Gadamer is alleged to have conflated knowledge with private languages, which in turn entails adopting anti-thetical attitudes toward inter-subjectively verifiable facts produced by the natural sciences. As a result of this influence, a cultural and institutional divide has developed between the humanities and the sciences at the university. In reply to this assessment of Gadamer’s work, I argue that his philosophical hermeneutics includes a dialectical interplay between two modes of cognition and their corresponding dispositions; the auditory and visual that are typically employed in the humanities and sciences. There is on this basis justification in his hermeneutics for scientific explanations of phenomena. These explanations are undertaken with respect to that in which the universality of hermeneutics is said to consist by Gadamer, the inner word. Contrary to the belief that this “word” belongs to either a metaphysical or mental realm, I draw upon phenomenology and argue that it refers to an inner voice between speakers in the middle voice and is thus amenable to cognitive scientific and evolutionary explanations. While those explanations are developed in relation to contemporary fields of research, e.g., S. Mithen, M. Donald, E. Thompson, the relevance of Gadamer’s dialectic of standpoints to natural science is argued for on the grounds that scientists either presuppose the said dialectic, or require it in order to resolve conundrums generated by their own systems, e.g., E. Wilson, E. Slingerland, B. Bergen, H. Helmholtz. The method employed in the dissertation to defend Gadamer’s relevance to the question of

Mediating between the Humanities and the Sciences: Gadamer on the Inner Voice

This article investigates Heidegger\'s views on technology, specifically focussing on whether it is possible to fit Heidegger\'s ideas into an ecologically minded framework. The author concludes that the question of what we should do in the wake of the technological crisis we face is inappropriate in terms of Heidegger\'s philosophy, since he proposes that we should first tackle the question “What should we think?”. The question whether Heidegger\'s ideas on technology provide us with new paths of action, specifically in terms of ecological practice, is flawed.

S. Afr. J. Philos. Vol.22(2) 2003: 157–172

Heidegger, technology and ecology

In my paper, I deal with three points: 1) Schutz’s notion of the social world; 2) the differentiation of the public sphere within the social world; 3) a comparison of Arendt’s “space of appearance” with Schutz’s “musical space.” I conclude that they have similarities as well as differences in two respects: first, both indicate a space of common appearances in direct communication within the actual reach, that is, the space being seen and heard simultaneously; second, none of them is meant to be a receptive space, that is, the space of mere passivity. On the other hand, they reveal differences, too: in the first, Schutz is concerned primarily with “making” (poiesis), whereas Arendt is concerned with “doing” (praxis). This difference is due to the fact that the space for Schutz is one of (polythetic) sound, whereas for Arendt, it is that of (monothetic) speech.

In Search of a Political Sphere in Alfred Schutz

The Lived Time Dimensions of Sportive Training

Bei eingehender Betrachtung der ebenso bekannten wie schwer verstandlichen Ausfuhrungen in Der Satz vom Grund und »Das Ding« wird deutlich, das das Spiel auf zwei zunachst durchaus verschiedene Weisen eine zentrale Stellung in Heideggers Denken einnimmt, namlich zum einen in bezug auf das Problem des geschichtlichen Ursprungs des rational-begrundenden, abendlandischen Denkens, zum anderen im Zusammenhang mit der Frage nach dem Entfaltungsraum fur die wesentlich welthafte Phanomenalitat des Dinges. Obwohl diese beiden Aspekte des Spiels jedesmal aus einer Infragestellung des herkommlichen Verstandnisses von „Grund“ erwachsen, nimmt diese kritische Einstellung doch zwei verschiedene Wendungen: Das Spiel im Sinne der „Abwesenheit des Grundes“ stellt das rationale Denken dem abgrundigen Charakter seines Ursprungs gegenuber, indem es die Vorstellung von der Stabilitat und bestandigen Gegenwart eines letzten Grundes durch die Betonung des qualitativen Bruches und vertikalen Sprunges unterlauft, der zwischen dem letzten Grund und dem von ihm Begrundeten verlauft. Demgegenuber bezieht sich die Konzeption des „Weltspiels“ nicht so sehr auf das Paradigma der bestandigen Gegenwart des Grundes als vielmehr auf das Postulat seiner absoluten Einheit. Folglich steht hier das Bemuhen im Mittelpunkt, die Einheit des Grundes alles Seienden dadurch zu brechen, das der welthafte Ursprung des Dinges nunmehr auf die vier Komponenten des „Gevierts“, namlich Himmel und Erde, Sterbliche und Gottliche, zuruckgefuhrt wird, die alle in gleicher Weise die Welt ausmachen.

Bernard P. Dauenhauer

Papers

An approach to heidegger's way of philosophizing

Making plans and lived time