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'An aphorism, properly stamped and molded, has not been "deciphered" when it has simply been read; rather one has then to begin its interpretation, for which is required an art of interpretation.' -- Nietzsche, 'On the Genealogy of Morals'

Heidegger: shuffling towards everyday life « Previous | |Next »
May 1, 2004

Trevor,
This article by Patrick Heelan may be of some help in coming to grips with Heidegger's hermeneutics in Division I of Being and Time. What is of interest is less the philosophy of science stuff than the hermeneutics of everyday life.

Heelan does point to how Heidegger understood modern natural science in the late text, The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays. Heelan says:


"....Heidegger saw the scientific culture of modernity as the 'Age of the World Picture' in which the 'real' is constituted by the theoretical representations of modern science rather than as a revelation of what constitutes the foundational structure of what is, or what Heidegger called, 'ontology' (Heidegger, 1977a, 115-154). In later criticism, Heidegger came to see modern science as essentially entangled with technology in the constitution of objective frameworks of 'standing reserves' ('Bestand') or 'mere value-neutral resources for human action' ('Ge-stell') (Heidegger, 1977a, 3-35)."

This pathway leads to an account of the technological understanding of being.

But we also have the hermeneutical account of the everyday world of our own activities and individual things in our lifeworld, such as a workshop. Heelan says that Heidegger begins:


"....begins with a worker engaged in a building project, using a hammer. The hammer unexpectedly breaks. Let us suppose that a replacement can't be found and that he has to have one made. He asks: what are the specifications of a hammer (of the kind he needs to finish the job)? The answer to this question will be a theory (about hammers) that explains a hammer's ability to do the hammer's job. What is a hammer's job? It is the 'meaning' of a hammer. In this case it is a cultural praxis-laden meaning dwelling within the context, let us say, of the building trade.

Note that without a specification of context, the question is relatively indeterminate. In the context of the 'received view,' however, the hammer is a physical entity specified by its specifications, it is a theory-laden meaning that lays out the physical conditions under which it can become the host of the cultural meaning of a hammer. But whether or not it is assigned this cultural function is a separate and contingent matter. The two meanings are not independent. The theory-laden meaning makes sense only if a local contingent existential condition is fulfilled, namely that the hammer-referent is praxis-laden in the conventional sense."


You can do the same with cooking at home or writing papers on a computer in the university. It is a world of praxis, tacit embodied knowledge and prudent action (or phronesis). This is what Gadamer picks up on and develops through a rereading of Aristotle.

| Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 9:44 PM | | Comments (0)
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