Hermeneutics

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Hermeneutics
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Hermeneutics

• How can you prove that!

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Hermeneutics

• How do I understand?
• What does it mean to understand something?
• Background Understanding the bible
• Understanding the law
• Phenomenology
• German/continental philosophy
• Martin Heidegger (1889 - 1976)
• Hans Georg Gadamer (1900 2002)

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Hermeneutics

• Problem
• How can I secure the quality of my research?
• The problem of knowing Ontology
• Epistemology

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Hermeneutics

• The problem of understanding and truth in science
• Nihilism (I do not care about your research)
• Scepticism (I do not believe you)
• Rationalism (Theory is the thing and it
  should be for you as well)
• Positivism (Data is the ting and it
  should be for you as well)
• Hermeneutics as an alternative

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Hermenutics

• The problem with nihilism and scepticism
• Nihilism - ignored
• Scepticism The scandal of philosophy.
• Is there an external world?
• Hermeneutics
• Through language are we part of a community,
  which makes scepticism irrelevant.
• Ask Instead What does it mean to be!

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Hermeneutics

• The problem of understanding
• Heidegger Vor-grif (Language, concepts)
• Vor-sight (horizon, world view)
• Vor-habe (intention)

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Hermeneutics

• Understanding
• Prejudice all understanding begins with a
  prejudice
• Vor-wissen, Pre-understanding,
  for-forståelse
• I know that there is something, therefore I can
  ask interesting questions and correct my
  pre-understanding into a good, trustworthy,
  genuine, true, reliable understanding

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Hermeneutics

• Horizon
• Pardon him, Theodotus He is a barbarian, and
  thinks that the customs of his tribe and island
  are the laws of nature.
• (G.B. Shaw, Caesar and Cleopatra)
• Horizon, world view, schetama, reality,

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Hermeneutics

• Understanding as Fusion of Horizons
• Understand your own horizon
• Understand the others horizon
• Understand the horizon of your field of
  research
• Understand a common horizon
• Understand a new horizon

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Hermeneutics

• Distance of time
• Things are forgotten
• Distance of time gives us the possibility of new
  and interesting interpretations.
• Ex The history of witches.

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Hermeneutics

• Tradition - Überlieferung
• Understanding is to be thought of less as a
  subjective act than as participating in an event
  of tradition, a process of transmission in which
  past and present is constantly mediated

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Hermeneutics

• History of effect (Virkungsgeschicte) and
  consciousness of history of effect
• To understand history is to understand its
  effect on the future
• Ex Jesus and the witches

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Hermeneutics

• The foreconception of completeness
• Wahrheitsanspruch - the claim of truth
• The text is a whole
• The text is true
• If not, we will wonder

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Hermeneutics

• Situation
• Nothing happens in a vacuum
• We are always in time an space
• We bring our personal history
• We bring our experiences
• We bring our prejudices
• We are always in a situation, which will affect
  our interpretations

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Hermeneutics

• Questions as prerequisite and possibility

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Hermeneutics

• Understanding as use
• The judge understands the law when he uses it
• The engineer understands math when she uses it

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Hermeneutics

• Truth as aletheia
• A glade in the forest
• walking towards the light
• A constant search for truth - which we will
  probably never find but the search will make
  us wiser!

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Hermeneutics

• Conclusions
• Understanding as a fusion of horizons
• Man må sætte sine fordomme på spil for at få dem
  i spil
• Put your prejudices at stake
• Understanding is self-understanding
• Understanding is to be part of a tradition
• Understanding is tied to a situation
• Understanding is understanding of something
  (sachverstehen)
• Understanding is ethical
• Understanding and use

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Hermeneutics

• Conclusions
• The quality of my research?
• Prejudices
• Horizons and fusion of horizons
• Sachverstehen

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Hermeneutics

• What do we make of all this?
• What's in it for an engineer?