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(2015) The problem of objectivity in Gadamer's hermeneutics in light of McDowell's empiricism, Dordrecht, Springer.
In this chapter, I want to elucidate the ontological dimension of hermeneutics by focusing on our perceptual relation to the world as a "dialogical" relation. It will become clear that meaning, according to a hermeneutic account, originates in what McDowell terms the equipoise between subjective and objective.I will take my point of departure in Gadamer's claim that language is the medium in which the original belongingness between man and world presents itself (Sect. 1). This ontological thesis complements Gadamer's transcendental claim, which I examined in the previous chapter: that language comprehends "everything that can ever be an object". As has become clear, this claim springs from the conception of our intentional life as characterised by the challenge of responsibility. This challenge, which is implicit in human intentionality, is given its paradigmatic expression in the Socratic demand to give an account, and an explicit transcendental formulation in Sellars' idea that our intentional life takes place within the space of reasons.
Publication details
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-18648-1_4
Full citation:
Thaning, M.S. (2015). Perceptual experience and the ontology of self-presentation, in The problem of objectivity in Gadamer's hermeneutics in light of McDowell's empiricism, Dordrecht, Springer, pp. 61-115.
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