Lessons in Conversation

Epoche, 2022

Gadamer's retrieval of phronēsis lies at the heart of his philosophical hermeneutics. This paper argues that this retrieval requires a co-retrieval of what Aristotle referred to as character virtue, and that Gadamer's work largely neglects this. In part one, I review Aristotle's analysis of the relationship between phronēsis and character virtue. In part two, I show how Gadamer's double insistence on the importance of phronēsis for his hermeneutics and on taking responsibility for concepts generates the requirement of a co-retrieval of character virtues and vices. Following this, I then survey four ambiguous tendencies in Gadamer's work that seem to militate against such a retrieval. I conclude with some remarks for future work.

2014

The idea of dialogue occupies arguably the most central position in Hans-Georg Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics (Gadamer 1960/1989). Dialogue is here not understood merely as the conversation between two subjects about something of common interest in a shared medium of understanding, but rather as the foundational phenomenon within which objects and themes, subjects and perspectives, and common interest and shared understanding are grounded. The foundational character of dialogue derives from the fact that all experience is understood to be linguistically mediated, while language as a medium exists in its true and essential form as dialogue. The strongest support for this approach comes from a phenomenological perspective on understanding, i.e. on what really happens when we understand something, when we make sense of something by interpreting it. Bringing together the encompassing and foundational role of dialogue with its concrete origin in the act of interpretation will yield...

Journal of The British Society for Phenomenology, 2009

The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 1990

Continental Philosophy Review, 2003

Continental Philosophy Review, 2015

preoccupation with the "Socratic question" and the development of his views on it since his Habilitationsschrift, Plato's Dialectical Ethics (1931). The Socratic question consists of two intertwined questions:

Studia Phaenomenologica, 2002

Continental Philosophy Review, 2006

PhaenEx, 2006

S. Geniusas: Although Gadamer’s hermeneutics has suffered attacks from a number of philosophical perspectives, the profusion of criticisms seldom constitutes new challenges and for the most part is a reiteration of two seemingly opposite claims. On the one hand, we often hear that Gadamer’s hermeneutics is merely a disguised brand of the “philosophy of the subject” which under the pretext of openness reduces the Other to the self. On the other hand, it is just as often claimed that Gadamer’s writings fall into the category of the “hermeneutics of the fundamental questions” and therefore they cannot account for the selfhood of the self. Taking as its focus the theme of the oneness of the hermeneutical horizon(s), this paper argues that this theme carries no hegemonic or essentialist connotations. Rather, a careful analysis, which accentuates the negative and the dialectical elements of the oneness of horizons and the fact that this theme is for Gadamer both a presupposition and an ac...

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