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The language argument is a classic argument for human distinctiveness that, for millenia, has been used to distinguish humans from non-human animals. Generative language models (GLMs) pose a challenge to traditional language-based models of human distinctiveness precisely because they can communicate and respond in a manner resembling humanity's linguistic capabilities. This article asks: have GLMs acquired natural language? Employing Gadamer's theory of language, I argue that they have not. While GLMs can reliably generate linguistic content that can be interpreted as "texts," they lack the linguistically mediated reality that language provides. Missing from these models are four key features of a linguistic construction of reality: groundedness to the world, understanding, community, and tradition. I conclude with skepticism that GLMs can ever achieve natural language because they lack these characteristics in their linguistic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I will use Husserlian tools in order to elaborate a phenomenology of ludic experience. Following Fink, my aim here is to present what Husserl could have elaborated in a more systematic manner concerning the specificity of what he calls the ludic praxis (Spielpraxis) and the ludic construct (Spielgebilde). Firstly, I analyze the temporality of ludic experience. Play has a dilative temporal structure: it involves a momentary captivation in the present and a momentary suspension of the architectonic goals of the agent. Secondly, play has its own artifacts. I begin by analyzing what I call the impermanent construct, i.e., the object whose elaboration is motivated by a self-referential interest of the poietic subject. Thirdly, play does not only erect singular entities, but also ludic worlds as a whole. My objective is to scrutinize the mode of being of these normative spaces. I conclude with a description of the ludic object par excellence, namely the toy (Spielzeug). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer is best known for his contribution to the development of philosophical hermeneutics, an interpretive approach to knowledge, understanding and meaning-making. It has become a well-established research approach in the health sciences to shed light on the lived experiences of people living with challenging chronic health conditions. Some feminist scholars have gravitated to Gadamer's hermeneutics for its steadfast rejection of positivism and its intention to uncover preunderstandings and prejudices. However, others have critiqued the approach for its lack of focus on prescribing action for social change and its reluctance to evaluate the prejudices present in its own tradition. In this paper, the authors will demonstrate how using feminist hermeneutics can help health researchers deepen their understanding of illness narratives by examining the power structures contributing to the marginalization of chronically ill people within and outside the healthcare system. They will juxtapose a reflexive investigation of the first author's experiences with a focused literature review of the dialogue between hermeneutics and feminism. By examining the first author's experiences with Gadamerian hermeneutics and feminist hermeneutics through self-study, she can in turn unearth her own preunderstandings. This approach will allow the authors to leverage the depth of interpretive understanding generated by hermeneutics while exploring the power structures involved in the complex process that is patient care, particularly that of people with chronic illness. They conclude that this combined approach of feminist hermeneutics allows health researchers to deepen their understanding of illness narratives with issue-specific and effective recommendations to clinicians and public health officials, leading to better-adapted services through a more just approach to chronically ill people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present article, we are faced with two phenomenological philosophers who, in two different intellectual traditions, namely philosophical hermeneutics and moral phenomenology, have referred to the concept of the Other as the fundamental possibility of the individual. The other, as an ontological and common concept in the thought of Gadamer and Levinas, is the turning point of the condition for the possibility of understanding and ethics. Focusing on the concept of the other, while addressing the points of difference and commonality between Gadamer and Levinas, this article will show that Levinas's preoccupation with the other as a philosopher refers to the foundations of ethics, and the condition for the possibility of foundations of ethics is encountering the other. In Gadamer, the turning point is the determination of the possibilities of understanding in dialectical and dialogue-oriented relationships. Without the other, in Levinas's thought, ethics, and moral matter, and in Gadamer's thought, the process of understanding will not occur in the form of a fusion of horizons. Therefore, this article shows that the other is a common concept between these two philosophers, which both of them cannot avoid in their philosophical analyses of ethics or the process of understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How can a post-Christian, secular audience understand the devoutly Christian, sacred music of Johann Sebastian Bach's St. Matthew Passion ? This article addresses this question with reference to the hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Hans Blumenberg. Their confrontation reveals broad implications for the theory of humanistic interpretation at large. Gadamer celebrates Bach as a 'classical' touchstone of Western culture whom we may productively interpret through a 'fusion of horizons'. Blumenberg, by contrast, cautions that our relation to Bach's Passion is fractured because it is impossible to 'pace off the horizon'. Blumenberg emphasizes the first-person experience of the diminution of historical meaning, a position this article calls 'shattered hermeneutics'. The article concludes that Blumenberg's interpretation of Bach and his critique of Gadamer thereby usefully and plausibly deepen and radicalize hermeneutics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: That we all weigh something is a fact of life, yet the material reality of weight is refracted through multiple layers of surveillance revealing contradictions in experience and understanding, depending on one's vantage point. We explored the complexities of weight with the specific aim of furthering understanding of this multifaceted surveillance. Methods and Measures: We used hermeneutics, the philosophy and practice of interpretation, as the method of inquiry. Ten experts by experience and seven professional experts participated in interviews, which were audio- recorded, transcribed, and analyzed. Interpretations were developed through group discussions among the eight authors and reiterative writing. Results: Using the metaphor of optics, we demonstrate how the interplay of the panopticon (the few watching the many) and synopticon (the many watching the few) help us gain a deeper understanding of weight through "fitting in," being "captured by numbers," "dieting: the tyrannic tower," and "the male gaze." Conclusion: Monitoring and judging body weight have become so normative in Western society that "weight watching" practices are synonymous with good citizenship and moral character. This study offers insight about how weight is conceptualized in personal and professional contexts, with implications for body image, dieting, eating disorders, public health, and weight bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The information explosion and digital modes of learning often combine to inform the quest for the best ways of transforming information in digital form for pedagogical purposes. This quest has become more urgent and pervasive with the 'turn' to online learning in the context of COVID-19. This can result in linear, asynchronous, transmission-based modes of teaching and learning which commodify, package and deliver knowledge for individual 'customers'. The primary concerns in such models are often technical and economic – technology as a cost-effective 'solution' to educational challenges. In this paper I argue for the importance of dialogic learning space in teaching and learning by means of Information and Communication Technologies, whether in the form of fully online learning, blended learning or face-to-face encounters using ICT affordances. Although the 20th Century theorists Mikhail Bakhtin (1895–1975) and Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900–2002) produced their seminal works before the advent of ICTs, they were both concerned with the quality and authenticity of human engagement with texts and with other persons and contexts. Besides a shared interest in dialogue as an ontological feature of human life and being, they both used spatiotemporal concepts for understanding and interpreting texts. The article draws on Gadamer's notions of dialogue and horizon, and Bakhtin's notions of dialogue and chronotope, to conceptualize dialogic possibilities for online education. Its purpose is to provide a framework, grounded in Bakhtin's and Gadamer's ideas, for a dialogic approach to online teaching and learning in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the nature and experience of artistic mastery, that is, the experience of being long-practiced in an art such as writing, oil painting and teaching. Following the hermeneutic tradition and drawing on H.-G. Gadamer’s Truth and Method and other hermeneutic sources, the authors engage in a dialogue about their respective experiences of what it means to become experienced in an art form. The origin of their dialogue springs from one author reading and commenting on the other’s doctoral thesis, and discerning a hermeneutic sensibility in noticing the significance of emergent moments in life experience and in artistic practice.

Public debates structure election cycles, feature in news media, and are privileged as a form of academic exchange. Yet, public debate is poorly understood from the perspective of political theory. While theorists often talk about "public debate," they usually mean diffuse discussion on a topic in the public sphere. This article considers how literal public debates—multisided, publicly accessible and publicly oriented performances of reason-giving—may be normatively distinct from other forms of rhetoric. Drawing on the "constructivist turn" in the scholarship on representation and the philosophy of Gadamer, I offer a hermeneutical approach for assessing public debates. I argue that public debates do not merely provide a platform for opinions to be broadcast, they also purport to provide a representative spectrum of opinions. In so doing, they help to construct the borders of the public sphere itself. I conclude by considering the significance of protest to public debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Aristotle is the first philosopher who separates theoretical and practical wisdom from each other, but before Aristotle, Plato also paid attention to the separation or non - separation of theoria and praxis. According to Plato, the virtue is knowledge; That is, self - knowledge is the same virtue and arete of a person. Therefore, in Plato's philosophy, it can be said that theoria and praxis are not separate from each other. At the same time, Plato believes that if we want to become virtuous by will and intention, we must resort to philosophy; That is, philosophy is considered as praxis to provide a certain theoria and purpose. Therefore, it can be said that Plato proposed the separation of theoria from praxis. Now, according to this introduction, important issue arises: Are theoria and praxis separate from each other in Plato's philosophy? This article tries to examine the above question from the viewpoint of Martin Heidegger and Hans - Georg Gadamer. While Heidegger believes that Plato by proposing the separation of theoria from praxis and also the precedence of theoria over praxis, has provided the ground for the formation of metaphysics and as a result the forgetting of Being, Gadamer believes that in Plato's philosophy, theoria and praxis are not separate from each other. In Gadamer's view, many of Plato's doctrines such as the doctrine of ideas, the ideal state, etc., have derived from his practical considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This commentary on Daniel Stader's recent article, “Algorithms Don't Have a Future: On the Relation of Judgement and Calculation” develops and complicates his argument by suggesting that algorithms ossify multiple kinds of prejudices, namely, the structural prejudices of the programmer and the exemplary prejudices of the dataset. This typology at once suggests that the goal of transparency may be impossible, but this impossibility enriches the possibilities for developing Stader's concept of reflected prejudiced use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 27 September 1943, Hans-Georg Gadamer published a brief but significant article in the conservative newspaper Leipziger Neueste Nachrichten und Handels-Zeitung , entitled 'Wissenschaft als Beruf. Über den Ruf und Beruf der Wissenschaft in unserer Zeit' (Science as Vocation: On the Calling and Profession of Science in Our Time). The article, which addressed the problem of the value and status of science and philosophy in the midst of the Second World War, was never reprinted in Gadamer's work, neither in the ten volumes of his collected writings published by Mohr Siebeck, nor separately in books or journals. I offer here a critical introduction to the context and main contents of this text due to its philosophical, political, and historical relevance. In particular, the introduction analyses Gadamer's confrontation with his own time through explicit and implicit references to Max Weber's 1917 lecture, 'Wissenschaft als Beruf' (Science as Vocation), and traces echoes in Gadamer's later works that bear on contemporary challenges. Following that, I present the first English translation of Gadamer's original German text. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper is motivated by a question of naturalized epistemology of W. V. Quine and the question is how a naturalistic account gives rise to theoretical understanding with its realistic ontology. I concentrate on the possibility of the principle of reification by way of interpretation and the point is how we interpret interpretation in a naturalistic account. First, we must distinguish between Quine and Carnap based upon the distinction of interpretation versus reduction. Second, we should take seriously the function of observation and the consequent interpretation with regard to reality and ontological understanding. This article also exams the positions of Descartes, Kant and recent philosophers Gadamer and Davidson. In doing so, some test cases of interpretation analyze in particular the case of "anomalous monism". Finally, this paper makes effort to focus on quantum mechanics as an object of naturalistic interpretation, although it is itself a naturalistic interpretation of classical physics and relativity based upon observation of new features of reality. In conclusion, the Yijing philosophy of change is cited as a possible, useful and meaningful interpretation of quantum mechanics just as quantum mechanics could be a useful and meaningful interpretation of the Yijing 's onto-cosmology (which theory I had established two decades ago). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Work on the understanding and interpretation of text and its meaning continues to be highly relevant topics in a wide range of disciplines, such as philosophy, literature, linguistics, history and psychology. In the field of philosophy, the text becomes an ideal space for reflection due to its ability to reveal ideas, values and human experiences. Hermeneutics is dedicated to the study of the text as the main object, but its applications extend to other areas such as the philosophy of language, anthropology, ontology, the theory of knowledge and epistemology. This work aims to analyze and compare the approaches of Gadamer and Lotman on the text, in order to establish a hermeneutical dialogue that allows us to better understand their conception on this important topic. The research is approached from a qualitative methodology, using the hermeneutic method. It is concluded that the hermeneutics of the text focuses on the interaction between the text, context and the reader. For Gadamer, this interaction is a dialogue between two world horizons: that of the author and that of the reader. The fusion of horizons allows a deep understanding of the text and its historical context. For his part, Lotman defines the text as a complex system with multiple levels of meaning. This polysemy invites the reader to actively participate in the construction of meaning, contributing their own perspective and experience. In this perspective, a relationship is evident between the concept of textsemiosphere proposed by Lotman and Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics. Both areas of study focus on the interpretation of symbols and signs, as well as the creation of meaning through the interaction between the individual and their environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Environmental Education is the property of Canadian Journal of Environmental Education and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Logos: Anales del Seminario de Metafísica (1575-6866) is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

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Copyright of Revue Universitaire des Sciences Humaines et Sociales is the property of University of Kasdi Merbah Ouargla and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

What follows is an English translation of two documents pertaining to the Derrida-Gadamer encounter. The first one is the short correspondence between Jacques Derrida and Hans-Georg Gadamer that lasted from March 1977 to July 2000. The correspondence was written in German and French. The second one is the homage that Derrida wrote in honor of Gadamer in the wake of his passing in 2002. These two documents are now available in English for the first time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Jurisprudence Faculty Journal / Magallaẗ Kulliyyaẗ Al-fiqh is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

La hermenéutica de Dilthey ha legado a la historia de la filosofía una profunda tematización del problema de la vivencia humana. En ella, se lleva a cabo un análisis de la experiencia desde el juego dado entre la totalidad de la vida histórica y la vivencia concreta y particular. Tomando estas ideas como base, la filosofía de la vivencia elaborada por dicha tradición se orienta hacia la dilucidación de una ontología de la vida, cuya pretensión es la de indagar en la naturaleza fáctica de la propia experiencia. Esta herencia es apreciable en la hermenéutica de la facticidad explicitada por Heidegger y en la ontología hermenéutica planteada por Gadamer. El objetivo del presente ensayo será el de recuperar la reflexión diltheyana que da cuenta de un modo de comprensión específico de la experiencia. Ello nos permitirá desvelar las dinámicas propias de la comprensión y la vivencia, distinguiendo este análisis frente al modelo fenomenológico.

The focus of Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics is the issue of understanding, and more precisely, the way understanding occurs in our encounter with the world as a "text". Gadamer tries to phenomenologizing the understanding, to express the conditions of the possibility of understanding and how it occurs. His provocative claim is that "any" encounter with the world, is mediated by language. The process of interpretation is the same our linguistic understanding of the world. The universality of this linguistic understanding of the world is to the extent that, even when language seems to be "suspended", we still have to take refuge in language itself to discuss this inadequacy. This is one of the "mysterious" aspects of human linguisticality. Another aspect comes back to the fact that language, like the world, never fully acquiesce to "objectification" and is not given to our consciousness as a unified whole, because language is preceding any understanding. The main questions of this article are as follows: By emphasizing the interconnectedness of language and understanding, Gadamer simply is trying to remind us the same long-standing claim about the relationship between language and thinking, or does he have a more fundamental claim? Does he, by focusing on the linguistic nature of human understanding, want to show us the limitlessness of the boundaries of language, or emphasize on its limitations? In this article, while clarifying the meaning of language and understanding and their relationship in Gadamer's thought, we have tried to answer the mentioned questions implicitly by emphasizing that the significance of language in Gadamer's hermeneutics is not simply limited to putting experiences into words, but this is the mere external and concrete manifestation of the linguisticality of our understanding.

Entrevista a Richard J. Bernstein

Gadamer evaluates Nietzsche's perception of the horizon as it is not possible to go beyond that. In the Masnavi, tales such as “Discrepancies in the Shape of the Cell”, and the story of “Johee, and that Child who Sang a Monody before his Father's Corpse”, are examples of the realization of the horizon in Nietzsche's notion of it. Because in these anecdotes, characters are subdued by their own limited horizons. Gadamer, in contrast to Nietzsche, considers the historical movement of human life to be the fact that human horizons are fluid and open and vary according to different situations and circumstances. Accordingly, Gadamer, in his philosophical hermeneutics, knows the foundation of understanding as the interpreter's horizons and the horizons of the text. The realization of such a concept is objectively observable as an example in the story of Mosa and the Shepherd in Masnavi. At the beginning of the story, Mosa (the symbol of the Tanzieh) and the shepherd (the symbol of the Tashbih) are each on their horizon. But in continue, and with the dialogue between these two horizons, the horizon of the shepherd and the horizon of Mosa, we faced with open horizons and a new hermeneutical situation, which is the fusion of horizons of Tanziah and Tashbih in the Shepherd and Moses.

Through his own activistic hermeneutics, Sereque­ berhan crafts a philosophy which allows African(a) persons pathways to self­-realization and self­-eman­cipation from Western cultural imperialism. He does this through a unique reading of Heidegger to arrive at a hermeneutics of existence, and through Gadamer to posit a specific historicity which he calls ‘our heritage’. This article first charts how Serequeberhan articulates these concepts, and then explores their prescriptive, activist intent. The upshot of this is a stronger appreciation of Serequeberhan’s work and how it provides a fresh approach through which we can better understand existence in a globalized, post­colonial, late capitalist society. For Western readers especially, it offers a framework to better describe the relationship between, the self, others, and the historical interactions between them in a world fraught with enclosure and harmful ideologies.

ABSTRACT This article discusses the phenomenon of presence as it appears in the classical metaphysics of time by distinguishing between an empty and an embodied time. The terms “empty” and “embodied” are derived from various studies by Lucian Hölscher. According to him, an empty time offers a framework for knowledge without historiographical content, in which all kinds of historiography can find their place. An embodied time, he says, encompasses all histories ever written, making it impossible to view history as collectively singular, as German historical theorist Reinhart Koselleck would have it. Hölscher prefers an empty time, based on knowledge he derives from Newton and Kant. I think the terms “empty” and “embodied” have different connotations. In an embodied time, past, present, and future have presence; in an empty time, such a presence is absent. The embodied time as I use in this article was largely elaborated by Hans-Georg Gadamer. For him, “embodied” means that past, present, and future are present. This idea is based on an implicit premise about the relationship between reality (from the past) and the human mind. Empty time presupposes a gap between the two, with the mind largely constructing the reality of the past. Embodied time presupposes an intertwining of reality and mind, so that past, present, and future have their own presence, without being completely mutually exclusive. As such, all three have a degree of autonomy when it comes to describing them. An empty time, represented by Kant, and an embodied time, represented by Gadamer, can form the extremes of a scale whose interspace allows the classical metaphysics of time to find its way.

The focus of Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics is the issue of understanding, and more precisely, the way understanding occurs in our encounter with the world as a "text". Gadamer tries to phenomenologizing the understanding, to express the conditions of the possibility of understanding and how it occurs. His provocative claim is that "any" encounter with the world, is mediated by language. The process of interpretation is the same our linguistic understanding of the world. The universality of this linguistic understanding of the world is to the extent that, even when language seems to be "suspended", we still have to take refuge in language itself to discuss this inadequacy. This is one of the "mysterious" aspects of human linguisticality. Another aspect comes back to the fact that language, like the world, never fully acquiesce to "objectification" and is not given to our consciousness as a unified whole, because language is preceding any understanding. The main questions of this article are as follows: By emphasizing the interconnectedness of language and understanding, Gadamer simply is trying to remind us the same long-standing claim about the relationship between language and thinking, or does he have a more fundamental claim? Does he, by focusing on the linguistic nature of human understanding, want to show us the limitlessness of the boundaries of language, or emphasize on its limitations? In this article, while clarifying the meaning of language and understanding and their relationship in Gadamer's thought, we have tried to answer the mentioned questions implicitly by emphasizing that the significance of language in Gadamer's hermeneutics is not simply limited to putting experiences into words, but this is the mere external and concrete manifestation of the linguisticality of our understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is called language? In the history of Western philosophy, we have different answers to this question. However, according to Wittgenstein and Gadamer, these different answers are basically similar, and both criticize this basic approach. Gadamer refers to the history of Western philosophy as the history of forgetfulness of language. But he regards Augustine as an exception in this history; for Gadamer, Augustine has appreciated the central status of language and the vital relation between language and thought through his idea of the inner word. However, Wittgenstein introduces Augustine as the main agent of the basic approach of Western philosophy to language, raising his criticisms of this basic approach by objecting to Augustine’s claims. In this article, I review these two different interpretations and think about the possibility of making an affinity and compromise between Gadamer’s narration of Augustine’s idea of the inner word and Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Tabayyun is the property of Arab Center for Research & Policy Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper explores phenomenologically the way in which Godly Play, as an approach to religious education with young children devised by Jerome Berryman, provides an experience of truth as disclosure and openness – as a constant interplay between showing and hiding – though an exploration of Heidegger's (and to a lesser extent, Gadamer's) understanding of truth as aletheia. It applies this notion to one life expression in the Godly Play room in which a parable is presented to show how truth is revealed through the telling of the parable. Some implications for practice are posited as a result of this phenomenological reflection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Estudios Filosóficos is the property of Estudios Filosoficos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Sibling bereavement is a life-changing event with implications for the individual and family. In a study guided by Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics focused on sibling bereavement when the brother or sister dies for a drug-related reason, a critical realisation became apparent; it is possible to understand one person's story from multiple standpoints. This is directly relevant to social work practice as different viewpoints make it possible to illuminate other aspects of the person's experience keeping us open to hearing more, reflecting and willing to learn something new. A summary of the literature on the three subject areas is presented, as are the identified gaps that helped refine the research questions. A synopsis of what it means to conduct research underpinned by Gadamer's philosophy is outlined and then elucidated through application to one participant's interview. The article serves a dual purpose of presenting information on subject areas relating to drug and alcohol, thanatology and family therapy theory, promoting understanding in these horizons. The primary aim is to focus on one of the participants, Karen, from the larger study to show how different horizons bring different understandings to the fore. The article calls for social workers to expand their horizons of understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the problem of truth in the study of traditional ways of knowing, which implies two main philosophical issues: how to understand the epistemic value of social theories, and how to treat the truth-claims constitutive of alien knowing practices. The second question, it is argued, has priority over the first and may lead toward its resolution. To present the problem of truth, the first part explores a case of pre-theoretical conflict between different sets of ontological commitments regarding shamanic visionary knowledge. Sections two and three examine the hermeneutical difficulties involved in the principle of bracketing alien truth-claims and propose an intercultural expansion of Gadamer's hermeneutics. The final part develops the principle of Intercultural Interpellation as the ground of a theory of intercultural understanding based on the recognition of truth-claims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through his own activistic hermeneutics, Serequeberhan crafts a philosophy which allows African(a) persons pathways to self-realization and self-emancipation from Western cultural imperialism. He does this through a unique reading of Heidegger to arrive at a hermeneutics of existence, and through Gadamer to posit a specific historicity which he calls 'our heritage.' This article first charts how Serequeberhan articulates these concepts, and then explores their prescriptive, activist intent. The upshot of this is a stronger appreciation of Serequeberhan's work and how it provides a fresh approach through which we can better understand existence in a globalized, post-colonial, late capitalist society. For Western readers especially, it offers a framework to better describe the relationship between, the self, others, and the historical interactions between them in a world fraught with enclosure and harmful ideologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]