Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Gadamer-Derrida Dialogue
The place of tradition and philosophical understanding for Gadamer and Derrida is inextricably bound to the Hegelian dialectic of understanding. Although neither Gadamer nor Derrida are completely destroying or diametrically opposed to this Hegelian creation, they both interpret understanding from this model in different methods. Gadamer proposes to ground understanding within a structure of tradition for the sake of eliminating misunderstanding, so as to make the process of interpreting the other take place on common ground within the act of conversation. Derrida, however, argues that there exists escaped meaning in the relationships between concepts that exist previous to any defferal and are independently meaningful. The issue at hand is that under Gadamer’s model understanding and knowledge comes from an interpretation and challenge of the established tradition, as opposed to Derrida’s proposition that new understanding comes from independent relationships between concepts that allow a radical break from tradition.
The differences between Gadamer and Derrida are best highlighted when examining how each method deals with a subject coming to understand the alien or other. The subject and the other reach a compromise via conversation, which is helped by a common ground of understanding that is made possible by a mutual trust within tradition. By using a common ground in language, the subject and the other can come to what Gadamer labels as a fusion of horizons. Where the perspectives of the two characters comes to an agreement or compromise. This is a new understanding derived from the basis of a tradition. However Gadamer persists that the compromise does not result in a complete understanding of the other, but rather that the act of engagement reveals more about the subject’s self to itself. Gadamer also uses this act of engagement within the bounds of interpreting texts, in the sense that when one interprets a text, their interpretation is more so a revelation about the self than the text one is interpreting. The use of the English Literature Canon is a normative example of texts that transcend their original context and are used in a contemporary context to be constantly interpreted, not in order to understand the text, but so that each generation can in turn come to understand itself better.
“The concept of the classical is capable of being extended to any ‘development’ to which an immanent telos gives unity.”
“The classical is something that resists historical criticism because its historical dominion, the binding power of the validity that is preserved and handed down, precedes all historical reflection and continues in it.”
In this case the classical works of literature represent the tradition by which we have come to place our trust and thus provides a common ground. The text, it is pre-supposed, has an inherent coherency and overall meaning. That is to say that the text was written with intent and therefore presents a reality of the world in which we exist. It is the method in which that we interpret meaning that Gadamer sets about a hermeneutic project. A project that defines the process of interpretation by projecting structures of totality and coherence upon a text, while analysing the detail. This constant re-evaluation between the detail and the subject’s projection of a coherent whole is the hermeneutic circle.
Derrida’s account of the history of philosophy involves new understanding coming about from a tearing from the past. Rather than the neat synthesis of concepts that evolve throughout the Hegelian model, there is meaning to be found within the differential relations of concepts. By understanding the discrimination of the other, the bridge between two concepts, therein lie an understanding that does not have a dichotomy and cannot be deferred onto yet another synthesis. Rather than a neat coming together of ideas, as an ideal fusion of horizons, Derrida offers another origin of meaning. The ruptures, or disembarking from tradition, give an account of a history of understanding. A breaking free of the limitations that human understanding has, at a point in time, encountered – the limitation that cause understanding to stagnate. In contrast to the hermeneutic circle that Gadamer draws his focus toward, Derrida is absorbed in removing, or at least changing positively, what Gadamer labels as fore-structure. The fore-structure, which projects onto a text before interpretation, is according to Gadamer changeable, but necessary, and made aware to the subject at the point of interpretation of the text. Deconstructionalist arguments suggest that Gadamer’s model of these fore-structures and their representation within authority for the sake of wiping out misunderstanding is too conservative. This makes it more difficult for the individual to affect change in the fore-structure. Arguably the core presumption of every text being coherent and whole is one that Derrida attempts to lay aside, not only in argument, but also within his very writing style. Rather than a hermeneutic circle Derrida pursues the project of differánce.
The hermeneutic project for Gadamer begins with a removal of the Historical consciousness that embraces the objective as a viewpoint, or even the striving of a neutral viewpoint. For even the will to be neutral, and to actually be neutral in one’s perspective, is a set of prejudices to be acknowledged and interpreted within context. What the hermeneutic project involves therefore is a reinstatement of prejudices, not as an unidentified force, but as a set of filters that are to be present in one’s interpretation, and always made available for improvement. This embraces a Kantian idea of knowledge springing from experience, as defined as phenomena; the individual gains knowledge from his experiences and interaction with the world. Since the individual, Dasein, is also embedded within the world, or makes up the world one is in, then Gadamer insists that the removal of experience from the subjective realm is a form of alienation, thus making the individual an other to himself.
“Man is alien to himself and his historical fate in a way quite different from the way nature, which knows nothing of him, is alien to him.”
Change of prejudices, fore-structure, comes about through a new experience, one that challenges the understanding of previous knowledge of such an experience. Self-examination needs to be different from examination of the other, because it is a result of an examination of the other that conflicts with one’s normative values. Even the empirical sciences have a set of normative values that are revered, but are overturned by conflicting evidence that is achieved via the normative dialogue pursued within the fields of the empirical science. The hermeneutic project must embrace the existence of the subjective prejudices that are inherent within the individual toward everything one experiences within the world. Upon this embrace it is possible for the hermeneutic project to recognise and then collapse the differences between the prejudices of the subject and the other, and the prejudices of the subject and the object of [new] experience.
Gadamer’s new historicism sets out to understand the set of conditions for individual epochs of history. In this sense historicism can be concerned with context of thought and its interpretation rather than its place within a grand narrative. This historicism allows for a diversity of histories to be understood in their own context, without resorting to pseudo-relativism, because the truth, as represented by an authority, is how the generation of the epoch interpreted and understood themselves. This is an internal explanation – an examination of subjective interpretation within its own context, which if it were to be interpreted by another epoch would in turn be subjected to its own set of subjective prejudices that would be accommodated by Gadamer’s account of historicism. However this faces some limitations. The diverse contextual truth does not allow for a trans-epochal truth, a universal. Then the epochal truths cannot be defined to boundaries of time or a set period in thought. The limitations to this model of history of philosophy, themselves, are not problematic to Gadamer’s argument, in fact Gadamer insists on a lack of universal truth, however the issues they raise do become problematic for Gadamer’s project. The insistence of a non-existence of universals is problematic due to the nature of hermeneutics, and its aims, being representative of a universal. That is the hermeneutic circle is relevant throughout the epochs that Gadamer wishes to assign personal histories, separate from a meta-history, and is used, perhaps not knowingly so as to consciously change one’s prejudices, but as a model of Dasein’s development of prejudice, and the use of a fore-structure when approaching a text, is universal in its nature. The boundaries of the epochs may be defined, not by time, but by the continuation of strands of common knowledge by individuals throughout time. In a sense this can be understood as the epoch not being carried by time and time’s boundaries, but by the individuals themselves who incorporate the distinguishing mark of an epoch. This way an epoch carries over time, can die out and resurface over time, but the history and subjective truths are carried regardless. However, not unlike the problem of universals, this definition of epoch flies in the face of tradition being a stronghold for prejudices for the sake of limiting misunderstanding, but remaining fluid enough for continual re-assessment. An epoch cannot be defined individuals retaining the common ground, because that is the place of tradition, which has a featured time, and if tradition does not have a featured time then the authority is overly conservative and not allowing for continual re-assessment of its grounds for understanding.
Derrida argues that we are not as bound to tradition as to entrust in it a need for common ground. The inner experiences that Bataille examines in context to Hegel are what Derrida claims to be grounds for a radical break away from tradition. These inner experiences, concepts that do not defer onto other concepts, that are not only self-defined within Dasein, but also lack a solid definition of any kind, do not escape the Hegelian model, but exist as the space within the machination of the Hegelian dialectic. The prejudices of Dasein need not be supported by tradition in any sense, but can be accumulated by these inner expressions and non-concepts. In a similar way Derrida’s notion of differánce works to accumulate meaning and understanding that exists not in the words or text alone but within the differences between the concepts. The difference between the texts as it is written, as it is spoken, and then as it is translated, transcribes, so on and so forth. The understanding of prejudice and interpretation therefore is not bound to a tradition that harbors a framework of thesis, antithesis and synthesis, but is flexible to non-concepts such as emotion, tone, intonation, and spelling. In this model there is no need for an authority to house libraries of concepts and their normative values, but rather this is represented by Dasein understanding the differánce between concepts being used and conflicting against their prejudices. From this arises rifts from tradition, which are the threads for change in prejudice, understanding and the history of philosophy. Only a rehabilitated notion of an authority that is not dogmatic and allows for perpetual re-evaluation by free-thinkers will allow Gadamer’s system to function as first desired.
To change the tradition of common understanding, the participants of a society must use an ethic of conversation; this will create their own subjective epoch. Since new experiences bring about recognition of prejudice, and the recognition of prejudice brings about a change in prejudice, the ethic of conversation must be widespread to make it common. So much so that it must be taken as a responsibility of the individual who experiences something new, something shocking, a conflict of some kind, to share this experience with others as much as possible. The ethic must insist that subjects attempt to explore new horizons perpetually, so as the authority may be perpetually challenged. In dialogue our predispositions can change throughout and will thus broaden our sense of fore-structure. In this way a worldview may change if many, if all, enter into this dialogue of the other, or new. When everyone participates in this world dialogue of challenging their own perspectives, and challenging the accepted normative value system, then a broader understanding of how we understand comes about. This is what Gadamer explains when he examines the ethic of conversation that is life altering, and keeps authority in check. The purpose of tradition is clearly highlighted as a grounding sense only, as a place one can look back on and realise it, tradition, as a starting point. This interaction with the world and looking back at tradition highlights the tensions between our relative horizons of understanding and the differences between them.
The deconstructionist approach has a concern with the lack of freedom to change within the confines of the hermeneutic project, and in particular the structure of the hermeneutic circle. Rather than being a catalyst for change, in regards to one’s prejudice, the hermeneutic circle supports a homogenisation of prejudices to a goal of increased similarity. The fear in the hermeneutic circle is based on the potentiality that people will develop an over familiarity with the institutions that are entrusted with tradition, the set of normative values, and are not motivated to new experience. Since Gadamer’s model rests solely on the experience of the new to effect change within the fore-structure, an over trust in tradition would counter the idealistic motivation of complete knowledge. This demotivation to change may be circumvented by an understanding of multiple traditions. However Gadamer maintains the importance of a single tradition over an epoch as a point of reference for the generation’s understanding of itself. Yet this overarching tradition of authority is not objective, it is the respected, unchallenged, set of subjective fore-structures that, for Gadamer, define the epoch. On the other hand Derrida breaks the world into a network of nodes, whose relationships form the locus of meaning. In Derrida’s account of a network forming a basis of meaning, change within meaning occurs in the fluidity of language. The issues of conservative change that critique Gadamer do not have a basis from which to attack Derrida.
Through Derrida’s account of Bataille we can see a distinct relationship between tradition and meaning. Bataille explores the inner machinations of what he calls inner experience, which are concepts that are full of meaning and completely devoid of it. They hold onto the Hegelian concept of Aufhebung; maintaining while suppressing. These inner experiences exist without dichotomy, and without the ability to defer meaning. Bataille argues that these inner concepts are known to the subject, but their concept cannot be understood linguistically and therefore cannot be part of the Hegelian dialectic. These concepts form a part of non-knowledge; they are not contained within the authority that Gadamer proposes to develop for common understanding. Each individual understands these inner experiences, of love, laughter, on a completely individual set of terms that cannot be communicated to an other. From this Derrida draws a sliding of linguistic meaning, which forms the networks that build a locus of meaning. That is one can speak without saying anything of meaning. The meaning is gained from the relationship and context of the words used in dialogue. The meaning is present within the dialogue, obtained by understanding the subtlies of the form in which the dialogue takes place. Although Saussiere empowers speech act over the written from, Derrida attempts to show that each form of a text has its own set of relationships that contain meaning. This performance of text is explained by the term differánce; the linguistic spelling of differánce itself is telling of the meaning that is conveyed not by the concept, but by the form the concept takes place in the world. The differánce exists previous to any fore-structure, that is approaching the text expecting totality and coherence, and also previous to the dialectic of the Hegelian model. Derrida’s act of writing is in itself an example of how one may come to understand it’s meaning through its relationship to the form the text takes, and not specifically with models of coherence.
Even Gadamer speaks of an excess of meaning that escapes interpretation, which he then uses as a source of motivation to spur on an eternal interpretation in order that one may capture the excess. Gadamer makes sense of these limitations upon interpretation as knowledge of the incompleteness of one’s knowledge and therefore recognition that one must remain open-minded to accept experiences that will challenge prejudices. However if one is to understand Derrida’s concept of differánce, this excess of meaning can be explained as an articulation of differences within a pattern of a text. Within the context of the metaphysic of presence one may gain an understanding via the patterns of difference that accumulate in the excess meaning that escape in interpretation. Derrida understands these patterns as evidence of the lack of whole meaning within any synthesis. Stretching this point to an extreme, one may view this process as a redefinition of Gadamer’s hermeneutic circle. That a meaning is derived from understanding the patterns of difference that escape the text in context of the whole text. The details, which are examined in the hermeneutic circle, are instable and changeable. The details, patterns of difference, allow for ruptures and instability within a text, which, according to Derrida, bring about a deviation from tradition.
While Gadamer’s project is aimed at a perpetual interpretation, fuelled by an unreachable ideal of a fusion of horizons, the hermeneutic circle poses a structure of understanding one’s own prejudice in light of experience. The fusion of horizons does lead to a common ground between the subject and the other, but cannot breach the distance between the two. Both Gadamer and Derrida must accept that some meaning escapes from interpretation. How each deals with what escapes is fundamentally their respective differences in the history of philosophy. Derrida insists that what is left out leads to a certain misunderstanding between the subject and the other. The exclusions cannot be re-written into the other, they cannot be re-written into the whole, or tradition itself, but the relation between them can be sought after. This is where meaning is accredited. The space is importantly the meaning for Derrida, while for Gadamer it is a motivation. The space, escaped meaning, must exist for Gadamer. If it did not then the hermeneutic project would collapse, because the other would be wiped out, which means the potentiality for new experiences that lead to new understanding would not be possible.
Bibliography
Books
Bataille, Georges The Bataille Reader, Oxford Press, 1997
Derrida, Jacques Writing and Difference, University of Chicago Press, 1978
Derrida, Jacques Semiology and Grammatology: Interview with Julia Kristeva (1968), Ch.2 of Positions, University of Chicago Press, 1981
Derrida, Jacques Margins of Philosophy, University of Chicago Press, 1982
Gadamer, Hans-Georg Truth and Method, Second, Revised Ed. Continuum, 2004
Michelfelder, Diane & Palmer, Richard Dialogue and Deconstruction: The Gadamer-Derrida Encounter, State University of New York Press, 1989
Websites
Malpas, Jeff Hans-Georg Gadamer,
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/gadamer/
Last accessed: 14/11/05
Mieszkowski, Jan Derrida, Hegel, and the Language of Finitude, http://www3.iath.virginia.edu/pmc/current.issue/15.3mieszkowski.html
Last accessed: 14/11/05
Nettlefold, Gwen Hegel, Bataille, Lacan,
http://foucault.info/Foucault-L/archive/msg03143.shtml
Last accessed: 14/11/05
Szabo, Nick Hermeneutics: An Introduction to the Interpretation of Tradition,
http://szabo.best.vwh.net/hermeneutics.html
Last accessed: 14/11/05
Gadamer, Hans-Georg Truth and Method, Second, Revised Ed. Continuum, 2004 pg 289
Ibid. pg 288
Ibid. pg 283
Derrida, Jacques Writing and Difference, University of Chicago Press, 1978 pg 255
Gadamer, Hans-Georg Truth and Method, Second, Revised Ed. Continuum, 2004 pg 269
Mieszkowski, Jan Derrida, Hegel, and the Language of Finitude, http://www3.iath.virginia.edu/pmc/current.issue/15.3mieszkowski.html
Last accessed: 14/11/05
Gadamer, Hans-Georg Truth and Method, Second, Revised Ed. Continuum, 2004 pg 273
Ibid. pg 275
Ibid. pg 279
Ibid. pg 273
Ibid. pg 277
Malpas, Jeff Hans-Georg Gadamer,
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/gadamer/
Last accessed: 14/11/05
Ibid.
Derrida, Jacques Writing and Difference, University of Chicago Press, 1978 pg 252
Ibid. pg 254
Derrida, Jacques Margins of Philosophy, University of Chicago Press, 1982 pg 9
“But this is not the essence of authority. Admittedly, it is primarily persons that have authority; but the authority of persons is ultimately based not on the subjection and abdication of reason but on an act of acknowledgement and knowledge – the knowledge, namely, that the other is superior to oneself in judgement and insight and that for this reason his judgement takes precedence –i.e., it has priority over one’s own. This is connected with the fact that authority cannot actually be bestowed but is earned, and must be earned if someone is to lay claim to it. It rests on acknowledgement and hence on an act of reason itself which, aware of its own limitations, trusts to the better insight of others. Authority in this sense, properly understood, has nothing to do with blind obedience to commands. Indeed, authority has to do not with obedience but rather with knowledge.” - Gadamer, Hans-Georg Truth and Method, Second, Revised Ed. Continuum, 2004
“we are always situated within traditions, and this is no objectifying process – i.e., we do not conceive of what tradition says as something other, something alien. It is always part of us, a model or exemplar, a kind of cognizance that our later historical judgement would hardly regard as a kind of knowledge but as the most ingenuous affinity with tradition.” - Gadamer, Hans-Georg Truth and Method, Second, Revised Ed. Continuum, 2004
Gadamer, Hans-Georg Truth and Method, Second, Revised Ed. Continuum, 2004 pg 342/43
Szabo, Nick Hermeneutics: An Introduction to the Interpretation of Tradition,
Gadamer, Hans-Georg Truth and Method, Second, Revised Ed. Continuum, 2004 pg 343
Mieszkowski, Jan Derrida, Hegel, and the Language of Finitude, http://www3.iath.virginia.edu/pmc/current.issue/15.3mieszkowski.html
Last accessed: 14/11/05
Ibid.
Harle, Joshua Neonaescent www.muchmojo.com Last accessed: 5/11/05
Derrida, Jacques Margins of Philosophy, University of Chicago Press, 1982 pg. 275
Bataille, Georges The Bataille Reader, Oxford Press, 1997 pg 101
Nettlefold, Gwen Hegel, Bataille, Lacan,
http://foucault.info/Foucault-L/archive/msg03143.shtml
Last accessed: 14/11/05
Ibid. 102
Derrida, Jacques Writing and Difference, University of Chicago Press, 1978 pg 262
Derrida, Jacques Margins of Philosophy, University of Chicago Press, 1982 pg. 12
“If the entire of history of meaning is reassembled and represented, at a point of the canvas, by the figure of the slave, if Hegel’s discourse, Logic, and the Book of which Kojève speaks are the slave(‘s) language, that is, the worker(‘s) language, then they can be read from left to right or from right to left, as a reactionary movement or as a revolutionary movement, or both at once. It would be absurd for the transgression of the Book by writing to be legible only in a determined sense. It would be at once absurd, given the form of the Aufhebung which is maintained in transgression, and too full of meaning for a transgression of meaning. From right to left or left to right; these two contradictory and too-meaningful propositions equally lack pertinence. At a certain determined point.” – Derrida, Jacques Writing and Difference, University of Chicago Press, 1978 pg 276
The differences between Gadamer and Derrida are best highlighted when examining how each method deals with a subject coming to understand the alien or other. The subject and the other reach a compromise via conversation, which is helped by a common ground of understanding that is made possible by a mutual trust within tradition. By using a common ground in language, the subject and the other can come to what Gadamer labels as a fusion of horizons. Where the perspectives of the two characters comes to an agreement or compromise. This is a new understanding derived from the basis of a tradition. However Gadamer persists that the compromise does not result in a complete understanding of the other, but rather that the act of engagement reveals more about the subject’s self to itself. Gadamer also uses this act of engagement within the bounds of interpreting texts, in the sense that when one interprets a text, their interpretation is more so a revelation about the self than the text one is interpreting. The use of the English Literature Canon is a normative example of texts that transcend their original context and are used in a contemporary context to be constantly interpreted, not in order to understand the text, but so that each generation can in turn come to understand itself better.
“The concept of the classical is capable of being extended to any ‘development’ to which an immanent telos gives unity.”
“The classical is something that resists historical criticism because its historical dominion, the binding power of the validity that is preserved and handed down, precedes all historical reflection and continues in it.”
In this case the classical works of literature represent the tradition by which we have come to place our trust and thus provides a common ground. The text, it is pre-supposed, has an inherent coherency and overall meaning. That is to say that the text was written with intent and therefore presents a reality of the world in which we exist. It is the method in which that we interpret meaning that Gadamer sets about a hermeneutic project. A project that defines the process of interpretation by projecting structures of totality and coherence upon a text, while analysing the detail. This constant re-evaluation between the detail and the subject’s projection of a coherent whole is the hermeneutic circle.
Derrida’s account of the history of philosophy involves new understanding coming about from a tearing from the past. Rather than the neat synthesis of concepts that evolve throughout the Hegelian model, there is meaning to be found within the differential relations of concepts. By understanding the discrimination of the other, the bridge between two concepts, therein lie an understanding that does not have a dichotomy and cannot be deferred onto yet another synthesis. Rather than a neat coming together of ideas, as an ideal fusion of horizons, Derrida offers another origin of meaning. The ruptures, or disembarking from tradition, give an account of a history of understanding. A breaking free of the limitations that human understanding has, at a point in time, encountered – the limitation that cause understanding to stagnate. In contrast to the hermeneutic circle that Gadamer draws his focus toward, Derrida is absorbed in removing, or at least changing positively, what Gadamer labels as fore-structure. The fore-structure, which projects onto a text before interpretation, is according to Gadamer changeable, but necessary, and made aware to the subject at the point of interpretation of the text. Deconstructionalist arguments suggest that Gadamer’s model of these fore-structures and their representation within authority for the sake of wiping out misunderstanding is too conservative. This makes it more difficult for the individual to affect change in the fore-structure. Arguably the core presumption of every text being coherent and whole is one that Derrida attempts to lay aside, not only in argument, but also within his very writing style. Rather than a hermeneutic circle Derrida pursues the project of differánce.
The hermeneutic project for Gadamer begins with a removal of the Historical consciousness that embraces the objective as a viewpoint, or even the striving of a neutral viewpoint. For even the will to be neutral, and to actually be neutral in one’s perspective, is a set of prejudices to be acknowledged and interpreted within context. What the hermeneutic project involves therefore is a reinstatement of prejudices, not as an unidentified force, but as a set of filters that are to be present in one’s interpretation, and always made available for improvement. This embraces a Kantian idea of knowledge springing from experience, as defined as phenomena; the individual gains knowledge from his experiences and interaction with the world. Since the individual, Dasein, is also embedded within the world, or makes up the world one is in, then Gadamer insists that the removal of experience from the subjective realm is a form of alienation, thus making the individual an other to himself.
“Man is alien to himself and his historical fate in a way quite different from the way nature, which knows nothing of him, is alien to him.”
Change of prejudices, fore-structure, comes about through a new experience, one that challenges the understanding of previous knowledge of such an experience. Self-examination needs to be different from examination of the other, because it is a result of an examination of the other that conflicts with one’s normative values. Even the empirical sciences have a set of normative values that are revered, but are overturned by conflicting evidence that is achieved via the normative dialogue pursued within the fields of the empirical science. The hermeneutic project must embrace the existence of the subjective prejudices that are inherent within the individual toward everything one experiences within the world. Upon this embrace it is possible for the hermeneutic project to recognise and then collapse the differences between the prejudices of the subject and the other, and the prejudices of the subject and the object of [new] experience.
Gadamer’s new historicism sets out to understand the set of conditions for individual epochs of history. In this sense historicism can be concerned with context of thought and its interpretation rather than its place within a grand narrative. This historicism allows for a diversity of histories to be understood in their own context, without resorting to pseudo-relativism, because the truth, as represented by an authority, is how the generation of the epoch interpreted and understood themselves. This is an internal explanation – an examination of subjective interpretation within its own context, which if it were to be interpreted by another epoch would in turn be subjected to its own set of subjective prejudices that would be accommodated by Gadamer’s account of historicism. However this faces some limitations. The diverse contextual truth does not allow for a trans-epochal truth, a universal. Then the epochal truths cannot be defined to boundaries of time or a set period in thought. The limitations to this model of history of philosophy, themselves, are not problematic to Gadamer’s argument, in fact Gadamer insists on a lack of universal truth, however the issues they raise do become problematic for Gadamer’s project. The insistence of a non-existence of universals is problematic due to the nature of hermeneutics, and its aims, being representative of a universal. That is the hermeneutic circle is relevant throughout the epochs that Gadamer wishes to assign personal histories, separate from a meta-history, and is used, perhaps not knowingly so as to consciously change one’s prejudices, but as a model of Dasein’s development of prejudice, and the use of a fore-structure when approaching a text, is universal in its nature. The boundaries of the epochs may be defined, not by time, but by the continuation of strands of common knowledge by individuals throughout time. In a sense this can be understood as the epoch not being carried by time and time’s boundaries, but by the individuals themselves who incorporate the distinguishing mark of an epoch. This way an epoch carries over time, can die out and resurface over time, but the history and subjective truths are carried regardless. However, not unlike the problem of universals, this definition of epoch flies in the face of tradition being a stronghold for prejudices for the sake of limiting misunderstanding, but remaining fluid enough for continual re-assessment. An epoch cannot be defined individuals retaining the common ground, because that is the place of tradition, which has a featured time, and if tradition does not have a featured time then the authority is overly conservative and not allowing for continual re-assessment of its grounds for understanding.
Derrida argues that we are not as bound to tradition as to entrust in it a need for common ground. The inner experiences that Bataille examines in context to Hegel are what Derrida claims to be grounds for a radical break away from tradition. These inner experiences, concepts that do not defer onto other concepts, that are not only self-defined within Dasein, but also lack a solid definition of any kind, do not escape the Hegelian model, but exist as the space within the machination of the Hegelian dialectic. The prejudices of Dasein need not be supported by tradition in any sense, but can be accumulated by these inner expressions and non-concepts. In a similar way Derrida’s notion of differánce works to accumulate meaning and understanding that exists not in the words or text alone but within the differences between the concepts. The difference between the texts as it is written, as it is spoken, and then as it is translated, transcribes, so on and so forth. The understanding of prejudice and interpretation therefore is not bound to a tradition that harbors a framework of thesis, antithesis and synthesis, but is flexible to non-concepts such as emotion, tone, intonation, and spelling. In this model there is no need for an authority to house libraries of concepts and their normative values, but rather this is represented by Dasein understanding the differánce between concepts being used and conflicting against their prejudices. From this arises rifts from tradition, which are the threads for change in prejudice, understanding and the history of philosophy. Only a rehabilitated notion of an authority that is not dogmatic and allows for perpetual re-evaluation by free-thinkers will allow Gadamer’s system to function as first desired.
To change the tradition of common understanding, the participants of a society must use an ethic of conversation; this will create their own subjective epoch. Since new experiences bring about recognition of prejudice, and the recognition of prejudice brings about a change in prejudice, the ethic of conversation must be widespread to make it common. So much so that it must be taken as a responsibility of the individual who experiences something new, something shocking, a conflict of some kind, to share this experience with others as much as possible. The ethic must insist that subjects attempt to explore new horizons perpetually, so as the authority may be perpetually challenged. In dialogue our predispositions can change throughout and will thus broaden our sense of fore-structure. In this way a worldview may change if many, if all, enter into this dialogue of the other, or new. When everyone participates in this world dialogue of challenging their own perspectives, and challenging the accepted normative value system, then a broader understanding of how we understand comes about. This is what Gadamer explains when he examines the ethic of conversation that is life altering, and keeps authority in check. The purpose of tradition is clearly highlighted as a grounding sense only, as a place one can look back on and realise it, tradition, as a starting point. This interaction with the world and looking back at tradition highlights the tensions between our relative horizons of understanding and the differences between them.
The deconstructionist approach has a concern with the lack of freedom to change within the confines of the hermeneutic project, and in particular the structure of the hermeneutic circle. Rather than being a catalyst for change, in regards to one’s prejudice, the hermeneutic circle supports a homogenisation of prejudices to a goal of increased similarity. The fear in the hermeneutic circle is based on the potentiality that people will develop an over familiarity with the institutions that are entrusted with tradition, the set of normative values, and are not motivated to new experience. Since Gadamer’s model rests solely on the experience of the new to effect change within the fore-structure, an over trust in tradition would counter the idealistic motivation of complete knowledge. This demotivation to change may be circumvented by an understanding of multiple traditions. However Gadamer maintains the importance of a single tradition over an epoch as a point of reference for the generation’s understanding of itself. Yet this overarching tradition of authority is not objective, it is the respected, unchallenged, set of subjective fore-structures that, for Gadamer, define the epoch. On the other hand Derrida breaks the world into a network of nodes, whose relationships form the locus of meaning. In Derrida’s account of a network forming a basis of meaning, change within meaning occurs in the fluidity of language. The issues of conservative change that critique Gadamer do not have a basis from which to attack Derrida.
Through Derrida’s account of Bataille we can see a distinct relationship between tradition and meaning. Bataille explores the inner machinations of what he calls inner experience, which are concepts that are full of meaning and completely devoid of it. They hold onto the Hegelian concept of Aufhebung; maintaining while suppressing. These inner experiences exist without dichotomy, and without the ability to defer meaning. Bataille argues that these inner concepts are known to the subject, but their concept cannot be understood linguistically and therefore cannot be part of the Hegelian dialectic. These concepts form a part of non-knowledge; they are not contained within the authority that Gadamer proposes to develop for common understanding. Each individual understands these inner experiences, of love, laughter, on a completely individual set of terms that cannot be communicated to an other. From this Derrida draws a sliding of linguistic meaning, which forms the networks that build a locus of meaning. That is one can speak without saying anything of meaning. The meaning is gained from the relationship and context of the words used in dialogue. The meaning is present within the dialogue, obtained by understanding the subtlies of the form in which the dialogue takes place. Although Saussiere empowers speech act over the written from, Derrida attempts to show that each form of a text has its own set of relationships that contain meaning. This performance of text is explained by the term differánce; the linguistic spelling of differánce itself is telling of the meaning that is conveyed not by the concept, but by the form the concept takes place in the world. The differánce exists previous to any fore-structure, that is approaching the text expecting totality and coherence, and also previous to the dialectic of the Hegelian model. Derrida’s act of writing is in itself an example of how one may come to understand it’s meaning through its relationship to the form the text takes, and not specifically with models of coherence.
Even Gadamer speaks of an excess of meaning that escapes interpretation, which he then uses as a source of motivation to spur on an eternal interpretation in order that one may capture the excess. Gadamer makes sense of these limitations upon interpretation as knowledge of the incompleteness of one’s knowledge and therefore recognition that one must remain open-minded to accept experiences that will challenge prejudices. However if one is to understand Derrida’s concept of differánce, this excess of meaning can be explained as an articulation of differences within a pattern of a text. Within the context of the metaphysic of presence one may gain an understanding via the patterns of difference that accumulate in the excess meaning that escape in interpretation. Derrida understands these patterns as evidence of the lack of whole meaning within any synthesis. Stretching this point to an extreme, one may view this process as a redefinition of Gadamer’s hermeneutic circle. That a meaning is derived from understanding the patterns of difference that escape the text in context of the whole text. The details, which are examined in the hermeneutic circle, are instable and changeable. The details, patterns of difference, allow for ruptures and instability within a text, which, according to Derrida, bring about a deviation from tradition.
While Gadamer’s project is aimed at a perpetual interpretation, fuelled by an unreachable ideal of a fusion of horizons, the hermeneutic circle poses a structure of understanding one’s own prejudice in light of experience. The fusion of horizons does lead to a common ground between the subject and the other, but cannot breach the distance between the two. Both Gadamer and Derrida must accept that some meaning escapes from interpretation. How each deals with what escapes is fundamentally their respective differences in the history of philosophy. Derrida insists that what is left out leads to a certain misunderstanding between the subject and the other. The exclusions cannot be re-written into the other, they cannot be re-written into the whole, or tradition itself, but the relation between them can be sought after. This is where meaning is accredited. The space is importantly the meaning for Derrida, while for Gadamer it is a motivation. The space, escaped meaning, must exist for Gadamer. If it did not then the hermeneutic project would collapse, because the other would be wiped out, which means the potentiality for new experiences that lead to new understanding would not be possible.
Bibliography
Books
Bataille, Georges The Bataille Reader, Oxford Press, 1997
Derrida, Jacques Writing and Difference, University of Chicago Press, 1978
Derrida, Jacques Semiology and Grammatology: Interview with Julia Kristeva (1968), Ch.2 of Positions, University of Chicago Press, 1981
Derrida, Jacques Margins of Philosophy, University of Chicago Press, 1982
Gadamer, Hans-Georg Truth and Method, Second, Revised Ed. Continuum, 2004
Michelfelder, Diane & Palmer, Richard Dialogue and Deconstruction: The Gadamer-Derrida Encounter, State University of New York Press, 1989
Websites
Malpas, Jeff Hans-Georg Gadamer,
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/gadamer/
Last accessed: 14/11/05
Mieszkowski, Jan Derrida, Hegel, and the Language of Finitude, http://www3.iath.virginia.edu/pmc/current.issue/15.3mieszkowski.html
Last accessed: 14/11/05
Nettlefold, Gwen Hegel, Bataille, Lacan,
http://foucault.info/Foucault-L/archive/msg03143.shtml
Last accessed: 14/11/05
Szabo, Nick Hermeneutics: An Introduction to the Interpretation of Tradition,
http://szabo.best.vwh.net/hermeneutics.html
Last accessed: 14/11/05
Gadamer, Hans-Georg Truth and Method, Second, Revised Ed. Continuum, 2004 pg 289
Ibid. pg 288
Ibid. pg 283
Derrida, Jacques Writing and Difference, University of Chicago Press, 1978 pg 255
Gadamer, Hans-Georg Truth and Method, Second, Revised Ed. Continuum, 2004 pg 269
Mieszkowski, Jan Derrida, Hegel, and the Language of Finitude, http://www3.iath.virginia.edu/pmc/current.issue/15.3mieszkowski.html
Last accessed: 14/11/05
Gadamer, Hans-Georg Truth and Method, Second, Revised Ed. Continuum, 2004 pg 273
Ibid. pg 275
Ibid. pg 279
Ibid. pg 273
Ibid. pg 277
Malpas, Jeff Hans-Georg Gadamer,
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/gadamer/
Last accessed: 14/11/05
Ibid.
Derrida, Jacques Writing and Difference, University of Chicago Press, 1978 pg 252
Ibid. pg 254
Derrida, Jacques Margins of Philosophy, University of Chicago Press, 1982 pg 9
“But this is not the essence of authority. Admittedly, it is primarily persons that have authority; but the authority of persons is ultimately based not on the subjection and abdication of reason but on an act of acknowledgement and knowledge – the knowledge, namely, that the other is superior to oneself in judgement and insight and that for this reason his judgement takes precedence –i.e., it has priority over one’s own. This is connected with the fact that authority cannot actually be bestowed but is earned, and must be earned if someone is to lay claim to it. It rests on acknowledgement and hence on an act of reason itself which, aware of its own limitations, trusts to the better insight of others. Authority in this sense, properly understood, has nothing to do with blind obedience to commands. Indeed, authority has to do not with obedience but rather with knowledge.” - Gadamer, Hans-Georg Truth and Method, Second, Revised Ed. Continuum, 2004
“we are always situated within traditions, and this is no objectifying process – i.e., we do not conceive of what tradition says as something other, something alien. It is always part of us, a model or exemplar, a kind of cognizance that our later historical judgement would hardly regard as a kind of knowledge but as the most ingenuous affinity with tradition.” - Gadamer, Hans-Georg Truth and Method, Second, Revised Ed. Continuum, 2004
Gadamer, Hans-Georg Truth and Method, Second, Revised Ed. Continuum, 2004 pg 342/43
Szabo, Nick Hermeneutics: An Introduction to the Interpretation of Tradition,
Gadamer, Hans-Georg Truth and Method, Second, Revised Ed. Continuum, 2004 pg 343
Mieszkowski, Jan Derrida, Hegel, and the Language of Finitude, http://www3.iath.virginia.edu/pmc/current.issue/15.3mieszkowski.html
Last accessed: 14/11/05
Ibid.
Harle, Joshua Neonaescent www.muchmojo.com Last accessed: 5/11/05
Derrida, Jacques Margins of Philosophy, University of Chicago Press, 1982 pg. 275
Bataille, Georges The Bataille Reader, Oxford Press, 1997 pg 101
Nettlefold, Gwen Hegel, Bataille, Lacan,
http://foucault.info/Foucault-L/archive/msg03143.shtml
Last accessed: 14/11/05
Ibid. 102
Derrida, Jacques Writing and Difference, University of Chicago Press, 1978 pg 262
Derrida, Jacques Margins of Philosophy, University of Chicago Press, 1982 pg. 12
“If the entire of history of meaning is reassembled and represented, at a point of the canvas, by the figure of the slave, if Hegel’s discourse, Logic, and the Book of which Kojève speaks are the slave(‘s) language, that is, the worker(‘s) language, then they can be read from left to right or from right to left, as a reactionary movement or as a revolutionary movement, or both at once. It would be absurd for the transgression of the Book by writing to be legible only in a determined sense. It would be at once absurd, given the form of the Aufhebung which is maintained in transgression, and too full of meaning for a transgression of meaning. From right to left or left to right; these two contradictory and too-meaningful propositions equally lack pertinence. At a certain determined point.” – Derrida, Jacques Writing and Difference, University of Chicago Press, 1978 pg 276
Labels: philosophy
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