180135 LPS The Art of Understanding (2022S)

Goals

Students learn to historically contextualize and critically reflect on philosophical texts. This means that they learn to recognize and assess philosophical arguments in a text, discuss the key aspects—both in oral exchange and in written form—and independently formulate one or several arguments in their final paper.

Contents

We read selected classical texts on hermeneutics from the 19th and 20th centuries. The goal is to understand the basic hermeneutic positions of Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer.

Hermeneutics refers to the "art of interpretation" or "art of understanding". Its origins go back to Greek mythology, but it was developed into a universal theory of interpretation during the 19th century. Friedrich Schleiermacher, the founder of modern hermeneutics, defined it as “the art of understanding particularly the written discourse of another person correctly.” In the second half of the 19th century, Wilhelm Dilthey developed hermeneutics into an epistemological theory of the human sciences. For him, hermeneutics had mainly to do with their methodological foundation.

In the 20th century, Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer steered philosophical hermeneutics in another direction. For them, hermeneutics was to become from a theory of interpretation to a wholesale philosophy of human understanding.

Language

The texts will be read in their original language (German), but English translations will be provided if necessary. The discussions will predominantly be held in German. Oral and written contributions may be in German or English. I welcome students whose first language is not German and encourage those who would like to write their final paper in English.