Books by Cynthia R . Nielsen
Routledge Research in Aesthetics, 2023
This book offers a sustained scholarly analysis of Gadamer's reflections on art and our experienc... more This book offers a sustained scholarly analysis of Gadamer's reflections on art and our experience of art. It examines fundamental themes in Gadamer's hermeneutical aesthetics such as play, festival, symbol, contemporaneity, enactment, art's performative ontology, and hermeneutical identity.
Truth and Method: A Polyphonic Commentary, Rowman & Littlefield International, 2022
Hans-Georg Gadamer’s magnum opus, Truth and Method, was first published in German in 1960, transl... more Hans-Georg Gadamer’s magnum opus, Truth and Method, was first published in German in 1960, translated into English in 1975, and is widely recognized as a ground-breaking text of philosophical hermeneutics. Unsurprisingly, this text has generated an extensive secondary literature, including a number of excellent studies and commentaries. The present volume brings to bear on this familiar text what might be considered an experimental interpretive approach--namely, a *polyphonic* commentary.
In Interstitial Soundings, Cynthia R. Nielsen brings music and philosophy into a fruitful and mut... more In Interstitial Soundings, Cynthia R. Nielsen brings music and philosophy into a fruitful and mutually illuminating dialogue. Topics discussed include the following: music's dynamic ontology, performers and improvisers as co-composers, the communal character of music, jazz as hybrid and socially constructed, the sociopolitical import of bebop, Afro-modernism and its strategic deployments, jazz and racialized practices, continuities between Michel Foucault's discussion of self-making and creating one's musical voice, Alasdair MacIntyre on practice, and how one might harmonize MacIntyre's notion of virtue development with Foucauldian resistance strategies.
Through examining Douglass's and Fanon's concrete experiences of oppression, Cynthia R. Nielsen d... more Through examining Douglass's and Fanon's concrete experiences of oppression, Cynthia R. Nielsen demonstrates the empirical validity of Foucault's theoretical analyses concerning power, resistance, and subject-formation. Going beyond merely confirming Foucault's insights, Douglass and Fanon expand, strengthen, and offer correctives to the emancipatory dimensions of Foucault's project. Unlike Foucault, Douglass and Fanon were not hesitant to make transhistorical judgments condemning slavery and colonization. Foucault's reticence here signals a weakness in his account of human being. This weakness sets him at cross-purposes not only with Scotus, but also with Douglass and Fanon. Scotus's anthropology provides a basis for transhistorical moral critique; thus he is a valuable dialogue partner for those concerned about social justice and human flourishing.
Book Chapters by Cynthia R . Nielsen
Gadamer's Truth and Method: A Polyphonic Commentary, 2022
Chapter 5 of Gadamer's Truth and Method: A Polyphonic Commentary. The chapter offers a commentary... more Chapter 5 of Gadamer's Truth and Method: A Polyphonic Commentary. The chapter offers a commentary on section 1.2.2 of Truth and Method. (Forthcoming 2022, Rowman & Littlefield International).
The Gadamerian Mind (Routledge), 2021
Gadamer understands play as a fundamental aspect of human life and experience. Play manifests and... more Gadamer understands play as a fundamental aspect of human life and experience. Play manifests and shows itself in a multiplicity of practices and activities. For example, we discern play in children’s games such as hopscotch, the back-and-forth musical play of a jazz quartet, and the play-fighting of dogs and coyotes. In his reflections on art, Gadamer argues that play is integral to art’s dynamic ontology—that is, the artwork comes forth and “speaks” through the dialogical play-movement of the artwork and its engaged participants. Moreover, Gadamer stresses that the artwork exists only in its performance or enactment. That is, an artwork is not experienced as an object, which a detached subject examines. Rather, an artwork is a dynamic, communicative, and communal event. Thus, performers include not only the artists who compose or create the work and the musicians or actors who enact the work, but also spectators and auditors. Understood in this way, artworks exhibit a being-toward-others and are incomplete without engaged participants. This chapter seeks to elucidate Gadamer’s notion of play in its multiple senses and is especially concerned with his analysis of play as central to art’s being as a dynamic, communicative, multi-player event.
Epistemic Injustice and the Philosophy of Recognition , 2022
The individual work of Hans-Georg Gadamer, Miranda Fricker, and Axel Honneth each stands on its o... more The individual work of Hans-Georg Gadamer, Miranda Fricker, and Axel Honneth each stands on its own as important contributions to a theory of mutual recognition. Our chapter will explore, however, the complementarity that exists between the three. We contend that Gadamer, Fricker, and Honneth together serve to more fully explain and expound a theory of mutual recognition. We begin by examining Gadamer’s groundbreaking understanding of the positive aspect of prejudice as inescapable pre-judgments that we have as historical beings – a view that critiques the exclusively negative view of prejudice in Enlightenment rationalism. We then turn to Fricker’s notion of testimonial injustice followed by an analysis of the complementarity among Gadamer and Fricker. Finally, we briefly look at Honneth on the importance of what he calls “social esteem” for a theory of mutual recognition, in which he folds social esteem into prejudice and testimonial injustice. Although Fricker does not appeal to Gadamer in her examination of the role of prejudice in either testimonial or hermeneutical injustice, their respective projects disclose several intersecting themes and concerns. In addition, Fricker’s focus on instances where dialogical engagement breaks down or fails beneficially expands Gadamer’s analyses of prejudice and his emphasis on what is required for genuine dialogue. Conversely, Gadamer’s emphasis on openness and anticipatory listening complements Fricker’s account. Gadamer’s understanding of prejudgments as integral to our historical being and as having a positive, productive role is resonant with a number of Fricker’s claims and, if more explicitly accepted and developed, would alleviate concerns that Linda Martín Alcoff and Georgia Warnke have respectively voiced regarding Fricker’s appeals to neutrality. Honneth explicates three kinds of recognition and how the first two, recognition as love and recognition as rights, fall short of the demands of political and social justice. Only when a “social addressee” is given “social esteem”¬ – a form of recognition that respects difference and accepts others as full participants in social life within their differences – can mutual recognition serve justice fully.
Music and Law. Sociology of Crime, Law, and Deviance, vol. 18 edited by Mathieu Deflem. Bingley UK: Emerald Group Publishing., Nov 2013
I argue that one can articulate an historically attuned and analytically rich model for understan... more I argue that one can articulate an historically attuned and analytically rich model for understanding jazz in its various inflections. That is, on the one hand, such a model permits us to affirm jazz as an historically conditioned, dynamic hybridity. On the other hand, to acknowledge jazz's open and multiple character in no way negates our ability to identify discernible features of various styles and aesthetic traditions. Additionally, my model affirms the socio-political, legal (Jim Crow and copyright laws), and economic structures that shaped jazz. Consequently, my articulation of bebop as an inflection of Afro-modernism highlights the socio-political, and highly racialized context in which this music was created. Without a recognition of the socio-political import of bebop, one's understanding of the music is impoverished, as one fails to grasp the strategic uses to which the music and discourses about the music were put.
Philosophy Imprisoned: Love of Wisdom in an Age of Incarceration, 2014
In this chapter, I bring my personal correspondence with inmate Michael X. Smith—correspondence t... more In this chapter, I bring my personal correspondence with inmate Michael X. Smith—correspondence that includes Michael's reflections on his own experience of incarceration—into conversation with Loïc Wacquant’s analyses of the prison, the ghetto, and the hyperghetto-carceral continuum. Although Michael has not had the opportunity to read Wacquant's work, his commentary on prison life not only complements Wacquant's analyses but also adds an existential dimension to the discussion and helps us to remember the concrete human beings whose lives have been forever changed (and often for the worse) by their experience of incarceration. Through my exchanges with Michael, I have come to understand more intimately the layers of bureaucracy and official policies that one must learn to "work around." In other words, one must be able to flex and institute "plan B" (and C-Z) when one's original plans fall through. Michael's determination to prove his innocence and his ability to remain hopeful despite so many closed doors, empty promises, and bureaucratic "red tape" has served as both an inspiration and a motivating factor for me—not only in relation to this project, but also in life generally speaking.
Journal Articles by Cynthia R . Nielsen
Philosophy Today, 2026
My translation of Gadamer's 1987 essay, "German Philosophy Between the Two World Wars." My transl... more My translation of Gadamer's 1987 essay, "German Philosophy Between the Two World Wars." My translation will be published in Philosophy Today 70:2, spring 2026; please quote only from the published version, as there may be minor changes to this version.
Studia Philosophica Estonia, 2024
This essay discusses Vladimir Putin’s use and abuse of “History” in the context of Russia’s war o... more This essay discusses Vladimir Putin’s use and abuse of “History” in the context of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. It takes as its point of departure Sergey Radchenko’s essay, “Putin’s Histories,” in which he charts three important strands of Putin’s Historical Narrative, which are summarized as (1) Putin’s (imperialist) History of Russia, (2), the “Great Patriotic War” narrative, and (3) Putin’s NATO ressentiment. The essay examines and expands each of these in turn, analyzing how they are used in Russia’s war against Ukraine and how they help us to see that a central factor driving this war is Russia’s inability to see it itself as anything other than an empire.
Keywords: Putin’s imperialist history, Great Patriotic War narrative, Russia-Ukraine War, Kremlin propaganda, Russian (neo)imperialism
Epoché, 2024
This is my translation of Gadamer's 1990 lecture "The Diversity of Languages and Understanding of... more This is my translation of Gadamer's 1990 lecture "The Diversity of Languages and Understanding of the World." "In his lecture, Gadamer presents his views of language and world in a distinctively hermeneutical key. For example, he emphasizes language as that which 'belongs to conversation.' That is, language as conversation helps to bring about understanding and involves the play of dialogical exchange. 'Language is not proposition and judgment; rather, it is what it is, only when it is question and answer.' Language involves another; it is on-the-way [unterwegs] to another. In fact, when addressing his question—what does world mean—Gadamer clarifies that humans and world are intimately connected; the world is that in which we are 'in the midst' and 'understanding is understanding oneself in the world.' But we are also in-the-world with others, and understanding ourselves in the world, means to understand ourselves with others. Gadamer goes so far as to say that our self-understanding as achieved in relation to others, as well as our understanding of others, should be taken in a moral and political sense. That is, the other is not there as merely a means to our ends or to exploit. Rather, 'the other indicates a principal limit to our self-love and self-centeredness. This is a general moral problem. It is also a political problem.' He goes on to emphasize the difficult task of achieving genuine solidarity with those from different cultures. Such a task requires language as conversation, the back-and-forth of dialogical exchange in which we come to understand the other and the other comes to understand us. Again and again, Gadamer underscores the task that each of has in light of our pluralistic world “to learn to bridge and reconcile the distances and differences between us and that means that we respect, look after, care for the other, and give one other a new hearing.” In contrast with the story of the Tower of Babel in which the people sought a pseudo-unity or 'oneness' driven by a will to dominate, Gadamer embraces both cultural and linguistic diversity and warns against reducing these multiple horizons 'by any special contrivance of unity [Einheitsmechanik].' He encourages us to seek out the open spaces that arise in our interactions with one another, to resist the levelling of language that information technology tends toward, and to 'cultivate language in its most distinctive possibilities.' In our present age of disinformation warfare, which threatens democracies worldwide and is a direct challenge to truth and the possibility of a meaningful dialogue with others, we would do well to linger with Gadamer’s hermeneutical and ethical insights and contemplate how we might bring these insights to bear on the global and political crises that we face today—Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, our climate catastrophe, and ever new forms of technical sophistry and disinformation that seek to erode our trust in truth, reality, and language itself."
Gadamer's Aesthetics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy), 2023
This is a Stanford Encyclopedia entry, co-authored with Nicholas Davey. The most recent update wa... more This is a Stanford Encyclopedia entry, co-authored with Nicholas Davey. The most recent update was published on Sept. 21, 2023.
Analecta Hermeneutica, 2021
In this article we argue that the Anthropocene is a hermeneutical term. Indeed, designating a geo... more In this article we argue that the Anthropocene is a hermeneutical term. Indeed, designating a geological epoch with the term is already an interpretation. Since there is no static, single interpretation of anything that determines the course of thought or action, we have to ask ourselves, adapting to the hermeneutical situation to which we belong: What sorts of worlds might unfold in front of the Anthropocene, and in what sort of world might we imagine ourselves dwelling? The task of hermeneutics here
(and in this case environmental hermeneutics in particular) is two-fold: 1) To demonstrate that the Anthropocene is not a term merely corresponding to a scientific set of facts but that those supposed neutral facts are understood and given meaning; and 2) to reflect upon how the Anthropocene, as a hermeneutical term, invites us to consider worlds that may unfold in front of the Anthropocene and our being-in-the-world that unfolds in front of it. What potential worlds do we wish to avoid, and which
would we like to fashion?
Analecta Hermeneutica , 2022
This essay focuses on Gadamer's short 1975 essay entitled “Death as a Question,” in which he offe... more This essay focuses on Gadamer's short 1975 essay entitled “Death as a Question,” in which he offers rich, contemplative reflections on death. [Forthcoming 2022, special edition edited by Dr. Catherine Homan]
Epoche, 2021
This is a translation of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s 1988 essay, “Musik und Zeit: Ein philosophisches Po... more This is a translation of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s 1988 essay, “Musik und Zeit: Ein philosophisches Postscriptum.” The essay, although brief, is noteworthy in that it contains Gadamer’s philosophical reflections on music—reflections which are largely absent in his masterwork, Truth and Method. In the essay, one finds several important Gadamerian hermeneutical themes such as the notion of art as performance or enactment (Vollzug), the linguisticality of understanding, the importance of lingering with an artwork or text, and how our absorption in the work gives rise to a particular experience of time.
Journal of Applied Hermeneutics, 2020
This article considers the limitations, but also the insights, of Gadamerian hermeneutics for und... more This article considers the limitations, but also the insights, of Gadamerian hermeneutics for understanding and responding to the crisis precipitated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Our point of departure is the experience of deep disagreements amid the pandemic, and our primary example is ongoing debates in the United States about wearing masks. We argue that, during this dire situation, interpersonal mutual understanding is insufficient for resolving such bitter disputes. Rather, following Gadamer's account of our dialogical experience with an artwork, we suggest that our encounter with the virus gives rise to new ways of seeing and experiencing ourselves and the world. Further, we draw on Gadamer's account of the fusion of horizons to show how even competing perspectives on wearing masks arise within a shared space of meaning created by the virus. These insights provide hope for an improved model of political dialogue in the world of Covid-19.
Expositions: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities, 2021
Although most readers of Plato’s Symposium find Alcibiades’ speech humorous and delightful to rea... more Although most readers of Plato’s Symposium find Alcibiades’ speech humorous and delightful to read, commentators are divided on how to interpret it. This essay takes seriously Alcibiades’ portrait of Socrates as a satyr, whose peculiar philosophical eros gives rise to a philosophical practice that simultaneously attracts and repels. Despite Alcibiades’ flaws, the accusations that he levels against Socrates reveal tensions in the philosopher that are worth interrogating. Alcibiades’ speech, which both condemns and praises Socrates, proffers a complex picture of the challenges of the philosophical life and Socrates’ particular enactment of that life. The multiple textual clues in the Symposium—for example, Plato’s staging of Alcibiades’ speech as truthful and the stark contrast between Alcibiades and Apollodorus indicate that Alcibiades’ censure of Socrates should be read with critical attentiveness and seriousness since the questions it raises are philosophically, not to mention ethically significant. By refusing to allow either Socrates or Alcibiades the last word, Plato’s text can be read as inviting his readers to participate in an ongoing interrogation of both figures—figures whose complexity and (dis)harmony of opposites continue to enchant and offend.
The notion of not having the last word, is a common theme in Hans-Georg Gadamer’s writings. For Gadamer, this means, among other things, that to engage in a genuine, reciprocal dialogue, one must remain open to the real possibility that one’s position is wrong or perhaps needs rethinking. This essay dialectically examines Socrates’ interactions with Alcibiades in the Symposium to see whether Socrates himself is, in fact, a good dialogue partner in Gadamer’s sense. My strategy is to offer a close reading of relevant passages of the Symposium in order to make manifest the dialectical and ethical tensions within the text, especially in the interaction of Socrates and Alcibiades. My aim is not to offer a detailed reading of Gadamer’s reading of specific Platonic dialogues; rather, my aim is to articulate, as it were, a Gadamerian-inspired framework whose main structures include genuine dialogical openness to the other, anticipatory listening, risk, a willingness to put one’s own views to the test, and an embrace of one’s finitude. Having explained key aspects of Gadamer’s position, I then show how Socrates’ engagement with Alcibiades falls short of what Gadamer throughout his corpus emphasizes as hermeneutical virtues.
Philosophy Today, 2020
A translation of Gadamer's recently discovered radio speech
Ruch Filozoficzny, Polish Journal of Philosophy, 2020
Central to Gadamerian hermeneutics is dialogical engagement, a back and forth “play” (Spiel) amon... more Central to Gadamerian hermeneutics is dialogical engagement, a back and forth “play” (Spiel) among interlocutors. For Gadamer, texts as well as works of art function as interlocutors capable of addressing and making a claim upon us. However, whether engaging a human dialogue partner or a text, one must approach the other with openness, which can be understood as a hermeneutic virtue. Consequently, in order for a fruitful dialogue to occur, one must embody a specific comportment to the other. In this sense, hermeneutics exhibits a politeness of sorts. If one considers the Latin roots (politus, polire) from which we derive our English term “polite,” relevant connections with notion of refinement and being “polished” emerge. That is, to be polite is in some sense to exhibit refinement, which often comes through a process of training or even suffering. One the one hand, openness to the other involves politeness or refinement in that one demonstrates respect for the other in a genuine willingness to hear the other’s view. Such refinement has been achieved through experience (Erfahrung) and continues to be achieved through dialogical engagement with others. On the other, it is also the case that hermeneutical dialogue involves elements of impoliteness, where one transgresses social norms in order to provoke a thoughtful, self-reflective response.
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Books by Cynthia R . Nielsen
Book Chapters by Cynthia R . Nielsen
Journal Articles by Cynthia R . Nielsen
Keywords: Putin’s imperialist history, Great Patriotic War narrative, Russia-Ukraine War, Kremlin propaganda, Russian (neo)imperialism
(and in this case environmental hermeneutics in particular) is two-fold: 1) To demonstrate that the Anthropocene is not a term merely corresponding to a scientific set of facts but that those supposed neutral facts are understood and given meaning; and 2) to reflect upon how the Anthropocene, as a hermeneutical term, invites us to consider worlds that may unfold in front of the Anthropocene and our being-in-the-world that unfolds in front of it. What potential worlds do we wish to avoid, and which
would we like to fashion?
The notion of not having the last word, is a common theme in Hans-Georg Gadamer’s writings. For Gadamer, this means, among other things, that to engage in a genuine, reciprocal dialogue, one must remain open to the real possibility that one’s position is wrong or perhaps needs rethinking. This essay dialectically examines Socrates’ interactions with Alcibiades in the Symposium to see whether Socrates himself is, in fact, a good dialogue partner in Gadamer’s sense. My strategy is to offer a close reading of relevant passages of the Symposium in order to make manifest the dialectical and ethical tensions within the text, especially in the interaction of Socrates and Alcibiades. My aim is not to offer a detailed reading of Gadamer’s reading of specific Platonic dialogues; rather, my aim is to articulate, as it were, a Gadamerian-inspired framework whose main structures include genuine dialogical openness to the other, anticipatory listening, risk, a willingness to put one’s own views to the test, and an embrace of one’s finitude. Having explained key aspects of Gadamer’s position, I then show how Socrates’ engagement with Alcibiades falls short of what Gadamer throughout his corpus emphasizes as hermeneutical virtues.
Keywords: Putin’s imperialist history, Great Patriotic War narrative, Russia-Ukraine War, Kremlin propaganda, Russian (neo)imperialism
(and in this case environmental hermeneutics in particular) is two-fold: 1) To demonstrate that the Anthropocene is not a term merely corresponding to a scientific set of facts but that those supposed neutral facts are understood and given meaning; and 2) to reflect upon how the Anthropocene, as a hermeneutical term, invites us to consider worlds that may unfold in front of the Anthropocene and our being-in-the-world that unfolds in front of it. What potential worlds do we wish to avoid, and which
would we like to fashion?
The notion of not having the last word, is a common theme in Hans-Georg Gadamer’s writings. For Gadamer, this means, among other things, that to engage in a genuine, reciprocal dialogue, one must remain open to the real possibility that one’s position is wrong or perhaps needs rethinking. This essay dialectically examines Socrates’ interactions with Alcibiades in the Symposium to see whether Socrates himself is, in fact, a good dialogue partner in Gadamer’s sense. My strategy is to offer a close reading of relevant passages of the Symposium in order to make manifest the dialectical and ethical tensions within the text, especially in the interaction of Socrates and Alcibiades. My aim is not to offer a detailed reading of Gadamer’s reading of specific Platonic dialogues; rather, my aim is to articulate, as it were, a Gadamerian-inspired framework whose main structures include genuine dialogical openness to the other, anticipatory listening, risk, a willingness to put one’s own views to the test, and an embrace of one’s finitude. Having explained key aspects of Gadamer’s position, I then show how Socrates’ engagement with Alcibiades falls short of what Gadamer throughout his corpus emphasizes as hermeneutical virtues.
Comme l’existence humaine, notre héritage—qu’il soit poétique, éthique, politique ou philosophique—se développe continuellement et requiert un engagement commun et une remise en question permanente. Autrement dit, une représentation continue d’oeuvres significatives doit se produire, exigeant l’activité humaine collective de re-mémoration et de ré-assemblement. Dans Le Banquet de Platon, Diotime explore les poursuites humaines de l’immortalité par l’invention d’artéfacts—incluant des lois, des poèmes et des discours philosophiques qui font écho à l’explication de Gadamer sur nos relations avec les oeuvres d’art et les textes. Cet essai s’interroge sur les points communs entre Platon et Gadamer à travers la complexité de Diotime dont l’enseignement sur le caractère ‘processif’ de l’existence humaine et sa compréhension du savoir tel un processus dynamique sont largement ignorés.
Sections two–five are devoted to (1) explaining key concepts in Gadamer’s account of our experience of art and art’s dynamic ontology and (2) highlighting how difference and the other’s enigmatic dimensions are upheld and integral to Gadamer’s account. In section six, I gesture toward a Gadamerian approach to avant-garde jazz, which underscores Gadamer’s openness to new expressions of art and alterity.
[Final draft for journal submission; do not circulate or cite]