Silvana Ballnat

Das Verhältnis zwischen den Begriffen “Erfahrung” und “Sprache” ausgehend von Hans-Georg Gadamers “Wahrheit und Methode”

eine antireduktionistische Lesart gegen Relativismusvorwürfe



ISBN: 978-3-86956-176-9
358 pages
Release year 2013

14,00 

This work deals with a particular relativistic objection on Gadamer’s hermeneutic philosophy of language, according to which the position of language has such a prior status so that human experience is solely dependent on the language people speak. That is a reductionist approach to Gadamer’s hermeneutic, which ascribes language an exclusively explanatory and foundational status. I am taking this objection to a close examination and develop a double argumentation line: On the one side I show how the concept of world experience is language determined, and on the other side how the language itself is determined by our experience of the world. In order to argue for this interdependence, I first examined the positive and negative structure of experience, some phenomenological and transcendental features and offered a short historical background of ties to selected philosophical heritage. In the second part of the work I developed a concept of language that argues for its dialogical and not absolutely transsubjective character, also for its world-disclosing alongside its communicative and representational dimension. Gadamer’s hermeneutic philosophy of language, belonging to the continental philosophy or HHH Theories represents an antireductionist approach to language after the linguistic turn, which is often criticized for a linguistic reductionism and relativism.

This work deals with a particular relativistic objection on Gadamer’s hermeneutic philosophy of language, according to which the position of language has such a prior status so that human experience is solely dependent on the language people speak. That is a reductionist approach to Gadamer’s hermeneutic, which ascribes language an exclusively explanatory and foundational status. I am taking this objection to a close examination and develop a double argumentation line: On the one side I show how the concept of world experience is language determined, and on the other side how the language itself is determined by our experience of the world. In order to argue for this interdependence, I first examined the positive and negative structure of experience, some phenomenological and transcendental features and offered a short historical background of ties to selected philosophical heritage. In the second part of the work I developed a concept of language that argues for its dialogical and not absolutely transsubjective character, also for its world-disclosing alongside its communicative and representational dimension. Gadamer’s hermeneutic philosophy of language, belonging to the continental philosophy or HHH Theories represents an antireductionist approach to language after the linguistic turn, which is often criticized for a linguistic reductionism and relativism.