Abstract
By creating the idolatrous being of infinite transcendence we have opened the floodgates for all the excesses and fictive accounts that the language of negative transcendence reflects and mirrors. The claims to extraordinary powers, extraordinary truth, absolute standpoints, ultimate answers to the human predicament in prepackaged totalities — they would all make great entertainment were it not for the fact that we have incorporated this fictive transcendence in our definitions of man. Such non-human exploits would make great entertainment were it not for the fact that we take them seriously and thereby give them primacy to the works of finite transcendence. Hans Georg Gadamer’s account of human language is another such flight beyond finite transcendence, which the author claims is done in the service of radical finitude. It is the power of infinite transcendence that makes possible the quest for external totalities. When this idolatrous being sets up its dwelling place within the domain of finitude the multiplication of totalities is the rule of the day. Why are philosophers so enamored with totalities? Why are they drawn to them like a magnet? The answer seems obvious. It enables them to make non-human claims for what they have done. It enables them to walk in the procession with divinities.
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Notes
Joseph P. Fell, Heidegger and Sartre ( New York: Columbia University Press, 1979 ), pp. 1–2.
Hans Georg Gadamer, trans. P.C. Smith, Hegel’s Dialectic ( New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976 ), p. 84.
Gadamer, trans. D.E. Linge, Philosophical Hermeneutics ( Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976 ), p. 80.
Hans Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method ( New York: The Seabury Press, 1975 ).
P. Christopher Smith, ‘Gadamer on Language and Method in Hegel’s Dialectic,’ Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal (Fall, 1975), pp. 53–72. The New School for Social Research, New York City.
Gadamer, The Problem of Historical Consciousness (New School for Social Research, New York City: Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal, Fall 1975 ), p. 51.
Theodore Kisiel, ‘The Happening of Tradition: The Hermeneutics of Gadamer and Heidegger,’ Man and World, Vol. II (1969), pp. 370–380. Kisiel’s only critical comment is given below: ‘But at this point, one begins to feel restive in the face of the lack of emphasis of the erratic, of the possibility of failure and of all the other contingencies that enter into human existence. Even if it may be true that on the level of language, the healing power of time filters out the sources that accrue from being too close to an issue, it would seem that other levels of experience need to be invoked to complete a hermeneutic ontology, to indicate, for example, the necessity for the ‘demystifying’ movement of hermeneutics.’ But such a thing is no longer possible since the self, with its capacity for directional transcendence has been banished by this hermeneutic ontology. Self-1 is no longer around to initiate plans of de-alienation and démystification. Plans of de- alienation and démystification have to come from outside the circle of reified experience.
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© 1987 Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht
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Horosz, W. (1987). Totalism versus subjectivism in Gadamer’s hermeneutics. In: Search Without Idols. Martinus Nijhoff Philosophy Library, vol 17. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3493-1_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3493-1_11
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