?????? ?????????? Lecture 8 Approach to Comparative-Historical Method (5): Critical Hermeneutic Perspective

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????????????????Lecture 8Approach to
Comparative-Historical Method (5) Critical
Hermeneutic Perspective
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Hermeneutics as Comparative-Historical Method

• The meanings of hermeneutics
• Marin Jay points out that hermeneutics
  originally a Greek term, it referred to the god
  Hermes. The sayer or announcer of divine messages
  ? often, to be sure in oracular and ambiguous
  form. Hermeneutics retained its early emphasis on
  saying as it accumulated other meanings, such as
  interpreting, translating, and explaining. (Jay,
  1982, P. 90)

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Hermeneutics as Comparative-Historical Method

• The meanings of hermeneutics
• Paul Ricoeurs provides a working definition of
  hermeneutics as follow
• Hermeneutics is the theory of the operations of
  understanding in the relation to the
  interpretation of texts. (Ricoeur, 1981a, p.43)

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Hermeneutics as Comparative-Historical Method

• The meanings of hermeneutics
• "What is hermeneutics? Any meaningful
  expressionbe it an utterance, verbal or
  nonverbal, or an artifact of any kind, such as
  tool, an institution, or a written documentcan
  be identified from a double perspective, both as
  an observable event and as an understandable
  objectification of meaning. We can describe,
  explain, or predict a noise equivalent to the
  sounds of a spoken sentence without having the
  slight idea what this utterance means. To grasp
  (and state) its meaning, one has to participate
  in some (actual or imagined) communicative action
  in the course of which the sentence in question
  is used in such a way that it is intelligible to
  speakers, hearers, and bystanders belonging to
  the same speech community." (Habermas, 1996, p.
  23-24)

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Hermeneutics as Comparative-Historical Method

• Levels of hermeneutic inquiries
• Hermeneutics at literal level Decoding the
  authentic meanings embedded in literal texts or
  in utterances in dialogues
• Hermeneutics at ontological level
• Encoding and decoding meanings from the
  ontological condition of the author
• Encoding and decoding meanings from the
  ontological condition of the world referred in
  the text

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Hermeneutics as Comparative-Historical Method

• Levels of hermeneutic inquiries
• Hermeneutics at historical and cultural level
  Encoding and decoding meanings from the
  historical and cultural context within which the
  text was produced
• Hermeneutics at the ontological/existential
  level
• Hermeneutic experience as the corrective by
  means of which thinking reason escapes the prison
  of language." (Gadamer, 1975, Quoted in Habermas,
  1988, p. 144)
• Hermeneutics as the fusion of horizons of that
  of the author and reader

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Paul Ricoeurs Literal Hermeneutics as Bridging
of the Distanciations in the text

• (See Explications in Lecture 7)

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Hans-Georg Gadamers Existential Hermeneutics as
Fusion of Horizons

• Existential understanding of language
• Following the teaching of his teacher Heidegger,
  Gadamer see that all human reality is determined
  by its linguisticality. Because human beings are
  thrown into a world already linguistically
  permeated, they do not invent language as a tool
  for their own purposes. It is not a technological
  instrument of manipulation. Rather, language is
  prior to humanity and speaks through it. Our
  infinite as human beings is encompassed by
  infinity of language. (Jay, 1982, P. 94)

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1900-2002
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Hans-Georg Gadamers Existential Hermeneutics as
Fusion of Horizons

• Existential understanding of language
• Accordingly, human existence is a linguistically
  encoded existence, which is made up of all the
  preconceptions or what Gadamer called
  prejudices accumulated and sustained in a
  particular cultural-linguistic tradition.
  Hence, as human agents speak and act, they are
  speaking and acting within a prison house of
  language.

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Hans-Georg Gadamers Existential Hermeneutics as
Fusion of Horizons

1. The conception of hermeneutic experience In
   order to liberate oneself from such a prison of
   language, Gadamer suggests that human agents have
   to undertake the hermeneutic experience.

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Hans-Georg Gadamers Existential Hermeneutics as
Fusion of Horizons

• "Hermeneutic experience is the corrective by
  means of which thinking reason escapes the prison
  of language, and it is itself constituted
  linguistically . Certainly the variety of
  languages presents us with a problem. But this
  problem is simply how every language, despite its
  difference form other languages, is able to say
  everything it wants. We then ask how, amid the
  variety of forms of utterance, there is still
  the same unity of thought and speech, so that
  everything that has been transmitted in writing
  can be understood." (Gadamer, 1975, Quoted in
  Habermas, 1988, p. 144)

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Hans-Georg Gadamers Existential Hermeneutics as
Fusion of Horizons

• Gadamers redefinition of hermeneutic inquiry
• Within Gadamers framework of existential
  linguistics, hermeneutics is no longer simply an
  act of empathetic bridging other distanciations
  within the text, particularly historical text,
  revealing what actually happened in the past, as
  Ranke advocated but to fuse the horizons of
  the reader and the author. This is what Gadamer
  calls fusion of horizons.

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Hans-Georg Gadamers Existential Hermeneutics as
Fusion of Horizons

• Gadamers redefinition of hermeneutic inquiry
• By horizon, Gadamer defines it as the range of
  vision that includes everything that can be seen
  from a particular vantage point. (Gadamer, 1975,
  Quoted in Jay, P. 95) However, individual
  horizons are partial and incomplete. Furthermore,
  they are open, and shift we wander into them
  and they in turn move with us. (Habermas, 1988,
  P. 147)

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Hans-Georg Gadamers Existential Hermeneutics as
Fusion of Horizons

• Varieties of hermeneutic experiences and
  inquiries Accordingly, such a fusion of horizons
  may take varieties of forms
• Hermeneutic experiences of the translator
  striving to bridge two languages
• Hermeneutic experience of the historian
  attempting to bridge two epochs
• Hermeneutic experience of the anthropologist
  trying to bridge two cultures

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Hans-Georg Gadamers Existential Hermeneutics as
Fusion of Horizons

• Varieties of hermeneutic experiences and
  inquiries
• Hermeneutic experience of the sociologist trying
  to bridge two classes, status groups and
  political parties
• Hermeneutic experience of the comparative-historic
  al researcher striving of bridge big structures,
  large process and great communities across times
  and spaces

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Hans-Georg Gadamers Existential Hermeneutics as
Fusion of Horizons

• Gadamers concepts of authority and tradition
• The notion of legitimate prejudice According
  to Gadamer, human agents could only approach the
  world with preconceptions or prejudices of
  accumulated and sustained in a particular
  cultural-linguistic community. However, in
  hermeneutic experiences and inquiries, the fusion
  of horizons may not be smooth and harmonious but
  in contradictions or even conflicts. As a result,
  prejudices and their constituent horizons must be
  justified in situations where encounters and
  fusions of horizons take place. That brings about
  Gadamers the concept of authority and the issue
  of legitimate prejudice.

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Hans-Georg Gadamers Existential Hermeneutics as
Fusion of Horizons

• Gadamers concepts of authority and tradition
• Gadamer contends that the legitimacy of
  individual horizons and its prejudices are gained
  in daily-life practices of speech acts, discourse
  and understanding within a prevailing
  cultural-linguistic community. While the
  legitimate prejudices at social level can also
  establish their authority in dialogues, social
  interactions and institutional practices.
  Therefore, Gadamer contends that authority,
  properly understood, has nothing to do with blind
  obedience to a command. Indeed, authority has
  nothing to do with obedience, it rests on
  recognition. (Gadamer, 1975, Quoted in Ricoeur,
  1991, P. 279)

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Hans-Georg Gadamers Existential Hermeneutics as
Fusion of Horizons

• Gadamers concepts of authority and tradition
• By recognition, Gadamer refers to that the
  other is superior to oneself in judgment and
  insight and that for this reason his judgment
  takes precedence, i.e. it has priority over ones
  own. (Gadamer, 1975, Quoted in Ricoeur P. 278)
  This is the essence of the authority, claimed by
  the teachers, the superior, the expert.
  (Gadamer, 1975, Quoted in Ricoeur 991, P. 279)

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Hans-Georg Gadamers Existential Hermeneutics as
Fusion of Horizons

• Gadamers concepts of authority and tradition
• As these legitimate prejudices sustained and
  spread their authority within a linguistic
  community, they establish what Gadamer calls
  their effective-historical status and become
  the tradition. This is precisely what we call
  tradition the ground of their validity.
  tradition has a justification that is outside the
  arguments of reason and in large measure
  determines our attitudes and behavior. (Gadamer,
  1975, Quoted in Ricoeur, 1991, P. 279)

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Jurgen Habermas Critical Hermeneutics

1. The focus of contention between on Gadamer and
   Habermas is exactly on the difference in the
   authority of prejudice and conception of
   tradition. Habermas disagrees to Gadamers
   treatment of the tradition and its authority of
   prejudices in a given cultural-linguistic
   community as normative imperatives derived out of
   practical speech acts, discourses and fusions of
   horizons. Instead Habermas underlines the power
   and domination that are at work in all human
   relationships including linguistic
   communications.

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Jurgen Habermas Critical Hermeneutics

1. In Habermas own words, This metainstitution of
   language as tradition is evidently dependent in
   turn on social processes that are not in
   normative relationship. Language is also medium
   of domination and social power. (Habermas, 1977,
   Quoted in Jay, 1982, P. 99)

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Jurgen Habermas Critical Hermeneutics

1. From the stance of the Critical Theory of the
   Frankfurt School as well as of Marxism, Habermas
   criticizes Gadamer of neglecting the frozen
   ideology, hypostatized power, and systemic
   distortion that may have been prevailed in
   cultural-linguistic traditions as well as in its
   supporting institutions.

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Jurgen Habermas Critical Hermeneutics

• Critical hermeneutics According to Habermas
  critique on Gadamers existential hermeneutics,
  Habermas has elevates hermeneutic inquiry yet to
  another level, namely critical hermeneutics.
• First of all, Habermas criticizes Gadamers
  conception of authorities of prejudices and
  tradition of neglecting the notion of power that
  is supposed to be at work behind all these
  authority. This brings out one of the basic
  concept in the Critical Theory, i.e. the
  hypostatized power, which is at work in all human
  relationships and discourses.

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Jurgen Habermas Critical Hermeneutics

• Critical hermeneutics
• Accordingly, this hypostatized will impose
  systemic distortions to human relationships and
  discourses.
• One of these systemic distortions, which
  manifests in individual horizon, fusion of
  horizons, prejudices, and tradition, is the
  ideological elements frozen in these
  cultural-linguistic representations.

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• Critical Hermeneutic Analysis An Illustration
• Michel Foucaults Discourse, Genealogy and Power

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Michel Foucaults Conceptions of Discourse

• From text and narrative to discourse Three
  constituents of the linguistic turn
• The task of literal hermeneutics is to describes
  the phenomenon from the inside (Dreyfus
  Rabinow, 1982, p.79), that is, to retrieves the
  meanings embedded in the text, and to bridge the
  distanciation between the being-in- the-world
  of the author and reader

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Michel Foucaults Conceptions of Discourse

• From text and narrative to discourse Three
  constituents of the linguistic turn
• The task of narrative study is to reveal 'forms',
  'plots', 'meanings', and narratives that
  historians have imposed upon historical data in
  their writings historical storylines. That is to
  reveal 'the content of the form' of historians'
  representations.

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Michel Foucaults Conceptions of Discourse

• From text and narrative to discourse Three
  constituents of the linguistic turn
• Archaeology in Foucaultian sense look into how
  discourses are formed in the history of ideas
  and/or truth. Foucault contends that in studying
  the successions of schools of thought in the
  history of ideas, one should look beyond the
  internal meanings of the school of thought under
  study but analyze the discursive rules in
  operations in a given historical and
  socio-cultural contexts. Furthermore, Foucaults
  discourse analysis reveals the underlying
  technology of power at work in the process of
  discourse formation.

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Michel Foucaults Conceptions of Discourse

• From text and narrative to discourse Three
  constituents of the linguistic turn
• Foucault, the archaeologist looks from
  outside, reject the appeal to meaning. He
  contends that viewed with external neutrality,
  the discursive practices themselves provide a
  meaningless space of rule-governed
  transformations in which statements, subjects,
  objects, concepts and so forth are taken by those
  involved to be meaningful. (Dreyfus Rabinow,
  1982, p. 79)

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Michel Foucaults Conceptions of Discourse

• From text and narrative to discourse Three
  constituents of the linguistic turn
• Foucault, the archaeologist looks from
  outside, reject the appeal to meaning. He
  contends that viewed with external neutrality,
  the discursive practices themselves provide a
  meaningless space of rule-governed
  transformations in which statements, subjects,
  objects, concepts and so forth are taken by those
  involved to be meaningful. (Dreyfus Rabinow,
  1982, p. 79)

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Michel Foucaults Conceptions of Discourse

• Statements and Discourse
• Statement The statement is not the same kind of
  unit as the sentence, the proposition, or the
  speech actThe statements is not a structure
  (i.e. a group of relations between variable
  elements...). it is a function of existence that
  properly belong to signs and on the basis of
  which one may then decide, through analysis or
  intuition, whether or not they make sense,
  according to what rule they follow one another or
  are juxtaposed, of what they are the sign, and
  what sort of act is carried out by their
  formulation (oral or written). (Foucault, 1972,
  p. 86-87)

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You are insane
You are sick
You are condemned
You are sexually, inappropriate immoral
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Michel Foucaults Conceptions of Discourse

• Statements and Discourse
• A discourse is the totality of all effectiveness
  statements (whether spoken or written). ...
  Description of discourse is in opposition to the
  history of thought. Therea system of thought can
  be reconstituted only on the basis of a definite
  discursive totality. The analysis of thought is
  always allegorical in relation to the discourse
  that it employs. Its question is unfailingly
  what is being said in what was said? what is
  this specific existence that emerges from what is
  said and nowhere else? (Foucault, 1972, p. 27-28)

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Michel Foucaults Conceptions of Discourse

• The Formation of Object
• Mapping the surface of the emergence of the
  object
• Describing the authorities of delimitation
• Analyzing the grids of specification

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Michel Foucaults Conceptions of Discourse

• The Formation of Enunciative Modality
• Identifying who is speaking, who is accorded the
  right to use this sort of language, who is
  qualified to do so.
• Describing the institutional sites from which the
  discourse is made and form which the discourse
  derives its legitimate source and point of
  application
• Analyzing the position of the subject, in which
  s/he occupies in relation to the various domains
  and groups of objects

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Michel Foucaults Conceptions of Discourse

• The Formation of Concepts the formation of the
  organization of the field of statements where
  they appeared and circulated
• Identifying the forms of succession, e.g.
• Orderings of enunicative series
• Types of dependence of the statement
• Rhetorical schemata according to which groups of
  statements may be combined
• Identifying the forms of coexistence
• Field of presence
• Field of concomitance
• Field of memory

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Michel Foucaults Conceptions of Discourse

• The Formation of Concepts
• Identifying the procedures of intervention that
  may be legitimately applied to statements, e.g.
  technique of rewriting , method of transcribing,
  mode of translating, means of transferring,
  method of systematizing

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Michel Foucaults Conceptions of Discourse

• The Formation of Strategies or theoretical and
  thematic choice
• Determining the points of diffraction of
  discourse
• Point of incompatibility
• Point of equivalence
• Point of systematization
• Analyzing the economy of the discursive
  constellation
• Analyzing the other authority, e.g. functional to
  fields of non-discursive practice, observing the
  rules and processes of appropriation of discourse

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Michel Foucaults Conception of Power

• Power as subjection and subjugation
• I would like to say, first of all, what has been
  the goal of my work during the last twenty years.
  It has not been to analyze the phenomena of
  power, nor to elaborate the foundations of such
  an analysis. My objective, instead, has been to
  create a history of the different mode by which,
  in our culture, human beings are made subjects...
  Thus it is not power, but the subject, which is
  the general them of my research. (1982, 208-209)

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Michel Foucaults Conception of Power

• Power as subjection and subjugation
• Power as objectification of subjection The
  technology of power
• Objectification in transformation of human beings
  into subjects of human sciences, e.g. philology,
  linguistics, biology, economics,
• Objectification in turning identified human
  beings into subjects of dividing practices,
  e.g. the insane, the sick, the convicted, the
  uneducated,
• Objectification in turning human themselves into
  subjects..

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Michel Foucaults Conception of Power

• Power as subjection and subjugation
• Typology of power Emerged from Foucaults
  studies of power, there are at least four
  conceptions of power
• Disciplinary power
• Biopower
• Pastoral power
• Sovereign power

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Discourse, Genealogy and Power

• From Discourse to genealogy The methodological
  link
• Archaeology and genealogy as different levels
  interpretation
• Archaeological level of interpretation Whether
  we are analyzing propositions physics or
  phrenology, we substitute for their internal
  intelligibility a different intelligibility,
  namely their place within the discursive
  formation. This is the task of archaeology
  Archaeology is always a technique that can free
  us from a residual belief in our direct access to
  objects in each case the tyranny of the
  referent has to be overcome. (Dreyfus
  Rabinow, 1982, p. 117)
• Genealogical level of interpretation "When we
  add genealogy, however, a third level of
  intelligibility and differentiation is
  introduced. After archaeology does its job, the
  genealogist can ask about the historical and
  political roles that these science play.
  (Dreyfus Rabinow, 1982, p. 117, my italic)

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Discourse, Genealogy and Power

• From Discourse to genealogy The methodological
  link
• Genealogy as study of Episteme and Entstehung
• Episteme as descents of discourses
• Entstehung
• Entstehung designates emergence, the moment of
  arising. (Foucault, 1984, p.83)
• Emergence is always produced through a particular
  stage of forces. The analysis of the Entstehung
  must delineate this interaction, the struggle
  these forces wage against each other or against
  adverse circumstances, and the attempt to avoid
  degeneration and regain strength by dividing
  these forces against themselves. (p.83-84)

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Discourse, Genealogy and Power

• The Concept of Power/Knowledge
• It is in discourse that power and knowledge are
  joined together (Foucault, 1978, p. 100) and
  therefore "discourse is both instrument and
  effect of power." (1978, p. 101), Accordingly it
  is through discourse that constitutes what
  Foucault conceptualized the power/knowledge.

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Discourse, Genealogy and Power

• The Concept of Power/Knowledge
• We should admit that power and knowledge
  directly imply one another that there is no
  power relation without the correlative
  constitution of a field of knowledge, nor any
  knowledge that does not presuppose and constitute
  at the same time power relations. These
  power/knowledge relations are to be analyzed,
  therefore, not on the basis of a subject of
  knowledge who is or is not free in relation to
  the power system, but, on the contrary, the
  subject who knows, the objects to be known and
  the modalities of knowledge must be regarded as
  so many effects of these fundamental implications
  of power/knowledge and their historical
  transformations.

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Discourse, Genealogy and Power

• The Concept of Power/Knowledge
• In short, it is not the activities of the
  subject of knowledge that produces a corpus of
  knowledge, useful or resistant to power, but
  power/knowledge, the processes and struggles that
  traverse it and of which it is made up, that
  determines the forms and possible domains of
  knowledge. (Foucault, 1977, p. 28)

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Lecture 8Approach to Comparative-Historical
Method (5) Critical Hermeneutic Perspective
END