Blogging through Truth and Method post 11: Analysis of Historically Effected Consciousness (341-379)
The problem with which the previous section (307-341) of Truth and Method ends is truly compelling, if one breaks down the problem as a (simplified) syllogism: Hermeneutics, as a practice,…
Blogging through Truth and Method post 10: The Recovery of the Fundamental Hermeneutic Problem (307-341)
Once upon a time, hermeneutics conceived of understanding as involving two processes: understanding and interpretation, to which Pietism added a third, application. The great advance of the Romantics is…
A Collage of a Pastorate: A Review of Trinitarian Letters for SpeakEasy Bloggers
Trinitarian Letters: Your Adoption and Inclusion in the Life of God by Paul Kurts. 232 pp. West Bow Press. $19.99. Some books convince with well-shaped arguments, and others move the…
Blogging through Truth and Method post 9: The Elevation of the Historicity of Understanding (265-307)
With the brief history of hermeneutical thinking in the book, Gadamer turns in this section of Truth and Method to constructing a hermeneutics that takes seriously the thrown-and-projected nature of…
Blogging through Truth and Method post 8: Overcoming the Epistemological Problem (242-264)
Husserl brought the entire notion of the given—so important for German idealism—into question; in so doing, he moved beyond Dilthey, at least to a certain extent. In fact, an…
Blogging through Truth and Method post 7: Dilthey's Entanglement in the Aporias of Historicism (218-241)
The section of Truth and Method that contains this chapter is called “Historical Preparations,” and one of the oddities of blogging about it is that I’m writing about an entire…
Blogging through Truth and Method post 6: The Questionableness of Romantic Hermeneutics (173-218)
In this section, Gadamer attempts to undermine Romantic hermeneutics; to do so, he will retrace Wilhelm Dilthey’s steps with different goals than the ones that Dilthey had. Hermeneutics…
Blogging through Truth and Method post 5: Aesthetic and Hermeneutic Consequences (134-169)
When Michial and I read Being and Time back in 2009, the best thing about that book was that, through careful phenomenological examination, Heidegger gave me occasion to think carefully…
Blogging through Truth and Method, post 4: Play as the Clue to Ontological Explanation (101-134)
Gadamer’s analysis of aesthetics will be oriented around the notion of play, but he wants to liberate the concept from the subjective bearing that it finds in the work of…
Blogging through Truth and Method, post 3: Retrieving the Question of Artistic Truth (81-100)
Art has not always been a matter of “appearance” as opposed to the sciences’ “reality” or a matter of the “timeless” in any uncomplicated sense. This section of Truth and…
Blogging Through Truth and Method, Post 2: The Subjectivization of Aesthetics (42-81)
In the last few pages of the previous section, Gadamer dismissed the relegation of taste to the realm of aesthetics; in this section, he is going to critique two major…
Blogging Through Truth and Method post 1: Introduction and the Humanist Tradition (1-42)
Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, Second Revised Edition Certain writers linger at the borders of certain disciplines, and I always feel somewhat bad for neglecting them. Thus in 2009 Michial…
Purgatory 2013: The Dante Apocalypse (Cantos 29-33)
To get the first question out of the way, yes, I’ve been calling the last Cantos of Purgatory the Dante Apocalypse for several years now, and my term predates the…
The Christian Humanist Podcast, Episode #106: Witches
General Introduction – The end of the season – On doctoral regalia – Summer courses – Slightly less minor internet celebrities – Ongoing projects Witches in the Bible – Saul…
Purgatory 2013: Back to the Garden (Cantos 25-28)
Rather than write a giant post about the last nine Cantos, I’m going to attempt two short ones, the last dealing mainly with Dante’s apocalypse. If, as I plan, I…