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Truth and Method
Written in the 1960s, Truth and Method is Gadamer's magnum opus. An astonishing synthesis of literary criticism, philosophy, theology, the theory of law and classical scholarship, it is undoubtedly one of the most important texts in twentieth century philosophy. Looking behind the self-consciousness of science, he discusses the tense relationship between truth and methodology. In examining the different experiences of truth, he aims to "present the hermeneutic phenomenon in its fullest extent."
640 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1960
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About the author
Hans-Georg Gadamer
282 books303 followersHans-Georg Gadamer was born February 11, 1900 in Marburg, Germany.
(Arabic: هانز جورج غادامير)
Gadamer showed an early aptitude for studies in philosophy and after receiving his doctoral degree in 1922 he went on to work directly under Martin Heidegger for a period of five years. This had a profound and lasting effect on Gadamer's philosophical progression.
Gadamer was a teacher for most of his life, and published several important works: Truth and Method is considered his magnum opus. In this work Heidegger's notion of hermeneutics is seen clearly: hermeneutics is not something abstract that one can pick up and leave at will, but rather is something that one does at all times. To both Heidegger and to Gadamer, hermeneutics is not restricted to texts but to everything encountered in one's life.
Gadamer is most well-known for the notion of a horizon of interpretation, which states that one does not simply interpret something, but that in the act of interpretation one becomes changed as well. In this way, he takes some of the notions from Heidegger's Being and Time, notably that which Heidegger had to say about prejudgements and their role in interpreting and he turns them into a more positive notion: Gadamer sees every act and experience (which is a hermeneutical experience to a Gadamerian) as a chance to call into question and to change those prejudgements, for in the horizon of interpretation those prejudgements are not forever fixed.
Gadamer is considered the most important writer on the nature and task of hermeneutics of the 20th century, which was still widely considered a niche within Biblical studies until Truth and Method was widely read and discussed.
He died at the age of 102 in Heidelberg (March, 2002).
(Arabic: هانز جورج غادامير)
Gadamer showed an early aptitude for studies in philosophy and after receiving his doctoral degree in 1922 he went on to work directly under Martin Heidegger for a period of five years. This had a profound and lasting effect on Gadamer's philosophical progression.
Gadamer was a teacher for most of his life, and published several important works: Truth and Method is considered his magnum opus. In this work Heidegger's notion of hermeneutics is seen clearly: hermeneutics is not something abstract that one can pick up and leave at will, but rather is something that one does at all times. To both Heidegger and to Gadamer, hermeneutics is not restricted to texts but to everything encountered in one's life.
Gadamer is most well-known for the notion of a horizon of interpretation, which states that one does not simply interpret something, but that in the act of interpretation one becomes changed as well. In this way, he takes some of the notions from Heidegger's Being and Time, notably that which Heidegger had to say about prejudgements and their role in interpreting and he turns them into a more positive notion: Gadamer sees every act and experience (which is a hermeneutical experience to a Gadamerian) as a chance to call into question and to change those prejudgements, for in the horizon of interpretation those prejudgements are not forever fixed.
Gadamer is considered the most important writer on the nature and task of hermeneutics of the 20th century, which was still widely considered a niche within Biblical studies until Truth and Method was widely read and discussed.
He died at the age of 102 in Heidelberg (March, 2002).
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August 15, 2014Not to be recommended to the casual reader. By any stretch. Specialists only.
Here’s a few reasons why you’ll wanna pass ::
You want a text address’d to you in your average everydayness sitting at the lunch counter at the local Diner.
Do you know the names Schleiermacher or Dilthey? Those are the famous thinkers discussed.
You believe that the Method of (emperico-naturalistico-quantito) science is the very finest and last arbiter of Truth.
You don’t already know what the ‘hermeneutic circle’ is and why it’s important to get into it in the right way.
You haven’t read Being and Time, which is a better work anyway.
You know enough to know that reading Paul Ricoeur is much more enjoyable and just as enlightening.
You’re not really interested in, to borrow that Ricoeur phrase, understanding Yourself as Another. And you don’t want your horizon to merge with the horizon of another.
You think Wirkungsgeschichtlichesbewusstsein is not a word.
You know absolutely nothing about nineteenth century German Geisteswissenschaften, nor about the various projects to legitimate them in the manner Kant did for the Naturwissenschaften.
You don’t like to see a discussion on legal hermeneutics following a discussion of biblical hermeneutics. On equal planes.
You laugh at people who say ‘science’ but don’t have a pocket protector ; and who say ‘science’ but don’t measure things.
That is to say you think ‘science’ means ‘measuring’ and not ‘knowledge.’
You don’t really understand understanding. But this is important, so you really should read Being and Time.
No but seriously, don’t go swinging casually at this thing. It’s important. And it would certainly clarify a lot of misuse of swinging words like ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’, but probably if you’ve not already started down that road and are a very far distance down that road, you’ll want to pick up something of a different size. Meanwhile, for the curious, I recommend looking into the article at the Stanford :: HERE.
Not recommended. But really you should know it.
Here’s a few reasons why you’ll wanna pass ::
You want a text address’d to you in your average everydayness sitting at the lunch counter at the local Diner.
Do you know the names Schleiermacher or Dilthey? Those are the famous thinkers discussed.
You believe that the Method of (emperico-naturalistico-quantito) science is the very finest and last arbiter of Truth.
You don’t already know what the ‘hermeneutic circle’ is and why it’s important to get into it in the right way.
You haven’t read Being and Time, which is a better work anyway.
You know enough to know that reading Paul Ricoeur is much more enjoyable and just as enlightening.
You’re not really interested in, to borrow that Ricoeur phrase, understanding Yourself as Another. And you don’t want your horizon to merge with the horizon of another.
You think Wirkungsgeschichtlichesbewusstsein is not a word.
You know absolutely nothing about nineteenth century German Geisteswissenschaften, nor about the various projects to legitimate them in the manner Kant did for the Naturwissenschaften.
You don’t like to see a discussion on legal hermeneutics following a discussion of biblical hermeneutics. On equal planes.
You laugh at people who say ‘science’ but don’t have a pocket protector ; and who say ‘science’ but don’t measure things.
That is to say you think ‘science’ means ‘measuring’ and not ‘knowledge.’
You don’t really understand understanding. But this is important, so you really should read Being and Time.
No but seriously, don’t go swinging casually at this thing. It’s important. And it would certainly clarify a lot of misuse of swinging words like ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’, but probably if you’ve not already started down that road and are a very far distance down that road, you’ll want to pick up something of a different size. Meanwhile, for the curious, I recommend looking into the article at the Stanford :: HERE.
Not recommended. But really you should know it.
August 19, 2015
I find the idea of rating Truth and Method on a star system kind of offensive after Gadamer did so much to overturn the ontological prejudice that being is what can be quantified.
Reading this book was one of the joys of my life (I finished it July 4 three years ago, happy to ignore the jingoistic explosions all around me), and I honestly didn't find it all that difficult. I wouldn't lie about that: who would deny that continental philosophy is often EXTREMELY difficult? At times in my reading life I've been bludgeoned by Husserl, Heidegger, even Merleau-Ponty, but not Gadamer. Yet he's fully the peer of these other thinkers. By the end of Truth and Method I felt illuminated, not beaten-down.
In his own words:
"The structure of play absorbs the player into itself, and thus frees him from the burden of taking the initiative, which constitutes the actual strain of existence."
"Each science, as science, has in advance projected a field of objects such that to know them is to govern them."
(this is contrasted with...)
"In understanding we are drawn into an event of truth and arrive, as it were, too late if we want to know what we are supposed to believe."
"Being that can be understood is language."
Reading this book was one of the joys of my life (I finished it July 4 three years ago, happy to ignore the jingoistic explosions all around me), and I honestly didn't find it all that difficult. I wouldn't lie about that: who would deny that continental philosophy is often EXTREMELY difficult? At times in my reading life I've been bludgeoned by Husserl, Heidegger, even Merleau-Ponty, but not Gadamer. Yet he's fully the peer of these other thinkers. By the end of Truth and Method I felt illuminated, not beaten-down.
In his own words:
"The structure of play absorbs the player into itself, and thus frees him from the burden of taking the initiative, which constitutes the actual strain of existence."
"Each science, as science, has in advance projected a field of objects such that to know them is to govern them."
(this is contrasted with...)
"In understanding we are drawn into an event of truth and arrive, as it were, too late if we want to know what we are supposed to believe."
"Being that can be understood is language."
December 10, 2011
Wow, Gadamer really knocks it out of the park. It's a long, fairly dense book -- sorry -- but he's basically undermining the modern conception of "objective truth." Now, I don't mean that he's treating truth less seriously or holding out a vacuous "anything goes" mentality; rather, he argues that we have built such an abstract conception of proof and objectivity that we've actually *lost* truth in the process. Instead he suggests we recover the fact that real human knowing and existing occurs in time, in communities, in bodies. This means rejecting first a recasting of the humanities according to the controlled empirical methods of the natural sciences -- arguing instead that we recover the art of interpretation for understanding -- and then a conception of interpretation which would make the object of understanding original authorial intent -- this being an abstraction, not a lived engagement with the text.
Powerful stuff. A huge bombshell for the 20th century.
Powerful stuff. A huge bombshell for the 20th century.
June 26, 2023
Ovakve knjige se ne mogu dovoljno nahvaliti.
Ako je teorija potpuna zaokupljenost onim što se posmatra (177–178), onda je najveća vrlina prisustva učestvovanje, a ne puko bivanje na istom mestu u isto vreme. Štaviše, to „puko bivanje” može biti totalno mimoilaženje sa svetom – okolnost bilo kakve uporednosti nije obavezujuća za razmenu. Ali kad se razmena dogodi, sve se menja. Hermeneutika je to – nezavršiva mogućnost premošćavanja i afirmisanje susreta – vera u uspostavljanje veza. I ne samo, što se uglavnom tvrdi – veština razumevanja teksta – nego i izraz specifičnog saodnošenja sa svetom, osvešćivanje prisustva, učestvovanje u prisustvu i negovanje samoosvešćivanja. Ukoliko je ceo život promena, eksperiment (329), onda je hermeneutika potrebni i promenljivi odgovor na neizbežnu činjenicu promene. A i sam život se razlikuje u odnosu na sve drugo postojeće u odnosu na prelaz od svesti do samosvesti i to tako da „ono što je živo opstaje uvlačeći u sebe ono što je izvan njega” (330). Tako se dolazi do toga da se bivstvovanje samosvesti sastoji u sposobnosti samosvesti da sve pretvori u predmet svog znanja, a ipak u svemu što zna, zna sebe (331). Razumevanja bez tradicije nema, ali ne tradicije kao tereta zahtevanosti nacionalne kulture, već kao istorijskog samoosvedočenja nekog problema – doslovce svaki tekst predstavlja komunikativnu mrežu ne samo sa vantekstualnim svetom (čak i kad je ona naizgled obustavljena), nego i sa svim mogućim tekstovima ikada napisanim. Učestvovanje „u događaju tradicije” (377) stoga ne predstavlja potvrđivanje imperativa političkih ili nekih drugih elita, nego posredovanje između prošlosti i sadašnjosti, gde, izuzetno je bitno zapaziti smisao nekog teksta UVEK nadmašuje autora tog teksta (384). I to hermeneutiku čini izuzetno podsticajnom aktivnošću – ona nije reproduktivna, već uvek produktivna, stvaralačka aktivnost – a „ko razumeva, uvek je uvučen u događaj kroz koji se pojavljuje smisao” (613). A iza svakog poduhvata razumevanja nalazi se struktura pitanja kao putovođe. Pitanja koja su, kako to inače biva, važnija od odgovora. Odgovori su nagovori na razmišljanje, a pitanja jezgra oko kojih hermeneutika može da dela. Ona se tiču uvek i višestrukih prevođenja – od samog čitanja kao svojevrsnog prevođenja, sve do doslovnog prevođenja teksta sa jednog na drugi jezik (683). Ipak, ono što mi je ovom prilikom, u moru inspirativnih detalja, bilo posebno podsticajno jeste Gadamerovo razmišljanje o odnosu jezika i stvarnosti. Neka tvrđenja poput tog da uzdizanje iznad okolnog sveta za čoveka ima uvek jezički smisao i da, kroz to, nikad ne predstavlja napuštanje već uspostavljanje drugog stava prema svetu (558), mogu navesti na pogrešan trag, ako se nakon samo nekoliko stranica ne primeti Ikskilovo problematizovanje naivnog antropocentrizma (566) i to baš u svetlu hermeneutike. Različita perceptivna polja koja poseduju različiti organizmi upućuju i na različite jezike i pitanje susreta sa onim što je moguće zajedničko, predstavlja dragocen poduhvat susreta. Ali, u skladu sa poslednjom rečenicom ovog izdanja – „Loš je to hermeneutičar koji misli da može, ili mora imati poslednju reč” (719) – i otuda će i ovde, ciljano, kako i treba, biti izostavljena želja za konačnim uobličenjima, uz, naravno, poziv da ideja o vrlini susreta (sa ovom sjajnom knjigom) i dalje traje.
Ako je teorija potpuna zaokupljenost onim što se posmatra (177–178), onda je najveća vrlina prisustva učestvovanje, a ne puko bivanje na istom mestu u isto vreme. Štaviše, to „puko bivanje” može biti totalno mimoilaženje sa svetom – okolnost bilo kakve uporednosti nije obavezujuća za razmenu. Ali kad se razmena dogodi, sve se menja. Hermeneutika je to – nezavršiva mogućnost premošćavanja i afirmisanje susreta – vera u uspostavljanje veza. I ne samo, što se uglavnom tvrdi – veština razumevanja teksta – nego i izraz specifičnog saodnošenja sa svetom, osvešćivanje prisustva, učestvovanje u prisustvu i negovanje samoosvešćivanja. Ukoliko je ceo život promena, eksperiment (329), onda je hermeneutika potrebni i promenljivi odgovor na neizbežnu činjenicu promene. A i sam život se razlikuje u odnosu na sve drugo postojeće u odnosu na prelaz od svesti do samosvesti i to tako da „ono što je živo opstaje uvlačeći u sebe ono što je izvan njega” (330). Tako se dolazi do toga da se bivstvovanje samosvesti sastoji u sposobnosti samosvesti da sve pretvori u predmet svog znanja, a ipak u svemu što zna, zna sebe (331). Razumevanja bez tradicije nema, ali ne tradicije kao tereta zahtevanosti nacionalne kulture, već kao istorijskog samoosvedočenja nekog problema – doslovce svaki tekst predstavlja komunikativnu mrežu ne samo sa vantekstualnim svetom (čak i kad je ona naizgled obustavljena), nego i sa svim mogućim tekstovima ikada napisanim. Učestvovanje „u događaju tradicije” (377) stoga ne predstavlja potvrđivanje imperativa političkih ili nekih drugih elita, nego posredovanje između prošlosti i sadašnjosti, gde, izuzetno je bitno zapaziti smisao nekog teksta UVEK nadmašuje autora tog teksta (384). I to hermeneutiku čini izuzetno podsticajnom aktivnošću – ona nije reproduktivna, već uvek produktivna, stvaralačka aktivnost – a „ko razumeva, uvek je uvučen u događaj kroz koji se pojavljuje smisao” (613). A iza svakog poduhvata razumevanja nalazi se struktura pitanja kao putovođe. Pitanja koja su, kako to inače biva, važnija od odgovora. Odgovori su nagovori na razmišljanje, a pitanja jezgra oko kojih hermeneutika može da dela. Ona se tiču uvek i višestrukih prevođenja – od samog čitanja kao svojevrsnog prevođenja, sve do doslovnog prevođenja teksta sa jednog na drugi jezik (683). Ipak, ono što mi je ovom prilikom, u moru inspirativnih detalja, bilo posebno podsticajno jeste Gadamerovo razmišljanje o odnosu jezika i stvarnosti. Neka tvrđenja poput tog da uzdizanje iznad okolnog sveta za čoveka ima uvek jezički smisao i da, kroz to, nikad ne predstavlja napuštanje već uspostavljanje drugog stava prema svetu (558), mogu navesti na pogrešan trag, ako se nakon samo nekoliko stranica ne primeti Ikskilovo problematizovanje naivnog antropocentrizma (566) i to baš u svetlu hermeneutike. Različita perceptivna polja koja poseduju različiti organizmi upućuju i na različite jezike i pitanje susreta sa onim što je moguće zajedničko, predstavlja dragocen poduhvat susreta. Ali, u skladu sa poslednjom rečenicom ovog izdanja – „Loš je to hermeneutičar koji misli da može, ili mora imati poslednju reč” (719) – i otuda će i ovde, ciljano, kako i treba, biti izostavljena želja za konačnim uobličenjima, uz, naravno, poziv da ideja o vrlini susreta (sa ovom sjajnom knjigom) i dalje traje.
August 7, 2016
This is one of those great moments where a great student follows his master (Heidegger) yet gives us a new product and not simply a repetition of his master. In short, for Gadamer language is the horizon of being. As Kant was wrong to seek a thing-in-itself, so we also should beware of a "meaning-in-itself."
Gadamer begins and ends his work on a strange note: the aesthetics and interpretation of art. It’s not that art determines how we interpret text, but art allows Gadamer to illustrate (no pun intended) the tension given that great works of art are considered “timeless,” yet they were produced in historical, finite circumstances. This tension points to the horizon, a key Gadamerian term.
Every experience has implicit horizons of before and after and finally fuses with the continuum of experiences present in the before and after to form a unified flow of experience (246). Df. horizon = not a rigid boundary but something that moves with and invites one to advance further. Everything that is given as existent is given in terms of a world and hence brings the world horizon with it. As a horizon phenomenon “world” is essentially related to subjectivity, and this relation means also that it exists in transciency.”
Hermeneutical circle: possesses an ontological positive significance. We have already fore-projected before we even approach the text. This creates an openness which situates our meaning with other meanings. Understanding is a participation in the event of tradition and not so much a subjective act (302).
Horizons are temporally-conditioned. Time is not a gulf to be crossed by a supportive ground in which the present is rooted. We cannot stand outside of our situation. “All self-knowledge arises from what is historically pre-given, what Hegel calls “substance’” (313). Horizon: every finite present has its limitations. Every situation represents a standpoint that limits the possibility of vision. Horizons move with us. When we understand something, we fuse the horizons between text and interpreter. Fusion of horizons: We regain concepts of a historical past in such a way that it also includes our own comprehension of them (382).
This will go down as one of those truly great books. Ground-breaking works. It’s not super-hard to read simply because it is well-written. However, he does presuppose a good bit of Hegel and Heidegger, so keep that in mind.
February 20, 2016
Here is another book that may have killed me but I have endured and won the battle. This is a very fascinating book that is a translation of German philosophy regarding how we determine truth in the humanities. Some really beautiful moments, and lots of ideas that resonated with me. However, like Derrida, the text is often too dense and he seems to purposely be difficult. For that he does not get five stars! What else can a reader do??? Punish philosophers by withholding stars. That will do it. Dear philosophers, you may know how to think well. Next task: how to write well.
July 5, 2016
Heidegger's Being and Time is my favorite book. Matter of fact it's my first original source philosophy book I ever read. But, as I was reading it I had no idea why he would have long quotes from Dilthy and Count Yorck in the book, and I didn't realize what Husserl's Phenomenology really was, or what Aesthetics and Judgment really meant, or what was meant by Hermeneutics. This book lays the background for those items and more, and I wish I had read this book before I read Heidegger.
The pre-Socratics and the big three, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle take center stage in this story. It helped me immensely that I concurrently was listening to An Introduction to Greek Philosophy. The author pretty much just assumed the reader would know Parmenides from Heraclitus and the difference each implied. So, this book really excels at using what I've learned elsewhere and putting it into practice. He'll do the same with Hegel and Kant.
I'd say that the author definitely didn't like the Enlightenment (for the usual reasons), he liked the Romantics, but really loved the post-Romantics (Schopenhauer, Dilthy and Count Yorck). Since I've recently read Kantian Reason and Hegelian Spirit: The Idealistic Logic of Modern Theology I could follow most of what he was talking about.
Gadamer was a student of Heidegger and like all good students he takes some of Heidegger and tweaks it. He makes a statement in the book that the "thing-in-istelf as Husserl has shown is nothing but the continuity with which the various perceptual perspectives on objects shade into one another". This is actually the exact opposite from Heidegger. Gadamer likes Heidegger but he prefers Hegel. Matter of fact he makes the statement that the aim of philosophical hermeneutics is "to retrace the path of Hegel's phenomenology of mind until we discover in all that is subjective the substantiality that determines it".
I haven't really mentioned what the book is about. Partly, that's because I really loved his process (Method) before he got to his event (Truth). "All understanding is interpretation. Being that can be understood is language". He'll step the reader through with real examples. According to him, "Judgement is applying the particular under a universal, recognizing something as a result of a rule. It provides the bridge between understanding and reason". To get to the meaning of these kind of statements the author steps the reader through Aesthetics, Kant, Hegel, and Husserl's take on the world. He'll use the example of hermeneutics in the law and what it means to apply the law. That's when he had a footnote that basically said, "you might not know why I'm telling you this, but I'm setting you up for understanding how text (and the spoken word) really works".
At first I did not understand why he was talking about art, aesthetics, and playing and why playing both for children and then for actors was relevant(imitation and representation, and signs and symbols). But, it's at that point in the book I started to figure out that he had to establish the background before he could get to the 'foreground'. Foreground is a very important word for him, all language (all text, all hermeneutics including conversation) needs a context, a tradition and a culture (now you see why he doesn't like the Enlightenment).
I like the book a lot. He's a good writer (or is it good translator?). I really would recommend it for anyone. It's not impenetrable like Hegel, Kant and Heidegger can be. Each paragraph (or sentence) makes sense. Matter of fact that's actually what he's getting at in the book: it's not the pieces of the whole (e.g. words in sentences) we understand and it's not the whole we understand but the both before we can understand each.
The pre-Socratics and the big three, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle take center stage in this story. It helped me immensely that I concurrently was listening to An Introduction to Greek Philosophy. The author pretty much just assumed the reader would know Parmenides from Heraclitus and the difference each implied. So, this book really excels at using what I've learned elsewhere and putting it into practice. He'll do the same with Hegel and Kant.
I'd say that the author definitely didn't like the Enlightenment (for the usual reasons), he liked the Romantics, but really loved the post-Romantics (Schopenhauer, Dilthy and Count Yorck). Since I've recently read Kantian Reason and Hegelian Spirit: The Idealistic Logic of Modern Theology I could follow most of what he was talking about.
Gadamer was a student of Heidegger and like all good students he takes some of Heidegger and tweaks it. He makes a statement in the book that the "thing-in-istelf as Husserl has shown is nothing but the continuity with which the various perceptual perspectives on objects shade into one another". This is actually the exact opposite from Heidegger. Gadamer likes Heidegger but he prefers Hegel. Matter of fact he makes the statement that the aim of philosophical hermeneutics is "to retrace the path of Hegel's phenomenology of mind until we discover in all that is subjective the substantiality that determines it".
I haven't really mentioned what the book is about. Partly, that's because I really loved his process (Method) before he got to his event (Truth). "All understanding is interpretation. Being that can be understood is language". He'll step the reader through with real examples. According to him, "Judgement is applying the particular under a universal, recognizing something as a result of a rule. It provides the bridge between understanding and reason". To get to the meaning of these kind of statements the author steps the reader through Aesthetics, Kant, Hegel, and Husserl's take on the world. He'll use the example of hermeneutics in the law and what it means to apply the law. That's when he had a footnote that basically said, "you might not know why I'm telling you this, but I'm setting you up for understanding how text (and the spoken word) really works".
At first I did not understand why he was talking about art, aesthetics, and playing and why playing both for children and then for actors was relevant(imitation and representation, and signs and symbols). But, it's at that point in the book I started to figure out that he had to establish the background before he could get to the 'foreground'. Foreground is a very important word for him, all language (all text, all hermeneutics including conversation) needs a context, a tradition and a culture (now you see why he doesn't like the Enlightenment).
I like the book a lot. He's a good writer (or is it good translator?). I really would recommend it for anyone. It's not impenetrable like Hegel, Kant and Heidegger can be. Each paragraph (or sentence) makes sense. Matter of fact that's actually what he's getting at in the book: it's not the pieces of the whole (e.g. words in sentences) we understand and it's not the whole we understand but the both before we can understand each.
January 23, 2016
A book of this erudition is like sending your brain to a mental bootcamp. It is a book of ideas (or rather the history of certain ideas) and where the author believes he has a new one to introduce. Gadamer painstaking outlines his contribution by tracing the faintest shadow where it has already been illuminated even slightly, in the works of other authors gone before him. Even if the authors are many centuries old. There are frequent references to Kant, Hegel, Aristotle, Pascal, Spinoza, Mill, Hume.
It is very slow going, indeed; but upon inspection this 600 page juggernaut of European philosophical history can be apprehended as a series of just four, lengthy sections to traverse. Each one in itself is not that terrifying; they are 130, 70, 150, and 100 pages each (respectively). The rest of the pages are an extraordinarily large volume of endnotes, appendices, indexes, afterword, etc etc etc.
In the main, Gadamer is concerned with the difference between the laws and the accuracy which governs the hard sciences vs the principles which oversee human civilization and behavior.
As far as I can make out (I'm just 30 pages in) he asks the question, 'Is there some consistent, predictable force which drives human history in the same way that (for example) the force of gravity drives physics? If so, can we discern such a force and codify its behavior?' Thus, the book's title: 'Truth' (human truth) vs 'Method' (scientific method).
The chapters embedded among the four large sections deal in turn with topics like: art, play, humor, sympathy, experience, science, and language; with numerous subsections. Its a dissertation which constantly cuts back-and-forth across disciplines and schools-of-thought to make each, careful, deliberate, point.
Some of it is exhilarating; most of it is simply a rigorous mental exercise. A treatise few individuals would 'read for fun'. However, you will obviously come away from such a challenge with a good refresher on western intellectualism.
It is very slow going, indeed; but upon inspection this 600 page juggernaut of European philosophical history can be apprehended as a series of just four, lengthy sections to traverse. Each one in itself is not that terrifying; they are 130, 70, 150, and 100 pages each (respectively). The rest of the pages are an extraordinarily large volume of endnotes, appendices, indexes, afterword, etc etc etc.
In the main, Gadamer is concerned with the difference between the laws and the accuracy which governs the hard sciences vs the principles which oversee human civilization and behavior.
As far as I can make out (I'm just 30 pages in) he asks the question, 'Is there some consistent, predictable force which drives human history in the same way that (for example) the force of gravity drives physics? If so, can we discern such a force and codify its behavior?' Thus, the book's title: 'Truth' (human truth) vs 'Method' (scientific method).
The chapters embedded among the four large sections deal in turn with topics like: art, play, humor, sympathy, experience, science, and language; with numerous subsections. Its a dissertation which constantly cuts back-and-forth across disciplines and schools-of-thought to make each, careful, deliberate, point.
Some of it is exhilarating; most of it is simply a rigorous mental exercise. A treatise few individuals would 'read for fun'. However, you will obviously come away from such a challenge with a good refresher on western intellectualism.
May 4, 2019
"IGRA predstavlja poredak u kojem kretanje tamo-amo igre nastaje samo od sebe. Deo igre jeste da je kretanje ne samo bez svrhe i namere već i bez napora. Ona se događa takoreći sama od sebe. Lakoća igre - lakoća koja, naravno, ne znači da postoji stvarno nedostajanje napora, već fenomenološki ukazuje jedino na nedostajanje napornosti - subjektivno se iskusuje kao rasterećenje. Struktura igre takoreći apsorbuje igrača i tako ga oslobađa tereta preuzimanja inicijative, koji predstavlja pravi napor egzistencije".
"Istorija ne pripada nama, već mi pripadamo njoj. Mnogo pre nego što sebe razumemo kroz proces samopreispitivanja, mi sebe na očigledan način razumemo u porodici, društvu i državi u kojima živimo. Fokus subjektivnosti jeste ogledalo koje iskrivljuje sliku. Samosvesnost individue samo je plamsanje u zatvorenom krugu istorijskog života. Zato predrasude pojedinca, mnogo više nego njegovi sudovi, jesu istorijska stvarnost njegovog bivstvovanja".
"Istorija ne pripada nama, već mi pripadamo njoj. Mnogo pre nego što sebe razumemo kroz proces samopreispitivanja, mi sebe na očigledan način razumemo u porodici, društvu i državi u kojima živimo. Fokus subjektivnosti jeste ogledalo koje iskrivljuje sliku. Samosvesnost individue samo je plamsanje u zatvorenom krugu istorijskog života. Zato predrasude pojedinca, mnogo više nego njegovi sudovi, jesu istorijska stvarnost njegovog bivstvovanja".
December 7, 2016
In this text, Gadamer provides us with an account of understanding that he hopes will counter the Enlightenment project of 'objectivity' and rationalism. Gadamer begins his account of understanding, that is, coming to know something true about the world, by recovering art as a means of gaining knowledge. The enlightenment had effectively marginalized art as a means of knowing, reducing it to expression of psychological states and thus meaning becomes located in the subjective process of the act of creation. Instead, Gadamer wants us to see that art is an event where we are invited into a mode of being which he calls play. In play, we are gathered into a particular mode of being where we play roles which consequently bring structures into representation. This act of bringing into representation facilitates understanding about the world to take place.
Having dealt first with art, Gadamer then turns to Heidegger, Schleiermacher, and some 19th century German historians (particularly Dilthey) in order to offer an account of 'historically effected consciousness.' Essentially, Gadamer draws on Heidegger in order to demonstrate that we are always historical located in our understanding and, consequently, we possess a 'horizon.' This horizon is the unity of our experience of the world. This unity is a fore-projection which we always bring to the table in our act of understanding. This fore-projection is received from tradition, but exists always in the 'hermeneutical circle' which is the act of understanding. In the hermeneutical circle, we bring our horizon into conversation with another person (or text's) horizon in order that we might revise our horizon. What is crucial in Gadamer's account is that we are always bringing our own horizon to the table, that is, our act of understanding can only take place within the bounds of time, space, language, and communal structures of meaning. There is no de-contextualized, a-historical, or (as he will go on later to explain) language-less understanding.
Gadamer's final section is, perhaps, the most vital section in the entire book because it's where he shows how this act of understanding can truly be an act of knowing about the world. His argument proceeds thus: He argues that language and thought exist in a fundamental unity with one another. Another way of putting this is to say that understanding always and only happens in language. Gadamer then delves into the tradition in order to show how Western thought, beginning with the Greeks (as exemplified in Plato's Cratylus) conceptualized thought (knowing being) as prior to language. Language comes to function as a sign system which is constructed to represent and communicate knowledge of being which is possessed prior to the construction of the system. Rejecting this construal of language forms the foundation of Gadamer's project. For Gadamer, thought and language exist in inextricable unity. Further, thought comes to consummation as word because it exists as word prior to being spoken. In order to explain this difficult saying, Gadamer draws on high Scholasticism's understanding of the co-eternality of God the Father and God the Son, who is the Word. In the Trinity, one sees a picture of the eternal co-existence of the one explicated (the Father) and the one who explicates (the Son). Said differently, the one revealed in speaking exists eternally with the one who reveals by being spoken. This Word therefore exists as word both prior to and in being spoken. This then leads Gadamer to argue for, what he calls, a "hermeneutic ontology." This hermeneutic ontology essentially sees the world as disclosing itself only in and through language. There is no discreet datum about the world which we know prior to language and then affix an arbitrary sign to that datum so that it may then be passed along. Rather, language becomes the site in which meaning about the world becomes concrete. Ultimately then, for Gadamer, this means that the task of explicating the world is an infinite process of play whereby communities discover meaning in the world through their use of language. This account of language rejoices in its creatureliness, arguing that we cannot ever have knowledge of the sort which God possesses (total, whole, de-contextual, a-historical, transcendent) but we can only possess knowledge as historically effected consciousnesses (located in time, space, and especially language!). Instead, through the proliferations of human communities which inhabit the world from within language, human beings are able to discover and unearth truth about the world. We can do this because the world is overflowing and bursting at the seems with meaning, and thus the task of that meaning coming to concretion within particular times and places becomes an endless task. This endless task is not Sisyphean though. It is the child-like joy of endless curiosity encountering a feast of meaning which exceeds curiosity's ability to ever consume it all.
Having dealt first with art, Gadamer then turns to Heidegger, Schleiermacher, and some 19th century German historians (particularly Dilthey) in order to offer an account of 'historically effected consciousness.' Essentially, Gadamer draws on Heidegger in order to demonstrate that we are always historical located in our understanding and, consequently, we possess a 'horizon.' This horizon is the unity of our experience of the world. This unity is a fore-projection which we always bring to the table in our act of understanding. This fore-projection is received from tradition, but exists always in the 'hermeneutical circle' which is the act of understanding. In the hermeneutical circle, we bring our horizon into conversation with another person (or text's) horizon in order that we might revise our horizon. What is crucial in Gadamer's account is that we are always bringing our own horizon to the table, that is, our act of understanding can only take place within the bounds of time, space, language, and communal structures of meaning. There is no de-contextualized, a-historical, or (as he will go on later to explain) language-less understanding.
Gadamer's final section is, perhaps, the most vital section in the entire book because it's where he shows how this act of understanding can truly be an act of knowing about the world. His argument proceeds thus: He argues that language and thought exist in a fundamental unity with one another. Another way of putting this is to say that understanding always and only happens in language. Gadamer then delves into the tradition in order to show how Western thought, beginning with the Greeks (as exemplified in Plato's Cratylus) conceptualized thought (knowing being) as prior to language. Language comes to function as a sign system which is constructed to represent and communicate knowledge of being which is possessed prior to the construction of the system. Rejecting this construal of language forms the foundation of Gadamer's project. For Gadamer, thought and language exist in inextricable unity. Further, thought comes to consummation as word because it exists as word prior to being spoken. In order to explain this difficult saying, Gadamer draws on high Scholasticism's understanding of the co-eternality of God the Father and God the Son, who is the Word. In the Trinity, one sees a picture of the eternal co-existence of the one explicated (the Father) and the one who explicates (the Son). Said differently, the one revealed in speaking exists eternally with the one who reveals by being spoken. This Word therefore exists as word both prior to and in being spoken. This then leads Gadamer to argue for, what he calls, a "hermeneutic ontology." This hermeneutic ontology essentially sees the world as disclosing itself only in and through language. There is no discreet datum about the world which we know prior to language and then affix an arbitrary sign to that datum so that it may then be passed along. Rather, language becomes the site in which meaning about the world becomes concrete. Ultimately then, for Gadamer, this means that the task of explicating the world is an infinite process of play whereby communities discover meaning in the world through their use of language. This account of language rejoices in its creatureliness, arguing that we cannot ever have knowledge of the sort which God possesses (total, whole, de-contextual, a-historical, transcendent) but we can only possess knowledge as historically effected consciousnesses (located in time, space, and especially language!). Instead, through the proliferations of human communities which inhabit the world from within language, human beings are able to discover and unearth truth about the world. We can do this because the world is overflowing and bursting at the seems with meaning, and thus the task of that meaning coming to concretion within particular times and places becomes an endless task. This endless task is not Sisyphean though. It is the child-like joy of endless curiosity encountering a feast of meaning which exceeds curiosity's ability to ever consume it all.
January 2, 2010
Hans-Georg Gadamer's "Truth and Method" must be considered alongside the great works of Dilthey, Husserl, and Heidegger as a treatise on hermeneutics, defined by Gadamer as understanding and the correct interpretation of what has been understood. More commonly, people define hermeneutics as the study/theory of interpretation.
Two major contentions that help frame his analysis are: (1) rejection of the view that proper understanding calls for eliminating the influence of the interpreter's context; (2) rejection of the view that the author's intent in writing a text has any special weight to it.
As to the first point, he argues that it is simply not possible for the interpreter to escape his present situation. He advances the concept of the "horizon." For Gadamer, the horizon is ". . .the range of vision that includes everything that can be seen from a particular vantage point." It is the grounding of the interpreter, including that person's language, that fixes the possibilities of what that person can see and understand. In Gadamer's words, it is
". . .the way in which thought is tied to its finite determination, and the nature of the law of the expansion of the range of vision. A person who has no horizon is a man who does not see far enough and hence over values what is nearest to him. Contrariwise, to have an horizon means not to be limited to what is nearest, but to be able to see beyond it. A person who has an horizon knows the relative significance of everything within this horizon, as near or far, great or small."
To interpret the words of the past, Gadamer says that:
"Just as in a conversation, when we have discovered the standpoint and horizon of the other person, his ideas become intelligible, without our necessarily having to agree with him, the person who thinks historically comes to understand the meaning of what has been handed down, without necessarily agreeing with it, or seeing himself in it."
In interpreting texts, two horizons are involved--one is the horizon of the interpreter and the other the particular historical horizon into which he or she places him or herself in trying to understand the text. Thus, the two horizons interact to produce understanding.
The historical horizon of the text is not fixed; it cannot take on a meaning that is unchanged for all times and places. Here, he gets to the heart of successful hermeneutic inquiry--the fusing of horizons. He says:
"Hence the horizon of the present cannot be formed with the past. There is no more an isolated horizon of the present than there are historical horizons. Understanding, rather, is always the fusion of these horizons which we imagine to exist by themselves. . .Every encounter with tradition that takes place within historical consciousness involves the experience of the tension between the text and the present."
But what of the intention of the original author of a text? That leads to another of Gadamer's major points, by now clearly implicit in his idea of fusion of horizons. In short, it is not particularly important in trying to interpret a text. Once a text is created by its author, it becomes, so to speak, freed from the creator and begins to take on its own meaning, based upon its historical horizon, continually evolving as circumstances change. It is the text's horizon that interacts with the interpreter's horizon.
So what? To the extent that "reality" is the subject of inquiry, our understanding of "reality" will change as the historical horizon of a particular claim about reality changes. We can, then, never come to a satisfactory conclusion about a transcendental reality, about an absolute truth. Is relativism the end product of the endeavor? The hermeneutist in the Gadamerian tradition would simply note that there is no way out.
This is one of the most historically important works available on interpretation. It is difficult and challenging as a work; however, the effort to learn from Gadamer is well worth it.
Two major contentions that help frame his analysis are: (1) rejection of the view that proper understanding calls for eliminating the influence of the interpreter's context; (2) rejection of the view that the author's intent in writing a text has any special weight to it.
As to the first point, he argues that it is simply not possible for the interpreter to escape his present situation. He advances the concept of the "horizon." For Gadamer, the horizon is ". . .the range of vision that includes everything that can be seen from a particular vantage point." It is the grounding of the interpreter, including that person's language, that fixes the possibilities of what that person can see and understand. In Gadamer's words, it is
". . .the way in which thought is tied to its finite determination, and the nature of the law of the expansion of the range of vision. A person who has no horizon is a man who does not see far enough and hence over values what is nearest to him. Contrariwise, to have an horizon means not to be limited to what is nearest, but to be able to see beyond it. A person who has an horizon knows the relative significance of everything within this horizon, as near or far, great or small."
To interpret the words of the past, Gadamer says that:
"Just as in a conversation, when we have discovered the standpoint and horizon of the other person, his ideas become intelligible, without our necessarily having to agree with him, the person who thinks historically comes to understand the meaning of what has been handed down, without necessarily agreeing with it, or seeing himself in it."
In interpreting texts, two horizons are involved--one is the horizon of the interpreter and the other the particular historical horizon into which he or she places him or herself in trying to understand the text. Thus, the two horizons interact to produce understanding.
The historical horizon of the text is not fixed; it cannot take on a meaning that is unchanged for all times and places. Here, he gets to the heart of successful hermeneutic inquiry--the fusing of horizons. He says:
"Hence the horizon of the present cannot be formed with the past. There is no more an isolated horizon of the present than there are historical horizons. Understanding, rather, is always the fusion of these horizons which we imagine to exist by themselves. . .Every encounter with tradition that takes place within historical consciousness involves the experience of the tension between the text and the present."
But what of the intention of the original author of a text? That leads to another of Gadamer's major points, by now clearly implicit in his idea of fusion of horizons. In short, it is not particularly important in trying to interpret a text. Once a text is created by its author, it becomes, so to speak, freed from the creator and begins to take on its own meaning, based upon its historical horizon, continually evolving as circumstances change. It is the text's horizon that interacts with the interpreter's horizon.
So what? To the extent that "reality" is the subject of inquiry, our understanding of "reality" will change as the historical horizon of a particular claim about reality changes. We can, then, never come to a satisfactory conclusion about a transcendental reality, about an absolute truth. Is relativism the end product of the endeavor? The hermeneutist in the Gadamerian tradition would simply note that there is no way out.
This is one of the most historically important works available on interpretation. It is difficult and challenging as a work; however, the effort to learn from Gadamer is well worth it.
December 21, 2012
Gadamer is in the line of thinkers devoted to hermeneutics, a field of thought that at one time desired to build a science of the interpretation of texts. Gadamer completely disputes the science, but acknowledges his part in the tradition that saught a true method in achieving communion with the text. In the modern, academic form of hermeneutics, these texts were often historical. Thus, the question of how one could open oneself to the necessarily foreign world of another historical situation became primary. One aspect of contemporay hermeneutics, based in Gadamer and Ricoeur,is the belief that earlier thinkers were naive in their ideal of complete empathic connection with the historical past. All contact with new worlds is a shift that brings partial understanding; the investigator brings his own world view into the very questions that he brings to the text. The text inserts its own weight into this discourse because the interpretor never just steps back into his previous world having made adjustments for the historical. He/she is a slightly different person, the elements of their worldview adjusted by certain unavoidable assertions from the text. In fact, the reader of these texts is a very mobile, uncentered person, and it has been argued that in their more gentle fashion, Gadamer and Riceur dismantled the metaphysical subject almost as thoroughly as their Continental companions, say Foucault or Levi-Strauss. And like other Continental thinkers, the text flew off the printed page and became the model for dealing with all sorts of incoming, new information.
Gadamer is a major part of an image I have of human transaction with the world and it assumes a very 'laden-upon' participant. This person carries the burden of every past influence from his national-cultural situation to church membership to his best friend in kindergarden to his proclivity for colds. Actually, Gadamer would not appreciate the over emphasis on burdens, because, indeed, these are the the same influences that provide for his possibilities. All these influences, Gadamer is willing to calling them prejudices, provide the horizon with which he meets the world. This horizon is the front line,let us say, of a mass of history that is never in total equalibrium, but rather held in tentative containment. Each encounter with a different historical situation, a new text, a discussion, disrupts that front line, sometimes minutely and sometimes with major shifts. However, the encounter can never result in complete agreement, complete empathy with the text or historical figure; there's just too much contrary weigh from the past. Equally important, why would this person moving through the world ask a question of the past, of the text, if he had achieved complete equalibrium from his previous encounter with the world? It is the lack of having all components brought together that forces the questions that initiates the next discussion, the next reading. We cannot encounter the world with anything more than this tentative adjustment of necessarily contrary impulses, and what has made Gadamer controversial is the view that all truth consists in this tentative containment. Truth is the very temporay condition that results from close attention to the matter at hand, and even more, from the self analysis that allows some degree of awareness of the prejudices which most impinge on our reflection. Thus, Gadamer's thinker is a very serious person in distinction to someone like Rorty, who at one time sounded like an academic jokester, throwing out ideas to entertain the other faculty members. However, like Rorty, Gadamer resists even the 'final historian/scientist' who has had the priviledge of weeding through the discredited theories of the past. There is always distortion, not only in the input that determines the output, but also as the force that demands the question in the first place.
Gadamer is a major part of an image I have of human transaction with the world and it assumes a very 'laden-upon' participant. This person carries the burden of every past influence from his national-cultural situation to church membership to his best friend in kindergarden to his proclivity for colds. Actually, Gadamer would not appreciate the over emphasis on burdens, because, indeed, these are the the same influences that provide for his possibilities. All these influences, Gadamer is willing to calling them prejudices, provide the horizon with which he meets the world. This horizon is the front line,let us say, of a mass of history that is never in total equalibrium, but rather held in tentative containment. Each encounter with a different historical situation, a new text, a discussion, disrupts that front line, sometimes minutely and sometimes with major shifts. However, the encounter can never result in complete agreement, complete empathy with the text or historical figure; there's just too much contrary weigh from the past. Equally important, why would this person moving through the world ask a question of the past, of the text, if he had achieved complete equalibrium from his previous encounter with the world? It is the lack of having all components brought together that forces the questions that initiates the next discussion, the next reading. We cannot encounter the world with anything more than this tentative adjustment of necessarily contrary impulses, and what has made Gadamer controversial is the view that all truth consists in this tentative containment. Truth is the very temporay condition that results from close attention to the matter at hand, and even more, from the self analysis that allows some degree of awareness of the prejudices which most impinge on our reflection. Thus, Gadamer's thinker is a very serious person in distinction to someone like Rorty, who at one time sounded like an academic jokester, throwing out ideas to entertain the other faculty members. However, like Rorty, Gadamer resists even the 'final historian/scientist' who has had the priviledge of weeding through the discredited theories of the past. There is always distortion, not only in the input that determines the output, but also as the force that demands the question in the first place.
June 11, 2024
This book offers a deeply reflective and compelling articulation of what it means for philosophy to be a humanistic discipline—and indeed, what it is to be a humanistic discipline at all, concerned with a specifically humanistic mode of knowledge, in a world dominated by modern science. Of course, it is certainly not perfect. Truth and Method is somewhat repetitive, especially towards the end of Ch. 5, and Gadamer's extended discussions of Hegel and Heidegger verge at times on the florid and obscure. His picture of science is somewhat crude. I was also left ultimately unsatisfied by Gadamer's account of the type of truth gained by hermeneutical understanding. However, these defects stand alongside many extended discussions of quite profound clarity. I think Gadamer surpasses similar philosophers writing in English, such as Charles Taylor, Alasdair MacIntyre, Richard Rorty, Bernard Williams, Michael Oakeshott, RG Collingwood, and Leo Strauss, in both the panoptic scope of his scholarship and the richness of his account of the relation of human life to history and culture. (Taylor, I think, comes the closest.) If you wish to get a solid sense of Gadamer's project quickly, I recommend reading the Introduction, Preface, and especially the excellent Afterword.
May 7, 2013
Gadamer's erudition in the field of history of hermeneutics is impressive, but a less informed reader such as I am can often find himself in a difficult situation of having to interpret polemics with a thesis he doesn't know. All these obstacles are overweighted by the depth and clarity of author's insight when he starts to explore the problem itself. How can we understand historical tradition? Exposing inner contradictions of subjectivistic or relativistic historism he concludes that the hermeneutic circle, the fact that tradition already preshapes our understanding of tradition is no hindrance to understanding, but basic principle that makes any understanding possible.
I was overwhelmed especially by the revelatory power of the final part, which shows the universal aspect of hermeneutics. "Being that could be understood is language." Therefore all our understanding of being is actually interpretation.
I was overwhelmed especially by the revelatory power of the final part, which shows the universal aspect of hermeneutics. "Being that could be understood is language." Therefore all our understanding of being is actually interpretation.
August 8, 2009
Hermeneutics, properly done, is cool. Also, this book is about the most systematic and all-encompassing as you'll find on the topic, and, as Gadamer shows, it applies to every area of learning, as well as character formation and ethics.
September 5, 2008
How many thousand-page books are worth it?
February 8, 2018
I think Ernst Tugendhat was more or less right, when he said:
"If you start wih Heidegger's conception of truth, but disregard his ontology and then replace both the existentialism of his earlier philosophy and the mysticism of his later writings with a profound sense for the humanist tradition, you get what Gadamer calls 'philosophical hermeneutics'."
As for my ideas about the book - it is not a systematic presentation and it is quite easy to get lost in it, especially if you just want to go read it from the start to the end. The core is to understand what is hermeneutic circle, then read the second whole part and then try to understand how does it intertwine with Horizontverschmelzung. When you will do that you are safe to read the whole book and enjoy it. I think to really appreciate this book you also need to get to know Heidegger, but that is another exhilarating thing to do.
"If you start wih Heidegger's conception of truth, but disregard his ontology and then replace both the existentialism of his earlier philosophy and the mysticism of his later writings with a profound sense for the humanist tradition, you get what Gadamer calls 'philosophical hermeneutics'."
As for my ideas about the book - it is not a systematic presentation and it is quite easy to get lost in it, especially if you just want to go read it from the start to the end. The core is to understand what is hermeneutic circle, then read the second whole part and then try to understand how does it intertwine with Horizontverschmelzung. When you will do that you are safe to read the whole book and enjoy it. I think to really appreciate this book you also need to get to know Heidegger, but that is another exhilarating thing to do.
January 25, 2008
Incredibly challenging to read, but the chapter on hermeneutics changed my life.
January 7, 2015
One of the best books i've ever read. It invites you to speculate and to question things you may not have noticed before.
October 14, 2014
Buku yang menarik walau khas sekali filsafat kontinental, pembahasannya berbelit-belit. Mau bicara soal hermeneutika kit amalah diajak dulu bicara soal estetika. melelahkan sekali.
Inti dari buku ini hermeneutika dan dialektika. sangat baik bagi orang yang suka sekali membaca buku. dengan bekal buku ini kita jadi paham betapa menambah wawasan dan pemahaman itu sangat penting dalam hidup. mengapa? karena semakin kita banyak paham dan luas wawasan, fusi horison yang dihasilkan pun akan makin indah. kita akan memandang dunia dengan cara yang elegan
Review Buku Truth and Method
Sebuah karya puncak dalam bidang hermeneutika yang ditulis oleh Georg-Hans Gadamer. Merangkum metode hermeneutika terdahulu seperti hermeneutika romantik Schleiermacher, hermeuneutika metodologis Dilthey, dan hermeuneutika faktisitas Martin Heiddeger. Lalu kemudian menawarkan hermeneutika filosofis yang lebih luas dan universal. Orientasi hermeneutika filosofis Gadamer bukan kebenaran interpretasi tapi kekayaan interpretasi terhadap objek.
Bagian Pertama
Buku ini dibuka dengan bab mengenai seni dan estetika. Saya mendapat kesan ada beberapa poin yang Gadamer ingin buktikan terkait hermeneutika. Pertama, kerja hermeneutika tidak terbatas pada teks tapi bisa bekerja dalam seni dan apresiasinya, ini mengisyaratkan keluasan kerja hermeneutika. Dalam tulisan di bab awal ini kita bisa menemukan berbagai contoh seni dan apresiasinya, secara implisit pemikiran hermeneutika filosofis Gadamer hadirkan dalam bab awal ini, misalnya ketika membicarakan soal konsep pertunjukan teater. Seorang aktor harus menyadari pertunjukan itu adalah pura-pura tapi di sisi lain ia harus berusaha serius untuk memerankan perannya seolah-olah pertunjukan itu nyata. ini seperti lingkaran hermeneutis dalam pemikiran Gadamer. Kita memahami teks dengan kesadaran bahwa diri kita ini seorang pembaca yang terikat dengan zaman saat ini dan pemahaman kita akan terpengaruh oleh zaman kita tapi di sisi lain kita sadar juga bahwa teks yang kita baca memiliki konteks zamannya sendiri.
Kedua, ada kemiripan antara interpretasi teks dengan proses apresiasi suatu karya seni dalam estetika. Misalnya soal kebenaran dalam seni. Apakah dalam seni ada kebenaran? Tentu tidak. Seni tidak bicara mengenai kebenaran. Seni berusaha menggugah cita rasa estetis kita, merangsang wawasan dan pengalaman. Seperti apa kata Immanuel Kant. Seni bukan mimesis persis sebuah objke, tapi menampilkan sisi keindahahan suatu objek. Ada proses representasi ganda dalam seni. Begitu pula dalam hermeneutika filosofis Gadamer. Ia menggeser kerja hermeneutika yang tadinya berusaha mencapai kebenaran objektif menjadi petualangan pengalaman, rasa, dan wawasan bagi si pembaca. Schleiermacher menjadikan hermeneutika sebagai metode untuk mencapai maksud imperatif dari pengarang (teologis). Dilthey menjadikan hermeneutika sebagai metode untuk memahami ilmu humaniora dan masih memiliki ambisi untuk merengkuh kebenaran objektif. Hermeneutika filososif Gadamer tidaklah demikian, lebih mirip dengan estetika. Yang ingin diraih adalah pengalaman sublim melihat fusi cakrawala wawasan pengarang dan wawasan si pembaca. Hermeneutika bertujuan untuk mengembangkan wawasan si pembaca agar semakin luas fusi cakrawala yang tercipta ketika menginterpretasikan teks.
Ketiga, kesamaan antara hermeneutika dengan apresiasi seni adalah soal subjektifitas. Dalam seni ada selera, cita rasa, pengalaman pribadi yang membawa si penikmat seni bisa memahami sebuah karya sesuai kadar pemahamannya masing-masing. Begitu pula dalam hermeneutika. Subjektifitas adalah keniscayaan. Kita memiliki latar belakang yang berbeda, memiliki modal pemahaman, pengalaman, wawasan, kebiasaan yang berbeda kemudian menginterpretasi teks, maka hasilnya adalah kekayaan intrepretasi. Sebuah teks bisa menghasilkan berbagai macam interpretasi. Gadamer tidak menghendaki interpretasi yang tunggal, tapi proses dialektika pemahaman. Manusia berkembang dalam memahami dan semakin ia banyak memahami maka semakin kaya wawasan dan pemahamannya.
Bagian Kedua
Bab-bab dalam bagian kedua, Gadamer mengkritik hermeneutika romantik Schleiermacher, hermeuneutika metodologis Dilthey, dan hermeuneutika faktisitas Martin Heiddeger. Kemudian ia mengajukan hermeneutika filososfisnya.
Hermeneutika romantik Schleiermacher dan hermeuneutika metodologis Dilthey memiliki perbedaan yang kontras dengan hermeneutika filososfis Gadamer. Ada beberapa poin, pertama soal objektifitas, hermeneutika romantik Schleiermacher bertujuan untuk memahami maksud imperatif dari pengarang. Ini bisa kita pahami karena Schleiermacher menawarkan metode untuk memahami bibel. Maka menangkap maksud imperatif Tuhan sangat penting agar tidak ada kekeliruan dalam bertindak terkait agama dan ibadah. Hermeuneutika metodologis Dilthey memiliki orientasi untuk menjadikan ilmu humaniora bisa bersaing dengan ilmu-ilmu yang sudah mapan misalnya fisika, kimia, biologi, dan lain-lain. maka hermeneutika metodologis Dilthey dituntut secara ilmiah untuk menghadirkan kebenaran yang objektif. Sedangkan Gadamer justru menekankan keniscayaan subjektifitas dalam hermeneutika. Kita tak mungkin memahami sebuah teks tanpa menyertakan pemahaman pribadi kita kepada teks tersebut. Manusia sebagai subjek hermeneutika bukan subjek yang kosong dan hadir dalam ruang hampa. Manusia memiliki pengalaman, wawasan, dan pengetahuan yang membuat pengaruh terhadap proses ia memahami teks. Orientasi hermeneutika filosofis Gadamer bukanlah kebenaran objektif tapi kekayaan wawasan yang dihasilkan dari dialog pembaca dengan teks.
Kedua soal menyikapi empty gap antara pembaca dan pengarang. Hermeneutika romantik Schleiermacher dan hermeuneutika metodologis Dilthey mempercayai adanya jurang kosong antara pembaca dan pengarang. Dalam hermeneutika romantik Schleiermacher, jurang pemisah ini bisa kita hubungkan dengan memenuhi dua hal; pertama melakukan usaha pemahaman gramatikal, yaitu berusaha memahami setiap kosa kata yang ada dalam teks berdasarkan pada jaman teks tersebut ditulis. Misalkan kita membaca Al-Qur’an. Kita perlu memahami kosa kata yang ada di Al-Qur’an merujuk pada arti kata pada jaman Al-Qur’an diwahyukan, sebelum kata itu mengalami peyorasi atau ameliorasi makna (penyempitan atau perluasan makna kata). Kedua melakukan usaha pemahaman psikologis, yaitu mencoba merasakan secara psikis apa yang dialami oleh pengarang, dialami secara romantik, penuh penghayatan dan perasaan. Sehingga kita bisa menangkap keadaan psikologis si pengarang saat menulis karyanya. Usaha ini bermaksud untuk memahami maksud imperatif si pengarang dalam karyanya.
Hermeneutika metodologis Dilthey menjembatani jurang pemisah antara pengarang dan pembaca dengan tiga hal yaitu; pertama erlebniz (pengalaman), Dillthey seorang empirisis, segala sesuatu pengetahuan manusia diperoleh melalui pengalaman. Ia pun mempercayai pengaruh aspek historis bagi manusia. pengalaman yang kita alami akan selaluu terkait dengan zaman saat kita hidup. Pengalaman inilah yang hendak diakses oleh Dillthey untuk melacak secara objektif teks yang ia baca ata objek kajian humaniora, Kedua Ausdruck (ekspresi), melacak ide manusia yang tersembunyi adalah sesuatu yang tidak mungkin maka yang bisa kita lihat adalah ekspresi-ekspresi manusia yang tersirat pada tingkah laku, keadaan sosial, politik, karya-karya, dan adat kebiasaannya yang bisa kita lacak secara empiris dan ketiga Verstehen (pemahaman), dalam pemahaan teks dan ilmu humaniora yang kita gunakan adalah Verstehen alias pemahaman, bukan eklaren (penjelasan). Pemahaman ini membutuhkan kinerja akal pikiran secara menyeluruh dan total, maksudnya tidak melakukan reduksi dan penyempitan dalam mengambil objek formal dalam mengkaji manusia.
Lain dengan hermeneutika filososfis Gadamer yang mengatakan tidak ada yang namanya jurang pemisah antara pembaca dan pengarang. Maka dengan demikian tidak ada lagi kebutuhan untuk menjembatani jurang itu. Gadamer mengenalkan konsep wirkungsghechicte (sejarah pengaruh). Pemahaman pembaca terhadap teks selalu terpengaruh oleh keadaan zaman saat ia membaca teks. Pemahaman ini maka akan menghasilkan bildung, progresifitas rasio yang membuat pemahaman mengenai teks semakin kaya seiring waktu berjalan. Interpretasi semakin banyak dan cara pandang terhadap teks semakin beragam. Seorang pembaca tidak datang dari ruang hampa tapi ia cara pandang si pembaca terpengaruh dan terkonstruksi oleh sejarah perkembangan interpretasi teks.
Ketiga perbedaan antara hermeneutika romantik Schleiermacher dan hermeuneutika metodologis Dilthey yang kognitif dengan hermeneutika faktisitas Heiddeger dan hermeneutika filosofis Gadamer yang ontologis. Hermeneutika Schleiermacher dan hermeuneutika Dilthey menjadikan hermeneutika sebagai mode of cognition, aktifitas kognisi manusia untuk memahami teks. Yang ingin mereka lacak pun kognisi si pengarang atau objek kanjian humaniora. Hermeneutika Schleiermacher bersifat teologis, karena yang menjadi target adalah maksud imperatif dari teks bibel. Heermeneutika Dillthey bersifat saintifik, karena ada tuntutan ilmiah untuk mendapat kebenaran yang objektif dari kajian ilmu humaniora. Dua hermeneutika terjatuh menjadi metode yang kaku dan tidak menghasilkan kekayaan interpretasi.
Lain halnya dengan hermeneutika faktisistas Heiddeger. Hermeneutika Heiddeger menjadi ontologis karena kegiatan hermeneutis yang manusia lakukan membuat manusia itu menjadi dasein. Dengan melalukan hermeneutika manusia itu menjadi ada di sini saat ini. maka, aku berhermeneutika maka aku ada. Subjek hermeneutika memiliki faktisitas sebagai pijakan ia memahami sebuah teks. Gadamer mirip dengan Heiddeger. Hermeneutika adalah keniscayaan yang terjadi ketika subjek memahami teks. Maka dalam kedua pemikir hermeneutika ini sesungguhnya tidak mengajukan hermeneutika sebagai metode tapi ia menjelaskan hal-hal yang terjadi ketika subjek memahami teks. Hermeneutika melampaui metode.
Menurut Gadamer, yang terjadi saat subjek memahami teks adalah tercipta fusion of horizon. Pembaca memunculkan dunianya dan pengarang memunculkan dunianya sendiri. Ada keterarahan dan timbal balik, Gadamer menyebutnya sebagai dialog. Dua logika bertemu. Subjek memahami teks pengarang dengan pengaruh dari kerangka berpikir dan pengalaman subjektifnya dan teks memberikan pemahaman baru yang memperluas cakrawala pemikiran si subjek. Fusi horizon ini akan terus meluas seiring perkembangan pemahaman si subjek.
Bagian Ketiga
Dalam bagian ini Gadamer menjelaskan mengenai implikasi dari hermeneutika yang ia tawarkan. Hermeneutika Gadamer menggeser ontologi bahasa. Tadinya bahasa adalah alat manusia untuk merepresentasikan realitas eksternal dari subjek. Contoh konsep ini bisa kita ketahui melalu pemikiran Bertrand Russel mengenai isomorfi, ada kesatuan bentuk antara kata dengan benda di dunia eksternal. Atau bisa melalui pemikiran Wittgenstein mengenai picture theory. Bahasa adalah representasi atau gambaran real dari dunia eksternal. Ontologi bahasa seperti ini memiliki nuansa empirisme, positivistik, dan realis.
Bahasa memiliki nuansa objektif autoritatif. Misalnya dalam mehamami bibel kita perlu mengetahui secara objektif maksud imperatif Tuhan. Melakukan kesalahan interpretasi berarti melakukan kesalahan ketika kita melakukan perbuatan. Melakukan perbuatan yang salah akan membuat kita berdosa.
Hermeneutika Gadamer membuat ontologi bahasa bergeser. Bahasa tidak hanya sekedar perepresentasi dunia eksternal atau penyampai maksud si pengarang. Bahasa begitu cair dan subjektif. Bahasa bahkan bisa menciptakan dunia sendiri selain dunia eksternal. Bahasa menjadi alat berdialektika dan mengembangkan cakrawala. Interpretasi manusia bahkan dunia batasannya bukan realitas tapi bahasa itu sendiri.
Inti dari buku ini hermeneutika dan dialektika. sangat baik bagi orang yang suka sekali membaca buku. dengan bekal buku ini kita jadi paham betapa menambah wawasan dan pemahaman itu sangat penting dalam hidup. mengapa? karena semakin kita banyak paham dan luas wawasan, fusi horison yang dihasilkan pun akan makin indah. kita akan memandang dunia dengan cara yang elegan
Review Buku Truth and Method
Sebuah karya puncak dalam bidang hermeneutika yang ditulis oleh Georg-Hans Gadamer. Merangkum metode hermeneutika terdahulu seperti hermeneutika romantik Schleiermacher, hermeuneutika metodologis Dilthey, dan hermeuneutika faktisitas Martin Heiddeger. Lalu kemudian menawarkan hermeneutika filosofis yang lebih luas dan universal. Orientasi hermeneutika filosofis Gadamer bukan kebenaran interpretasi tapi kekayaan interpretasi terhadap objek.
Bagian Pertama
Buku ini dibuka dengan bab mengenai seni dan estetika. Saya mendapat kesan ada beberapa poin yang Gadamer ingin buktikan terkait hermeneutika. Pertama, kerja hermeneutika tidak terbatas pada teks tapi bisa bekerja dalam seni dan apresiasinya, ini mengisyaratkan keluasan kerja hermeneutika. Dalam tulisan di bab awal ini kita bisa menemukan berbagai contoh seni dan apresiasinya, secara implisit pemikiran hermeneutika filosofis Gadamer hadirkan dalam bab awal ini, misalnya ketika membicarakan soal konsep pertunjukan teater. Seorang aktor harus menyadari pertunjukan itu adalah pura-pura tapi di sisi lain ia harus berusaha serius untuk memerankan perannya seolah-olah pertunjukan itu nyata. ini seperti lingkaran hermeneutis dalam pemikiran Gadamer. Kita memahami teks dengan kesadaran bahwa diri kita ini seorang pembaca yang terikat dengan zaman saat ini dan pemahaman kita akan terpengaruh oleh zaman kita tapi di sisi lain kita sadar juga bahwa teks yang kita baca memiliki konteks zamannya sendiri.
Kedua, ada kemiripan antara interpretasi teks dengan proses apresiasi suatu karya seni dalam estetika. Misalnya soal kebenaran dalam seni. Apakah dalam seni ada kebenaran? Tentu tidak. Seni tidak bicara mengenai kebenaran. Seni berusaha menggugah cita rasa estetis kita, merangsang wawasan dan pengalaman. Seperti apa kata Immanuel Kant. Seni bukan mimesis persis sebuah objke, tapi menampilkan sisi keindahahan suatu objek. Ada proses representasi ganda dalam seni. Begitu pula dalam hermeneutika filosofis Gadamer. Ia menggeser kerja hermeneutika yang tadinya berusaha mencapai kebenaran objektif menjadi petualangan pengalaman, rasa, dan wawasan bagi si pembaca. Schleiermacher menjadikan hermeneutika sebagai metode untuk mencapai maksud imperatif dari pengarang (teologis). Dilthey menjadikan hermeneutika sebagai metode untuk memahami ilmu humaniora dan masih memiliki ambisi untuk merengkuh kebenaran objektif. Hermeneutika filososif Gadamer tidaklah demikian, lebih mirip dengan estetika. Yang ingin diraih adalah pengalaman sublim melihat fusi cakrawala wawasan pengarang dan wawasan si pembaca. Hermeneutika bertujuan untuk mengembangkan wawasan si pembaca agar semakin luas fusi cakrawala yang tercipta ketika menginterpretasikan teks.
Ketiga, kesamaan antara hermeneutika dengan apresiasi seni adalah soal subjektifitas. Dalam seni ada selera, cita rasa, pengalaman pribadi yang membawa si penikmat seni bisa memahami sebuah karya sesuai kadar pemahamannya masing-masing. Begitu pula dalam hermeneutika. Subjektifitas adalah keniscayaan. Kita memiliki latar belakang yang berbeda, memiliki modal pemahaman, pengalaman, wawasan, kebiasaan yang berbeda kemudian menginterpretasi teks, maka hasilnya adalah kekayaan intrepretasi. Sebuah teks bisa menghasilkan berbagai macam interpretasi. Gadamer tidak menghendaki interpretasi yang tunggal, tapi proses dialektika pemahaman. Manusia berkembang dalam memahami dan semakin ia banyak memahami maka semakin kaya wawasan dan pemahamannya.
Bagian Kedua
Bab-bab dalam bagian kedua, Gadamer mengkritik hermeneutika romantik Schleiermacher, hermeuneutika metodologis Dilthey, dan hermeuneutika faktisitas Martin Heiddeger. Kemudian ia mengajukan hermeneutika filososfisnya.
Hermeneutika romantik Schleiermacher dan hermeuneutika metodologis Dilthey memiliki perbedaan yang kontras dengan hermeneutika filososfis Gadamer. Ada beberapa poin, pertama soal objektifitas, hermeneutika romantik Schleiermacher bertujuan untuk memahami maksud imperatif dari pengarang. Ini bisa kita pahami karena Schleiermacher menawarkan metode untuk memahami bibel. Maka menangkap maksud imperatif Tuhan sangat penting agar tidak ada kekeliruan dalam bertindak terkait agama dan ibadah. Hermeuneutika metodologis Dilthey memiliki orientasi untuk menjadikan ilmu humaniora bisa bersaing dengan ilmu-ilmu yang sudah mapan misalnya fisika, kimia, biologi, dan lain-lain. maka hermeneutika metodologis Dilthey dituntut secara ilmiah untuk menghadirkan kebenaran yang objektif. Sedangkan Gadamer justru menekankan keniscayaan subjektifitas dalam hermeneutika. Kita tak mungkin memahami sebuah teks tanpa menyertakan pemahaman pribadi kita kepada teks tersebut. Manusia sebagai subjek hermeneutika bukan subjek yang kosong dan hadir dalam ruang hampa. Manusia memiliki pengalaman, wawasan, dan pengetahuan yang membuat pengaruh terhadap proses ia memahami teks. Orientasi hermeneutika filosofis Gadamer bukanlah kebenaran objektif tapi kekayaan wawasan yang dihasilkan dari dialog pembaca dengan teks.
Kedua soal menyikapi empty gap antara pembaca dan pengarang. Hermeneutika romantik Schleiermacher dan hermeuneutika metodologis Dilthey mempercayai adanya jurang kosong antara pembaca dan pengarang. Dalam hermeneutika romantik Schleiermacher, jurang pemisah ini bisa kita hubungkan dengan memenuhi dua hal; pertama melakukan usaha pemahaman gramatikal, yaitu berusaha memahami setiap kosa kata yang ada dalam teks berdasarkan pada jaman teks tersebut ditulis. Misalkan kita membaca Al-Qur’an. Kita perlu memahami kosa kata yang ada di Al-Qur’an merujuk pada arti kata pada jaman Al-Qur’an diwahyukan, sebelum kata itu mengalami peyorasi atau ameliorasi makna (penyempitan atau perluasan makna kata). Kedua melakukan usaha pemahaman psikologis, yaitu mencoba merasakan secara psikis apa yang dialami oleh pengarang, dialami secara romantik, penuh penghayatan dan perasaan. Sehingga kita bisa menangkap keadaan psikologis si pengarang saat menulis karyanya. Usaha ini bermaksud untuk memahami maksud imperatif si pengarang dalam karyanya.
Hermeneutika metodologis Dilthey menjembatani jurang pemisah antara pengarang dan pembaca dengan tiga hal yaitu; pertama erlebniz (pengalaman), Dillthey seorang empirisis, segala sesuatu pengetahuan manusia diperoleh melalui pengalaman. Ia pun mempercayai pengaruh aspek historis bagi manusia. pengalaman yang kita alami akan selaluu terkait dengan zaman saat kita hidup. Pengalaman inilah yang hendak diakses oleh Dillthey untuk melacak secara objektif teks yang ia baca ata objek kajian humaniora, Kedua Ausdruck (ekspresi), melacak ide manusia yang tersembunyi adalah sesuatu yang tidak mungkin maka yang bisa kita lihat adalah ekspresi-ekspresi manusia yang tersirat pada tingkah laku, keadaan sosial, politik, karya-karya, dan adat kebiasaannya yang bisa kita lacak secara empiris dan ketiga Verstehen (pemahaman), dalam pemahaan teks dan ilmu humaniora yang kita gunakan adalah Verstehen alias pemahaman, bukan eklaren (penjelasan). Pemahaman ini membutuhkan kinerja akal pikiran secara menyeluruh dan total, maksudnya tidak melakukan reduksi dan penyempitan dalam mengambil objek formal dalam mengkaji manusia.
Lain dengan hermeneutika filososfis Gadamer yang mengatakan tidak ada yang namanya jurang pemisah antara pembaca dan pengarang. Maka dengan demikian tidak ada lagi kebutuhan untuk menjembatani jurang itu. Gadamer mengenalkan konsep wirkungsghechicte (sejarah pengaruh). Pemahaman pembaca terhadap teks selalu terpengaruh oleh keadaan zaman saat ia membaca teks. Pemahaman ini maka akan menghasilkan bildung, progresifitas rasio yang membuat pemahaman mengenai teks semakin kaya seiring waktu berjalan. Interpretasi semakin banyak dan cara pandang terhadap teks semakin beragam. Seorang pembaca tidak datang dari ruang hampa tapi ia cara pandang si pembaca terpengaruh dan terkonstruksi oleh sejarah perkembangan interpretasi teks.
Ketiga perbedaan antara hermeneutika romantik Schleiermacher dan hermeuneutika metodologis Dilthey yang kognitif dengan hermeneutika faktisitas Heiddeger dan hermeneutika filosofis Gadamer yang ontologis. Hermeneutika Schleiermacher dan hermeuneutika Dilthey menjadikan hermeneutika sebagai mode of cognition, aktifitas kognisi manusia untuk memahami teks. Yang ingin mereka lacak pun kognisi si pengarang atau objek kanjian humaniora. Hermeneutika Schleiermacher bersifat teologis, karena yang menjadi target adalah maksud imperatif dari teks bibel. Heermeneutika Dillthey bersifat saintifik, karena ada tuntutan ilmiah untuk mendapat kebenaran yang objektif dari kajian ilmu humaniora. Dua hermeneutika terjatuh menjadi metode yang kaku dan tidak menghasilkan kekayaan interpretasi.
Lain halnya dengan hermeneutika faktisistas Heiddeger. Hermeneutika Heiddeger menjadi ontologis karena kegiatan hermeneutis yang manusia lakukan membuat manusia itu menjadi dasein. Dengan melalukan hermeneutika manusia itu menjadi ada di sini saat ini. maka, aku berhermeneutika maka aku ada. Subjek hermeneutika memiliki faktisitas sebagai pijakan ia memahami sebuah teks. Gadamer mirip dengan Heiddeger. Hermeneutika adalah keniscayaan yang terjadi ketika subjek memahami teks. Maka dalam kedua pemikir hermeneutika ini sesungguhnya tidak mengajukan hermeneutika sebagai metode tapi ia menjelaskan hal-hal yang terjadi ketika subjek memahami teks. Hermeneutika melampaui metode.
Menurut Gadamer, yang terjadi saat subjek memahami teks adalah tercipta fusion of horizon. Pembaca memunculkan dunianya dan pengarang memunculkan dunianya sendiri. Ada keterarahan dan timbal balik, Gadamer menyebutnya sebagai dialog. Dua logika bertemu. Subjek memahami teks pengarang dengan pengaruh dari kerangka berpikir dan pengalaman subjektifnya dan teks memberikan pemahaman baru yang memperluas cakrawala pemikiran si subjek. Fusi horizon ini akan terus meluas seiring perkembangan pemahaman si subjek.
Bagian Ketiga
Dalam bagian ini Gadamer menjelaskan mengenai implikasi dari hermeneutika yang ia tawarkan. Hermeneutika Gadamer menggeser ontologi bahasa. Tadinya bahasa adalah alat manusia untuk merepresentasikan realitas eksternal dari subjek. Contoh konsep ini bisa kita ketahui melalu pemikiran Bertrand Russel mengenai isomorfi, ada kesatuan bentuk antara kata dengan benda di dunia eksternal. Atau bisa melalui pemikiran Wittgenstein mengenai picture theory. Bahasa adalah representasi atau gambaran real dari dunia eksternal. Ontologi bahasa seperti ini memiliki nuansa empirisme, positivistik, dan realis.
Bahasa memiliki nuansa objektif autoritatif. Misalnya dalam mehamami bibel kita perlu mengetahui secara objektif maksud imperatif Tuhan. Melakukan kesalahan interpretasi berarti melakukan kesalahan ketika kita melakukan perbuatan. Melakukan perbuatan yang salah akan membuat kita berdosa.
Hermeneutika Gadamer membuat ontologi bahasa bergeser. Bahasa tidak hanya sekedar perepresentasi dunia eksternal atau penyampai maksud si pengarang. Bahasa begitu cair dan subjektif. Bahasa bahkan bisa menciptakan dunia sendiri selain dunia eksternal. Bahasa menjadi alat berdialektika dan mengembangkan cakrawala. Interpretasi manusia bahkan dunia batasannya bukan realitas tapi bahasa itu sendiri.
May 8, 2018
Obviously very good and very important for anyone thinking about tradition, language, art, and knowledge. But, contrary to some silly reviews on here, it's actually quite accessible to anyone who has read about these questions before. You'll get the most out of this if you've already read some Kant, Hegel, and Heidegger, but Gadamer always rehearses the claims of his interlocutors generously. Several sections of the texts structurally enact Gadamer's own claim - which is to say, they establish the question as emergent through tradition and language. These can, if desired, be skimmed or skipped if one isn't as committed to the philosophical project and just wants the major, explicit takeaways - once again making the text quite manageable.
unfinished
January 27, 2025Do I get on some special achievement list for even trying to read this?
August 28, 2025
L'idea centrale di questo libro è che il mondo è un orizzonte linguistico. Letteralmente questa idea è falsa. Se intendiamo per analogia che il mondo ha un suo linguaggio, viene in mente la metafora di Galileo:
Il mondo è un libro scritto in caratteri matematici.
Fare una carriera nell'integrare questa metafora è eccessivo.
Nelle altre recensioni vedo descrizioni completamente avulse dal testo. Io invece vi analizzo il testo. Se poi qualcuno vuole scrivere un altro capolavoro sulla "non linearità dell'interpretazione come valore alternativo e decisivo" faccia pure.
Se volete risparmiarvi il libro, eccolo in due righe: La verità (umana) non è definita né ridotta dal metodo (un qualsiasi metodo che pretenda una soluzione assoluta). Ecco, ora se vi scoccia non sapere la matematica o se volete gloriarvi di una vaga intuizione che "la scienza non è tutto" potete sbandierare un'altra semi-opinione colta, con tutti i fronzoli retorici di cui siete capaci, altrimenti compensati con la veemenza passionale. Per gli altri:
Il libro è diviso in tre parti.
1. L'esperienza della verità nell'arte.
2. Estensione della questione della verità alla comprensione nell'ambito delle scienze umane.
3.Svolta ontologica dell'ermeneutica, guidata dal linguaggio.
C'è un'introduzione molto chiara dove Gadamer sostiene che l'ermeneutica non è nuova. è presente nella teologia e nella giurisprudenza. Intende dire che quando si tratta di interpretare i testi sacri o la legge, il sacerdote o il giudice non usano il metodo scientifico, ma il metodo ermeneutico.
Ovviamente Gadamer, come tutti i parassiti della scienza, deve considerare la scienza come essenzialmente CALCOLO. Questa affermazione è piuttosto vaga, e alla lettera è anche falsa.
Gli scienziati osservano il mondo, descrivono i fenomeni e cercano leggi generali che li governano. Che ci sia una componente di calcolo a posteriori è innegabile, ma non è lo stesso con la grammatica che impariamo? non facciamo un calcolo delle nostre espressioni per collocarle nello spazio della grammatica?
Quindi la parte "oppositiva" di quest'opera è, a mio avviso, completamente senza valore. Possibile che un'opera pubblicata nel 1960, che voglia parlare anche di scienza ignori del tutto le immense conquiste scientifiche del '900? Già, ma non si tratta di parlarne, ma di criticarla vilmente da ambientucoli alleati da una specie di complesso di inferiorità.
Da parte mia, sono molto più d'accordo con l'onesto Baumgarten (1850, Aestethica), che chiama Estetica una gnoseologia inferiore, ovvero, un modo di conoscere che è inferiore a quello razionale. Se non siamo in grado di essere grandi scienziati, almeno siamo abbastanza grandi da ammirarli.
NEL DETTAGLIO
1. significato della tradizione umanistica
Con un espediente storiografico, Gadamer tira in ballo Helmoltz, uno scienziato dell' '800, e Mill, un filosofo dell' '800 con una conoscenza primitiva della logica rispetto a quella sviluppata nei primi 30 anni del '900, per parlare della distinzione tra scienze della natura e scienze dello spirito? Dico, se parli di scienza, guarda il panorama dei tuoi contemporanei. Così, Gadamer comincia con una discussione della Cultura cercando di ripensarla, a partire dai dibattiti su scienze naturali e dello spirito. La terminologia, tra l'altro, ha un sapore tremendamente hegeliano. Ricordo che per Hegel la natura è un riflesso dello spirito, che la produce per autoconoscersi.
Comunque, Gadamer attacca con questa esposizione storiografica, abbastanza disordinata, sulla distinzione tra scienze naturali e dello spirito. Poi, passa a discutere il gusto. L'idea è quella ripresa anche dalla tematica che oggi si chiama "del principio antropico", vale a dire: dove è finito il soggetto della conoscenza nelle teorie della fisica matematica?
Infatti Gadamer critica proprio il fatto che il modello di conoscenza predefinito sia ormai la fisica matematica, e traccia, correttamente, questa tendenza fino a Kant.
Quindi Gadamer prende in considerazione un altro modello, quello della teoria del gusto, come alternativo quadro di riferimento.
Pagine erudite, certo, ma non molto organiche a mio avviso. L'esposizione è chiara, ma abbastanza confusa. Forse Gadamer ne andrebbe orgoglioso, per il fatto che il chiaro ma confuso è proprio il dominio dell'estetica in Baumgarten.
Dopo una descrizione disordinata del gusto, più tematica che storiografica, e figuriamoci se logica! Gadamer passa a
2. Soggettivizzazione dell'estetica nella critica kantiana.
Anche qui l'esposizione è dottissima, ma terribilmente slegata da un punto di vista concettuale. In tutti gli scrittori veementemente umanisti, con tutta la loro calma spirituale e inquietudine filosofica, si tende a confondere il tema e il concetto. L'unità tematica di una discussione non è un'unità concettuale. L'unità concettuale richiede un ordine logico, argomentativo. Se non si argomenta, non c'è esposizione concettuale. Questo non è un grande problema, SE l'esposizione è almeno "continua". Intendo dire che se la frase N contiene A,B,C, allora la frase N+1 contiene almeno A o B o C.
Gadamer non sempre rispetta questo principio, e la continuità è garantita dai suoi riferimenti autoritari, in questo caso a Kant e vari studiosi. C'è sempre un qualche riferimento di questo tipo, che sia esplicito (Kant dice...) o implicito (usando termini kantiani).
In sostanza, come kant ha soggettivizzato l'estetica?
1. Togliendo valore conoscitivo al giudizio estetico (che parla di una relazione del soggetto con se stesso, e non dell'oggetto, ma del piacere che prova il soggetto rispetto alla percepita finalità del oggetto).
2. postulando che la legge morale è in ognuno di noi
3. il giudizio estetico ci mostra il modello formale della finalità, che ci conduce al modello formale libero della legge morale. Andiamo con ordine. Quando noi vediamo qualcosa di bello (in natura, non nell'arte), noi pensiamo che sia fatto apposta per farci percepire la bellezza. Questa "finalità" percepita Kant la dichiara addirittura un "sentimento a priori".
Però questa finalità non si traduce solo nel piacere, per esempio guardo un paesaggio di montagna e provo piacere per la vista, per l'aria pulita etc. Io provo un piacere "astratto" perché percepisco la finalità della natura. La natura è fatta (sembra che lo sia) in modo che noi proviamo questo piacere. Ma questo piacere è un sentimento della finalità della natura. Ma non c'è un "oggetto" finalità. Quindi cosa sentiamo, quando sentiamo questo piacere?
Sentiamo che c'è un modello formale, un accordo tra la natura e qualcosa dentro di noi. Quale sarà questa cosa? La legge morale.
Così come nel giudizio estetico si accordano liberamente le nostre facoltà, razionali e sensibili, tramite l'immaginazione, così il valore del giudizio estetico è di indicarci la moralità.
Kant dice esplicitamente che "la bellezza è un simbolo della moralità".
L'universalità della bellezza naturale, dunque, è MORALE, e non conoscitiva (vero o falso).
Come stanno le cose con l'arte? Kant parla di gusto per il bello naturale, e di Genio per il bello artistico. In sostanza per Kant il bello naturale noi lo sentiamo propriamente, non è che l0 rappresentiamo. Il bello artistico invece è una "bella rappresentazione". Il genio che produce belle rappresentazioni SUPERA le regole estetiche (della conoscenza) e va oltre, produce una bella rappresentazione.
La differenza è che il bello naturale è un insieme ideale, una comunanza di giudizi nel gusto, mentre il bello artistico denota delle QUALITà nelle rappresentazioni, e una elezione di giudizi geniali.
Il genio non ha in mente un tutto finale affine alla morale, ma una specie di istinto selettivo delle qualità che rendono bella una rappresentazione.
E chiedo a Gadamer: c'era bisogno di parlarne così? Era forse meglio riassumere così.
Kant non crede che il giudizio estetico sia conoscitivo. Ma solo il giudizio conoscitivo è oggettivo. Quindi il giudizio estetico è soggettivo. Ma se il giudizio conoscitivo soltanto riguarda il vero e il falso, allora nel giudizio estetico non si tratta di vero e falso.
E poi, come giustamente fa, portare le ragioni per cui il giudizio estetico non ha verità. Il giudizio estetico (per meglio dire l'immaginazione) sul bello naturale "fonda la posizione centrale della teleologia" (pagina 133 ed bompiani) nel "sistema umano".
Quindi per Kant l'estetica è un ponte tra Verità scientifica e Libertà morale. L'estetica non è essa stessa una sponda della verità. Ecco la soggettivizzazione. Ecco dove Gadamer non è d'accordo. Per Gadamer l'estetica ha verità. Ma di questo ci riparlerà nel capitolo "recupero della questione della verità".
Ma figuriamoci se prima non c'è un'altra generosa dose di erudizione. Gadamer si imbarca in una discussione tematico-storiografica sul termine Erlebnis e sulla (breve) storia semantica della parola Allegoria e della parola Simbolo. Questo sia per introdurre Dilthey (erlebnis), sia per introdurre un altro termine per interpretare la soggettivizzazione di Kant (la bellezza è simbolo della morale).
In breve, Erlebnis significa "vissuto", non come un vissuto particolare (come quando andate al mare d'estate per tre mesi nel periodo di 12 mesi), ma come una connessione col tutto della vita.
La parola erlebnis è usata per una teoria estremamente semplice: per conoscere l'opera di un autore, si deve conoscerne la vita.
L'allegoria riprende il significato di erlebnis nell'accezione minore di "frammento di vita", nel senso che l'allegoria semplicemente rimanda a qualcosa, rimanda alla vita. L'allegoria è un'interpretazione del visibile che rimanda all'invisibile.
Il simbolo invece ha un valore conoscitivo e non solo di rimando. Il simbolo è conoscenza visibile di ciò che è invisibile. Questo gli conferisce un ruolo metafisico di collegamento fra i due.
Nelle più genialissimissime parole di kant:
"Il simbolo non rappresenta immediatamente un concetto [come lo schema] ma indirettamente, così che l'espressione NON contiene il concetto, ma un simbolo per la riflessione". (p.173)
In questo modo Gadamer aggiunge un ulteriore teoria, quella dell'analogia entis. Analogia entis vuol dire che le cose che esistono riflettono Dio, e che osservando il creato possiamo arrivare al creatore.
Questo "arrivare" è assai più problematico e figuriamoci se Gadamer ci parla di Anselmo d'aosta e del suo argomento ontologico.
Il senso di questo paragrafo è che mentre Kant soggettivizza il giudizio estetico, interpretandolo come privo di valore conoscitivo, e di valore simbolico, di rimando all'ordine morale, Gadamer ci riporta a comprendere come il simbolo ha un valore oggettivo, metafisico, conoscitivo di connessione tra visibile e invisibile. Significativamente scrive Don Gadamer:
"Alla base di ogni culto religioso c'è l'inscindibilità tra aspetto sensibile e significato invisibile" (p.171)
Tanto per arricchire l'interpretazione, io ricorderei Il Falso Profeta di Luciano di Samosata. Infatti, alla base di ogni culto religioso c'è la consapevolezza che tra l'apparenza e la realtà c'è l'ingegno. Maghi e ciarlatani in ogni tempo hanno profittato delle speranze delle persone per raggirarle con falsi contatti con un inesistente invisibile. Ma non sembra che Gadamer sia interessato a QUESTA verità.
Continuerò a leggere perché devo dare un esame, e perché ci sono anche belle cose. Ma il libro è scritto in modo piuttosto noioso e senza coraggio. Mi dispiace immensamente, perché credo che la filosofia e l'estetica soprattutto siano importanti. L'arte, la bellezza non sono superflui, ma necessari. Però quando leggo questa roba, piena di parola, di appelli alla condiscendenza, di pretesa importanza intellettuale, di inflazioni lessicali, di richiami alla "cultura" etc. mi viene in mente che queste persone sono dei parolai. è così difficile ammettere che la scienza sia molto più importante, con il benessere che ci procura, di queste ricerche? è difficile vedere come non è la scienza, ma la bassezza da trogloditi di molti esseri umani, che rovina il mondo (umano, quell' "altro" ce la fa anche senza di noi)? LA questione è facilissima. Il benessere non rende morali. La bellezza non rende morali, ma l'arte spera di generare sentimenti o catarsi che contengano l'immoralità come la melodia del flauto magico coi ratti. Ma dubito che un libro come questo avrà un'influenza in questo senso.
Nota sulle recensioni "antologiche". è inutile leggere un libro tramite antologie e studi precedenti che se ne fanno. Mi rendo perfettamente conto del circolo economico degli editori, della carriera di ricerca, delle dinamiche interne tra intellettuali. Nondimeno, perché non parlare del libro nelle recensioni? Perché non dare un saggio di quello che davvero c'è scritto, invece che raccogliere dalle introduzioni di studiosi i suoi snodi centrali e sciorinarli agli altri? Questa cultura "dell'ultima pagina", di leggere le soluzioni e atteggiarsi da sussiegosi acculturati è veramente infimo. In Austria è stata autorizzata la possibilità di stipulare contratti privati regolati dalla legge islamica (Sharia), purché entrambe le parti vi acconsentano, contraddicendo alla laicità dello stato, per non parlare dell'uguaglianza giuridica tra uomini e donne. In Cina opera il sistema del credito sociale. La Russia sta rendendosi autonoma dal punto di vista dei server, in modo da filtrare tutta l'informazione interna tramite applicazioni obbligatorie. Negli stati uniti discutono se ci sono due generi. In Italia una marea di immigrati, importati come in America per ragioni di elettorato, senza alcun limite o raziocinio, diffondono criminalità, e si fa dell'esibizionismo morale su "il termine immigrato è un termine ombrello" o "sono risorse umane".
La germania li scaccia e li manda in polonia, dove peraltro scarica anche parecchi rifiuti. In Africa ci sono discariche a cielo aperto. Nel parlamento di Israele si parla di "sterminare i palestinesi". E la lista è lunga. Lungi da me idealizzare un'età dell'oro. Altrettanto lontana da me è una visione distopica. Ma quello che è certo in tutto questo, è che un libro come quello di Gadamer non offre alcuna grande analisi o visione. Queste eterne resurrezioni "razionalisti contro romantici" vengono facilmente a noia a chi conosce anche solo 5 secoli qualunque di storia umana. Che ancora si faccia carriera semplicemente schierandosi e scrivendo cose abbastanza vuote, sotto gli scrosci di plausi ammirati ed estasi di giudizi, avrebbe del miracoloso, se non fosse per la testimonianza universale della durevole e numerosa schiera di vanitosi, ipocriti, creduloni, sciocchi e opportunisti.
Immaginiamo che nel prossimo millennio ci sarà un'evoluzione sorprendente. Esposto ad una miriade di informazioni, testi e creazioni sempre più estranee, uomini e donne svilupperanno un senso speciale. Come oggi distinguiamo una musica piacevole ed una cacofonia, allora sarà con le informazioni, i libri. La ricerca diventerà un istinto, e saremo i segugi della conoscenza. Il cibo non servirà più distinguerlo in modo particolare. Quello che oggi è il gusto sensibile sarà obsoleto. Avremo finalmente un gusto intellettivo, altrettanto sensibile! In questa utopia davvero "l'uomo non vivrà di solo pane!" Oppure.. le informazioni saranno diventate pane. Il diavolo propose a nostro signore di trasformare le pietre in pani. Magari un domani sarà evoluto anche il maligno, e trasformerà le idee in pani. Per ora, il diavolo non ha fatto un buon lavoro a trasformare in pani le parole, anzi neppure in buona musica spesso. Se le idee diventano pane, è diabolico o divino?
Dopo la discussione sul simbolo e allegoria, Gadamer riassume in belle pagine il problema fino a qui. (pp.213ss.)
Nel tentativo kantiano di fondare la scienza fisica newtoniana, kant ha soggettivizzato la conoscenza. Vuol dire che la conoscenza è relativa? No, ma che il suo punto centrale è il soggetto. Le categorie del soggetto sono centrali nel sapere. Ma il sapere umano è limitato e incontra uno scacco nella cosa in sé. Per kant questo scacco è necessario, perché la ragione pura tende ad applicarsi al di là della non altrettanto pura costituzione trascendentale umana.
Nella seconda critica Kant specifica che questo scacco non è assoluto, ma indica la fondamentale moralità dell'uomo. Il pensiero non si arresta perché fallisce, ma per indicare più propriamente la libertà di agire morale. Dove non possiamo aiutarci con la conoscenza, noi dobbiamo scegliere di agire secondo la legge morale dentro di noi.
Nella terza critica kant cerca di riconciliare la ragione pura e la ragiona pratica. Come? Quello che dà un senso al nostro agire è il fatto che abbia un fine. Ma nella ragion pura non c'è finalità, perché la conoscenza non ha un fine, ma solo un "modo". Ecco che entra in gioco l'immaginazione. L'immaginazione permette di armonizzare questi due aspetti: la ragione pura e la costituzione umana. Come? Con il sentimento di armonia tra tutte le nostre facoltà. In che cosa c'è testimonianza di questa armonia? Nel giudizio estetico. Il giudizio estetico, quindi, non contiene verità. Il giudizio estetico riflette il sentimento formale di accordo tra le facoltà razionali e sensibile E cerca un'idea universale per la cosa particolare giudicata esteticamente. Questa cerca dell'idea universale presuppone che la cosa particolare abbia il fine di essere integrata universalmente. Questo sentimento di finalità formale ci indica la finalità morale del pensiero. Questa è la linea kantiana. Il giudizio estetico non ha valore di verità. Il giudizio estetico non è basato sulla sensibilità o sulla ragione, ma sull'immaginazione. Il giudizio estetico dipende da una coscienza estetica autonoma E indipendente dalla verità.
Gadamer si concentra sugli esiti di questa soggettivizzazione dell'estetica nelle belle pagine su Schiller. Gadamer critica a Schiller di essere passato da un'educazione ATTRAVERSO l'arte di un uomo morale ad un'educazione della coscienza estetica ALL' arte. Schiller accetta che l'arte non ha valore di verità, di conoscenza del mondo. L'arte è tutto ciò che non ha responsabilità né contatto col reale. La coscienza estetica deve essere coltivata in nome di un ideale estetico che non ha a che fare con la realtà, di cui invece si occupano l'analitica pura (categorie) e l'analitica dei principi (schemi trascendentali). Gadamer ha profondamente ragione a dire che questo è un errore. Per me si può anche essere meno diplomatici e dire che è un'idiozia.
Continuo per interesse personale l'analisi nei commenti. Se vi serve un'analisi sul testo e non sui saggi, come hanno fatto altri senza leggere il libro o non capendolo, seguite nei commenti.
Il mondo è un libro scritto in caratteri matematici.
Fare una carriera nell'integrare questa metafora è eccessivo.
Nelle altre recensioni vedo descrizioni completamente avulse dal testo. Io invece vi analizzo il testo. Se poi qualcuno vuole scrivere un altro capolavoro sulla "non linearità dell'interpretazione come valore alternativo e decisivo" faccia pure.
Se volete risparmiarvi il libro, eccolo in due righe: La verità (umana) non è definita né ridotta dal metodo (un qualsiasi metodo che pretenda una soluzione assoluta). Ecco, ora se vi scoccia non sapere la matematica o se volete gloriarvi di una vaga intuizione che "la scienza non è tutto" potete sbandierare un'altra semi-opinione colta, con tutti i fronzoli retorici di cui siete capaci, altrimenti compensati con la veemenza passionale. Per gli altri:
Il libro è diviso in tre parti.
1. L'esperienza della verità nell'arte.
2. Estensione della questione della verità alla comprensione nell'ambito delle scienze umane.
3.Svolta ontologica dell'ermeneutica, guidata dal linguaggio.
C'è un'introduzione molto chiara dove Gadamer sostiene che l'ermeneutica non è nuova. è presente nella teologia e nella giurisprudenza. Intende dire che quando si tratta di interpretare i testi sacri o la legge, il sacerdote o il giudice non usano il metodo scientifico, ma il metodo ermeneutico.
Ovviamente Gadamer, come tutti i parassiti della scienza, deve considerare la scienza come essenzialmente CALCOLO. Questa affermazione è piuttosto vaga, e alla lettera è anche falsa.
Gli scienziati osservano il mondo, descrivono i fenomeni e cercano leggi generali che li governano. Che ci sia una componente di calcolo a posteriori è innegabile, ma non è lo stesso con la grammatica che impariamo? non facciamo un calcolo delle nostre espressioni per collocarle nello spazio della grammatica?
Quindi la parte "oppositiva" di quest'opera è, a mio avviso, completamente senza valore. Possibile che un'opera pubblicata nel 1960, che voglia parlare anche di scienza ignori del tutto le immense conquiste scientifiche del '900? Già, ma non si tratta di parlarne, ma di criticarla vilmente da ambientucoli alleati da una specie di complesso di inferiorità.
Da parte mia, sono molto più d'accordo con l'onesto Baumgarten (1850, Aestethica), che chiama Estetica una gnoseologia inferiore, ovvero, un modo di conoscere che è inferiore a quello razionale. Se non siamo in grado di essere grandi scienziati, almeno siamo abbastanza grandi da ammirarli.
NEL DETTAGLIO
1. significato della tradizione umanistica
Con un espediente storiografico, Gadamer tira in ballo Helmoltz, uno scienziato dell' '800, e Mill, un filosofo dell' '800 con una conoscenza primitiva della logica rispetto a quella sviluppata nei primi 30 anni del '900, per parlare della distinzione tra scienze della natura e scienze dello spirito? Dico, se parli di scienza, guarda il panorama dei tuoi contemporanei. Così, Gadamer comincia con una discussione della Cultura cercando di ripensarla, a partire dai dibattiti su scienze naturali e dello spirito. La terminologia, tra l'altro, ha un sapore tremendamente hegeliano. Ricordo che per Hegel la natura è un riflesso dello spirito, che la produce per autoconoscersi.
Comunque, Gadamer attacca con questa esposizione storiografica, abbastanza disordinata, sulla distinzione tra scienze naturali e dello spirito. Poi, passa a discutere il gusto. L'idea è quella ripresa anche dalla tematica che oggi si chiama "del principio antropico", vale a dire: dove è finito il soggetto della conoscenza nelle teorie della fisica matematica?
Infatti Gadamer critica proprio il fatto che il modello di conoscenza predefinito sia ormai la fisica matematica, e traccia, correttamente, questa tendenza fino a Kant.
Quindi Gadamer prende in considerazione un altro modello, quello della teoria del gusto, come alternativo quadro di riferimento.
Pagine erudite, certo, ma non molto organiche a mio avviso. L'esposizione è chiara, ma abbastanza confusa. Forse Gadamer ne andrebbe orgoglioso, per il fatto che il chiaro ma confuso è proprio il dominio dell'estetica in Baumgarten.
Dopo una descrizione disordinata del gusto, più tematica che storiografica, e figuriamoci se logica! Gadamer passa a
2. Soggettivizzazione dell'estetica nella critica kantiana.
Anche qui l'esposizione è dottissima, ma terribilmente slegata da un punto di vista concettuale. In tutti gli scrittori veementemente umanisti, con tutta la loro calma spirituale e inquietudine filosofica, si tende a confondere il tema e il concetto. L'unità tematica di una discussione non è un'unità concettuale. L'unità concettuale richiede un ordine logico, argomentativo. Se non si argomenta, non c'è esposizione concettuale. Questo non è un grande problema, SE l'esposizione è almeno "continua". Intendo dire che se la frase N contiene A,B,C, allora la frase N+1 contiene almeno A o B o C.
Gadamer non sempre rispetta questo principio, e la continuità è garantita dai suoi riferimenti autoritari, in questo caso a Kant e vari studiosi. C'è sempre un qualche riferimento di questo tipo, che sia esplicito (Kant dice...) o implicito (usando termini kantiani).
In sostanza, come kant ha soggettivizzato l'estetica?
1. Togliendo valore conoscitivo al giudizio estetico (che parla di una relazione del soggetto con se stesso, e non dell'oggetto, ma del piacere che prova il soggetto rispetto alla percepita finalità del oggetto).
2. postulando che la legge morale è in ognuno di noi
3. il giudizio estetico ci mostra il modello formale della finalità, che ci conduce al modello formale libero della legge morale. Andiamo con ordine. Quando noi vediamo qualcosa di bello (in natura, non nell'arte), noi pensiamo che sia fatto apposta per farci percepire la bellezza. Questa "finalità" percepita Kant la dichiara addirittura un "sentimento a priori".
Però questa finalità non si traduce solo nel piacere, per esempio guardo un paesaggio di montagna e provo piacere per la vista, per l'aria pulita etc. Io provo un piacere "astratto" perché percepisco la finalità della natura. La natura è fatta (sembra che lo sia) in modo che noi proviamo questo piacere. Ma questo piacere è un sentimento della finalità della natura. Ma non c'è un "oggetto" finalità. Quindi cosa sentiamo, quando sentiamo questo piacere?
Sentiamo che c'è un modello formale, un accordo tra la natura e qualcosa dentro di noi. Quale sarà questa cosa? La legge morale.
Così come nel giudizio estetico si accordano liberamente le nostre facoltà, razionali e sensibili, tramite l'immaginazione, così il valore del giudizio estetico è di indicarci la moralità.
Kant dice esplicitamente che "la bellezza è un simbolo della moralità".
L'universalità della bellezza naturale, dunque, è MORALE, e non conoscitiva (vero o falso).
Come stanno le cose con l'arte? Kant parla di gusto per il bello naturale, e di Genio per il bello artistico. In sostanza per Kant il bello naturale noi lo sentiamo propriamente, non è che l0 rappresentiamo. Il bello artistico invece è una "bella rappresentazione". Il genio che produce belle rappresentazioni SUPERA le regole estetiche (della conoscenza) e va oltre, produce una bella rappresentazione.
La differenza è che il bello naturale è un insieme ideale, una comunanza di giudizi nel gusto, mentre il bello artistico denota delle QUALITà nelle rappresentazioni, e una elezione di giudizi geniali.
Il genio non ha in mente un tutto finale affine alla morale, ma una specie di istinto selettivo delle qualità che rendono bella una rappresentazione.
E chiedo a Gadamer: c'era bisogno di parlarne così? Era forse meglio riassumere così.
Kant non crede che il giudizio estetico sia conoscitivo. Ma solo il giudizio conoscitivo è oggettivo. Quindi il giudizio estetico è soggettivo. Ma se il giudizio conoscitivo soltanto riguarda il vero e il falso, allora nel giudizio estetico non si tratta di vero e falso.
E poi, come giustamente fa, portare le ragioni per cui il giudizio estetico non ha verità. Il giudizio estetico (per meglio dire l'immaginazione) sul bello naturale "fonda la posizione centrale della teleologia" (pagina 133 ed bompiani) nel "sistema umano".
Quindi per Kant l'estetica è un ponte tra Verità scientifica e Libertà morale. L'estetica non è essa stessa una sponda della verità. Ecco la soggettivizzazione. Ecco dove Gadamer non è d'accordo. Per Gadamer l'estetica ha verità. Ma di questo ci riparlerà nel capitolo "recupero della questione della verità".
Ma figuriamoci se prima non c'è un'altra generosa dose di erudizione. Gadamer si imbarca in una discussione tematico-storiografica sul termine Erlebnis e sulla (breve) storia semantica della parola Allegoria e della parola Simbolo. Questo sia per introdurre Dilthey (erlebnis), sia per introdurre un altro termine per interpretare la soggettivizzazione di Kant (la bellezza è simbolo della morale).
In breve, Erlebnis significa "vissuto", non come un vissuto particolare (come quando andate al mare d'estate per tre mesi nel periodo di 12 mesi), ma come una connessione col tutto della vita.
La parola erlebnis è usata per una teoria estremamente semplice: per conoscere l'opera di un autore, si deve conoscerne la vita.
L'allegoria riprende il significato di erlebnis nell'accezione minore di "frammento di vita", nel senso che l'allegoria semplicemente rimanda a qualcosa, rimanda alla vita. L'allegoria è un'interpretazione del visibile che rimanda all'invisibile.
Il simbolo invece ha un valore conoscitivo e non solo di rimando. Il simbolo è conoscenza visibile di ciò che è invisibile. Questo gli conferisce un ruolo metafisico di collegamento fra i due.
Nelle più genialissimissime parole di kant:
"Il simbolo non rappresenta immediatamente un concetto [come lo schema] ma indirettamente, così che l'espressione NON contiene il concetto, ma un simbolo per la riflessione". (p.173)
In questo modo Gadamer aggiunge un ulteriore teoria, quella dell'analogia entis. Analogia entis vuol dire che le cose che esistono riflettono Dio, e che osservando il creato possiamo arrivare al creatore.
Questo "arrivare" è assai più problematico e figuriamoci se Gadamer ci parla di Anselmo d'aosta e del suo argomento ontologico.
Il senso di questo paragrafo è che mentre Kant soggettivizza il giudizio estetico, interpretandolo come privo di valore conoscitivo, e di valore simbolico, di rimando all'ordine morale, Gadamer ci riporta a comprendere come il simbolo ha un valore oggettivo, metafisico, conoscitivo di connessione tra visibile e invisibile. Significativamente scrive Don Gadamer:
"Alla base di ogni culto religioso c'è l'inscindibilità tra aspetto sensibile e significato invisibile" (p.171)
Tanto per arricchire l'interpretazione, io ricorderei Il Falso Profeta di Luciano di Samosata. Infatti, alla base di ogni culto religioso c'è la consapevolezza che tra l'apparenza e la realtà c'è l'ingegno. Maghi e ciarlatani in ogni tempo hanno profittato delle speranze delle persone per raggirarle con falsi contatti con un inesistente invisibile. Ma non sembra che Gadamer sia interessato a QUESTA verità.
Continuerò a leggere perché devo dare un esame, e perché ci sono anche belle cose. Ma il libro è scritto in modo piuttosto noioso e senza coraggio. Mi dispiace immensamente, perché credo che la filosofia e l'estetica soprattutto siano importanti. L'arte, la bellezza non sono superflui, ma necessari. Però quando leggo questa roba, piena di parola, di appelli alla condiscendenza, di pretesa importanza intellettuale, di inflazioni lessicali, di richiami alla "cultura" etc. mi viene in mente che queste persone sono dei parolai. è così difficile ammettere che la scienza sia molto più importante, con il benessere che ci procura, di queste ricerche? è difficile vedere come non è la scienza, ma la bassezza da trogloditi di molti esseri umani, che rovina il mondo (umano, quell' "altro" ce la fa anche senza di noi)? LA questione è facilissima. Il benessere non rende morali. La bellezza non rende morali, ma l'arte spera di generare sentimenti o catarsi che contengano l'immoralità come la melodia del flauto magico coi ratti. Ma dubito che un libro come questo avrà un'influenza in questo senso.
Nota sulle recensioni "antologiche". è inutile leggere un libro tramite antologie e studi precedenti che se ne fanno. Mi rendo perfettamente conto del circolo economico degli editori, della carriera di ricerca, delle dinamiche interne tra intellettuali. Nondimeno, perché non parlare del libro nelle recensioni? Perché non dare un saggio di quello che davvero c'è scritto, invece che raccogliere dalle introduzioni di studiosi i suoi snodi centrali e sciorinarli agli altri? Questa cultura "dell'ultima pagina", di leggere le soluzioni e atteggiarsi da sussiegosi acculturati è veramente infimo. In Austria è stata autorizzata la possibilità di stipulare contratti privati regolati dalla legge islamica (Sharia), purché entrambe le parti vi acconsentano, contraddicendo alla laicità dello stato, per non parlare dell'uguaglianza giuridica tra uomini e donne. In Cina opera il sistema del credito sociale. La Russia sta rendendosi autonoma dal punto di vista dei server, in modo da filtrare tutta l'informazione interna tramite applicazioni obbligatorie. Negli stati uniti discutono se ci sono due generi. In Italia una marea di immigrati, importati come in America per ragioni di elettorato, senza alcun limite o raziocinio, diffondono criminalità, e si fa dell'esibizionismo morale su "il termine immigrato è un termine ombrello" o "sono risorse umane".
La germania li scaccia e li manda in polonia, dove peraltro scarica anche parecchi rifiuti. In Africa ci sono discariche a cielo aperto. Nel parlamento di Israele si parla di "sterminare i palestinesi". E la lista è lunga. Lungi da me idealizzare un'età dell'oro. Altrettanto lontana da me è una visione distopica. Ma quello che è certo in tutto questo, è che un libro come quello di Gadamer non offre alcuna grande analisi o visione. Queste eterne resurrezioni "razionalisti contro romantici" vengono facilmente a noia a chi conosce anche solo 5 secoli qualunque di storia umana. Che ancora si faccia carriera semplicemente schierandosi e scrivendo cose abbastanza vuote, sotto gli scrosci di plausi ammirati ed estasi di giudizi, avrebbe del miracoloso, se non fosse per la testimonianza universale della durevole e numerosa schiera di vanitosi, ipocriti, creduloni, sciocchi e opportunisti.
Immaginiamo che nel prossimo millennio ci sarà un'evoluzione sorprendente. Esposto ad una miriade di informazioni, testi e creazioni sempre più estranee, uomini e donne svilupperanno un senso speciale. Come oggi distinguiamo una musica piacevole ed una cacofonia, allora sarà con le informazioni, i libri. La ricerca diventerà un istinto, e saremo i segugi della conoscenza. Il cibo non servirà più distinguerlo in modo particolare. Quello che oggi è il gusto sensibile sarà obsoleto. Avremo finalmente un gusto intellettivo, altrettanto sensibile! In questa utopia davvero "l'uomo non vivrà di solo pane!" Oppure.. le informazioni saranno diventate pane. Il diavolo propose a nostro signore di trasformare le pietre in pani. Magari un domani sarà evoluto anche il maligno, e trasformerà le idee in pani. Per ora, il diavolo non ha fatto un buon lavoro a trasformare in pani le parole, anzi neppure in buona musica spesso. Se le idee diventano pane, è diabolico o divino?
Dopo la discussione sul simbolo e allegoria, Gadamer riassume in belle pagine il problema fino a qui. (pp.213ss.)
Nel tentativo kantiano di fondare la scienza fisica newtoniana, kant ha soggettivizzato la conoscenza. Vuol dire che la conoscenza è relativa? No, ma che il suo punto centrale è il soggetto. Le categorie del soggetto sono centrali nel sapere. Ma il sapere umano è limitato e incontra uno scacco nella cosa in sé. Per kant questo scacco è necessario, perché la ragione pura tende ad applicarsi al di là della non altrettanto pura costituzione trascendentale umana.
Nella seconda critica Kant specifica che questo scacco non è assoluto, ma indica la fondamentale moralità dell'uomo. Il pensiero non si arresta perché fallisce, ma per indicare più propriamente la libertà di agire morale. Dove non possiamo aiutarci con la conoscenza, noi dobbiamo scegliere di agire secondo la legge morale dentro di noi.
Nella terza critica kant cerca di riconciliare la ragione pura e la ragiona pratica. Come? Quello che dà un senso al nostro agire è il fatto che abbia un fine. Ma nella ragion pura non c'è finalità, perché la conoscenza non ha un fine, ma solo un "modo". Ecco che entra in gioco l'immaginazione. L'immaginazione permette di armonizzare questi due aspetti: la ragione pura e la costituzione umana. Come? Con il sentimento di armonia tra tutte le nostre facoltà. In che cosa c'è testimonianza di questa armonia? Nel giudizio estetico. Il giudizio estetico, quindi, non contiene verità. Il giudizio estetico riflette il sentimento formale di accordo tra le facoltà razionali e sensibile E cerca un'idea universale per la cosa particolare giudicata esteticamente. Questa cerca dell'idea universale presuppone che la cosa particolare abbia il fine di essere integrata universalmente. Questo sentimento di finalità formale ci indica la finalità morale del pensiero. Questa è la linea kantiana. Il giudizio estetico non ha valore di verità. Il giudizio estetico non è basato sulla sensibilità o sulla ragione, ma sull'immaginazione. Il giudizio estetico dipende da una coscienza estetica autonoma E indipendente dalla verità.
Gadamer si concentra sugli esiti di questa soggettivizzazione dell'estetica nelle belle pagine su Schiller. Gadamer critica a Schiller di essere passato da un'educazione ATTRAVERSO l'arte di un uomo morale ad un'educazione della coscienza estetica ALL' arte. Schiller accetta che l'arte non ha valore di verità, di conoscenza del mondo. L'arte è tutto ciò che non ha responsabilità né contatto col reale. La coscienza estetica deve essere coltivata in nome di un ideale estetico che non ha a che fare con la realtà, di cui invece si occupano l'analitica pura (categorie) e l'analitica dei principi (schemi trascendentali). Gadamer ha profondamente ragione a dire che questo è un errore. Per me si può anche essere meno diplomatici e dire che è un'idiozia.
Continuo per interesse personale l'analisi nei commenti. Se vi serve un'analisi sul testo e non sui saggi, come hanno fatto altri senza leggere il libro o non capendolo, seguite nei commenti.
June 28, 2015
هل بإمكان الإنسان..أي إنسان.. أن يدرك الحقيقة وبأي معنى ؟ (هيجل) فكلمة الحقيقة (موضوع المنطق) كانت ولازالت توقظ حماس الانسان (المتناهي) رغم ضروب التنافر وعدم التجانس فالله (اللامتناهي) هو الحق والحقيقة فكيف يتسنى لنا ان نعرفه ونمد الجسر نحوه، واذ ولى الزمن الذي كان الناس يستصغرون فيه من شأنهم، نواجه زمن الصلت والغرور الذي يزعم فيه الناس تنسم نسيم الحقيقة دون بذل أي جهد من جانبهم. بإمكان الانسان أن يظفر بالمعلومات وينجز شتى الإنجازات ولكن ذلك يختلف تمام الاختلاف عن تربية الروح من أجل حياة ذات قيمة، أو أن يكرس الانسان طاقاته ونشاطاته لخدمتها. الحقيقة معيار ذاتها (سبينوزا) فإن الذي يمتلك تصورا واضحا لحقيقة يمتلكها يستطيع مستعينا بمعرفته التامة بها أن يعرفها بوضوح كالنور الذي يشيح ستار الظلمات أي أن الحقيقة معيار ذاتها ومعيار لعكسها... الخطأ.
يكافح الفهم المشترك المعرفة بماهية الوجود (الفلسفة) مصرا على مقتضيات النفع المباشر الملموس مدفوعا بضرورته الخاصة مؤكدا حقه بالسلاح الوحيد الذي يمتلكه وهو الاهابة ببداهة دعاويه واعتراضاته مقابل الفلسفة الغير قادرة على دحض الفهم العام الأصم عن لغتها، هذا عدا عن أننا نحصر أنفسنا داخل حدوح المعقولية التي يتسم بها الفهم المشترك ما دمنا نتصور أننا نعيش آمنين وسط الحقائق التي تمدنا بها الحياة والفعل والبحث العلمي، كما يُفسر كل تساؤل .فلسفي فكري بأنه تهجم أو اعتداء على حساسية الفهم المشترك السليم
كيف يمكن أن يخرج المرء من رأسه ويعثر على الحقيقة (فرانسوا جورج) كما يفعل الصوفي الذي لا يرى البعض في إندماجه إلا إنخراطا غير معقول في نوع من جنون جماعي، وبينما تعتز الأديان بإمتلاكها للحقيقة في حالة بحث عن الإتحاد مع الكائن الأسمى وهذا بالتالي يعني محاولة العودة إلى حالة تقارب مطلق معه، والعثور على الحقيقة بالمعنى الصوفي هو التخلص من الذات والإندماج مع الذات الكونية، روح الوجود الكلية، الإله وإن تعددت المسميات. وإذ تُعرف الحقيقة كتطابق الفكر مع الواقع، يعجز هذا التعريف لما هو حقيقي عن التوصل لما هو حقيقي، فالبحث عن الحقيقة يشبه في الواقع البحث عن صخرة صلبة تحت رمال المظاهر تتم عبر المرور عبر تجربة التخلص من الوهم اي عما صُبغ وقُولب في الرأس، ففي عمق الذات يتطابق الفكر مع الكينونة أما في الظاهر فإن الذات سجينة الفكر الذي هو شكل من أشكال علاقتنا بالعالم بل إن من الصواب ألا نتخلى عن الأمل في أن يقودنا من حين لآخر إلى الشئ ذاته بحيث يظهر الكائن لنفسه كما هو وهذا أيضا إنكشاف للنفس بإفلاتها من عبوديتها وهذا الإنكشاف قابل دوما للإستحضار.
إن ما هو حقيقي يدل على ذاته والحقيقة موضوع مرتكز دوما على منهج الشك حتى يصبح من المستحيل علينا أن نستمر في رفض التصديق. هل هذا الخطاب الذي يراد لنا الإعتراف بدون شك بأنه عقلاني وذو معنى هو خطاب حقيقي ؟. إني لم أكن لأعتبره كذلك لو لم أكن قد خبرته. ليست هناك أي حقيقة بديهية تستطيع أن تلغي الصحوة التي تجعل بإمكان المرء التعرف على إمكانية التعرض للخطأ. إن البداهة مهما كانت لامعة فإنها تظل تحتفظ بشئ من الوهم بصورة خفية لسبب واحد وهو أننا عندما نفكر ونتحدث ونستدل فإن الحقيقة بالنسبة لنا ضائعة لا توجد إلا كمطلب أو كأفق لا نراه وجها لوجه مثلما لا يمكن أن نحدق في الشمس في وضح النهار.
إن علاقتنا مع الحقيقة تكمن في منظور أنها فكرة لازمنية ولا شخصية بل هي الأفق أو المعنى النهائي المجرد اللازمني اللاشخصي لدور بشري ملموس، وهذه الفكرة لا تستند في وجودها على إمكانية بلوغها وإنما بالتدقيق إلى كونها واجبا للتفكير. إن الإنسان في بحثه عن الحقيقة مشدود إلى توقه إلى تمثل الوجود، وإكتشاف المعنى الخاص لوجوده الفردي الذي لن يستطيع أحد قوله أو بلوغه نيابة عنه، وأن يستمد من عمق وضعه الخاص إمكانبة قول شئ شامل وصالح للجميع، وأن يعبر عن هذا الوجود المتمثل في نفسه ويفتحه على الآخرين. الحقيقة ليست مجرد أُفق يُسعى إليه ولكنها فضاء أو مناخ يُعاش فيه، إنها نور يُضاء به الوجود ويُسلط على الأشياء فيبدو الوجود من خلالها، لذا علينا أن ندفع بالتحليل إلى مستوى من العمق حتى تزداد معرفتنا التي بقدرها نقترب من الحقيقة أكثر.
يكافح الفهم المشترك المعرفة بماهية الوجود (الفلسفة) مصرا على مقتضيات النفع المباشر الملموس مدفوعا بضرورته الخاصة مؤكدا حقه بالسلاح الوحيد الذي يمتلكه وهو الاهابة ببداهة دعاويه واعتراضاته مقابل الفلسفة الغير قادرة على دحض الفهم العام الأصم عن لغتها، هذا عدا عن أننا نحصر أنفسنا داخل حدوح المعقولية التي يتسم بها الفهم المشترك ما دمنا نتصور أننا نعيش آمنين وسط الحقائق التي تمدنا بها الحياة والفعل والبحث العلمي، كما يُفسر كل تساؤل .فلسفي فكري بأنه تهجم أو اعتداء على حساسية الفهم المشترك السليم
كيف يمكن أن يخرج المرء من رأسه ويعثر على الحقيقة (فرانسوا جورج) كما يفعل الصوفي الذي لا يرى البعض في إندماجه إلا إنخراطا غير معقول في نوع من جنون جماعي، وبينما تعتز الأديان بإمتلاكها للحقيقة في حالة بحث عن الإتحاد مع الكائن الأسمى وهذا بالتالي يعني محاولة العودة إلى حالة تقارب مطلق معه، والعثور على الحقيقة بالمعنى الصوفي هو التخلص من الذات والإندماج مع الذات الكونية، روح الوجود الكلية، الإله وإن تعددت المسميات. وإذ تُعرف الحقيقة كتطابق الفكر مع الواقع، يعجز هذا التعريف لما هو حقيقي عن التوصل لما هو حقيقي، فالبحث عن الحقيقة يشبه في الواقع البحث عن صخرة صلبة تحت رمال المظاهر تتم عبر المرور عبر تجربة التخلص من الوهم اي عما صُبغ وقُولب في الرأس، ففي عمق الذات يتطابق الفكر مع الكينونة أما في الظاهر فإن الذات سجينة الفكر الذي هو شكل من أشكال علاقتنا بالعالم بل إن من الصواب ألا نتخلى عن الأمل في أن يقودنا من حين لآخر إلى الشئ ذاته بحيث يظهر الكائن لنفسه كما هو وهذا أيضا إنكشاف للنفس بإفلاتها من عبوديتها وهذا الإنكشاف قابل دوما للإستحضار.
إن ما هو حقيقي يدل على ذاته والحقيقة موضوع مرتكز دوما على منهج الشك حتى يصبح من المستحيل علينا أن نستمر في رفض التصديق. هل هذا الخطاب الذي يراد لنا الإعتراف بدون شك بأنه عقلاني وذو معنى هو خطاب حقيقي ؟. إني لم أكن لأعتبره كذلك لو لم أكن قد خبرته. ليست هناك أي حقيقة بديهية تستطيع أن تلغي الصحوة التي تجعل بإمكان المرء التعرف على إمكانية التعرض للخطأ. إن البداهة مهما كانت لامعة فإنها تظل تحتفظ بشئ من الوهم بصورة خفية لسبب واحد وهو أننا عندما نفكر ونتحدث ونستدل فإن الحقيقة بالنسبة لنا ضائعة لا توجد إلا كمطلب أو كأفق لا نراه وجها لوجه مثلما لا يمكن أن نحدق في الشمس في وضح النهار.
إن علاقتنا مع الحقيقة تكمن في منظور أنها فكرة لازمنية ولا شخصية بل هي الأفق أو المعنى النهائي المجرد اللازمني اللاشخصي لدور بشري ملموس، وهذه الفكرة لا تستند في وجودها على إمكانية بلوغها وإنما بالتدقيق إلى كونها واجبا للتفكير. إن الإنسان في بحثه عن الحقيقة مشدود إلى توقه إلى تمثل الوجود، وإكتشاف المعنى الخاص لوجوده الفردي الذي لن يستطيع أحد قوله أو بلوغه نيابة عنه، وأن يستمد من عمق وضعه الخاص إمكانبة قول شئ شامل وصالح للجميع، وأن يعبر عن هذا الوجود المتمثل في نفسه ويفتحه على الآخرين. الحقيقة ليست مجرد أُفق يُسعى إليه ولكنها فضاء أو مناخ يُعاش فيه، إنها نور يُضاء به الوجود ويُسلط على الأشياء فيبدو الوجود من خلالها، لذا علينا أن ندفع بالتحليل إلى مستوى من العمق حتى تزداد معرفتنا التي بقدرها نقترب من الحقيقة أكثر.
May 27, 2025
This book is GREAT. The section on Kant's Critique ofJudgment is fantastic. Perfect, no--perhaps too optimistic in not taking into consideration whst Lyotard cslls thr differend.
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September 21, 2016Ich wollte doch auch mal mit einem Titel aufploppen, den ich gerade wieder lese.
November 14, 2010
Gadamer argomenta in merito al fondamento e al metodo delle scienze dello spirito, in relazione (e in contrapposizione) al metodo proprio delle scienze esatte. Per fare ciò si interroga sull’esperienza estetica e sulla conoscenza storica.
Al di là di questo tema (dibattuto a lungo nella cultura europea e con interventi di altissimo livello, che sarebbe bene conoscere nello specifico per seguire la linea dell’argomentazione dell’autore – non è ahimè il mio caso), sto trovando davvero interessante le analisi preliminari che Gadamer conduce di una serie di concetti quali quelli di gioco, gusto, opera d’arte; del rapporto fra l’esperienza estetica e la storia e la cultura in cui questa si colloca; dell’atteggiamento, in particolare, che è più corretto e proficuo assumere di fronte all’opera d’arte: «ricostruire nella comprensione la fisionomia originaria di un’opera», ricreando il «mondo a cui l’opera appartiene» e la «situazione originaria che l’artista creatore aveva di mira», oppure venire a patti con la coscienza della perdita e del distacco, accettare il fatto che ogni restaurazione del rapporto originario con l’opera è impossibile e che il frutto del passato che i secoli ci porgono può invece essere occasione per comprendere con più chiarezza noi stessi, il presente, la nostra cultura?
E così via.
Si delinea, attraverso questa rassegna, una sorta di grammatica dell’esperienza umana; e si attraversa la cultura europea dalle sue origini al Novecento. Affascinanti squarci di storia delle idee, dunque.
December 10, 2020
In a sentence: history doesn't repeat itself, it rhymes.
Gadamer has a special love for philosophizing about the connectedness of thought with its historical traditions - and for using past philosophers for this very philosophizing. Whether Gadamer ponders how truth can be reached through art, or how all understanding is enriched and enabled by its historicity and present situation, or how language reveals being, he will share his deep and quite original - or at least exceedingly constructive - interpretations of a plethora of the most important western philosophers, especially Plato, Hegel, and Heidegger, and apply these philosophers on the problems at hand.
This can sometimes be a bit tiresome as he is led to difficult digressions to an unnecessary degree (e.g. in his application of the somewhat obscure tradition of medieval theology and its analogy between the Holy Ghost, Christ, and God on the relationship between an inner word, a thought, and the spoken word). Furthermore, he repeats himself a lot. So this book could probably have been written in 250 pages.
But on the other hand, a lot of interesting and original notions are presented relatively clearly, and it is a coherent whole which actually gives substantial answers to the problem of the justification of the human sciences which is set forth in the introduction. so it is still a good investment of time for anyone interested in the history of philosophy, in the humanities, and in hermeneutics.
Gadamer has a special love for philosophizing about the connectedness of thought with its historical traditions - and for using past philosophers for this very philosophizing. Whether Gadamer ponders how truth can be reached through art, or how all understanding is enriched and enabled by its historicity and present situation, or how language reveals being, he will share his deep and quite original - or at least exceedingly constructive - interpretations of a plethora of the most important western philosophers, especially Plato, Hegel, and Heidegger, and apply these philosophers on the problems at hand.
This can sometimes be a bit tiresome as he is led to difficult digressions to an unnecessary degree (e.g. in his application of the somewhat obscure tradition of medieval theology and its analogy between the Holy Ghost, Christ, and God on the relationship between an inner word, a thought, and the spoken word). Furthermore, he repeats himself a lot. So this book could probably have been written in 250 pages.
But on the other hand, a lot of interesting and original notions are presented relatively clearly, and it is a coherent whole which actually gives substantial answers to the problem of the justification of the human sciences which is set forth in the introduction. so it is still a good investment of time for anyone interested in the history of philosophy, in the humanities, and in hermeneutics.
March 17, 2016
"Zo bestaat er beslist geen verstaan dat vrij zou zijn van alle vooroordelen, hoezeer onze behoefte aan kennis er ook op gericht moet zijn onder de ban van onze vooroordelen uit te komen. In ons hele onderzoek is gebleken dat de zekerheid die het gebruik van wetenschappelijke methoden biedt niet volstaat om waarheid te garanderen. Dat geldt in het bijzonder voor de geesteswetenschappen, wat echter niet betekent dat deze minder wetenschappelijk zouden zijn. Integendeel, uit ons onderzoek is gebleken dat de aanspraak die zij van oudsher maken op een bijzondere, humane betekenis legitiem is. dat in hun kennis het eigen zijn van de kenner mede in het spel komt, stelt weliswaar een grens aan de 'methode', maar niet aan de wetenschap. waar het werktuig van de methode tekortschiet, moet en kan juist een discipline van vragen en onderzoeken, die instaat voor waarheid, uitkomst bieden."
Een mooi einde van een uitermate moeilijk werk. Hoewel lang niet alle hoofdstukken even interessant waren en het belang van sommige me soms niet duidelijk zijn geworden, is dit boek een zeer mooi betoog over waarheid en de mens.
Een mooi einde van een uitermate moeilijk werk. Hoewel lang niet alle hoofdstukken even interessant waren en het belang van sommige me soms niet duidelijk zijn geworden, is dit boek een zeer mooi betoog over waarheid en de mens.
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