The Relational Properties Approach to a Theory of Interpretation
ABSTRACT: This paper reexamines the central thesis of Gadamer’s theory of interpretation that objectivity is not a suitable ideal for understanding a text, historical event or cultural phenomenon because there exists no one correct interpretation of such phenomena. Because Gadamer fails to make clear the grounds for this claim, I consider three possible arguments. The first, predominant in the secondary literature, is built on the premise that we cannot surpass our historically situated prejudgments. I reject this argument as insufficient. I also reject a second argument concerning the heuristics of understanding. I then articulate a third argument that the object of understanding changes according to the conditions under which it is grasped. I appeal to the notion of relational properties to make sense of this claim and to defend it against two objections: (i) that it conflates meaning and significance; and (ii) that it is saddled with an indefensible relativism.
Gadamer's theory of philosophical hermeneutics amounts to a sustained argument for a view that one might call "anti-objectivism" or "interpretive pluralism." (1) This view holds that in understanding a text, historical event, cultural phenomenon or perhaps anything at all, objectivity is not a suitable ideal because there does not exist any one correct interpretation of the phenomenon under investigation. In Gadamer's words, "understanding is not merely a reproductive but always a productive activity as well" (G 280; E 296); it is a "fusion of horizons" of the past and present, objective and subjective (G 289; E 306). At the same time, Gadamer wants to steer clear of an "anything-goes" relativism. In other words, in Gadamer's view, understanding is a process that invites and even demands a plurality of interpretations, but not at the expense of giving up criteria that distinguish right ones from wrong ones.
What exactly are Gadamer's grounds for denying the existence of a uniquely correct interpretation of a text, object, or event? I begin by showing the inadequacy of two arguments for his position. I then turn to a third more promising argument that objectivity is not possible because the object of understanding is not determinate, but rather constituted anew by each act of understanding. My goal in this paper is to provide a fuller justification for the third argument and thereby defend Gadamer's position. I do so by reformulating this third argument in terms of relational properties so as to establish that the knower's situatedness plays, as Gadamer himself insists, a positive, constitutive role in the process of understanding.
(1) Kelly, Thomas (2005). “The Epistemic Significance of Disagreement.” Oxford Studies in Epistemology. Eds. Tamar Szabo Gendler and John Hawthorne. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pg.1 – 36.
Almost all epistemologists, since Edmund Gettier’s 1963 article, have agreed that he disproved the justified-true-belief conception of knowledge. He proposed two examples
The quest for knowledge, a topic often contemplated in philosophy, remains persistent with mankind seeking to understand the uncertainty in the world surrounding him. Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that raises questions and provides answers about what constitutes knowledge and justifies belief. The main concerns of knowledge in epistemology are how it is defined, what the source is, how it’s acquired, what its limitations are, and what kind of knowledge is necessary. Three very well known philosophers of their time offer their different ideas on the subject of knowledge and epistemology.
A long family tree of mistreatment and undue suffering in addition to present lack of resources and poverty has resulted in considerable distress among tribal members and families living within the majority of reservations today. As a result of such distress and despair, many Native American families living in reservations have been torn apart as alcohol, drugs and family violence have become rampant within their communities. Furthermore, the inaccessibility of most reservations combined with lack of resources proves challenging to provide proper housing for families. In addition, the American Indians make up a minority of the least educated, sickest and poorest people within our country. Suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death for Native American youths in the 15-24 age group and 2.5 times the national rate.
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Coherentism has not gain much recognition throughout the history of philosophy. According to the traditional definition of knowledge, knowledge is Justified True Belief. Hence, one must first justify their belief before they can acquire any knowledge. Since most of the time the knowledge we assume we have justified are beliefs that are justified based on other belief. Consequently, this promotes the concept of regress argument where the philosophers are on the quest to understand how a belief is justified. Coherentist attempts to solve the regress problem by suggesting a system of beliefs where the justification is done by referring to other beliefs within the relevant system. In this essay, I will be focused on two of the main objections to coherentism: isolation and alternative objection. While at the same time examines the concept of coherentism to determine
Kant's Critique of Pure Reason [2] is notoriously difficult to read and often unclear. Possibly, this is because Kant was in a hurry to complete the first edition. Schopenhauer comments on Kant's "want of adequate reflection with which he passes over such questions as: What is perception? What is concept? What is reason? What is understanding? What is object?" [1; p.434]. Kant failed to lay down a proper foundation for these fundamental notions, and this has led to ambiguities in his work.
John Locke's, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), was first criticized by the philosopher and theologian, John Norris of Bemerton, in his "Cursory Reflections upon a Book Call'd, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding," and appended to his Christian Blessedness or Discourses upon the Beatitudes (1690). Norris's criticisms of Locke prompted three replies, which were only posthumously published. Locke has been viewed, historically, as the winner of this debate; however, new evidence has emerged which suggests that Norris's argument against the foundation of knowledge in sense-perception that the Essay advocated was a valid and worthy critique, which Locke did, in fact, take rather seriously. Charlotte Johnston's "Locke's Examination of Malebranche and John Norris" (1958), has been widely accepted as conclusively showing that Locke's replies were not philosophical, but rather personal in origin; her essay, however, overlooks critical facts that undermine her subjective analysis of Locke's stance in relation to Norris's criticisms of the Essay. This paper provides those facts, revealing the philosophical—not personal—impetus for Locke's replies.
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In his book Freud and the Philosophers, the hermeneuticist Paul Ricoeur coined the phrase “the school of suspicion” to describe the method shared by Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud. Their common intention, he claims, was the decision “to look upon the whole of consciousness primarily as ‘false’ consciousness… [taking] up again, each in a different manner, the problem of Cartesian doubt, to carry it to the very heart of the Cartesian stronghold,” (Ricoeur, 33) that is, applying doubt’s caustic and destructive epistemological impulse to the internal world. Their achievement lies in the introduction of a profoundly new process of interpretation. Contrary to “any hermeneutics understood as the recollection of meaning,” (Ricoeur, 35) that is, any idea of interpretation as a ‘proper listening,’ the “masters of suspicion” saw the act of exegesis as one of deciphering, demystification. A message must be more than simply heard; reception is not equivalent to comprehension. Signification, by this logic, is a coded affair, and without the cipher it will be received but not understood. Ricoeur makes a point to draw a sharp line between suspicion and skepticism here; there is no question that symbols have a message to convey. Suspicion is “a tearing off of masks, an interpretation that reduces disguises.” (Ricoeur, 30) Where the skeptic allows the suspicious impulse to run unchecked, suspicion works to “clear the horizon…for a new reign of Truth.” The radical skeptic’s childish destructiveness is untempered by a creative, inventive act: “the invention of an art of interpreting” (Ricoeur, 33).
Brazil is both the largest and most populous country in South America. It is the 5th largest country worldwide in terms of both area (more than 8.5 Mio. km2 ) and habitants (appr. 190 million). The largest city is Sao Paulo which is simultaneously the country's capital; official language is Portuguese. According to the WorldBank classification for countries, Brazil - with a GDP of 1,5 bn. US $ in 2005 and a per capita GPD of appr. 8.500 US - can be considered as an upper middle income country and therefore classified as an industrializing country, aligned with the classification as one of the big emerging markets (BEM) next to Argentina and Mexico. Per capita income is constantly increasing as well as literacy rate (current illiteracy rate 8%). Due to its high population rate (large labour pool), its vast natural resources and its geographical position in the centre of South America, it bears enormous growth potential in the near future. Aligned with an increasing currency stability, international companies have heavily invested in Brazil during the past decade. According to CIA World Factbook, Brazil has the 11th largest PPP in 2004 worldwide and today has a well established middle income economy with wide variations in levels of development. Thus, today Brazil is South America's leading economic power and a regional leader.
Heidegger, the founder of the hermeneutic paradigm, rejected the traditional account of cultural activity as a search for universally valid foundations for human action and knowledge. His main work, Sein und Zeit (1927), develops a holistic epistemology according to which all meaning is context-dependent and permanently anticipated from a particular horizon, perspective or background of intelligibility. The result is a powerful critique directed against the ideal of objectivity. Gadamer shares with Heidegger the hermeneutic reflections developed in Sein und Zeit and the critique of objectivity, describing the cultural activity as an endless process of "fusions of horizons." On the one hand, this is an echo of the Heideggerian holism, namely, of the thesis that all meaning depends on a particular interpretative context. On the other hand, however, this concept is an attempt to cope with the relativity of human existence and to avoid the dangers of a radical relativism. In fact, through an endless, free and unpredictable process of fusions of horizons, our personal horizon is gradually expanded and deprived of its distorting prejudices in such a way that the educative process (Bildung) consists in this multiplication of hermeneutic experiences. Gadamer succeeds therefore in presenting a non-foundationalist and non-teleological theory of culture.
One of the most remarkable things about human existence is that there is a subject, an “I”, that experiences intellectual cognition of external things and is able to reflect on these experiences as a cognitive act in itself. How do things that exist outside of my mind come to exist inside of my mind so as to enable me to understand them? The goal of any theory of mind should be to answer questions such as this and, in evaluating the Gettier Problem as objectively as possible, we shall attempt to solve it to see whether it can withstand the single most piercing question we can ask of it: is it true that they are inescapable? In this essay I shall examine the paper of Gettier to answer the question of whether or not man can arrive at knowledge and, if so, how? I shall do this by recounting the problems posed by Gettier to the traditional understanding of knowledge as 'justified true belief', and then present critical responses to it to get to the truth of whether Gettier problems are inescapable, most notably by attempting to answer it with the 'Causal Theory', the 'Defeasibility Theory', and finally by considering knowledge as 'true belief with sufficient warrant'.
The first rule of teaching is "ASSUME NOTHING", this is the most important rule in teaching, as it states teachers must never assume they know everything. They must be updated with every single subject they are teaching, need to know their boundaries, roles, responsibilities and professional values. They have to be aware of changes in policies and rules and be updated with all subjects they are teaching. Teachers are also responsible for updating their knowledge on rules such as Health and Safety at Work, Risk Assessment and Child Protection Guidelines.
Fairclough (1992: 88) is of the view that “ideologies reside in texts” (p. 88). But it is noe necessary that the discourse would be interpreted in the same way as desired by the producers. Several interpretations can be made of a single piece of discourse. The ideological import may keep on changing with each new interpretation of discourse (Fairclough, 1992: 89).