Gadamer’s Repercussions: Reconsidering Philosophical Hermeneutics. Berkley, CA: University of California Press, 2003. Proquest Ebook Central.
Leiviskä, Anniina. “The Relevance of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s Concept of Tradition to the Philosophy of Education.” Educational Theory 65, no. 5 (2015): 581-600. https://doi.org/10.1111/edth.12135.
Marshall, Donald G. “On Dialogue: To Its Cultured Despisers.” In Gadamer’s Repercussions: Reconsidering Philosophical Hermeneutics 123-44. Edited by Bruce Krajewski. Berkley, CA: University of California Press, 2003. Proquest Ebook Central.
Odenstedt, Anders. “Gadamer on the Limits of Reflection.” Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 36, no. 1 (2005): 39-54. https://doi.org/10.1080/00071773.2005.11007463.
O’Reilly, Kevin E. “Transcending Gadamer: Towards a Participatory Hermeneutics.” The Review of Metaphysics 65, no. 4 (2012): 841-60. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41635522.
Pickering, Michael. “History as Horizon: Gadamer, Tradition and Critique.” Rethinking History 3, no. 2 (1999): 177-95. https://doi.org/10.1080/13642529908596342.
Risser, James. “In the Shadow of Hegel: Infinite Dialogue in Gadamer’s Hermeneutics.” Research in Phenomenology 32, no. 1 (2002): 86-102. https://doi.org/10.1163/15691640260490575.
Sandel, Adam Adatto. “What is an Open Mind?” Philosophy and Social Criticism 44, no. 4 (2018): 360-70. https://doi.org/10.1177/0191453718755208.
Segev, Alon. “The Logic of Question and Answer and the Limits of Phenomenological Reduction: Collingwood, Heidegger, and Gadamer.” Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 38, no. 3 (2007): 318-28. https://doi.org/10.1080/00071773.2007.11006621.
Serequeberhan, Tsenay. Existence and Heritage: Hermeneutic Explorations in African and Continental Philosophy. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2015.
Taylor, Charles. “Gadamer on the Human Sciences.” In The Cambridge Companion to Gadamer. Edited by Robert J. Dostal, 126–42. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521801931.007.
Vallega, Alejandro A. “Exordio: Towards a Hermeneutics of Liberation: Understanding Liberatory Thought Out of the Movement of Effected Historical Consciousness in Hans-Georg Gadamer.” Research in Phenomenology 49, no. 2 (2019): 207–227. https://doi.org/10.1163/15691640-12341419.
Vedder, Ben, and Gert-Jan van der Heiden. “Hermeneutics and the Provisional Character of Dialogue.” Journal of the Philosophy of History 8, no. 3 (2014): 343-59. https://doi.org/10.1163/18722636-12341279.
Vessey, David. “Gadamer and the Fusion of Horizons.” International Journal of Philosophical Studies 17, no. 4 (2009): 525-36. https://doi.org/10.1080/09672550903164459.
Wang, Xinli. “Incommensurability and Comparative Philosophy.” Philosophy East and West 68, no. 2 (2018): 564-82. https://doi.org/10.1353/pew.2018.0046.
Warnke, Georgia. “Experiencing Tradition versus Belonging to It: Gadamer’s Dilemma.” The Review of Metaphysics 68, no. 2 (2014): 347-69. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24636347.
Weinsheimer, Joel. “Meaningless Hermeneutics?” In Gadamer’s Repercussions: Reconsidering Philosophical Hermeneutics. Edited by Bruce Krajewski, 158-66. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003. Proquest Ebook Central.
Open Access Statement:
This is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author, as long as the author and original source are properly cited. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Submitting a text to Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture means that the author agrees with the general conditions of this license. The author does and will maintain copyrights and publishing rights for his/her article without any restrictions.