Browsing by Author "Fouche, Henry Leon"

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    Die verstaan van waarheid : in kritiese ondersoek na die kommunikasiestruktuur in die hermeneutiek met besondere verwysing van die hermeneutiek van Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 1978) Fouche, Henry Leon; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of . Dept. of .
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    Hermeneutiek en waarheid : 'n kritiese ondersoek na die sin van die Wirkungsgeschichte in die filosofiese hermeneutiek van Hans-Georg Gadamer
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2001-12) Fouche, Henry Leon; Van Niekerk, Anton A.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Philosophy.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Gadamer's hermeneutical philosophy is an enlightenment of consciousness that intends to correct a false consciousness concerning the power of reason and methods. His concept of the Wirkungsgeschichte presents his hermeneutical philosophy in a nutshell and demonstrates that understanding is more being (Sein) than consciousness (Bewuïstseins. The Wirkungsgeschichte is constituted by three perspectives on the understanding of meaning from three different regions that escape the controlling procedures of method. The first is the experience of art where the concept of play functions as model; the second is the experience of tradition where the concept of dialogue functions as model; the third is the experience of speaking where the concept of translation functions as model. These three perspectives on understanding of meaning together constitute the concept of the Wirkungsgeschichte and their relation is like three concentric circles with the art perspective as the inner circle. The Wirkungsgeschichte transcends the subject-object dichotomy and demonstrates the understanding of meaning as a single event. It is here where Gadamer's concepts of hermeneutics and truth crystallize. Gadamer's concept of truth is not truth as mirror in the way in which it functions in science as the correspondence of correct judgment and reality. The kind of truth he is concerned with, is truth as claim awareness (Angesprochenheity or truth as rock that carries and orientates us. One reaches truth as mirror only approximately and only after methodical procedures; while truth as rock is something that carries us, it is the claim awareness that constantly accompanies us and sweeps us along since we participate in it all the time. Hermeneutics that reflects on understanding is, according to Gadamer, part of Practical Philosophy because understanding, like Aristotle's concept of phronesis, is orientated on the general that must become concrete in the particular. Understanding is, like phronesis, not theoretical, but practical; the conclusion of understanding is also not a theoretical judgment, but a decision on orientation and action as part of the ongoing dialogue that we are. Phronesis as the concretization of the Wirkungsgeschichte functions also fruitfully in Gadamer's response to criticism from the perspectives of text interpretation, theory of science and critique of ideology. The contribution of this dissertation, is to place Gadamer's claim to universality in perspective and typify his one-sidedness as a prophetic appeal. Gadamer does not provide a new method, nor rejects methodical procedures; he simply demonstrates what happens before and while we approach reality methodically. His hermeneutical philosophy is an enlightenment of consciousness which he typifies as part of the Third Enlightenment. As Third Enlightenment his Wirkungsgeschichtliche BewuDtsein helps to ask critical questions to science, and especially to technocracy. In this way Gadamer's hermeneutics becomes Practical Philosophy and the Wirkungsgeschichte is concretized in phronesis as the prudent and sensible concern with life in its striving to deepen humaneness.