Volume 18, No. 2, Fall 2023

FORTHCOMING

Phenomenology and Transcendence

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Robert J. Dostal | Bryn Mawr College

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Understanding in Tension: Language, Intuition, and the Meaning of Humanism
Theodore George | Texas A&M University

It is a mainstay of Gadamerian hermeneutics that the achievement of understanding is mediated by language—a claim that, per Dostal, allows Gadamer’s approach to be grasped as a matter of dialectic. Yet, as Dostal argues, Gadamer’s hermeneutics is also meant to remain based in the concern of classical Husserlian phenomenology, namely to return to the things themselves, die Sachen selbst, as they are given directly through intuition, or noesis. This article aims to examine Dostal’s position. It is thereby focusing, in particular, on the consequences of his approach for Gadamer’s conceptions of humanism, education (Bildung), and some important aspects of Gadamer’s relation to Heidegger.

Keywords: Gadamer, Hans-Georg; Heidegger, Martin; language; intuition; Sache; Humanism; Education; Bildung.

Robert Dostal, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and the Challenge of Phenomenology
David Vessey | Grand Valley State University

A central theme of Robert Dostal's book is Gadamer's relation to classical phenomenology; a central concern is that Gadamer cannot answer, in Dostal's words, "the Phenomenological Challenge"—the hermeneutics fails to appreciate the philosophical significance "of our direct and immediate contact with the world." Where Dostal tries to answer this challenge by showing the places Gadamer does speak of a pre-linguistic, immediate contact with the world. I argue that one should embrace Gadamer's proximity to John McDowell's views and draw upon them to clarify Gadamer's criticisms of classical phenomenology and show how they do not leave him susceptible to the phenomenology challenge.

Keywords: Gadamer, Hans-Georg; McDowell, John; phenomenology, hermeneutics, language.

The Good Life: Comments on Robert J. Dostal, Gadamer's Hermeneutics
Mirela Oliva | University of St. Thomas

Robert Dostal's book examines, among other topics, how Gadamer adopts Aristotle's paradigm of the good life. Dostal argues that Gadamer balances the practical and theoretical life and emphasizes the practical. My comments present Dostal's view on Gadamer's version of the Aristotelian paradigm. I show, first, that Dostal explains these modifications with Gadamers' fundamental rejection of modern subjectivism. Second, I present Dostal's compelling analysis of Gadamer's use of phronesis as a bridge between the theoretical and the practical. One of the merits of Dostal's book resides precisely in working out the phronetic character of understanding.

Keywords: Aristotle; Gadamer, Hans Georg; the good life; phronesis; Enlightenment.

Dialogic Solidarity
Georgia Warnke | University of California, Riverside

Robert Dostal's Gadamer's Hermeneutics: Between Phenomenology and Dialectic illuminates three important aspects of Gadamer's remarks on solidarity: it is part of his critique of subjectivism; it is not based on shared identities; and it is connected to dialogue and conversation. This review discusses and expands on Dostal's account. Whereas Dostal claims that conversation for Gadamer can bond participants into a common view that makes both friendship and solidarity possible; I claim that for Gadamer solidarity just is conversation, a commitment to discuss issues together in a sincere search for their solution.

Keywords: Dostal, Robert; Gadamer, Hans-Georg; Rorty, Richard; solidarity; conversation; identity; technology.

What is Anti-Hermeneutics? Jaspers, Gadamer, and the COVID-19 Hermeneutic Crisis
Alexander Crist | Pensacola State College

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought forth a crisis in rational public discourse and trust in authoritative institutions. Given its many issues related to language, communication, and solidarity, this crisis can be considered a hermeneutic crisis. This article turns to Karl Jaspers' lecture series, Reason and Anti-Reason in our Time, and several works from Hans-Georg Gadamer, in order to develop the diagnostic concept of anti-hermeneutics. While Gadamer often discusses what it means to live hermeneutically, he rarely offers an explicit account of what it would mean to live anti-hermeneutically, namely, in a way that resists cultivating and acting from basic hermeneutic virtues. Jaspers' notion of anti-reason offers a model for thinking about what an anti-hermeneutics would look like in Gadamer's hermeneutic project. Ultimately, the concept of anti-hermeneutics contributes to diagnosing the contemporary hermeneutic crisis as it has emerged over the last few years during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords: Jaspers, Karl; Gadamer, Hans-Georg; hermeneutics; solidarity; language; anti-reason; infodemic; COVID-19.

Transcending Tribalism
Hugh F. Kelly | Fordham University

Tribalism is perhaps the most salient feature of the contemporary social landscape in the United States, affecting our sense of community, our sense of self, and even our sense of truth. Political factionalism dates back to the United States' earliest days, even warranting a warning from George Washington. Often, our divisions stem from competing understandings of the terms "liberty" and "freedom," disagreements which already surfaced in the colonial era. Both Karl Jaspers and Hannah Arendt challenge us to think and act beyond either/or discourse in our politics, drawing on their experiences in twentieth Century Europe (Nazism) and the United States (racism). Rather than accepting a kind of tribalism which insists on dominance, both of them challenge us to transcend the win/lose option. Lincoln's Second Inaugural crystalizes such a transcending political vision.

Keywords: Arendt, Hannah; Jaspers, Karl; Lincoln, Abraham; liberty; factionalism; transcendence; post-truth; politics.

Accepting Collective Guilt: Karl Jaspers' Question of German Guilt in Light of Current Political Debates
Michael Steinmann | Stevens Institute of Technology

Jaspers' small volume Die Schuldfrage was written shortly after the Second World War to provide much-needed clarifications for the discussion of Germany’s guilt. The distinctions between criminal, political, moral, and metaphysical guilt that he introduced are still helpful today, for example, regarding the analysis of Western societies' involvement in slavery and genocide. While for Jaspers, moral guilt can only be individual, the essay argues that there can be collective moral guilt. Despite his moral sincerity, the public acceptance of collective guilt often ends in a contradictory stance. The essay reconstructs some of the dialectical structures that arise when the question is asked what the acceptance of collective guilt is for, whether it is possible for someone to want to be guilty, and who is entitled to attribute guilt. The essay also discusses the blind spots in Jaspers' approach, which stem from his adherence to the idea of the nation as an organic whole.

Keywords: Morality; guilt; conscience; crime; nation; limit situation; Holocaust; colonialism; slavery; dialectics.

Transcendence in the Russian Cultural Paradigm. Limitations of the German Schuldfrage in Building Authentic Moral Consciousness
Lydia Voronina | Boston, MA

Since the Russian invasion to Ukraine several years ago, dozens of the Russian intellectuals were engaged in lively discussions whether the Russians could be viewed as guilty of allowing Putin to grow oppressive regime that led to the brutal war. They revitalized the post-war German Schuldfrage as a reflective mirror to understand hundreds of Russians who were forced to emigrate, thousands of Russians who fled the country, and millions of Russians who seemingly support the war. But classic tools of formations of moral consciousness implied in this conceptual cluster turned out not to be applicable to the present Russian cultural conditions. Drawing on Alan Olson's interpretation of Jaspers' various types of guilt, Christina Schues' interpretation of Emmanuel Levinas, Hannah Arendt's relational and immanent morality, and Tomako Iwasawa's phenomenological study of the source of morality in Japanese mythology, I analyze basic cultural dispositions in Russian moral consciousness.

Keywords: Russian invasion of Ukraine; Putin's political regime; Russia as a state; Russian people; Russian public; Russian national self-identity as discussed by the Russian media pandits.

An Epistemology of Communitarian Contextualism
M. Ashraf Adeel | Kutztown University, Pennsylvania

Karl Jaspers argued that the Axial Age in human history provides a basis for human unity. Simultaneous intellectual, philosophical, and religious attainments of this period in three different and apparently disconnected regions of the world point to some kind of a deeper unity to human history and destiny. This idea of a unified human history and destiny has powerful ethical and epistemological implications. In this paper we take human unity as given and explore the implications of this idea for epistemic justice for communities and groups in the context of contemporary virtue epistemology. Unity of mankind, obviously, implies that truth be pursued and told in an even-handed fashion and epistemic justice ensured for the epistemic experiences and traditions of all.

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