Hermeneutics: Applications?

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Veritas Aequitas
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Hermeneutics: Applications?

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Here is a video on a short Intro to Hermeneutics.

Hermeneutics: A Very Short Introduction
Jens Zimmermann
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wPTV5hyB0Y

Do you agree with the subject of Hermeneutics for philosophical discussions?
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Re: Hermeneutics: Applications?

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How can Hermeneutics be applied effectively to the philosophical issues we discussed herein?
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Angelo Cannata
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Re: Hermeneutics: Applications?

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I disagree with Zimmermann’s conclusion about reality in point 9th and I think that actually he contradicts himself about this.

At 1:09 he explains his 3rd point, which is a crucial one, I would say the essential one, the most important one: “Hermeneutics shows us that we don’t actually perceive the world by seeing first objects and then clothing them with meaning afterwards. Rather, every act of seeing is putting the world together in a certain way based on our own personal history and cultural tradition”. According to this acknowledgement, we have no way to think about a real world outside our mind, because a first moment, when reality exists before being thought, is actually impossible to determine.

This concept is implied by the 7th point as well: “Hermeneutics has shown us that language is actually not a tool we use at will, but that words, symbols, and concepts are the very medium within which our thoughts take shape”. This means that even our subjectivity cannot be assumed as something objectively existing: at the very moment when it comes to existence (so to speak), it comes already shaped, forged, by the environment of the language where it is born inside, so that it’s impossible to us to grasp a clean, a pure idea of what our subjectivity is in itself.

Point 9th contradicts what was implied by points 3rd and 7th: “Perhaps the most common misconception about hermeneutics is that its insistence on the interpretive nature of all knowledge destroys objectivity”. I think that, after we’ve realized that we live in an hermeutic context of our existence, we can’t talk anymore about objectivity.

I find interestesting the fact that the criticism of objectivity coming from hermenutics is not an alternative way of thinking, but just a consequence of a realistic and logic way of thinking. In other words, a realistic way of thinking has as a result a self destruction if it is considered in all of its consequences, that is, essentially, considering the existence of us as subjects.
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Re: Hermeneutics: Applications?

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Angelo Cannata wrote: Tue Mar 30, 2021 4:26 pm I disagree with Zimmermann’s conclusion about reality in point 9th and I think that actually he contradicts himself about this.

At 1:09 he explains his 3rd point, which is a crucial one, I would say the essential one, the most important one: “Hermeneutics shows us that we don’t actually perceive the world by seeing first objects and then clothing them with meaning afterwards. Rather, every act of seeing is putting the world together in a certain way based on our own personal history and cultural tradition”. According to this acknowledgement, we have no way to think about a real world outside our mind, because a first moment, when reality exists before being thought, is actually impossible to determine.
I am really really curious about this. Have you actually joined the dots between determinism and non-contradiction?

Or rather, have you actually worked out that a belief/advocacy for a world in which non-contradiction holds is logically equivalent to advocacy for determinism?
In a non-deterministic/ever-changing universe there can be no such thing as "contradictions". Even Plato had figured this out.

This is not a view dependent on any hermeneutic as such. This is a direct consequence of the P vs NP problem in computer science. It is known as the relativization barrier.

TL;DR Hegel was right.
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Re: Hermeneutics: Applications?

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I think I see your point and I agree with you: after acknowledging that talking about objectivity is contradictory, I must admit that the idea of being able to use the concept of contradiction becomes itself contradictory or impossible. That's the reason why, at a certain point, I wrote in brackets "so to speak": I am aware that criticising objectivity has, as a result, something like a total impossibility to say anything. So, that's the problem: what shall we do after having realised that the use of logic leads us to contradiction?
One choice can be stopping talking, renouncing to elaborate furthermore.
Another choice is keeping aside the problem, without forgetting it: this seems to me the choice we make with maths and computers: we know that they can enter in state of crisis, like when we ask a computer to calculate the square root of a negative number or to divide a number by zero. Shall we stop using computers or doing maths because of these difficulties? No, we prefer to leave aside the problem and go on, without forgetting that there is a problem there.
Another solution is adopting or creating different languages, such as the language of art, poetry.
What is important to me, whatever solution we decide to adopt, is not to forget that there are problems in our ideas, our logic. This way, I go on talking about objects and reality, otherwise it would be impossible to me to say anything or even to think. But I talk about these things "so to speak" or, in other words, with humility, modesty. But, at the same time, I know that those who criticise me need to be humble as well, because, the same way I'm able to criticise myself, I'm able to criticise them.
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Re: Hermeneutics: Applications?

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Angelo Cannata wrote: Tue Mar 30, 2021 7:14 pm I think I see your point and I agree with you: after acknowledging that talking about objectivity is contradictory, I must admit that the idea of being able to use the concept of contradiction becomes itself contradictory or impossible. That's the reason why, at a certain point, I wrote in brackets "so to speak": I am aware that criticising objectivity has, as a result, something like a total impossibility to say anything. So, that's the problem: what shall we do after having realised that the use of logic leads us to contradiction?
One choice can be stopping talking, renouncing to elaborate furthermore.
Another choice is keeping aside the problem, without forgetting it: this seems to me the choice we make with maths and computers: we know that they can enter in state of crisis, like when we ask a computer to calculate the square root of a negative number or to divide a number by zero. Shall we stop using computers or doing maths because of these difficulties? No, we prefer to leave aside the problem and go on, without forgetting that there is a problem there.
Another solution is adopting or creating different languages, such as the language of art, poetry.
What is important to me, whatever solution we decide to adopt, is not to forget that there are problems in our ideas, our logic. This way, I go on talking about objects and reality, otherwise it would be impossible to me to say anything or even to think. But I talk about these things "so to speak" or, in other words, with humility, modesty. But, at the same time, I know that those who criticise me need to be humble as well, because, the same way I'm able to criticise myself, I'm able to criticise them.
The answer to all of the above, is, of course, hermeneutics itself.

We can all identify what those things we call "contradictions".
What do they mean? How should we interpret them?
Why do we care so much about avoiding them?
What significance should we assign to them?

Are all contradictions equally bad? The para-consistent logicians don't think so, and the dialetheists think that there are even such things as true contradictions.

To me the way forward is obvious. It's just dialectic - it's a cooperative language game. Language is self-referential/recursive - obviously it leads to contradictions - that's precisely what makes it so expressive. Philosophers forget about the "cooperative" and "expressive" part and turn contradictions into a stick to beat you over the head with. We are poorer for it.
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Re: Hermeneutics: Applications?

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Angelo Cannata wrote: Tue Mar 30, 2021 4:26 pm At 1:09 he explains his 3rd point, which is a crucial one, I would say the essential one, the most important one: “Hermeneutics shows us that we don’t actually perceive the world by seeing first objects and then clothing them with meaning afterwards. Rather, every act of seeing is putting the world together in a certain way based on our own personal history and cultural tradition”. According to this acknowledgement, we have no way to think about a real world outside our mind, because a first moment, when reality exists before being thought, is actually impossible to determine.
I don't agree with that part. Do you not agree that we can perceive things without applying concepts, without assigning names for those things, etc.? "Raw perception" basically?
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Re: Hermeneutics: Applications?

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How can we talk about "raw perception" since, as soon as we perceive our awareness of perceiving something, we must admit that we are using our brain, so that we are biased, conditioned by it?
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Re: Hermeneutics: Applications?

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Terrapin Station wrote: Tue Mar 30, 2021 10:49 pm I don't agree with that part. Do you not agree that we can perceive things without applying concepts, without assigning names for those things, etc.? "Raw perception" basically?
What is it that you have assigned the name "perceiving" to...?
"Perception" is a concept. Self-perception requires you to have the concept of "perception" and "self" a priory of perceiving yourself.

Where did you get your concepts and language from? That's the Myth of the Given.

There's plenty of evidence to go about that the ancient Greeks couldn't actually perceive the color blue - they had no word for it, so they couldn't discriminate/identify it within their "raw perception". From the lens of information theory/statistics, it's really not at all surprising - the more we accentuate difference in language, the more we practice distinguishing things which appear almost identical the better we become at it. That is literally what it means to be "sensitive" both statistically and in the nominal sense. Ability to detect differences.

The limits of my language are the limits of my world. --Wittgenstein.
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Re: Hermeneutics: Applications?

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Angelo Cannata wrote: Wed Mar 31, 2021 5:52 am How can we talk about "raw perception" since, as soon as we perceive our awareness of perceiving something, we must admit that we are using our brain, so that we are biased, conditioned by it?
That side-step you did there from identifying with your self-perception to identifying with brain activity is precisely what postmodernists call decentering
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Re: Hermeneutics: Applications?

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Angelo Cannata wrote: Wed Mar 31, 2021 5:52 am How can we talk about "raw perception" since, as soon as we perceive our awareness of perceiving something, we must admit that we are using our brain, so that we are biased, conditioned by it?
So first, the idea isn't that we'd not be using our brains. We're still talking about perception. The question was "Do you not agree that we can perceive things without applying concepts, without assigning names for those things, etc.?"
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Re: Hermeneutics: Applications?

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Terrapin Station wrote: Wed Mar 31, 2021 9:32 am So first, the idea isn't that we'd not be using our brains. We're still talking about perception. The question was "Do you not agree that we can perceive things without applying concepts, without assigning names for those things, etc.?"
No, you can't. "Perception" is a concept and you are applying it as we speak.

perceive /pəˈsiːv/become aware or conscious of (something); come to realize or understand.

Perception is about becoming not being aware (shouts to Heraclitus).

What do you call the moment before you became aware of perception?
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Re: Hermeneutics: Applications?

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Terrapin Station wrote: Wed Mar 31, 2021 9:32 am
Angelo Cannata wrote: Wed Mar 31, 2021 5:52 am How can we talk about "raw perception" since, as soon as we perceive our awareness of perceiving something, we must admit that we are using our brain, so that we are biased, conditioned by it?
So first, the idea isn't that we'd not be using our brains. We're still talking about perception. The question was "Do you not agree that we can perceive things without applying concepts, without assigning names for those things, etc.?"
Concepts are necessary for perception!
But your sense of 'concepts' is that of the bastardized philosophy of the LPs and classical analytic philosophers.

Here is Zimmerman's critique of the bastardized version of concepts;
For disengaged-self people and their theoretical, detached way of seeing the world, language is like a toolbox of labels we attach to things in order to handle them.
Words and the ideas expressed through them are instruments that help us communicate our needs, obtain things, persuade others to give us what we want, and allow us to describe and control our world.
This instrumental conception of language flows naturally from the division between our perception of the world (as so many objects external to us) and the images or linguistic expressions we use to designate these objects. Perception and language are kept apart.
The common expression to speak nothing but the ‘naked truth’ fittingly illustrates this separation of truth from the uncertainties of language.

This demand for ‘naked truth’ stems from Thomas Sprat (1635–1713), an English clergyman and member of the royal scientific society, who was so enamoured with the clarity of scientific language that he wanted to strip truth of any images or metaphors to grant us access to how things really are.
That Sprat himself had to use the image of nakedness to make his point is a pretty good indication that language and its images are more central to perception than he was willing to admit.
Zimmerman emphasized;
For example, we have a toothache, or we sense heat, before we can put these sensations into words and interpret them.
Hermeneutic thinkers don’t deny this immediate experience; they do deny, however, that we can have a meaningful experience without understanding pain or temperature first within a cultural vocabulary by which we make sense of things.

For this reason, hermeneutic thinkers argue that language guides our perception intrinsically.
For them, language includes any images, signs, or symbols by which we understand and communicate our experience of the world.
They believe that our perception of the world and our thought depends on an intricate linguistic web of words and concepts that develop historically over time.
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Re: Hermeneutics: Applications?

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Angelo Cannata wrote: Tue Mar 30, 2021 4:26 pm I disagree with Zimmermann’s conclusion about reality in point 9th and I think that actually he contradicts himself about this.
..

Point 9th contradicts what was implied by points 3rd and 7th: “Perhaps the most common misconception about hermeneutics is that its insistence on the interpretive nature of all knowledge destroys objectivity”. I think that, after we’ve realized that we live in an hermeutic context of our existence, we can’t talk anymore about objectivity.

I find interestesting the fact that the criticism of objectivity coming from hermenutics is not an alternative way of thinking, but just a consequence of a realistic and logic way of thinking. In other words, a realistic way of thinking has as a result a self destruction if it is considered in all of its consequences, that is, essentially, considering the existence of us as subjects.
Zimmerman points do not imply, they, the hermeneutics cannot talk anymore about objectivity.
Here is Zimmerman views of Hermeneutic Objectivity;
[Hermeneutic Objectivity]
Objective understanding of the world, others, and ourselves requires personal engagement and passionate curiosity.

Acknowledging personal engagement in obtaining knowledge does not invite relativism.
After all, to claim that all knowledge is relative to a personal standpoint, is not at all the same as claiming that only individual perspectives exist and are all of equal value.
It is only to claim that we are not gods who look down on our world, but finite creatures deeply affected by the course of history.

The hermeneutic claim that our knowledge is always relative to a certain context and personal viewpoint would only be relativism if we actually were isolated selves, unformed by history or language.

In truth, however, our standpoint always includes a universally valid context of meaning, or what philosophers call a ‘horizon’.
Of course, what exactly this shared horizon consists of is a much-debated question.
For most hermeneutic thinkers, this horizon is the tradition and language we inhabit, and through which we share a meaningful world.

While they admit that our ways of seeing the world are culturally dependent, they also acknowledge universally shared human conditions that give rise to transcultural experiences, such as evil, sacrifice or love, that allow for the translation of our particular cultural symbols.
Most hermeneutic thinkers are firm believers in universal reason that allows for translation between all languages and cultures.

To understand is to interpret: this universal claim of hermeneutics is not relativism but the admission that we are not gods.
Chapter 1-xii
In a sense "hermeneutic objectivity" is the same as "objectivity = intersubjectivity", i.e. intersubjective consensus based universally shared human conditions for example objectivity is Science and other credible framework and system of knowledge.
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Re: Hermeneutics: Applications?

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Veritas Aequitas wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 8:06 am they do deny, however, that we can have a meaningful experience without understanding pain or temperature first within a cultural vocabulary by which we make sense of things.

For this reason, hermeneutic thinkers argue that language guides our perception intrinsically.
For them, language includes any images, signs, or symbols by which we understand and communicate our experience of the world.
They believe that our perception of the world and our thought depends on an intricate linguistic web of words and concepts that develop historically over time.
This is equivalent to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity
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