This paper takes a phenomenological hermeneutic orientation to explicate and explore the notion of the grey zone of health and illness and seeks to develop the concept through an examination of the case of alcohol consumption. The grey zone is an interpretive area referring to the irremediable zone of ambiguity that haunts even the most apparently resolute discourse. This idea points to an ontological indeterminacy, in the face of which decisions have to be made with regard to the health of (...) a person (e.g., an alcoholic), a system (e.g., the health system), or a society. The fundamental character of this notion will be developed in relation to the discourse on health and the limitations of different disciplinary practices. The case of alcohol consumption will be used to tease out the grey zone embedded in the different kinds of knowledge made available through the disciplinary traditions of medical science, with its emphasis on somatic well-being, and anthropology, with its focus on communal well-being. This tension or grey zone embedded in different knowledge outcomes will be shown to have a discursive parallel with the dialogue between the Athenian, the Spartan, and the Cretan in Plato’s Laws. Making use of the dialogical approach as described by Gadamer, the Athenian’s particular resolution of the tension will be explored as a case study to demonstrate the necessarily particular analysis involved in a grey zone resolution. (shrink)

The Symposium addresses the relation between desire, beauty and the good life, while indicating the fascination that strong teaching arouses in followers. For Plato, unlike for moderns, power, desire and ethics are interrelated. This article takes Socrates as a case study for the Platonic understanding of this interrelation and it will put into play the grounds involved in their modern separation. It focuses on the three speakers in the dialogue who were followers of Socrates as a way of addressing the (...) role of desire in the teacher–student relation. The article demonstrates how the radical interpretive method brings to life the challenges a strong engagement with Eros risks, especially those related to Socrates’ strong and influential teaching, while addressing and exemplifying theorizing’s need for ironic intoxication. (shrink)

This paper addresses the problem of reflexivity in modern social inquiry in general and in sociology in particular. This problem is inherited from Weber''s very conception of sociology, is transformed by phenomenology and ethnomethodology, deepened by the linguistic turn of hermeneutics and Wittgenstein''s later philosophy, and has been the central concern of the work of Alan Blum and Peter McHugh. The issues and spectres raised by reflexivity are methodological arbitrariness, the need to take responsibility for one''s own talk (...) (and the cultural assumptions embedded in talk) and, finally, the deep fear of nihilism – the sense that with regard to inquiry (along with everything else in the world) nothing matters. As such, reflexivity raises the most fundamental issue that can be raised for modern social inquiry. Through an oriented interpretation of the work of Blum and McHugh and other contemporary social theorists (particularly Gadamer and Arendt), this paper works through what a dialectical engagement with these issues look like. (shrink)

In the Crito, a dialogue that is highly influential for the traditions both of philosophy and of political thinking, Socrates resists the pleading of his friend Crito to escape the city that has condemned him. For Arendt, the dialogue instantiates the separation between humans as thinking beings and humans as acting beings, and so between political theory and philosophy. For others, the dialogue shows Socrates’ reasoning to be self-contradictory. Socrates’ introduction of the Athenian Laws as a world of greater moral (...) force than the empirical Athens of Crito’s appeal aims to ground principled action. Yet, there are many competing principles (authoritarianism, obedience, patriotism, friendship, integrity) that, interpretively speaking, have been understood as validated by this dialogue. Is there any necessary or analytic principle that can be articulated and, if so, what are the grounds of such? Drawing on the theory and methods of Blum and McHugh’s analysis and Gadamer’s hermeneutics, this article seeks to demonstrate that practical (political) action needs to be understood in an analytic context to grasp fully its ethical and political implications. Along the way, reference will be made to Garfinkel’s articulation of members’ methods for discovering agreements and Arendt’s articulation of the common world that the conversation among friends sustains. (shrink)

"This book is a virtual case study in the application of hermeneutical principles to illuminate philosophical texts. The book contains translations of eight of Gadamer's best known essays on Plato.

Plato's Dialectical Ethics, Gadamer's earliest work, has now been translated into English for the first time. This classic book, published in 1931 and reprinted in 1967 and 1982, is still important today. It is one of the most extensive and imaginative interpretations of Plato's Philebus and an ideal introduction to Gadamer's thinking. It shows how his influential hermeneutics emerged from the application of his teacher Martin Heidegger's phenomenological method to classical texts and problems. The work consists of two chapters. The (...) first, which puts Socratic/Platonic dialectics and ethics in the context of Gadamer's thinking about how we come to shared understanding through conversation, helps to clarify the intentions and trajectory of all Gadamer's subsequent work. The second chapter, on the Philebus, will interest everyone who is concerned with the connection between Plato's discussions of ethics and those of Aristotle, and with the substantive issues of the relation between pleasure and reason that Plato explores and Gadamer interprets. This edition includes a new and useful introduction by the translator, Robert M. Wallace. (shrink)

With reference to Plato and Aristotle, Gadamer discusses the question of what is left of friendship and solidarity in an age of `anonymous responsibility.'.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 61.1 (2000) 59-74 [Access article in PDF] Francesco Patrizi in the "Time-Sack": History and Rhetorical Philosophy * Paul Richard Blum Contemporary theory of history is much concerned with the narrative structure of history, its nature, and its epistemic status. 1 The problem is not only that sources present events mostly wrapped in narrative language but also that temporality is an inherent feature (...) both of the events told and of storytelling. 2 Narrativity and temporality touch upon basic metaphysical and anthropological questions, as Paul Ricoeur has pointed out, if narration is to be understood as self-explanation of a human being in whom "time" occurs as "being-in-time." 3 The following paper cannot claim to contribute to the current debate but presents Francesco Patrizi (1529-97) 4 as a Renaissance philosopher who addressed several of these problems. In discussing his conceptions of history and time, however, it is the aim of this paper only to locate these within his own philosophy. [End Page 59]One of the unresolved problems in the writings of Francesco Patrizi is the difference between his earlier contributions to the humanistic canon and his late philosophical main treatise, Nova de universis Philosophia. The earlier writings conform to the usual humanist literary topics: the political program of a città felice, the treatises on honor, the poetic fury, Petrarch (1553), and then his two dialogues on history (1560) and rhetoric (1562). The two works which followed, the Discussiones peripateticae (1571) and the Poetics (1586), show a characteristic development of humanist thinking, namely, the differentiation of purely philological from essentially philosophical literature.Patrizi's Discussiones peripateticae 5 is a polemic against Aristotle, written from a Platonic viewpoint, but his own philosophy is concealed under a mass of philological material. In an attempt that seeks to be virtually definitive, he cites passages from Aristotle and the Peripatetic tradition in order to point out mistakes and contradictions. It was on this account that Giordano Bruno heaped ridicule on him, calling him "sterco di pedanti." Simply put, he tells us, Patrizi demonstrates "how like he is to an ox or an ass." One cannot say that he has understood Aristotle either well or ill, but merely that he has read him and reread him, cut him up and stitched him together, compared him with a thousand other Greek writers, friends and foes alike, and altogether gone to an immense deal of trouble, not only to no purpose whatsoever but also to our infinite disappointment. Anyone who wishes to see into just what folly and self-regarding vanity pedantic drudgery can plunge and sink should read this book. 6This was one contemporary reaction to Patrizi's attempt to explore all the possibilities of a humanistic style of literary criticism, via the comparison between Plato and Aristotle. 7The Poetics 8 is essentially divided into two quite distinct halves: Della poetica la deca istoriale and Della poetica la deca disputata. The first is a lexicon of [End Page 60] the ancient authors, categories, styles, etc., and the second a series of dissertations on the theory of poetry but these, too, with abundant reference to both ancient and contemporary literature.Finally, and entirely different in style, there is his principal work, the Nova de universis Philosophia (1591). 9 Here the philosopher systematically departs from his accustomed field, ranging from a theory of light (Panaugia), via a discussion on theological principles (Panarchia) and a theory of the soul (Pampsychia) to the Pancosmia, a treatise on cosmology and physics. Even to this work he appends a number of documentary excerpts, and there is no lack of excursions into literary history, but the main part of the work is entirely axiomatic--"methodical"--in approach and argumentative in style.These works of Patrizi represent the development of philosophical humanism in the sixteenth century, a development away from a unified presentation of the problems of the human sciences by the explicit use of the tools of literary rhetoric, and towards the research of philological sources on the one hand and... (shrink)

This volume of new essays by an international group of scholars examines the response of Hans-Georg Gadamer to Plato, especially to the Philebus. The book studies Gadamer's interpretative approach to the dialogues and unwritten doctrines of Plato. It also shows how, for Gadamer, reading Plato was intimately interconnected with formulating his own philosophical views. The volume also brings out how Gadamer influenced Donald Davidson in his reading of Plato and his philosophical thought. The volume thus explores a fascinating case-study of (...) the creative reception of Plato by two major twentieth-century philosophers, Gadamer and Davidson, while also clarifying Gadamer's relationship to Heidegger. It will be of interest to scholars and students of Plato, especially on the Philebus, and also to scholars of twentieth-century thought. (shrink)

In thinking of my relationship to Peter McHugh as an intimate collaboration, I take some reactions elicited to a most recent unpublished writing of his on intimacy as an occasion for discussing both intimacy and collaboration as a notion in-itself and as applicable to us in particular, treating that space between the general and particular of intimacy as its zone of fundamental ambiguity. I try to being to view a story of the imaginary of community, its elemental stirrings, that (...) Peter might appreciate. In this, I reorient Arendt’s notion of communicating with the dead to the problem of the intimate collaboration and of how each might be a practice that mirrors the other, intimate collaboration being one way of confirming the vow in communicating with the dead to witness, and reciprocally, such communication being a way of practicing intimate collaboration. This leads me to bring to view a range of unstated resonances of the discussion that have applicability to our shared history. First, is intimate collaboration possible in organizations such as the university and how does it coexist among adversarial exchanges, factitious coteries, alliances, and collegial networks? Second, is communicating with the dead another way of speaking of tradition and dissemination in any context as such and what could the manner and method of orienting to this desire say about the quality of life in commemoration per se? (shrink)

One of this century’s most important philosophers here focuses on Plato’s _Protagoras, Phaedo, Republic, _and _Philebus_ and on Aristotle’s three moral treatises to show the essential continuity of Platonic and Aristotelian reflection on the nature of the good. “Well translated and usefully annotated by P. Christopher Smith…. Gadamer’s book exhibits a broad and grand vision as well as a great love for the Greek thinkers.”—Alexander Nehemas, _New York__ Times Book Review_ “The translation is highly readable. The translator’s introduction and frequent (...) annotation provide special elucidation on points of doctrinal complexity, giving ample references to other works and rival interpretations.”—_Choice_ “This book is an important addition to the steadily growing number of Gadamer’s works available in English. In it, we see Gadamer at his best, that is, engaged in the practice of interpreting important texts from the philosophical tradition, and also at his most controversial…. I enthusiastically recommend this…challenging book as one that rewards all efforts to understand the important claims it makes on its readers.”—Francis J. Ambrosio, _International Philosophy Quarterly_ Hans-Georg Gadamer is professor of philosophy emeritus at the University of Heidelberg. He is the author of numerous books, including two others translated by Smith: _Dialogue and Dialectic: Eight Hermeneutical Studies on Plato _and _Hegel’s Dialectic: Five Hermeneutical Studies._. (shrink)

In the years shortly before and after the publication of his classic _Truth and Method_ (1960), the eminent German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer returned often to questions surrounding religion and ethics. In this selection of writings from _Gesammelte Werke_ that are here translated into English for the first time, Gadamer probes deeply into the hermeneutic significance of these subjects. Gadamer raises issues of importance to ethicists and theologians as well as students of language and literature. In such outstanding essays as "Kant (...) and the Question of God," "Thinking as Redemption: Plotinus between Plato and Augustine," and "Friendship and Self-Knowledge: Reflections on the Role of Friendship in Greek Ethics," Gadamer discusses the nature of moral behavior, ethics as a form of knowing, and the hermeneutic task of mediating ethos and philosophical ethics with one another. (shrink)

The arts, taken as whole, govern the metaphysical heritage of the western philosophical tradition. The arts possess absoluteness in that in the experience of art we recognize something as ‘aright’, as true. Art also possesses absoluteness because it transcends all historical differences between eras. Art - and philosophy - possess a contemporaneity in that they attune themselves to the present time. Art is thus not a refined pleasure but something that shows us a world that is there for itself and (...) as such. The significance of art therefore cannot be understood aesthetically but only through Plato’s theory of ‘the exact’ and the Aristotelian conception of energeia as a motion without a path or a goal. (shrink)

This translation of Carlo Michelstaedter’s _Persuasion and Rhetoric_ brings the powerful and original work of a seminal cultural figure to English-language readers for the first time. Ostensibly a commentary on Plato’s and Aristotle’s relation to the pre-Socratic philosophers, Michelstaedter’s deeply personal book is an extraordinary rhetorical feat that reflects the author’s struggle to make sense of modern life. This edition includes an introduction discussing his life and work, an extensive bibliography, notes to introduce each chapter, and critical notes illuminating the (...) text. Within hours of completing _Persuasion and Rhetoric, _his doctoral thesis, 23-year-old Michelstaedter shot himself to death. The text he left behind has proved to be one of the most trenchant and influential studies in modern rhetoric, a work that develops Nietzschean themes and anticipates the conclusions of, among others, Martin Heidegger. Publication of the book in English is an event of great magnitude for students of Italian philosophy, rhetoric, and literature as well as the culture of Mitteleuropa. (shrink)

In The Beginning of Philosophy Gadamer explores the layers of interpretation and misinterpretation that have built up over 2500 years of Presocratic scholarship. Using Plato and Aristotle as his starting point his analysis moves effortlessly from Simplicius and Diogenes Laertius to the 19th-century German historicists right through to Hegel, Nietzsche and Heidegger. Gadamer shows us how some of the earliest philosophical concepts such as truth, equality, nature, spirit and being came to be and how our understanding of them today is (...) deeply indebted to Presocratic thinkers. The book is based on a series of lectures delivered by Gadamer in 1967 which were then translated into English and edited by Gadamer for this collection. This is a major philosophical-historical work from one of the 20th century's greatest thinkers. (shrink)

In thinking of my relationship to Peter McHugh as an intimate collaboration, I take some reactions elicited to a most recent unpublished writing of his on intimacy as an occasion for discussing both intimacy and collaboration as a notion in-itself and as applicable to us in particular, treating that space between the general and particular of intimacy as its zone of fundamental ambiguity. I try to being to view a story of the imaginary of community, its elemental stirrings, that (...) Peter might appreciate. In this, I reorient Arendt's notion of communicating with the dead to the problem of the intimate collaboration and of how each might be a practice that mirrors the other, intimate collaboration being one way of confirming the vow in communicating with the dead to witness, and reciprocally, such communication being a way of practicing intimate collaboration. This leads me to bring to view a range of unstated resonances of the discussion that have applicability to our shared history. First, is intimate collaboration possible in organizations such as the university and how does it coexist among adversarial exchanges, factitious coteries, alliances, and collégial networks? Second, is communicating with the dead another way of speaking of tradition and dissemination in any context as such and what could the manner and method of orienting to this desire say about the quality of life in commemoration per se? (shrink)

This edition of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s “De ente et uno” (“On being and the one”) offers for the first time a key text for the reformation of metaphysics in Renaissance philosophy in German translation. The Latin text is added. The detailed introduction and careful commentary reveal the guiding points Pico has set with this work.

Gadamer’s On the Relevance of the Beautiful makes telling reference to musical improvisation and the importance of musical listening in addition to foregrounding the need for justification (here including reference to musicological readings of Plato). Situating this discussion via Goethe and Plato along with Adorno’s late 1950s lectures on Aesthetics together with a discussion of Nietzsche and antiquity, what is at stake is attunement and a tension which invites a discussion of Anne Carson on the lover’s arrest and Heidegger on (...) tarrying. By reviewing Gadamer’s hermeneutic of musical programming and performance, including improvisation and the challenge of new music, Gadamer may be read on music culture in the context of social culture and thus the so-called ‘culture industry,’ together with his reflection not only via Plato and Goethe but also Hölderlin and Rilke on ‘the beautiful.’ At work is a cultural ‘conversation’ including the dynamic of response emergent in the energeia of improvisation for performer and listener. (shrink)

The Beginning of Knowledge brings together almost all of Gadamer's essays on the Presocratics. In each of the essays Gadamer discusses the origins of knowledge in the western philosophical tradition. Beginning with a hermeneutical and philological investigation of the Heraclitus fragments he moves on to a discussion of the Greek Atomists and the Presocratic cosmologists. In the final two essays he elaborates on the profound debt that modern science owes to the Greeks and shows how their works have shaped modern (...) day physics, mathematics and medicine. The philosophers discussed include Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Anaximander, Heraclitus and Parmenides. This is a major work from one of the 20th century's greatest thinkers. (shrink)

Hans-Georg Gadamer is considered to have made the most important contribution to hermeneutics of this century through his major work, Truth and Method. Born in Marburg on February 11, 1900, he earned his doctorate under Paul Natorp, the Plato scholar, in 1922 and completed his habilitation thesis on Plato's dialectical ethics under Martin Heidegger in 1928. He spent the major portion of his teaching career at the University of Heidelberg, becoming emeritus professor in 1968. In retirement he became widely known (...) in the United States through his regular fall courses at Boston college and his numerous lectures at major universities throughout the century. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 46, Issue 3, pp 337 - 348 Gadamer is prominent on the list of counter-enlightenment philosophers of the20th century. He is on this list for good reasons, reasons that I will briefly explore here. Gadamer borrows much from Heidegger’s critique of modernity and he adds to it. As we all know, Gadamer’s critique of the Enlightenment and modernity serves as an opening for a reappropriation of the Greeks, especially Plato and Aristotle. Gadamer is often taken, again with (...) good reason, to be one of the leading voices revivifying the battle of ancients and moderns and urging, at least in some regards, the superiority of the ancients. Kant is without question the leading figure of the Enlightenment—at least within the German tradition, if not for the European Enlightenment in general. As such we should expect Gadamer to be strongly critical of Kant. And yet we find Gadamer’s relation to Kant displaying a deep ambivalence. It is this ambivalence that this paper examines. (shrink)

If philosophers have discussed life as preparation for death, this seems to make aging coterminous with dying and a melancholy passage that we are condemned to survive. It is important to examine the discourse on aging and end of life and the ways various models either limit possibilities for human agency or suggest means of being innovative in relation to such parameters. I challenge developmental views of aging not by arguing for eternal life, but by using Plato’s conception of form (...) in conjunction with Simmel’s work and Arendt’s meditation on intergenerational solidarity, to evoke a picture of the subject as having capacities that offer avenues for improvisational action. This paper proposes a method for analyzing any social form as a problem-solving situation where the real “problem” is the fundamental ambiguity that inheres in the mix between the finite characteristics of the action and its infinite perplexity. I work through the most conventional chronological view of aging to show how it dramatizes a fundamental ethical collision in life that intensifies anxiety under many conditions, always raising the question of what is to be done with respect to contingency, revealing such “work” as a paradigm of the human condition. (shrink)

The conflict which has tended recently to crystallize in particular around the name of Martin Heidegger goes back a long way. Where do philosophers stand in relation to political and social reality? What assistance can their problems and insights offer the process of coming to terms with this reality? In the context of the discussions surrounding Farias's book I set out my own position in Paris in November 1987; the full text was later published in German under the heading “Return (...) to Syracuse?” This title referred to the disappointment Plato felt in his own time when, at the invitation of the tyrant of Syracuse, that city's absolute ruler, he had twice gone to initiate the young prince in the basic principles of his thought concerning the just idea of the state and the just ordering of society. Things turned out badly and Plato had considerable difficulty getting back home again. Later still he was to suffer bitter disappointment when his intimate associate Dion, a member of the innermost circle of his academic community, was suddenly murdered by his own friends after heading a victorious operation to liberate Syracuse (one would like to know more about what lay behind that particular assassination). (shrink)

Contrary to many contemporary readings of Plato and Aristotle, Hans-Georg Gadamer sees harmony in their thought. A challenge to this reading is that Aristotle criticizes Plato’s forms and the good. Aware of these criticisms, Gadamer understands these two thinkers as having significant commonalities and pursuing related goals. Gadamer’s interpretation is less a historical approach than an attempt to explain and justify aspects of his own philosophical views, in particular those regarding the relation between metaphysics and practical thought. We critically examine (...) Gadamer’s interpretation and consider tensions between its more radical conclusions and a more conventional Platonism. (shrink)

Contrary to many contemporary readings of Plato and Aristotle, Hans-Georg Gadamer sees harmony in their thought. A challenge to this reading is that Aristotle criticizes Plato’s forms and the good. Aware of these criticisms, Gadamer understands these two thinkers as having significant commonalities and pursuing related goals. Gadamer’s interpretation is less a historical approach than an attempt to explain and justify aspects of his own philosophical views, in particular those regarding the relation between metaphysics and practical thought. We critically examine (...) Gadamer’s interpretation and consider tensions between its more radical conclusions and a more conventional Platonism. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question of the function of genre in Gadamer’s hermeneutics by examining his treatment of Plato’s political writings in the context of the “utopian genre.” I argue that Gadamer’s reading of Plato informs us on the hermeneutics of genre, which is otherwise undiscussed in Truth and Method. First, I reconstruct the utopian genre as Gadamer treats it in a 1983 lecture hitherto neglected. Second, I expand Gadamer’s “logic of question and answer” by drawing on the notion of (...) genre as articulated by E.D. Hirsch and show that attention to genre is not only compatible with Gadamerian hermeneutics, but also productive. Finally, I demonstrate that an application of this concept of genre to the case of Plato’s political philosophy reveals a problem in Gadamer’s interpretation, namely a certain confusion between dialogue and utopia, and propose two ways of explaining this confusion and thus of resolving the aporia. (shrink)

El Cratilo, verdadera primicia de la filosofía del lenguaje, es una de las obras más difíciles salidas de la pluma de Platón. De un lado, en él se esbozan ideas de gramática y semiótica –semántica, sintáctica y pragmática–, se analiza el lenguaje griego real y se esboza un lenguaje ideal; del otro, está tachado por la enorme dificultad que le imprimen el tono irónico de Sócrates y el anonimato de sus interlocutores, la larga y misteriosa lista de etimologías y la (...) dinámica dialéctica del discurso. Ese poder de sugestión y repulsión, signo inequívoco de todas las grandes obras, explica que filósofos y filólogos de todos los tiempos le sean deudores, desde Aristóteles y Dionisio el Tracio hasta Saussure y Gadamer. Su distinción entre rectitud natural y convencional de los nombres marcó un hito insuperable en la teoría de los signos; sus ideas sobre el cuerpo humano como signo viviente y primordial, sobre la pintura y la música como paradigma del lenguaje escrito y oral, sobre el signo perfecto, «doble» o biunívoco, como signo realmente inútil, encierran virtualidades todavía sin explotar. La edición del profesor Atilano Domínguez ofrece una serie de instrumentos de gran utilidad tanto para el lector general como para el estudioso. Unos son de carácter general: la extensa y documentada introducción, las notas al texto platónico, el índice analítico, y una bibliografía que contiene las principales ediciones y traducciones del Cratilo, así como el listado alfabético casi completo de cuantos estudios se le han dedicado. A esos instrumentos generales, se añaden otros específicos que intentan responder al carácter propio de la obra: la introducción de nuevos párrafos, la estructuración sistemática del texto platónico, con sus epígrafes también entre corchetes, el índice, en caracteres griegos, de las doscientas etimologías recensionadas en esta obra, con sus diversas acepciones. Además, se han incorporado al índice analítico, en caracteres latinos, los términos griegos que corresponden a los castellanos. (shrink)

In the 'Hippias Major' Socrates uses a counter-example to oppose Hippias‘s view that parts and wholes always have a "continuous" nature. Socrates argues, for example, that even-numbered groups might be made of parts with the opposite character, i.e. odd. As Gadamer has shown, Socrates often uses such examples as a model for understanding language and definitions: numbers and definitions both draw disparate elements into a sum-whole differing from the parts. In this paper I follow Gadamer‘s suggestion that we should focus (...) on the parallel between numbers and definitions in Platonic thought. However, I offer a different interpretation of the lesson implicit in Socrates‘s opposition to Hippias. I argue that, according to Socrates, parts and sum-wholes may share in essential attributes; yet this unity or continuity is neither necessary, as Hippias suggests, nor is it impossible, as Gadamer implies. In closing, I suggest that this seemingly minor difference in logical interpretation has important implications for how we should understand the structure of human communities in a Platonic context. (shrink)

As is well known, Plato was a significant influence on Gadamer’s thought. Nevertheless, Gadamer’s interpretation of Plato changed through the years, and he became increasing sympathetic towards Plato in his later works after 1960’s Truth and Method. This article will examine how Gadamer’s writings on Plato after Truth and Method may inform our interpretation of his magnum opus. I will present the case that this not only leads to rethinking Gadamer’s relation to Plato, but also has wider implications for his (...) hermeneutics and for potential reconsiderations of key aspects of the text. I point to the possibility that if we do not sufficiently appreciate these changes in Gadamer’s interpretation of Plato, this may not only distort our understanding of Gadamer’s reading of Plato, but perhaps more importantly neglect how Platonic conceptions may inform his own hermeneutic project as it is outlined in Truth and Method. (shrink)

Catherine Zuckert examines the work of five key philosophical figures from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries through the lens of their own decidedly postmodern readings of Plato. She argues that Nietzsche, Heidegger, Gadamer, Strauss, and Derrida, convinced that modern rationalism had exhausted its possibilities, all turned to Plato in order to rediscover the original character of philosophy and to reconceive the Western tradition as a whole. Zuckert's artful juxtaposition of these seemingly disparate bodies of thought furnishes a synoptic view, not (...) merely of these individual thinkers, but of the broad postmodern landscape as well. The result is a brilliantly conceived work that offers an innovative perspective on the relation between the Western philosophical tradition and the evolving postmodern enterprise. (shrink)

The recent death of Peter McHugh becomes an occasion for the remembrance and recollection of the distinctive form of reflexive or analytic social inquiry, which framed his work and that of his longtime friend and collaborator, Alan Blum. Following dual appointments at York University, Toronto, Canada in 1972, Blum and McHugh’s partnership formed the basis for a community of scholars and students throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. A brief review of McHugh and Blum’s (...) works shows theoretical roots in social constructivism and a deep appreciation of the linguistic turn, which in turn lead to the development of a form of social analysis that meets the stringent requirements of a reflexive sociology by repudiating any claim to a privileged exemption of theoretical speech (practice) from the hermeneutical circle of speech and language. Blum and McHugh are shown to embrace and not to evade the hermeneutical circle by a form of social inquiry that subverts the inherent possibilities available within speech and social convention to make available an encounter with the (moral) authority or form of life for that self-same speech. With each example of everyday life or conventional usage, McHugh (and Blum) move from theorizing which formulates the complexity of a particular instance of social interaction through its rules, to the question of the form of life that make that particular instance of the rules possible. It is the pursuit of transparency between speech and its roots in language that informed and continues to inform the distinctive style of social theory fostered at York-Toronto under the orchestration of McHugh and Blum. (shrink)

The book develops the current hermeneutic discourse concerning the notions of beauty and Being. It includes a discussion of melancholic beauty and its interconnection with the act of art’s creation. According to M. Hołda, the writings of both authors demonstrate a treatment of beauty based on ancient Greek thought, especially from the times of Plato and Aristotle. Gadamer reaffirms the intimate relationship between beauty and Being, which is also revealed in Woolf’s literary work. ---------------------- Received: 08/04/2022. Reviewed: 13/05/2022. Accepted: 14/06/2022.

This paper takes the passing of Peter McHugh as an occasion to examine the intellectual development of his work. The paper is mainly focused on the product of his collaboration with his colleague and friend, Alan Blum. As such, it addresses the tradition of social inquiry, Analysis, which they cofounded. It traces the influence of Harold Garfinkel’s Ethnomethodology on McHugh and on the beginning of Analysis. The collaboration with Blum is examined through a variety of coauthored (...) works but most especially in the two books On the Beginning of Social Inquiry (1974) and Self Reflection in the Arts and Sciences (1984). It also examines the relation of his independent writing before 1974, and since 1984 to the expression of the tradition of inquiry as exemplified in those two texts. The paper builds on some interview material with Peter McHugh and reflects on the influence of Peter the teacher as well as the theorist McHugh. Most especially, through its engagement with this material, it seeks to exemplify the dialectic and living nature of the program called Analysis. (shrink)

Incorporating Gadamer and other thinkers from the continental tradition, this essay is a close and detailed hermeneutic, phenomenological, and ontological study of the dialectic practice of Plato’s Socrates—it radicalizes and refutes the Socrates-as-teacher model that educators from scholar academic ideology embrace.

Highlights the central place of Greek philosophy, particularly Plato, in "Truth and Method" philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer's work, brings out differences between his thought and that of Heidegger and connects him with discussions and ...

Derived from Heidegger's interpretation of attractive force with a high volume of inspired beauty care and a master not only the followers. And in order to maintain this special, he followed the great classical psychologists: Ferdinand learning. He also won in the traditional school psychology professor at the certificate, but his real motive is not subject to the ancient hope臘Heidegger was carried out by the interpretation of the full amount of impact force. Nevertheless, Heidegger's classic is still up to the (...) United States: "true management and methods" to maintain significant influence over. Up to the United States as a major interpreter of Heidegger's thinking, and faithful friend. In about two more people, I turned to introduce three other in Heidegger, Gadamer's major research on the influence of the philosopher: Park Latin chart, sub-km Aristotle and Hegel. First we look at the future Park Latin chart, I think the focus on conversation and dialogue up to the United States and the "dialectic dialogue" concept. The relative importance of making it true, so true that people with reasonable doubt and dialogue. Although there are many plans to pull up to the United States Park effect, but I make up as two points and a U.S. interlocutor's talent and try to prove. I have given up by the United States with three coming from Aristotle's concept of sub-km: wise , mimetic and tragedy. Wise is to predict the results of practical wisdom for the rational, he does not see a formula-based learning, as can be, but based on life experience. That mimic the Department of Aristotle in the sub-km only copy, and is reasonable in real life, the ultimate communicator. Finally, the tragedy is not the only sub-km Aristotle considers the six parts of the structure, but compassion and fear the experience of change in the audience angle of view, it is up to the United States in view of the viewer's experience of understanding and application, is a kind of tragedy action meaningful participation and experience. Beneficiary of up to U.S. history in Hegel's awareness of personal, Hegel's dialectic, as well as their knowledge to the arts is the current acceptance of the senses. He does not agree with Hegel referred to the "art of the past things," Hegel explains how this point. Shortly we will be able to see the remarkable work of art as a nervous balcony. Let me give you a visit in Heidelberg, Heidegger's experience in the United States up to the lecture, he objected to clarify and to hide his own dialectic and Hegel's dialectic with links, because at the end of Hegel's philosophy of total abstraction knowledge. In the second part of this lecture, I turned to the analysis of Gadamer's thesis on the art of "the relevance of the United States," and Heidegger in this direction is the famous "Art works of origin> thesis compared. In the late writings, Heidegger shows that there is not his main independent and self-study will be presented in the art of the earth and the world as a tension. In Gadamer's thesis in art, he follows Heidegger in the hope臘by establishing the art of human culture, learn the origin of works of art ontology analysis. He discussed all the cultural roots of the game , the difference between symbolic meaning and religious ceremonies. But he formed an art theory of the problem to analyze, it also clarifies the classical art and contemporary abstract art. In these three elements: the game, symbols and festivals, art up to the United States to find a structure is more deep cultural roots. As in the early hope臘ceremony, dance performances and tragedy. Gadamer's encounter with the magnetic force of Heidegger's interpretations made him cautious not to become simply a follower of the great master. To maintain his independence, he studied with Paul Friedländer, the great classical philologist. He attained certification in classical philology to teach in the secondary schools, but his true motive was to be able to resist the powerful interpretations of Greek philosophy put forward by Heidegger. Nevertheless, Heidegger remained a major leavening influence on Gadamer's classic, Truth and Method, and Gadamer became a major interpreter of Heidegger's thought, and a constant friend. After a few comparisons between them, I turn to three major philosophers other than Heidegger who contributed concepts to Gadamer's masterwork: Plato, Aristotle, and Hegel. Regarding Plato, I point to the emphasis in Gadamer on dialogue and conversation and the concept of eumeneis elenchoi, the respect the opponent that recognizes that he could be right, so they join together in dialogue in quest of the truth. Although there are many other debts to Plato in Gadamer, I point to these two and testify to Gadamer's gifts as a conversationalist and debater. I single out three concepts of Aristotle that Gadamer used: phronesis, mimesis, and tragedy. Phronesis is the practical wisdom that goes beyond calculative reason. It is based not on formulas that can be learned but on experience of life . Mimesis in Aristotle is not just copying, but on a recognition that ultimately conveyed truth about life. Finally, tragedy for Aristotle is not just a structure with six parts but an experience of pity and terror that transformed the perspective of the viewer. This was important in the hermeneutics of Gadamer that looked at the viewer's experience of recognition and application, a participatory experience of the meaning of the action of the tragedy. Gadamer is indebted to Hegel for the historical character of consciousness, the Hegelian dialectic, and the recognition that that art is a sensuous representation of the real. He did not agree with Hegel that art was a thing of the past, and also explained what Hegel meant by this: we no longer saw art as a disclosure of the divine. I mention an experience I had of Heidegger's visit to Heidelberg, where he spoke after Gadamer's lecture rejecting his effort to connect his dialect of clearing and concealing with Hegelian dialectic, because Hegel's philosophy always ended in absolute knowledge. For the second major part of the lecture, I turn to an analysis of Gadamer's essay on art, The Relevance of the Beautiful , comparable in a way to Heidegger's famous lectures on The Origin of the Work of Art . In the latter work, Heidegger declares his independence of his masterwork and presents art in terms of the tension between earth and world. In Gadamer's essay on art, he goes beyond the Heideggerian emphasis on the ontology of the artwork by seeking to establish the anthropological roots of art in Greek culture. He discusses the roots of all culture in play, the significance of the symbol, and the meaning of religious festivals. But he begins with an analysis of the problem of formulating a theory of art that does justice both to classical art and contemporary nonrepresentational art. In all three elements, play, symbol, and festival, Gadamer finds a foundation for art in the deep roots of our culture as found in the ritual, dance, and tragic plays of ancient Greece. (shrink)

Zuckert has written an intriguing book, whether taken in its exoteric form, as indicated by the title and introduction, as a detached and balanced account of the response to Plato of five “postmodern” thinkers, or in its esoteric form, as indicated by the assignment of the three central chapters to Strauss, as an exposition and defense of Strauss’s account of the truth about the human good. Even if her accounts of the other four are, for many readers, the honey on (...) the rim of the cup of bitter Straussian medicine, the honey is no less carefully presented than the medicine. While the focus is on each thinker’s response to Plato, Zuckert gives sufficient background exposition to explain the motivations, contexts, and goals of the return to Plato in each case. (shrink)