Increasingly, nurses use the philosophy of hermeneutics, especially Heideggerian and Gadamerian hermeneutics, to inform interpretive research. However, application of the work of these philosophers to interpretive nursing research has proved problematic as it fails to recognise, or act upon, obligations inherent in their work. Through a review of hermeneutically informed nursing research, methodological implications regarding the use of hermeneutic philosophy are examined in relation to: (i) the need to address forestructures and pre‐understandings; (ii) checking interpretations with research participants; (...) (iii) seeking objectivity, consensus and accuracy in textual interpretation; (iv) evaluating interpretations; and (v) gaining entry into the hermeneutic circle. This review suggests that despite obligations inherent in Heideggerian and Gadamerian hermeneutic philosophy, nurses fail to actualise these obligations in their research. In following Heidegger, nurses need to make the scientific theme secure by working out their forestructures in terms of the phenomenon under investigation. Those following Gadamer need to accept that interpretation seeks to manifest textual meanings rather than individual ones. And, whether following Heidegger or Gadamer, the way to make manifest textual meanings is to engage with the text within the hermeneutic circle by continuing to address forestructures and pre‐understandings and by considering their influences upon the research. (shrink)

There is growing debate about what is the correct methodology for research in the ontology of artworks. In the first part of this essay, I introduce my view: I argue that semantic descriptivism is a semantic approach that has an impact on meta-ontological views and can be linked with a hermeneutic fictionalist proposal on the meta-ontology of artworks such as works of music. In the second part, I offer a synthetic presentation of the four main positive meta-ontological views that (...) have been defended in philosophical literature about artworks and of some criticisms that can be lodged against them: Amie Thomasson’s global descriptivism, Andrew Kania’s local descriptivism, Julian Dodd’s folk-theoretic modesty, and David Davies’ rational accountability view. In the conclusion, I show the advantages of my view. (shrink)

The purpose of this article was to examine the historical contribution of Wilhelm Dilthey's approach to the philosophy and methodology of hermeneutics in the demarcated context of nursing science. Dilthey's work made a fundamentally significant, yet ancillary, contribution to nursing science. Organically born from a need to deduce Biblical texts, hermeneutics later developed as a means to understand the truth of another's experience, in literal German language referred to as verstehen. A German‐born empiricist and devout hermeneutic scholar, (...) Dilthey extended the philosophy of hermeneutics to a methodological approach as a way to recapture expressed meaning of human experiences. His directive work paved a procedural pathway to probe the science of human nature while bound to the appropriate sociohistorical context. Hermeneutic methodology provides a phenomenological‐like way to more keenly understand and interpret the whole person. This methodological approach steers a truth‐seeking strategy fixed in meticulous and rigorous inquiry. Dilthey transparently recognized the humble fact that there is no true way to wholly grasp another's experience, an inherent limitation of our human abilities. The current paper posits that hermeneutical understanding verstehen can be paralleled to the concept of empathy in nursing. Understanding and empathy are foundational components to the field of nursing as a caring science. The complex yet invaluable philosophy and methodology of Wilhelm Dilthey's hermeneutics is notably relevant and applicable to nursing science as we strive to care for, treat, and heal patients as whole beings. (shrink)

In The Ethics of Immigration, Joseph Carens’ builds a sophisticated account of justice in immigration based on an interpretation of liberal states’ democratic principles and practices. I dispute Carens’ contention that his hermeneutic methodology supports a broadly liberal egalitarian consensus; instead, the consensus he detects on principles and practices appears because his interpretation presupposes liberal egalitarianism. Carens’ methodology would benefit by engaging with a “hermeneutics of suspicion” that explores the ideological and exclusionary facets of liberal egalitarian principles (...) when applied to immigration. This would contribute to an account of the ethics of immigration that gives more attention to power and interest, mediated through structures of gender, race, and class. (shrink)

이 글의 목표는 하이데거가 『존재와 시간』에서 전개한 기초존재론이 어떻게 방법론적 정당화라는 과제에 부응할 수 있는지를 고찰하는 것이다. 일부 선행 연구가 보여준 바와 같이 기초존재론의 탐구는 탐구자 스스로 실존의 본래성에서 착수할 때만 정당성을 얻을 수 있다. 그러나 실존의 본래성만으로 기초존재론의 정당성 문제가 해결되는 것은 아니다. 나는 실존의 본래성 외에도, 해석학적 순환에 따라서 하나의 해석이 더 고차적인 해석 단계에서 성공적으로 재해석될 때 내적인 검증이 이루어진다는 사실 그리고 본래적 공동존재에서 해석학적 순환이 “상호주관적으로” 확장된다는 사실이 기초존재론의 방법론적 정당화에 이바지한다는 것을 보이고자 한다. 끝으로 하이데거의 (...) 기초존재론이 실존의 본래성에 의존한다는 점에서 그 정당성 규준을 사적 영역으로 돌린다고 비판하는 몇몇 논평에 대하여 그러한 비판이 실존의 본래성 외에 해석학적 순환에 의한 내적 검증이나 본래적 공동존재에서의 상호적 검증과 같은 기초존재론의 또 다른 방법론적 계기를 간과하고 있다고 지적할 것이다. (shrink)

본 연구는 현재 상담심리학을 포함해서 사회과학의 여러 분야에서 질적 연구방법으로 각광 받고 있는 근거이론을 연구대상으로 삼아 그것의 발생과 분기과정에서 드러나는 존재론적, 인식론적, 방법론적 전제에 대한 현상학적-해석학적 반성을 수행하고자 한다. 이를 위해서 먼저 근거이론의 등장과 분기의 과정과 구조를 대표적인 근거이론가들인 스트라우스-코빈(Strauss-Corbin)의 축코딩의 패러다임 모델을 활용해서 밝혀볼 것이다. 나아가 축코딩의 패러다임으로 밝혀지지 않는 글레이저(Glaser), 스트라우스-코빈 그리고 차마즈(Charmaz)의 대표적인 근거이론들의 존재론적, 인식론적, 방법론적 전제들을 비판적으로 성찰해봄으로써 각각 어떤 이론적 곤경에 처해 있는지 그리고 그것을 어떻게 극복하는지를 밝혀볼 것이다. 끝으로 근거이론이 겪고 있는 이론적 곤경들의 (...) 극복과정이 어떤 점에서 현상학적, 해석학적 통찰과 연관되는지를 밝혀볼 것이다. (shrink)

How do words and images function hermeneutically? How does hermeneutic practice work? Answering these questions and more, Nicholas Davey develops the hermeneutical foundations of creative practice. In doing so, he not only uncovers the significance of philosophical hermeneutics for the arts and the humanities, but defends the humanities as a whole from the current scepticism inspired by deconstruction and post-structuralism. Taking Gadamer's language ontology as its cue, this pioneering volume not only addresses certain weaknesses that Davey observes in Gadamer's (...) thought but further takes Gadamerian thinking beyond Gadamer himself. In particular, Davey investigates the productive value of negativity that is central to hermeneutics and to wider spheres of creative learning. Advocating a renewed confidence in hermeneutics and the humanities, Negative Hermeneutics and the Question of Practice reveals how hermeneutical thinking provides a map of the dynamics within creative practice, eliminating the need for an externally imposed 'theory' of the arts. (shrink)

Linking specific nursing actions to outcomes in the healthcare setting is challenging. Patient outcomes are varied and influenced by a myriad of factors, and always involve a wider team than any one nurse. It is difficult to control for a single action or set of actions of a particular nurse. Furthermore, practice is seldom about any ‘one’ action, for one thing leads to another, all within a complex interplay of influencing factors. In this article, we outline a research method which (...) combined Dewey's pragmatism with Gadamer's hermeneutics to explore the consequences of the nurse's use of advanced assessment skills in the acute care setting of medical and surgical wards. This pragmatic hermeneutic methodological approach allowed the complex interplay of influences to be revealed in the unfolding story. Reflection of the nurse brought insights that may otherwise have been passed over. The philosophical notions of Dewey drew attention to the play of ‘means’ and ‘ends’. A hermeneutic approach that calls for ‘thinking’ extends understanding and raises insights that can inform education and practice. (shrink)

Judging Gadamer’s theoretical stance is a complicated matter, and his ontological hermeneutics is usually regarded as a text-centered theory of understanding. Through an analysis of the phenomenological premises from which his theories take off, however, we can clearly see his reader-centric stance. On the basis of this stance some cease to seek for the original intention of the author or the original meaning of the text, which ineluctably leads to the ignorance of an understanding methodology. As far as (...) people’s intentional understanding is concerned, however, the important as well as essential task is still that of striving for a certain kind of understanding that is relatively correct, with universally effective methodology as its necessary prerequisite. What is more, herein lies the significance of the epistemology of hermeneutics. This article aims to re-insert a sense of methodology after hermeneutics went through a period of ontological reflection, and hence clarify that it is of necessity that hermeneutics resumes its text-centric methodological stance. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer both a brief study of Collingwood's conception of historical explanation and epistemological historicity, and an examination of the influence of Collingwood's work on the historical methodology of Quentin Skinner and on Gadamer's hermeneutic philosophy. Collingwood's work on the philosophy of history manifests a tension between the realist implications of the doctrine of reenactment and the logic of question and answer on the one hand, and, on the other, the constructionist tendency of the rest of (...) his work on the logic of historical inquiry and on the hermeneutic character of his more general conception of human historicity. This tension is displayed in the divergent interpretations of Collingwood by Quentin Skinner and Hans-Georg Gadamer, and in the inherent difficulties of each man's philosophy of history. I argue that the weaknesses of Skinner's methodological historicism are present already in his reading of Collingwood and reflect the difficulties inherent in understanding Collingwood as offering primarily a methodology of history. I also claim that Gadamer's hermeneutic philosophy, while presenting a more plausible reading of Collingwood, suffers from tensions similar to those within Collingwood's work between the logic of explanation and the logic of practical recommendation, and between the character of historical explanation and the character of philosophical understanding. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the application of the hermeneutic approach in philosophy classes. The author proposes a technique for understand- ing a visual text, which allows one to move from the figurative perception of a work of art to the conceptual and structural level. In her study, the author describes the experience of using this technique while interpreting R. Magritte’s painting “Song of Love”. As a result of analyzing the group and individual work of students, the author comes to (...) the conclusion that the technique does not only contribute to the discovery of the subjective mean- ing of a work of art, but is effective for the process of self-knowledge. (shrink)

Hermeneutic Research: An Experiential Method presents a method to investigate lived experiences. In doing so, this book integrates a broad range of philosophical topics, such as hermeneutics, the philosophy of consciousness, and the philosophy of being. We are conscious beings. Through every act of consciousness, something is presented to the experiencing person. Something--a theme--stands in the focus of attention. Within the dimensional human consciousness, this theme is related to other thoughts, a process that includes certain aspects of the theme (...) and excludes others from conscious experience. The foundational conviction of the experiential method detailed in this book is that thought is not static in its ultimate nature but organically dynamic. Thought uncovers its internal endlessness through time as its medium, just as the small seed uncovers the unity of a tree through soil as its medium. Thought, as a dynamic self-revealing phenomenon, uncovers itself as a series of understandings that cannot be interpreted except through reciprocal reference. Meaningfulness, therefore, is not contained in self-identity but in the larger whole in which it is a specific part. Wholeness contains possibilities of knowledge as present realities revealing themselves, through human choices and experiences, in temporal progression to reach a unity that is already contained in them. This infinite movement of knowledge thus reveals the possibility intrinsic to finite thought. Intuition, as wholistic apprehension, is movement that could acknowledge and reach an immanent infinite, of which the finite concepts of comprehension and cognition are only momentums. (shrink)

Naturalistic Hermeneutics proposes the position of the unity of the scientific method and defends it against the claim to autonomy of the human sciences. Mantzavinos shows how materials that are 'meaningful', more specifically human actions and texts, can be adequately dealt with by the hypothetico-deductive method, the standard method used in the natural sciences. The hermeneutic method is not an alternative method aimed at the understanding and the interpretation of human actions and texts, but it is the same as (...) the hypothetico-deductive method applied to meaningful materials. The central thesis advocated by Mantzavinos is, thus, that there is no fundamental methodological difference between natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. Advanced students and professionals across philosophy, social and political theory, and the humanities will find this a compelling and controversial book. (shrink)

Gerd Buchdahl’s international reputation rests on his masterly writings on Kant. In them he showed how Kant transformed the philosophical problems of his predecessors and he minutely investigated the ways in which Kant related his critical philosophy to the contents and methods of natural science. Less well known, if only because in large part unpublished, are the writings in which Buchdahl elaborated his own views on the methods and status of the sciences. In this paper I examine the roles of (...) hermeneutics in Buchdahl’s reconstruction of Kant’s philosophical system and in his own ‘transcendental methodological’ approach to the philosophy of science. The first section looks at Buchdahl’s views on the theory and practice of historical interpretation and at the Husserlian hermeneutic scheme of reduction and realisation that he used in his later accounts of the philosophies of science of Kant and himself. The second section concentrates on Buchdahl’s treatment of the grounds of science in Kant; and the third on the hermeneutic strategies Buchdahl employed in articulating and justifying his own views. The paper closes with reflections on the impact and importance of Buchdahl’s interpretation of Kant’s critical philosophy in relation to the sciences and of his own hermeneutically based philosophy of science.Author Keywords: Buchdahl; Kant; Hermeneutics; Methodology; Transcendental philosophy. (shrink)

This paper offers an analysis of Edward Schillebeeckx’s insights on different perceptions of revelation as related to concepts like salvation, God, church, human experience and creation in the work Jesus in Our Western Culture. The incentive of Schillebeeckx’s hermeneutical method in nowadays Western phenomenology, upon which God “breathed his breath of life”, triggered our interest in meanings which Schillebeeckx ascribes to human history as the realm of God’s work for the benefit of men and women. This meaning is suggested in (...) the very beginning of the book by its original Dutch title If Politics is not Everything. As stated in this work’s introduction, Schillebeeckx’s main theme is the origin of salvation in the humanum, from the Abba experience to nowadays revelatory events. Our attempt is to see how Schillebeeckx’s humanum, which is the embodiment of human experience of consciousness, becomes relevant for the Christian doctrines and why Schillebeeckx reckons that bringing them together would impact both his worldview and Western culture. (shrink)

The initial obstacle to the development of a hermeneutics of the natural sciences has been the inadequate translation, and thus misunderstanding, of the basic terms of Heidegger's ontological analysis ofthe protopractical human situation and its progressive technicization. Pragmatism's parallel analyses of the problem situation of scientists has promoted a more idiomatically English vocabulary. But 1) Gadamer's exclusion of domains and disciplines working with technical methods from his universal hermeneutics continues to be influential, this in spite of the genesis (...) of his project in Helmholtz's insights into the process of scientific discovery. 2) Markus thus depicts a distinctly different style of production, transmission, and reception of the technological texts of natural science. 3) Rouse's 1987 extension of pragmatic hermeneutics into the incipient politics of knowledge/power relations in laboratory science presents the usual frightening prospects connected with laboratory experimentation impacting on disciplinary social institutions. 4) Rouse's 1996 analysis of scientific practices in local narrative situations eschews the banner of hermeneutics and instead proposes to examine scientific-technological work by way of interdisciplinary ’ cultural studies, once the traditional loci of hermeneutic methodology. 5) A hermeneutic phenomenology of the natural sciences thus finds itself fundamentally challenged with respect to its rightful topics and roles in the analysis of increasingly technicized disciplines and domains. (shrink)

This book details a history of the methodology of textual interpretation from Ancient Greece to the 20th century. It presents a complete English translation of Hermeneutics and Its Problems, written by Russian philosopher Gustav Gustavovich Shpet, along with insightful commentary. Written in 1918, Shpet's text remained unpublished in its original Russian until the collapse of the Soviet Union. This engaging translation will be of value to anyone interested in early phenomenology, Russian intellectual history, as well as the divergence (...) of phenomenology and the analytic philosophy of language. The volume also features translations of five key essays written by Shpet. The first presents an extended elaboration of a non-egological conception of consciousness on Husserlian grounds that considerably predates the well-known arguments of early Sartre and Gurwitsch. The second details the rudiments of a phenomenological philosophy of history that traces a central theme back to Parmenides. The next two reveal Shpet’s abiding philosophical interest in combating skepticism and what he took to be the reigning neo-Kantian model by which philosophy is a handmaiden to mathematical physics. The final one features a terse statement of Shpet’s overall philosophical viewpoint, written during the early years of the Stalinist period. Shpet offers an example of one facet of philosophy from a phenomenological viewpoint, demonstrating the progress as well as the deficiencies of successive eras along the historical journey. In doing so, he also gradually reveals the need for a theory of signs, interpretation, and understanding. This collection brings together key documents for assessing Shpet’s hermeneutic phenomenology and his perceived need to develop a phenomenological philosophy of language. (shrink)

Hermeneutic philosophies of social science offer an approach to the philosophy of social science foregrounding the human subject and including attention to history as well as a methodological reflection on the notion of reflection, including the intrusions of distortions and prejudice. Hermeneutic philosophies of social science offer an explicit orientation to and concern with the subject of the human and social sciences. Hermeneutic philosophies of the social science represented in the present collection of essays draw inspiration from Gadamer’s work as (...) well as from Paul Ricoeur in addition to Michel de Certeau and Michel Foucault among others. Special attention is given to Wilhelm Dilthey in addition to the broader phenomenological traditions of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger as well as the history of philosophy in Plato and Descartes. The volume is indispensible reading for students and scholars interested in epistemology, philosophy of science, social social studies of knowledge as well as social studies of technology. (shrink)

Leading philosopher of religion D. Z. Phillips argues that intellectuals need not see their task as being for or against religion, but as one of understanding it. What stands in the way of this task are certain methodological assumptions about what enquiry into religion must be. Beginning with Bernard Williams on Greek gods, Phillips goes on to examine these assumptions in the work of Hume, Feuerbach, Marx, Frazer, Tylor, Marett, Freud, Durkheim, Le;vy-Bruhl, Berger and Winch. The result exposes confusion, but (...) also gives logical space to religious belief without advocating personal acceptance of that belief, and shows how the academic study of religion may return to the contemplative task of doing conceptual justice to the world. Religion and the Hermeneutics of Contemplation extends in important ways D. Z. Phillips' seminal 1976 book Religion Without Explanation. It will be of interest to scholars and students of philosophy, anthropology, sociology and theology. (shrink)

This paper aims to examine and evaluate Habermas’ thoughts on hermeneutical reßection as a methodology of social science based on his work titled Zur Logik der Sozialwissenschaften (On The Logic of The Social Sciences). By starting from a theory of action approach focusing on the process of inquiring and understanding intentional action, Haber-mas developed a hermeneutical reßection approach emphasizing the importance of communicative experience between the researcher and the subject examined. This approach has emancipatory power because it encourages researchers (...) to thoroughly identify the ideological elements of social reality researched. Apart from all the advantages of Habermas’ methodological thought, his thinking should be evaluated critically because there are problematic aspects when viewed through the lens of ontology, methodology/method, and axiology. (shrink)

Kravchenko suggests replacing Turing’s suggestion for explaining cognizers’ cognitive capacity through autonomous robotic modelling by ‘autopoiesis’, Maturana’s extremely vague metaphor for the relations and interactions among organisms, environments, and various subordinate and superordinate systems therein. I suggest that this would be an exercise in hermeneutics rather than causal explanation.

Hermeneutics, the study of interpretation, is an essential and valuable branch of philosophy. Hermeneutics is also a central component of the methodology of the social sciences and the humanities, for example historiography, anthropology, art history, and literary criticism. In a sequence of accessible chapters, contributors across the human sciences explain the leading concepts and ideas of hermeneutics, the historical development of the field, the importance of hermeneutics in philosophy today, and the ways in which it (...) can address contemporary concerns including intercultural relations, relations between subcultures within a single society, and relations across race and gender. Clearly structured and written in non-technical language, this Companion will be an important contribution to a growing field of study. (shrink)

Sinceits founding by Jacques Waardenburg in 1971, Religion and Reason has been a leading forum for contributions on theories, theoretical issues and agendas related to the phenomenon and the study of religion. Topics include (among others) category formation, comparison, ethnophilosophy, hermeneutics, methodology, myth, phenomenology, philosophy of science, scientific atheism, structuralism, and theories of religion. From time to time the series publishes volumes that map the state of the art and the history of the discipline.

This dissertation investigates the possibility of a systematic yet non-methodological grounding for knowledge within the framework of hermeneutics. In opposition to formalistic and scientistic construals of philosophy, I argue that philosophy is essentially non-formalistic, nuanced, and contingent, characterized by circularity, ambiguity, and paradox. In rejecting formalized fixed positions and emphasizing circularity and contingency, I am concerned nevertheless to ensure that my account does not dissolve into random flux or empty indeterminacy. I look to articulate, therefore, a middle space between (...) radical closure and radical openness in an account I have termed anchored openness. ;In developing this account, I contrast it with other models of this middle space. In the accounts of Hegel and Derrida, the outcome is a one-sided extremism which proves unacceptable. The concept of the hermeneutic circle furnishes a valuable preliminary account, but it cannot provide the full elaboration of this perspective. Gadamer's account comes close to striking the appropriate balance between extremist poles and articulating the middle space, but because of its problematic objectivist and relativist implications, it also proves inadequate as a model of anchored openness. ;For a more salutary model that avoids the deficiencies of these accounts, I turn finally to Kant's Critique of Judgement. Through an analysis of the aesthetic judgement, I find the systematic yet open principles needed for this account: mediation and openness, subjective universality, and grounded free play. I conclude by suggesting possible future directions for the development of these principles. (shrink)

Hermeneutics, also referred to as interpretive phenomenology, has led to important contributions to nursing research. The philosophy of Charles Taylor has been a major source in the development of contemporary hermeneutics, through his ontological and epistemological articulations of the human sciences. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that Taylor's ideas can further enrich hermeneutic inquiry in nursing research, particularly for investigations of ethical concerns. The paper begins with an outline of Taylor's hermeneutical framework, followed by a (...) review of his key ideas relevant for ethics research. The paper ends with a discussion of my empirical research with critically ill children in Canada and France in relation to Taylor's ideas, chiefly Social Imaginaries. I argue that Taylor's hermeneutics provides a substantive moral framework as well as a methodology for examining ethical concerns. (shrink)

This book aims to develop the tradition of philosophical hermeneutics, the theoretical account of interpretive (as opposed to explanatory) understanding--the account of meanings and contexts rather than causes and predictions--usually restricted to the domain of literary and textual analysis, in new directions by exploiting its potential as an instrument of critique. It refutes commonly held claims that hermeneutic analyses are necessarily relativistic, Eurocentric, or critically impotent and demonstrates how hermeneutic procedures can inform analyses of urgent current and cross-cultural issues (...) such as the biology of race, female genital excision, and the so-called "culture of poverty" thesis. Lorenzo Simpson demonstrates that a robust methodology of philosophical hermeneutics is well positioned to intervene in critical political and social issues in global ethics and justice in concert with critical theory's emancipatory aims. (shrink)

Hermeneutics is a mantic art involved in the translation of the unintelligible into the intelligible. However, within modern contexts the term possesses a more methodological sense - ‘a universal doctrine for the interpretation of signs’. This conception of hermeneutics was given impetus during the Renaissance with the quest for theological objectivity, but it was with Schleiermacher and other philosophers of the Romantic movement that hermeneutics was viewed as a universal ‘dialogical’ condition. The Romantic conception of hermeneutics (...) was psychologized by Dilthey and re-founded upon the principle of consciousness. With Heidegger became conceived as an ontological phenomenon identical to Existenz itself. For Gadamer, hermeneutics criticizes the ‘pale abstractions’ of Enlightenment conceptions of philosophy for neglecting the work of concepts in philosophy; concepts that have their origins in the self-critical communicative movement of human interpretation. (shrink)

Fictionalist approaches to ontology have been an accepted part of philosophical methodology for some time now. On a fictionalist view, engaging in discourse that involves apparent reference to a realm of problematic entities is best viewed as engaging in a pretense. Although in reality, the problematic entities do not exist, according to the pretense we engage in when using the discourse, they do exist. In the vocabulary of Burgess and Rosen (1997, p. 6), a nominalist construal of a given (...) discourse is revolutionary just in case it involves a “reconstruction or revision” of the original discourse. Revolutionary approaches are therefore prescriptive. In contrast, a nominalist construal of a given discourse is hermeneutic just in case it is a nominalist construal of a discourse that is put forth as a hypothesis about how the discourse is in fact used; that is, hermeneutic approaches are descriptive. I will adopt Burgess and Rosen’s terminology to describe the two different spirits in which a fictionalist hypothesis in ontology might be advanced. Revolutionary fictionalism would involve admitting that while the problematic discourse does in fact involve literal reference to nonexistent entities, we ought to use the discourse in such a way that the reference is simply within the pretense. The hermeneutic fictionalist, in contrast, reads fictionalism into our actual use of the problematic discourse. According to her, normal use of the problematic discourse involves a pretense. According to the pretense, and only according to the pretense, there exist the objects to which the discourse would commit its users, were no pretense involved. My purpose in this paper is to argue that hermeneutic fictionalism is not a viable strategy in ontology. My argument proceeds in two steps. First, I discuss in detail several problematic consequences of any interesting application of hermeneutic fictionalism. Of course, if there is good evidence that hermeneutic fictionalism is correct in some cases, then some of these drastic consequences would have to be accepted.. (shrink)

Resumen: En este artículo se propone una metodología para los estudios jurídicos basada en lo que se ha venido a llamar hermenéutica de lo no-dicho. A partir del pensamiento de Michel Foucault y Giorgio Agamben en torno a la arqueología y la genealogía, se plantea cómo enfocar el estudio del derecho en lo no-dicho como aquel saber sometido y no tematizado. Se trata de acudir a la intersección de saberes eruditos y saberes descalificados por la jerarquía epistémica con la intención (...) no tanto de explicar como de implicar. Abstract: This paper proposes a methodology for legal studies based on what has been called the hermeneutics of the not-said. Based on the thoughts of Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben on archeology and genealogy, this research approaches the study of law on what is not-said as subject and non-thematized knowledge. In brief, it is an attempt to consider the intersection between erudite and disqualified knowledge, in order to imply the crossroad rather than explain it. (shrink)

Today, there is an emerging interest for the potential role of hermeneutics in reflecting on the practices related to digital technologies and their consequences. Nonetheless, such an interest has neither given rise to a unitary approach nor to a shared debate. The primary goal of this paper is to map and synthetize the different existing perspectives to pave the way for an open discussion on the topic. The article is developed in two steps. In the first section, the authors (...) analyze digital hermeneutics “in theory” by confronting and systematizing the existing literature. In particular, they stress three main distinctions among the approaches: between “methodological” and “ontological” digital hermeneutics; between data- and text-oriented digital hermeneutics; and between “quantitative” and “qualitative” credos in digital hermeneutics. In the second section, they consider digital hermeneutics “in action”, by critically analyzing the uses of digital data for studying a classical object such as the political opinion. In the conclusion, we will pave the way to an ontological turn in digital hermeneutics. Most of this article is devoted to the methodological issue of interpreting with digital machines. The main task of an ontological digital hermeneutics would consist instead in wondering if it is legitimate, and eventually to which extent, to speak of digital technologies, or at least of some of them, as interpretational machines. (shrink)

Applying natural science methodologies to the social sciences causes a crisis in science. A crisis of science means the narrowing of researcher subjectivity so the possibility of research heuristics is drastically reduced. Martin Heidegger a philosopher of existentialism tried to solve this problem by developing a method that integrated schools of phenomenology and hermeneutics. This research aims to describe the hermeneutics situation method which embodies the two things above. This research is a type of library research that is (...) descriptive and qualitative. The important value and novelty of this research is that it examines the closeness of philosophy and social science through Martin Heidegger’s way of thinking. A researcher does not live in isolation, he is connected to the context of life in which he lives. The context of life motivates researchers to see the meaning of something. In social research, researchers do not just meet social facts, but meet appropriate events (ereignis). So, social researchers are advised to avoid two things when conducting social research in the context of hermeneutics situation, namely the principle of subject-object division and the value-free principle. The reason is a presumption that a researcher was involved in the surrounding environment which then becomes the object of his research, even before conducting the research. This involvement is what makes the researcher able to understand the object of his research. (shrink)

This is a study in the philosophy of social science. It takes the form of a comparative critique of three contemporary approaches: ordinary language philosophy, hermeneutics and critical theory, represented here respectively by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Paul Ricoeur and Jürgen Habermas. Part I is devoted to an exposition of these authors' views and of the traditions to which they belong. Its unifying thread is their common concern with language, a concern which nonetheless reveals important differences of approach. For whereas ordinary (...) language philosophers tend to treat linguistic activity as the ultimate object of inquiry, both Ricoeur and Habermas regard it as a medium which betrays more fundamental dimensions of human experience and the social world. Part II complements the exposition with a critical analysis of its central themes: the conceptualisation of action, the methodology of interpretation, and the theory of reference and truth. The author defends many aspects of the work of Ricoeur and Habermas, such as the emphasis on power and ideology, the strategy of depth interpretation, and the link between consensus and truth; but he argues that there are serious deficiencies and obscurities in their work. He proposes solutions to these difficulties and concludes with a sketch of a critical and rationally justified theory for the interpretation of action - a critical hermeneutics. (shrink)

This volume introduces the methodological value of hermeneutic dialogue in the field of theoretical and philosophical psychology. It reflects on the works of Frank Richardson, who has made, and continues to make, seminal contributions to the field, as well as having influenced the work of many of the practitioners engaged in this field today. Each chapter explores a major topic of hermeneutic dialogue and is authored by a scholar whose work has been directly impacted by Richardson's life and research. The (...) chapters illuminate a variety of issues in psychology, such as instrumentalism, individualism, relationality, social ontology, the wisdom of limits, neoliberalism, and the idea that theory is a form of praxis. All contributions in this volume illustrate aspects of theory as practice coming to expression in reflection on theoretical and philosophical psychology and trace some of the implications for psychology, political philosophy, social justice, community, human dignity, and transcendence. This book will be a valuable resource for students and scholars of theoretical and philosophical psychology, philosophy of the mind, and personality theories. (shrink)

These twelve essays, written by philosophers, examine the usefulness, objectivity, and range of applicability of interpretive methods in ethics and politics, with the goal of isolating the role of methodology to allow debate to focus on substantive conflicts.

In this paper, I try to exploit some lessons drawn from reading Plato in order to comment on the methodological ‘meta-level’ regarding the relation between philosophizing and writing. After all, it is due to the medium of written word that we come to know past philosophers. I do this on the occasion of the ostensible conclusion in Plato’s Meno. This example illuminates the ‘double-dialogue’ hermeneutics of Plato and helps to differentiate Plato’s dialogues from dialogical works written by other philosophers, (...) such as Berkeley. As a result, it becomes clear that, like with Plato’s case, a historian of philosophy must not only have a philosophical training, but also a subtle philological background, when attempting to come into dialogue with dead philosophers. (shrink)

This dichotomy is discussed. First, by means of a short historical review, two theses are pointed out: (a) Originally scientific knowledge was regarded as a hermeneutical issue. (b) The separation into two methodological and scientific cultures is rather a ‘modern’ phenomenon. It was accomplished not before the 19th century as a product of the rise and final succes of the empirist-positivist paradigm for the so-called exact (natural) sciences and the analytic methodology. Further it is argued, that this separation turned (...) out to be an unproductive one: The traditional logical positivist philosophy of science failed in integrating the interpretive practice of the humanities. On the other hand hermeneutical methodology failed in explicating its principles in a way, that could satisfy modern analytic standards. So it remained deficient in founding the postulated methodological autonomy of the humanities. However, the more the positivist background of the traditional philosophy of science crumbles, the more interest the methodological intuitions of hermeneutists seem to obtain. Finally, a new possibility to explicate the concept of interpretation by means of analytical instrumentary is drawn out: The so-called structuralist view of scientific theories (J. D. Sneed, W. Stegmüller e.a.) seems to explicate properly just that feature of hermeneutical interpretation, which remained unintelligible for the traditional philosophy of science. So some realistic chance appears to mediate the alleged systematic antithesis and to eliminate that methodological dichotomy. Last but not least, a number of new philosophical theories, not coming from hermeneutical side, are mentioned, in which the concept of interpretation is already used in a presystematic, i.e. an implicit and vague, sense. So to explicate that concept seems to me to be a necessary philosophical task at the present time. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this study, the learning experiences of four elementary school teachers who were basketball coaches were explored. Specifically, the learning experiences gained through observing professional basketball coaches’ sessions were examined by employing van Manen’s hermeneutic-phenomenological approach, which focuses on the thematic analysis of lived experiences. Previous coaching studies that have focused on the professional development of coaches have revealed that observing elite coaching sessions could be a major source of practical coaching knowledge because coaches could learn from experienced coaches. (...) Quantitative studies of this learning effect have revealed that observers learn new coaching methods from a general perspective. However, this study revealed that teachers give specific meaning and value to observed phenomena from the perspective of personal interest based on their coaching or teaching beliefs. This learning was interpreted from a multifaceted perspective, which was evident from their coaching interests and questions. This study disclosed that teachers reflect on their coaching philosophy, methods and attitude. Furthermore, even if teachers generally tend to highlight their coaching methods, this has a qualitatively complex nature because the meaning and value given to coaching methods varied in each teacher’s reflection. The perspective of problem-solving highlighted how to answer their personal questions based on practical coaching problems by observing a coaching session. Discovering the methodological differences between the observation session and the daily coaching session were highlighted. (shrink)

Philosophical and technoculture studies surrounding the existential understanding of the human–technology–world experience have seen a slow but steady increase that makes a turn to material hermeneutics in the second decade of the twenty-first century (Ihde in Postphenomenology: essays in the postmodern context. Northwestern University Press, Evanston, 1993; Capurro in AI Soc 25(1):35–42, 2010; Romele in Digital hermeneutics: philosophical investigations in new media and technologies. Routledge, Abingdon, 2020; among others). This renewed focus makes sense because human–technology–world experiences need to (...) be interpreted. And many of these are more complicated to study, precisely because technology is at the root of the experiences. One interesting subset of technologies is media technologies, also called digital media, which intertwines the device and the content to mediate together in the world (Irwin in Digital media: human-technology connection. Lexington Books, Lanham, 2016). Visual media technologies and media content, together, through what is called moving image technologies, create virtual role-playing, virtual and augmented reality, video games, and social media focused worlds that have become central experiences in contemporary culture. Just as image-based scientific instruments read the world in different ways, so to do these visual mediated experiences. How might this comingled “reading” of technology explain the digital film language and experience? I contend that understanding the existential “early” film experience helps understand the new age of cinema, with implications for digital media, digital representation of the visual, and technoscience and technoculture studies. The material hermeneutics perspective called postphenomenology is one way to study these visually focused human–technology–world perceptual and interpretive experiences. Don Ihde’s methodological framework (1990, 1993, 1996, 2002, 2010, 2012, 2016, 2019) is both an idea from technoscience studies and a set of nuanced vocabulary that helps to explore and reveal variations, patterns, and trajectories of the whole-body experience of technology. This use case will first explore traditional cinema and then the “new age” term “moving image”, to learn more about this complicated and radically transforming technological experience. Work by Don Ihde and Vivian Sobchack is considered. (shrink)

The purpose of this essay is to articulate and defend the epistemological foundations of international human rights education from the perspective of a hermeneutical interpretive methodology. Fuad Al-Daraweesh and Dale Snauwaert argue here that this methodology potentially alleviates the challenges that face the cross-cultural implementation of human rights education. While acknowledging the necessity of global human rights awareness, the authors maintain that local cultural conceptualization is imperative to the negotiated, local embrace of human rights. A critical, interpretive pedagogy (...) emerges from grounding human rights education in a hermeneutic methodology. Thus, Al-Daraweesh and Snauwaert advocate taking a hermeneutical approach in order to enlarge the scope and meaning of international human rights education. (shrink)

The philosophical orientation of Gadamerian hermeneutic phenomenology is explored in this paper. Gadamer offers a hermeneutics of the humanities that differs significantly from models of the human sciences historically rooted in scientific methodologies. In particular, Gadamer proposes that understanding is first a mode of being before it is a mode of knowing; what this effectively offers is an alternative to the traditional way of understanding in the human sciences. This paper details why the work of hermeneutics is not (...) to develop a procedure for understanding, but to clarify the conditions of understanding. In this explication, the author examines the hermeneutic experience and, in the process, relates it to both the practical and the historical horizons of the lifeworld of health professionals, particularly nurses. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology<, Volume 7, Edition 2 September 2007. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:From Methodological Naturalism to Interpretive Exclusivism About Religious PsychopathologyJosé Eduardo Porcher, PhDA particularly deep form of hermeneutical injustice arises when clinicians undermine a patient’s meaningful interpretation of their alleged psychotic symptoms within a religious framework. Cases like Femi’s (Rashed, 2010) illustrate how diagnosing and treating psychotic symptoms with religious content can perpetuate this injustice. Femi’s symptoms, which were very real, were interpreted solely as indicative of a psychotic episode, (...) without considering the possibility of a religious experience. Although hermeneutical injustice is often caused by negative stereotypes, lack of conceptual resources, implicit biases, practices of epistemic privileging, patronizing attitudes, and wrongful pathologization, I propose that interpretive exclusivism about religious psychopathology plays a pivotal role in causing hermeneutical injustice when attributing psychotic symptoms with religious content—that is, the view that an experience is either psychopathological or religious (Scrutton, 2023). Routinely, on attributing psychosis, the potential for the patient to have a genuine religious experience is disregarded and excluded from the therapeutic process and from the very realm of possibility. Why?In their thoughtful commentary, Rosa Ritunnano and Ian James Kidd do me the favor of not only giving careful attention to my argument, but also elucidating my position and providing avenues for further clarification. Although I have not gone much into what is behind interpretive exclusivism, they are right to point to unquestioning adherence to some form of naturalism. Contrary to what they intimate, however, I do not think we are speaking of different kinds of hermeneutical injustice. As I see it, we are speaking about the same kind of injustice, only at different levels of explanation. In my article, I rhetorically ask why [End Page 241] it is assumed that psychotic and religious experiences cannot coexist, and why it is assumed that the same experience cannot be both a genuine religious experience and an instance of psycho-pathology. Ritunnano and Kidd point in the right direction when they say, “Some interpretations of kinds of experience with religious content can be undermined if one is committed to a metaphysical naturalism” (2024, p. 235).Naturalism can be divided into two components: metaphysical and methodological (Papineau, 2020). The metaphysical component concerns the contents of reality, affirming the absence of “supernatural” or other metaphysically elusive entities. In contrast, the methodological component focuses on approaches to investigating reality and attributes a general authority to the scientific method. Therefore, metaphysical naturalism is the more comprehensive view, as it outright denies the existence of the supernatural. Meanwhile, methodological (or scientific) naturalism refers to a pragmatic approach within scientific inquiry, stating that the right methodology to investigate and research something (where this something might not be immediately obvious to be a scientific topic) is that of science, often particular of natural sciences.Although a commitment to metaphysical naturalism may at times be what lies behind interpretive exclusivism, we do not need to go that far, since a commitment to methodological naturalism is enough to breed unwarranted ontological exclusion in practice (Plantinga, 1997; Ratcliffe, 2003). This in turn leads to interpretive exclusivism which is, I argue, the main theoretical flaw behind the kind of hermeneutical injustice I am trying to flesh out. As Ritunnano and Kidd observe, either tacit or explicit adherence to such ontological exclusion causes individuals to struggle to view another person’s spiritual or religious interpretive framework as coherent or even intelligible. Note, however, that the opposite of interpretive exclusivism—that is, interpretive inclusivism—does not need to affirm that the experience is exclusively or even genuinely religious but rather keeps that question open while considering significant epistemic and meaning-making possibilities.Finally, in his commentary, Alasdair Coles (2024) proposes that I overlook the fact that some individuals undergo psychoses featuring deeply distressing and dark religious imagery, the dismissal of which can be therapeutically beneficial. He also contends that therapists often default to considering all religious content as inauthentic, contrasting this with my alleged stance, which he believes assumes the opposite extreme and may be equally or more harmful. In making these assertions, he misrepresents my argument on two counts. I took care to avoid implying that all religious experiences should be uncritically accepted and that all religious content is inherently... (shrink)