Disputed term/author/ism | Author |
Entry |
Reference |
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History | Collingwood | Gadamer I 376 History/Collingwood/Gadamer: Collingwood Thesis: In truth, one can only understand a text if one has understood the question to which it is an answer. For Collingwood, this is where the nerve of all historical knowledge lies. The historical method requires that the logic of question and answer is applied to historical tradition. One will only understand historical events if one reconstructs the question to which the historical action of the person was the answer in each case. Collingwood gives the example of the Battle of Trafalgar and the Nelsonian plan on which it was based. The example wants to show that the course of the battle makes Nelson's real plan understandable precisely because it has been successfully carried out. The plan of his opponent, on the other hand, cannot be reconstructed from the events for the opposite reason, namely because he failed. The understanding of the course of the battle and the understanding of the plan that Nelson executed are one and the same process.(1) >Plan/Collingwood. GadamerVsCollingwood: >Plan/Gadamer. 1. Collingwood, Denken, p. 70. |
Coll I R. G. Collingwood Essays In Political Philosophy Oxford 1995 Gadamer I Hans-Georg Gadamer Wahrheit und Methode. Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik 7. durchgesehene Auflage Tübingen 1960/2010 Gadamer II H. G. Gadamer The Relevance of the Beautiful, London 1986 German Edition: Die Aktualität des Schönen: Kunst als Spiel, Symbol und Fest Stuttgart 1977 |
Planning | Collingwood | Gadamer I 376 Plan/Collingwood/Gadamer: Collingwood Thesis: In truth, one can only understand a text if one has understood the question to which it is an answer. One will only understand historical events if one reconstructs the question to which the historical action of the person was the answer in each case. Collingwood gives the example of the Battle of Trafalgar and the Nelsonian plan on which it was based. The example wants to show that the course of the battle makes Nelson's real plan understandable precisely because it was successfully carried out. His opponent's plan, on the other hand, could no longer be reconstructed from the events for the opposite reason, because it had failed. Understanding the course of the battle and understanding the plan that Nelson executed are one and the same process.(1) I 377 Gadamer: [One has] to reconstruct two different questions in such a case (...), which also find two different answers: The question of the meaning of a great event and the question of how it was planned. Obviously the two questions only coincide if human planning was really up to the course of events. But this is a precondition that we as people who are in history, and in the face of a historical tradition that speaks of just such people, cannot claim as a methodological principle. GadamerVsCollingwood: Tolstoy's famous description of the council of war before the battle, in which all strategic possibilities are calculated and all plans are discussed with astuteness and thoroughness while the commander himself sits and sleeps, but instead makes the rounds of the guards outside in the night before the battle begins, apparently better describes what we call history. Kutuzov comes closer to the actual reality and the forces that determine it than the strategists of the War Council. One must draw the fundamental conclusion from this example that the interpreter of history is always in danger of hypostasizing the context in which he or she recognizes a meaning as that meant by people who really act and plan.(2) Cf. >Plan/Hegel. 1. Collingwood, Denken, p. 70. 2. Erich Seeberg has some relevant comments about this: Zum Problem der pneumatischen Exegese, Sellin-Festschrift 127 ff. (now in H.-G. Gadamer/G. Boehm (ed.) Die Hermeneutik und die Wissenschaften. Frankfurt 1978, p. 272—282.) |
Coll I R. G. Collingwood Essays In Political Philosophy Oxford 1995 Gadamer I Hans-Georg Gadamer Wahrheit und Methode. Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik 7. durchgesehene Auflage Tübingen 1960/2010 Gadamer II H. G. Gadamer The Relevance of the Beautiful, London 1986 German Edition: Die Aktualität des Schönen: Kunst als Spiel, Symbol und Fest Stuttgart 1977 |
Planning | Gadamer | I 376 Plan/Gadamer: Collingwood gives the example of the Battle of Trafalgar and its underlying Nelsonian plan. The example wants to show that the course of the battle makes Nelson's real plan understandable precisely because it has been successfully carried out. His opponent's plan, on the other hand, cannot be reconstructed from events for the opposite reason, because it has failed. The understanding of the course of the battle and the understanding of the plan that Nelson thereby brought to execution are then one and the same process.(1) I 377 Gadamer: [In such a case] one has to reconstruct two different questions (...), which also find two different answers: The question of the meaning in the course of a great event and the question of the orderliness (German: "Planmäßigkeit", i.e. rather "planability") of this course. Obviously the two questions only coincide if human planning was really up to the course of events. But this is a precondition that we, as human beings who stand in history, and in the face of a historical tradition that speaks of just such people, cannot claim as a methodological principle. GadamerVsCollingwood: Tolstoy's famous description of the war council before the battle, in which all strategic options are calculated and all plans are discussed with astuteness and thoroughness while the commander himself sits and sleeps, but instead makes the rounds of the guards outside the battlefield the night before the battle begins, apparently hits the thing we call history better. Kutuzov comes closer to the actual reality and the forces that determine it than the strategists of the War Council. One must draw the fundamental conclusion from this example that the interpreter of history is always in danger of hypostasizing the context in which he or she recognizes a meaning as that meant by people who really act and plan.(2) See >Plan/Hegel. 1. Collingwood, Denken, p. 70. 2. Erich Seeberg has some relevant comments about this: Zum Problem der pneumatischen Exegese, Sellin-Festschrift 127 ff. (Now in H.-G. Gadamer/G. Boehm (Ed.) Die Hermeneutik und die Wissenschaften. Frankfurt 1978, p. 272—282.) |
Gadamer I Hans-Georg Gadamer Wahrheit und Methode. Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik 7. durchgesehene Auflage Tübingen 1960/2010 Gadamer II H. G. Gadamer The Relevance of the Beautiful, London 1986 German Edition: Die Aktualität des Schönen: Kunst als Spiel, Symbol und Fest Stuttgart 1977 |
Questions | Collingwood | Gadamer I 376 Question/Answer/Collingwood/Gadamer: [Collingwood developed] the idea of a "logic of question and answer" in a witty and apt criticism of the "realistic" Oxford School, but unfortunately did not come to a systematic execution(1). He recognized with ingenuity what was missing in the naive hermeneutics that underlie the usual philosophical criticism. CoolingwoodVsTradition: In particular the method Collingwood found in the English university system, the discussion of statements, perhaps a good exercise in ingenuity, apparently fails to recognize the historicity inherent in all understanding. Collingwood Thesis: In truth, one can understand a text only if one has understood the question to which it is an answer. But since this question can only be derived from the text, and thus the appropriateness of the answer is the methodological prerequisite for the reconstruction of the question, the criticism of this answer, which is led from somewhere, is pure mirror fencing. Prerequisite: It is like understanding works of art. Even a work of art is only understood by presupposing its adequacy. Here, too, the question to which it responds must first be won if it is to be understood - as an answer. Gadamer: It is indeed an axiom of all hermeneutics (...) >Perfection/Gadamer, >History/Collingwood; GadamerVsCollingwood: >Text/Gadamer. 1. Cf. Collingwood's autobiography, which at my suggestion was published in German translation under the title "Denken" (English: "Thinking"), p. 30ff, and the unprinted Heidelberg dissertation by Joachim Finkeldei, "Grund und Wesen des Fragens", 1954; a similar position is taken by Croce (who influenced Collingwood), who in his "Logik" (German edition p. 135ff) understands every definition as an answer to a question and therefore "historical". |
Coll I R. G. Collingwood Essays In Political Philosophy Oxford 1995 Gadamer I Hans-Georg Gadamer Wahrheit und Methode. Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik 7. durchgesehene Auflage Tübingen 1960/2010 Gadamer II H. G. Gadamer The Relevance of the Beautiful, London 1986 German Edition: Die Aktualität des Schönen: Kunst als Spiel, Symbol und Fest Stuttgart 1977 |
Texts | Gadamer | I 363 Text/Transmission/Communication/Gadamer: The hermeneutic experience is about transmission. It is what should come to experience. But tradition is not simply an event that one learns to recognize and master through experience, I 364 but it is language, i.e. it speaks of its own accord like a "you". A you is not an object, but behaves towards one. This is not to be misunderstood as if in the tradition what is experienced there is understood as the opinion of another person who is a you. Rather, we maintain that understanding tradition does not understand the handed-down text as the expression of life of a "you", but as a meaning that is detached from all ties of those who think, of me and you. Nevertheless, the attitude towards the you and the meaning of experience that takes place there must be able to serve the analysis of hermeneutical experience. For a genuine communication partner, with whom we belong together as much as the I with the you, is also the tradition. I 376 Text/Gadamer: Collingwood Thesis: In truth, one can only understand a text if one has understood the question to which it is an answer. One will only understand historical events if one reconstructs the question to which the historical action of the person was the answer in each case. >History/Collingwood, >Question/Answer/Collingwood. I 378 GadamerVsCollingwood: The use Collingwood makes of the logic of question and answer for hermeneutical theory becomes ambiguous through [the] extrapolation [to the whole of history]. Our understanding of written tradition as such is not such that we can simply presuppose the correspondence between the meaning we recognize in it and the meaning its author had in mind. Just as the events of history generally do not correspond to the subjective ideas of the one who stands and acts in history, so too the tendencies of the meaning of a text generally extend far beyond the meaning that its author had in mind. The task of understanding goes first and foremost to the meaning of the text itself. Cf. >GadamerVsVico. Understanding/Gadamer: It is in the historical finiteness of our existence that we are aware that after us others will always understand differently. GadamerVsCollingwood: The hermeneutic reduction to the opinion of the author is just as inappropriate as the reduction to the intention of the actor in the case of historical events. See >Plan/Collingwood. I 396 Text/Gadamer: Text does not want to be understood as an expression of life, but in what it says. Writing is the abstract ideality of language. The meaning of a written record is therefore basically identifiable and repeatable. What is identical in repetition alone is what was really laid down in the written record. This also makes it clear that repetition cannot be meant here in the strict sense. It does not mean a reference back to an original first in which something is said or written, as such. Reading understanding is not a repetition of something past, but participation in a present meaning. |
Gadamer I Hans-Georg Gadamer Wahrheit und Methode. Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik 7. durchgesehene Auflage Tübingen 1960/2010 Gadamer II H. G. Gadamer The Relevance of the Beautiful, London 1986 German Edition: Die Aktualität des Schönen: Kunst als Spiel, Symbol und Fest Stuttgart 1977 |