Abstract
Georgia Warnke also draws explicitly on Gadamer’s hermeneutics and argues for an analogy between persons and texts: that is, identities of persons are like interpretations of texts. Just as Gadamer insists on the situated, purposeful, and partial nature of textual interpretation, so Warnke insists the same is true for our identities. Warnke argues that there is never one single identity that is true for all times and for all places and therefore none of our identities ought to gain “imperial” status. What gives an identity legitimacy is its ability to cohere within a situation. Warnke’s identity pluralism provides a more efficacious approach to the critique of identity-based oppression than Alcoff’s identity realism. Nevertheless, I end the chapter noting three lacunae that remain in Warnke’s thought.
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Barthold, L.S. (2016). Coherence. In: A Hermeneutic Approach to Gender and Other Social Identities. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58897-5_3
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