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    EVENT HERM ENEUTICS AND NARRATIVE:TARRYING IN THE PHILOSOPHY O F HANS-GEORG G ADA MER

    bySheila M. R oss

    B.A. The University of British Columbia 1986M.A. The University of British Colum bia 1988

    THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OFTHE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

    DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

    in theDepartment of E nglish

    4 Sheila M. R oss 2003SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

    August 2003All rights reserved . Th is work may not bereproduced in whole or in part by photocopy

    or other means without permission of the author

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    APPROVAL

    NAME : Sheila May RossDEG REE: Doctor of PhilosophyTITLE O F THESIS: Event Herm eneutics and Narrative:Tarrying in the Philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadam erEXAMINING COMM ITTEE:

    CHA IR: Dr. T. Grieve

    D e pa rt m en t o f E n g l i s h , S U

    Dr. P. St. Pierre Professor ( A s si s a n t )Department of English SFU

    ~r@wEir ProfessorDepartment of EnglishUniversity of B ritish Colum bia

    Dr. I. Angus ProkvDepartment of 'Humar i sSFUInternal Examiner

    D f S. Taubeneck Professor ( ~ s s o c i t e )Department o f Co mparative Literature Program ChaU n i v e r s i t y o f B r i t i s h C olu mbiaEx te rna l Examine r

    Date Approved: u a u ~ f ?3 2~5?

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    PARTIALCOPYRIGHTLICENCEI hereby grant to Simon Fraser University the right to lend my thesis, project orextended essay the title of which is shown below) to users of the Simon FraserUniversity Library, and to make partial or single copies only for such users or inresponse to a request fiom the library of any other university, or other educationalinstitution, on its own behalf or for one of its users. I fUrther agree that permission formultiple copying of this work for scholarly purposesmay be granted by me or theean of Graduate Studies. It is understood that copying or publication of this work

    for financial gain shall not be allowed without my writtenpermission

    Title of ThesislProjecVExtendedEssayEvent Hermeneutics and Narrative: Tarrying in the Philosophy of Hans-GeorgGadamer

    Author Signature)

    lL 0 3Date)

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    BSTR CT

    The primary aim of this thesis is to elucidate a frequently misunderstood and undervalued

    content in the hermeneutical philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer, his characterization ofa modality o f being he calls tarrying (Verweilen) as a special tempo rality. Thecharacteristics of this temporality specify and deepe n what he means by event-hermeneutics. This time-concept is decisive for seeing the relevance of Gadam er'sphilosophical project to, for exam ple, a defense of the humanities, a s well a s to thestruggle over a meaningful c oncept of spirit. In light of this primary aim , a seconddime nsion of this thesis is to consider the temporal qualities of narrative thinking a ndnarrative art, especially those qualities relating to the measurement and assemblage oftime, since these qualities make narrative art c onspicuously exemplary of the c alculativeand planning reason whose onesidedness Gad amer's philosophical project oppo ses.Gadamer's many passing references to narrative art express reservations about this artform. Taken togethe r, these am ount less to a critique of the temporality of narrative thanto a radical reconception o f narrative art consistent with his own time-concept of tarrying.How ever, a view o f narrative art that holds to the normative view of time and thecorresp onding ontology can be found in the work of Paul Ricoeur. His work developsfrom precisely what is critiqued by Gadamer. I stress the im portance o f this contras t forcorrectly situating their respective hermeneutical philosophies. Gadamer's alternativeconception of time is much m ore radical than R icoeur's, but because G adame r impliesrather then them atizes a critique of narrative temporality, it is left to the attentive readerto work out. English readers, though, have been hamp ered by the unavailability, untilrecently, of G adamer translations, some of which are here examined.

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    Acknowledgments

    This doctoral study could not have been completed without the support of mycolleagues at Douglas C ollege who accomm odated my need for time. This studyalso benefited considerably from the generosity o f Richard E Palmer whoprovided me with his translations of unpublished Gadamer essays.

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    TABLE OF CONTENTS

    ApprovalAbstractAcknowledgementsTable of ContentsPrefaceIntroduction: Brushes with Gadamer's Hermeneutics:The Defining question of Event and the Clues of Temporality1 Blessing Muses : The Temporality of Tarrying2. Mytho s: Gadam er on Narrative and the Poles of Ritualand Conversation3. The Spirit of Narrative: Onesidedness in the Temporalityof Paul RicoeurConclusion: On the Way of Event HermeneuticsWo rks Cited

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    Preface

    In 1996, I published an essay on Gada mer and St. Aug ustine, entitled Theology a s

    Hermeneutical S tance: Gadam er and Self-Composure in St. Augustine's ~onfessions. 'It was the fruit of my preoccupation w ith constructing a hermeneutical account of theinsuperab ility of the distance between se lf and other. In the early stages of my do ctoralwork I thought I might continue this exploration by examining depictions of this dynamicin narratives, taking proper care to distinguish narratological questions fromhermeneutical ones. In subsequent reading of G adamer, however, I soon realized, firstly,that, contrary to what many appeals to Gadamer's philosophical authority seemed tosuggest, including mine in the published essa y, the 'approp riative' versus the 'open'stance toward the other is far from the core o f his own preoccupations. On the contrary,Gadam er struck a chord, my suspicion that the dichotomization of self and other, whichenjoys such prestige in literary studies and other humanities fields, might be something ofa fool's gam e, a game without end and singula rly unhelpful in terms of answ eringquestions about belonging to and partaking in the world. It seem ed to me fruitless toconceive of understanding in terms o f such a separation or estrangement, or, worse, aparadox. It also became clear that narrative itself was problematic to Gadamer,

    problematic in a way somehow connected to forbidden questions about time. In thisdissertation, these questions, the question o f time, o f participating in a wo rld, and thequestion of narrative, intersect in ways that make them new.

    My thesis attempts to present something about Gadam er that, I argue, has beenlargely overlooke d his efforts to concre tize the Ereignis (event) of understanding by

    ornitatus 27 1 996 , pp 1 - 1 3.

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    vii

    giving very specific contours to it as an experien ce of tarrying (Verweilen), whos edefinitive quality is its tempo rality, so that we may further say that this other time isidentical with the concrete core of G adamer's hermeneutics. In other words, the positive,anom alous, and autonom ous character of the ev ent of understanding is central toGadam er's philosophy:

    When a work of art truly takes hold of us, it is not an object that stands oppositeus which w e look at in hope of seeing through it to an intended conceptualmeaning. Just the reverse. Th e work is an Ere ignis an event that appropriates

    us into itself. It jolts us, it knocks us over, and sets up a world of its own, intowhich we are drawn, as it were.2

    But it is a world which is given a further specifically tempo ral character: Thetemporal dim ension that is bound up w ith art is, in fact, fundame ntal.. ..The Weile [thewhile in Verw eillen, tarrying] has this very special tempo ral structure a structure of

    being moved.. 3 Readers of G adamer have given only passing m ention to this furthercharacterization of Ereignis a s tarrying, and do not, I suggest, see either the uniqueness orthe implications o f its tem porality.

    Briefly, what is special about the temporality of tarrying is that, when tarrying, anawareness of time pa ssing is absent, due to the intensity of phenomenologicalengrossment in the m atter at hand. So the temporal aspect of tarrying is not, as is oftenassumed, merely the taking of one's time to linger, as in a slackening or slowing down tocontem plate, but rather, its temporal quality is a function of the fullness, the intensity ofengrossment and attention. But neither is this temporality merely the absence of time.

    Aesthetics, in Gadamer in Conversation ed. trans. Richard Palmer (New Haven Lond on: YaleUP, 2001), pp. 61-77, p. 71.lbid, pp. 76-7 (parenthesis in original).

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    Vll lThe critical point is that in Gadamer's characterization of the experience of tarrying, timetakes on a positive c haracter as an antithesis to normative, dimensional time-consciousness. This provides an important key to understanding what Gadamer m eansby an ontological onesidedness. Th e, as it were , 'two sides,' are tempo rallydistinguished, not as the absencelpresence of time, but as two distinct kinds if time. Asopposed to merely indicating time's absence from thought during tarrying, his suggestionof another kind of temporality allows him to formulate a certain locus or site of thinkingother than thinking oriented to or situated in dimensional time. Therefore, abiding in

    inquiry itself stands as a form of resistance to this other way. In Chapter One, I lay thisout; Gadamer's opposing temporalities delineate his account of, on the one hand, hisaccount of participation in the world, and on the other, his account of what thisexperience stands opposed to: the perfectly planned and adm inistered, technologizedworld on the othe r, which is defined, indeed facilitated, by a normative, utilitariantempo rality. Tarrying is not a seclusive hiatus from life, but the site of intervention inthis world, where one is confronted with the strange, or troubled by worldly questions ofclass, race, or gender. As G adamer says in the 199 2 Wort und Bild essay, 'Filled time'has no duration and does not pass away; yet every kind of thing happens there. 4

    Gadam er's continual effort to concretize the event of understanding, to whicheffort I argue the temporality o f tarrying is central, is consistent w ith his continual,perhaps growing preoccupation with making philosophy more concrete. Jean Grondinmentions in the epilogue to his recent biography of Gada mer, for example, how Gadam eradmonished participants at one of the last colloquiums Gadam er attended because the

    Wort und Bild so wahr, so seiend, ' rans. Richard E. Palmer, unpublished, pp. 1-50, p. 50(forthcoming, Northwestern University P ress, 2003 . Prof. Palmer has kindly provided, and granted mepermission to cite, this and other o f his unpublished translations.

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    presentations were perh aps not le ensweltlich (close to the living world) o r notphenomeno logical enoug h, that is, not grounded in a genuine experience of the things

    t h e m ~ e l v e s . ~adamer similarly laments the tendency of conceptual thinking towardabstract aridity in the very late From Word to Concept: The Task of Hermeneutics asPhilosophy, where he looks at this problem of aridity as a historical d evelopmentbeginning w ith the Greeks, and begins his essay by revising his topic to read no t onlyfrom word to concept but likewise rom concept to word. 76 ~e suggests the need torescue philosophy from this continuing trend by reorienting conceptuality to the

    primordial e xperience of recognition wherein something is addressing us.In this connection, to underscore my approach to Gada me r's philosophy, it is

    perhaps a benefit rather than a hindrance that as a reader from a literary theorybackground I have no particular commitment to the conceptualizations of academicphilosophy . I am a trained reader, trained as it were, to tarry, and trained on an enigma inthe work of G adamer that emerged w hile pursuing a question in the study of narrative,the problematic of self and other. For there appe ared to be a disconnect betweenGad ame r's dialogical m odel of understanding and what I noticed w as his characterizationof the event of understanding a s a singular, autonomous tarrying, complete with qualitiesof rightness and eve n divinity. My literary orientation brought into focus what manyreaders of Gadam er conclude is a contradiction or some how undefined. In myintroductory chapter I show how it is possible to embrace Gad ame r's theory of thehistorically-affected consc iousness and ap ply it to a theorization o f dialogue as social

    Hans-Georg Gadarner: A Biography, trans. Joel Weinshe imer (New Haven London: Y aleUniversity Press, 2003), p. 333. Grondin m entions the participants in question inc lude Gianni Vattimo andRichard Rorty.~ r a n s . ichard E Palmer, unpublished (forthcom ing, Northwestern University Press, 2003 , p. 1 SeeIntroduction, below, note 1

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    praxis without taking the step tophenomenological concreteness; in other words, withouttaking notice of what G adamer sa ys about the truth experience of art. Specifically, Ishow that an insistence on the self-other dynamic only betrays an abstraction from theconcrete event of engrossment in a subject matter that stands at the heart o f understandingfor Gadamer. Put simply, one cannot at the same time be engrossed in a subject matterand simultaneously be aware o f oneself in relation to an other, just as one canno t, say,read and watch how fast one reads at the sam e time. In other words, there is nodisconnect, no contradiction, if one takes G adam er s orientation to concrete experienceseriously. I believe the specifically temporal significance of tarrying may have bee noverlooked by other scholars working with Gadam er because of a certain blindness to thequestion of time. And as a consequence, Gadam er s thought is frequently dismissed asproblematic, while its actual radicality is overlooked. The Introduction surveys momentswhere a fuller conside ration of the question o f event, in particular o f its temporal a spect,can resolve difficulties even prominent readers in the field of hermeneutics readers havehad with G adamer s hermeneutics. But as well as to dispel such reservations aboutGadam er, the aim in the Introduction is to show how decisive Gadam er s orientation toevent actually is.

    The English reception of Gadam er may have been handicapped by the fact thatmany G adamer texts have only recently become available in English. And becauseGad ame r was still writing philosophy until the m id-nineties, he is simply still in theprocess of being read, even in German. Such titles as Praise of Theory (1 998),Herm eneutics Religion and Ethics (1 999), and Gadamer in Conversation (200 revealGadamer in greater breadth than does Truth and Method and perhaps instruct us in how

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    to read that work. After all, the later Gadam er mak es clear that he was a philosopher w hopreferred speaking over writing, and the short essay over the book, which m akes theproject of understanding him m ore of a scholarly adventure of following clues, than theorderly study of a single treatise. Richard Pa lme r's forthco ming Bouq uet of the Lat erGadam er: Rea der (Northwestern UP, 2003) will do a great deal to expose Englishreaders to Gadam er's most recent work. Of particular importance to a re-reading ofGadam er is the lengthy essay Wort und Bild, which treat at length in Chapter Onebecause of its exp licit, substantive discussion of the temporality of tarrying in relation tothe experience of the work of art. Professor Palmer has been generous enough to provideme with his translation of this and with other new material.

    Bringing to light the concrete core o f Gada mer's hermeneutics means thatnarrative becom es significantly problematized, both as a literary genre (Chapter Tw o)and as an ontology, a way of being in the world (Chapter Three). Chapter Two considersthe many passing references to narrative art in Gadam er's essays. It is quite clear that heregards narrative art not structurally but in term s of a language event. Gadam er associatesnarrative with m ythos, with the ritualistic and conserva tive functioning of language thatconfirms one's ho me in the world. His discussion of narrative often functions to contrastthe language event he considers exemplary, the language experience that is radicallyunsettling, and so enlarges, rather than confirms, on e's home. G adam er's primary interestis in the fundamental orality of language in these two kinds of language event, theconserv ative, or ritualistic, and the transformative. Exem plary of the former, tarryingin narrative lacks the transformative character that other more radical languageexperiences occasion.

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    xiiMy conclusion discusses the ramifications of regarding narrative art as a language

    event rather than a structure. At the very least, a view of narrative as event cannotaccomm odate itself very well to literary analysis that wishes to a dopt Gada mer'sconversational model for an ana lysis of the problematic o f self and other. In fact,regarding narrative as even t poses a challenge to what prevails in many app roaches toteaching narra tive, the attempt to ove rcome the invisibility of the text with structuralapparatuses of varying com plexity, even though every reader intuitively knows from herre ding experience that this very invisibility is where the affec tive power o f narrativelies. Th e resistance to literature, for exam ple at the college level where I teach, is in thissense justified, and exacerbates a belief that teaching literature is scanda lous. But anevent approach to literature does not overcome the text s o much a s develop an awa renessof the dynamics of its hold over us. This is not necessarily to condemn of the kind oflanguag e event that reading narrative is. Rather, the point is that making suchdistinctions about the experience o f language, whether narrative language or that of otherliterary works of art, allows the true participatory dimension of reading literature to standout, whether ritualistic or otherw ise. Read ing literature comes to stand distinctly asactual social praxis, and thus has a self-evident and imm ediate educational value. Isuggest that participation in this sense is Gadam er's answ er to the question of the locus ofhuman fulfillment, which is in part what is at issue in Gadam er's continuing concern withcorrecting an ontological onesidedness. M y argument is that the graspable, convincingaccount of human participation and fulfillment that event-hermeneutics provides, whichis predicated o n precise an d readily discernible qualities of intellectual experience ,completely reframes the studying of literature, and re-grounds intellectual life generally.

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    l l l

    So, it is to the relevance of literary studies generally that his thinking applies. And w hileliterary study suffers from both the common perception that what a text means issubjective and therefore scandalous to teach, the humanities in general suffer from thebelief that they are in general irrelevant because they don t teach us how to do anythingpractical.

    However, the centrality of temporality to G adam er s event hermeneutics has anadditional relevance to the study o f narrative, whether in the context of literary studies orcultural studies, because all form s of narrative have by definition a temporal logic: The

    cultural dominance of narrative generally (cinematic, written, etc.) comes into question inlight of Gadam er s critique of the dom inance of dimensionalized time over hum anthinking. Surely we notice how narrative art would seem to embo dy this? In the contextof his distinction between temporalities, one m ust consider wh ether the culturaldominance of narrative art is perhaps mo re sym ptomatic than joyful, symptom atic of thealienation from the concrete life-world that Gadamer s philosophical hermeneutics isattempting to redress. Gadamer, perhaps surprisingly, never takes up the question ofnarrative s inherent dimensionality, and how this feature of narrative con tributes ordetermines its experience. This is the aspect of narrative that Chapter Three explores .There are clues, but largely it is som ething the reader is left to infer for herself from hisdiscuss ions of tempo rality. It is admittedly difficult to take up this question withoutsuccumbing to the abstraction of narrative from concrete exp erience; in other words, it isthe business of structuralism, not event hermeneutics to elucidate the dimensionalcharacter of narrative. It is in part to fully define the ontological onesidedness w hichGadam er s philosophy attempts to address that Chapter Three focuses at length on the

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    xivwork of one of the critics who I argue does not read Gadam er in a way that takes accountof the cen trality of event-hermeneutics, Paul Ricoeur. Ricoeur is important because,while he is candid about a debt to Gadam er, he is nonetheless a philosopher with greatliterary influence who theorizes a way of being that builds from narrative time. Hetheorizes both a narrative way of being and a corresponding view o f narrative art wheretime is the definitive feature. Chapter Three shows how Ricoeur takes up the question oftime in such a way that he in fact theorizes precisely the normative temporality fromwhich Gadam er sets his time o f tarrying apart. I elucidate an encounter of Ricoeur with

    Gadam er on the subject of time, as we11 as provide an overview of Ricoe ur s subsequentwork o n narrative, to establish the points of comp arison critical to demonstrating this, Ibelieve, critical tension between their respective lines of thought, whatever othercompatibilities might be seen between them . Ricoe ur s narratological structuralism isimportan t to the dissertation not only strategically, that is, in order to allow the radica lityof Gada mer to stand o ut more fully through the contrast, but because it is important toidentify the limits of Ricoeur s influential account of narrative. Gadam er s work o n timewould sug gest that Ricoeur s accoun t is normative. It is also important to correct the tooeasily assumed belief that the hermeneutics of G adamer and Ricoeur are essentiallycompatible. They m ay be com patible in many ways, of course, but this dissertationshows that Ricoeur, while he may claim a lineage from G adamer, would takehermeneutics in the direction that Gada mer s event hermeneutics struggles against.

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    Introduction:Brushes with Gadam er's H ermeneutics: The Defining question of Event

    and the Clues of Temp orality

    I b elieve it is importan t to become so absorbed in something that one forgetsonese lfin i t... Indeed in the end this is one of the basic conditions for huma nbeings to be able to live together at all in a hum an w ay.

    Gadam er, conclusion, From Wo rd to conc ept '

    The aim in this introductory discussion is to show how a tenacious orientation to theeventfulness of understanding can clarify and redefine som e of the debates aboutphilosophical hermeneutics in which Gadam er figures. Using exam ples of readers closelyengaged with his tho ught, both critics and supporters, I illustrate that persistentreservations about Gadam er may be overcom e by a re-reading of his thought that givesdeeper consideration to this specifically experiential orientation, especially to whatGadam er has said to facilitate this radical orientation, namely the clues that his nu merous

    From Wo rd to Concep t: The Task of Hermeneutics as Philosophy, trans. Richard E. Palmer(unpublished), p. 17. The German essay, Vom W ort zum Begriff: Die Aufgabe der Hernieneutik alsPhilosophie, appears in the Gadamer Lesebuch ed. Jean Grondin (Tiibingen: Mohr Siebeck, 199 7), pp.100-1 10. In my corresp onde nce with Richard P alm er, he indicated that the essay will be included in hisBouquet of the Later Gadamer: A Reader (forthcom ing, Northwestern University Press, 2003), and wasGad am er's last major intellectual endeavor. Th e title suggests its historical theme, but another is thenecessity of philosophical co ncepts to speak to people, i.e.: from concept to word (I ), a theme seeminglyborne out in Gadame r's own distillation here of a life-time of thought into a style which appeals for much of

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    mentions of temporality provide. This re-reading of Gadamer pauses at these mom ents,mom ents where other readers of Gadamer have not. The examples of reservations aboutGadam er come from figures who have contributed to important hermeneutical debate,such as John Caputo and Richard Bernstein, indicating just how prevalent and norm ativethese readings of Gadam er are. This re-reading of Gadamer counters such beliefs as thatGadam er, as Caputo puts it, hides an essentialism attractive to theologians or, asRichard Bernstein puts it, has a conservative strain that underm ines his potentialradicality.' The reading of Gadam er presented here in fact teases out a radicality, evidentin his particular statem ents about tarrying and spirit, or Geist This radicality concerningspirit is one that even D em da appears not to have noted when he says in Of Spirit thatNo one wants any thing to do with [Geist] nymore, in the entire family of

    Heideggerians, be they the orthodo x or the heretical, the neo-H eidegge rians or the para-Heideggerians, the disciples or the experts. ' In fact, the clues about the Ereignis (event)of understanding provided by Ga dam er's treatment of time afford an entry into just such asub-text abo ut spirit.

    its authority not to the conversation of philosoph y but to everyday e xperien ce, a direction, one might say, inwhich event-hermeneutics inevitably moves.ohn Capu to, Gadamer's Closet Essentialism: A Derridean Critique, Dialogue and Deconstruction,ed. Diane P . Michelfelder Richard E. Palmer (New York: SUN Y, 1989), p. 261; What is the Differencethat Makes a D ifference?, Hermeneutics and Modern Philosophy, ed. Brice R. Wachterhauser (NewYork: SUNY, 1986), p. 349.

    Jacques Dem da, OfS pirit: Heidegger and the Question, trans. Geoffrey Bennington and RachelBow lby (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987 ), p. 3 In fact, what Derrida co nclude s abou tHeideg ger is not so far from what this dissertation conclu des about Gadam er: it is on the basis of a moreoriginary thinking of time that we will open ourselves to a more appropriate thinking of spirit (92). Wh atis decisive in his examination are Heidegger's statemen ts that Der Geist ist das Flammende and DerGeist ist Flamme, which he translates as Spirit is what inflames and Spirit is flame (cited in Dem 'da,84). For De md a, the question of spirit in Heidegger com es down to a problematic slippage created by thegrammatical categories of noun and verb, to a play of language wherein spirit becom es verb-like (seeDerrida, Chap. IX). In contrast, Gadamer's whole effort, one might say, is to show that it is not problem aticto designate spirit as an even t.

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    An important focus in this introduction is the distinction between formal andexperiential ac counts of the dynamic of understanding. W hile it is logical to describeunderstan ding in terms of self and other from a formal point of view, from an experientialpoint of view n other words , in terms of the living actuality of consciou snessunderstan ding some thing, it is very problem atic. This is because, strictly speak ing, anexperience of understanding involves only an experience of something to be understood.One neither experiences one's self, nor experiences the other, per se. Moreover, a readermay feel a need to reconcile Gadamer's phen ome nological insistence that one doggedlypursues the logic of the subject matter itself, with his also insisting that allunderstanding presupposes both historically and linguistically mediatedpreunderstanding. 4 But this difficulty arises only when a subject matter is treated asseparab le from its being thought of, which a ttributes to it an objective as opposed to ahermeneutical reality. Gadamer never departs from this reasoning, and much followsfrom it, which subsequent chapters will explore. What I wish to show here, however, ishow m uch doesn't follow for the reader of Gadamer who doesn't maintain the priority ofthis distinction. As we w ill see from the examples that follow, it is easy to lose sight of itwhen elaborating theoretical constructs about the nature of understanding.

    Placing grea ter stress on this principle wou ld resolve the difficulty that JamesDiCenso's has with Gadamer in his work, Hermeneutics and the Disclosure of Truth: AStudy of the Work of Heidegger Gadamer and Ricoeur published in 1 9 9 0 . ~ his is anattemp t to refine and clarify Heidegger's notion of truth as disclosure. DiCenso

    Brice R. Wachterhauser, Introduction, Hermeneutics and Modern Philosophy ed. Brice R.Wachterhauser New York: SUNY Press, 1986 , p 34.(Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1990).

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    explains that this notion of truth is distinct both from theological and metaphysicalnotions of truth as absolute, as well as distinct from the scientific or analytical notion oftruth as something verifiable (xiii). This third sense of truth, truth-as-disclosu re, isconsidered in terms of its being a happening, for example, where Heiddeger asks in TheOrigin of the Work of Art, How does tru th happen? 6 ~ u teidegger doe s not mean,how do es a thing come to be regarded as true ; rather, he mean s what is a truth-happening? In other words, how d oes a happening co me to have the quality of truth?Obv iously, truth in this sen se is inherently experiential; it is inherently what strikes anactive consciousnes s. You migh t say it is about the striking of consciousnes s. It is truthin this sense, I am arguing, that Gadam er wishes to elucidate with his event-hermeneutics.DiCenso presents Heidegger, Gadamer, and Ricoeur in a progression where Gadam er isshow n to refine Heidegger's original insight, but wh o in turn is corrected by Ricoeur:Ricoeu r provides a corrective to the formulations that curtail the scope of Gadame r'shermeneutics (xvii). But a careful exam ination o the precise respects in whichGadam er is said to require correction reveals where DiCenso se ems to haveunderestimated the reach that this third concept of truth actua lly has in Gadam er'sthought. The aim here is not to lay out the extent to which this affects DiCenso's overallargument so much as to open with an illustration of a reading of Gadam er that seem s tolose sight of the very orientation to event that is thought to go awry in Gadame r. Theillustration is significant in two ways: first, what this amou nts to is that Dicenso seem s toadopt a form of analysis associated with one form of truth in order to describe anotherform suppo sedly at variance with it. Seco nd is how apparently difficult it is to resist this

    Martin Heidegger, Poetry anguage Thought rans. Albert Hofstadter (New York: Harper and Row,

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    tendency when elucidating the notion of truth associated with the living actuality of thesingle experience of consciousness Heidegger calls 'worlding.'

    These observations emerge from DiCenso's conclusion that there is acontradiction inherent in Gad ame r's hermeneutics between a model [of understanding]

    based on disclosu re and a model based on conve rsation' (1 1). H e states,There is a contradiction inherent in Gadamer's hermeneutics. He

    emphasizes that language transcends subjectivity, and yet he continues to viewunderstanding through a model based on the conversational interaction ofsubjects. On the one hand Gadamer asserts that in linguistic comm unications,'world' is disclosed. On the other hand he main tains that language has its truebeing only in c onversation, in the exercise of understanding between people.The priority o f the subject that derives from the latter formulation is incompatiblewith the d isclosive transformation of the form er, and this serves merely tohighlight the nature of the problem. The disclosive model, which potentially cangive expression to the historical, supraindividual, and critical nature ofhermeneutics, becomes constrained and curtailed by a conversational modeldependent upon the presence o f individuals to one another. (1 1 1-12)

    The question here is what would DiCenso have to think Ga damer means by languagehaving its true being in conv ersation, in order for him to see this as contradicting theposition that language discloses 'world'? These positions are contradictory only if areader see s the singularity of that-which-is-disclosed in opposition to the du ality of two

    1971 , p. 55. Cited in DiCenso, p. 65.

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    subjects in conversation. DiCen so states that disclosive capacity becom es distorted andcurtailed by the model of understanding based upon the conv ersation betweenindividuals (1 11). His perception of a problem ex tends to Gadamer's n otion of the text,wherein Gadam er relies upon a problematic notion o f the text as a Thou (1 13). This, toDiCen so, again points to two sub jects rather than to something disclosed, except thathere, he sees an additional problem w ith G adam er's notion of the thou-status of the text,which Dicenso says must entail its full personification, comp lete with an independentsource of volition and self-expression (109-1 10). He explains that this means, in turn,there arises the problem of the inequality betw een the text and the interpreter:

    The text does ot possess the qua lities of animation and direct responsivenessrequired to assert itself against the approp riations of the reader o r to reactspontaneou sly to the new interpretive contexts into which it is placed. (1 10)

    On this point, how ever, we may read Gadam er quite differently. DiCen so'spreoccupation with the interlocutors, and therefore with the inequality that follows in thecase of a living reader with an inanim ate text, obscures the actual locus of understanding,which is not the relation o f the interlocutors themselves, but their involvement in thesubjec t matte r of mutual concern, the subject of the dialogue between them . In an eventof understanding, the participants have on ly the subject matter in mind , not themselves orthe oth erp er se: So given over are they to their subject that one might say that they ar ethe subject matter at this mom ent, and it follows that each is free from precisely theconcern with self-hood, as well as from the question of 'who' the other person might be.The relative role played by each in determining what is at issue is really a distinctquestion, peripheral to the hermeneutical centrality of the event itself, and to the

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    admissibility of this as a model of understanding. DiCe nso's reading of Gadamerinvolves, it would seem, a conflation o f the event o f understanding with the conditionswhich give rise to it, but are not properly part of it. But more over, the precise respect inwhich the s elf is not part of the even t is very critical as far as the question o f truth isconcerned. For it follows from the reading of Gadam er offered here that an event ofunderstanding cannot occur except when questions of self and other are temporarilyexpunged from consc iousness by the pressin g nature of the matter at hand. Quiteobviously, disclosure cannot occur without the physical presence of an other, whetheranother person or a text, but Ga damer's hermeneu tics concerns itself with w hat isdisclosed to one consciousness via what another contributes to a subject matter of theirmutual concern.

    Gadamer has frequently expressed exasperation with those who focus onintersubjectivity, to the exclusion of what it is they are in dialogue about An example ofsuch exasperation is Gadamer's reaction to Carsten Dutt, who in an interview in Gadamerin Conversation (2001) asks him "...wou ldn't you say that hermeneutical philosophythematizes conversation as our capacity for rational intersubje~tivit~?"'Gadamer's replyis, "Oh, please spare me that completely misleading concept o f intersubjectivity, of asubjectivism doubled " He explain s, "a c onve rsation is something one gets caught up in,in which one gets involved" (59). A critical point here is his insistence that this is in factthe "mea sure of a real conversation" (59); in other words, it is the degree to which one iscaught up in the subject matter that measures the value of dialogue et's say, measuresits disclosive power. What nee ds to be recognized is that this is none other than the

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    happening of truth. In Gadamer's philosophy, as we shall see, it is the intensity andautonomy of this experience that the example of art is intended to isolate for ourconsideration, for the artwork is a thou as well. There is no contradiction at all betweenthe disclosive and dialogical models of understanding, for disclosure is quite properlywh t goe s o n in the event of dialogue. Gadamer's point is that it can only happen here.

    It is possible, however, that DiCenso's reading of Gadamer is influenced by hisalignment with Paul Ricoeur. This is clear in his treatment of Gadamer on the topic ofmimesis. Here too, Gadamer's orientation is to a working consciousness when discussingthe nature of mimetic activity. Initially, DiCenso acknowledges Gadamer'sunderstanding of mimesis to be disclosive rather than reproductive :8

    Within Gadamer's development of a historical and hermeneutical approach totruth there resides an understanding of mimesis that views it as disclosive ratherthan reproductive. Gadamer argues that representation is an ontological eventand belongs to the ontological level of what is represented. Through beingrepresented it experiences, as it were, an increase in being. Representation is notsimply added on to preexistent entities determinable as such but rather divulgesaspects of things heretofore obscured. (Gadamer 122; DiCenso 121)

    But he concludes that Gadamer's reconstruction of mimesis in accordance with disclosureis not adequately developed :

    The reconstruction of mimesis indicated by the passage quoted above, amongothers, is not adequately developed by Gadamer. The main problem requiring

    Hans-Georg Gadam er with Carsten Dutt, Hermeneutics, in Gadam er In Conversation; Reflectionsand Commentary ed. trans. Richard E. Palmer (New Haven: Yale UP, 2001), p. 59.

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    analysis derives from the implications of the displacement o f the notion of a fixedoriginal for a theory of the relationship between world and representation

    (particularly representation in langu age). The original is not final or closed in itsnature, for it continu es to become through represen tation. (12 1)

    It is first of all important to see that where as Gada mer's interest is prima rily in the unityof world and representation in the event of understanding, and on elucidating themeasure of the intensity of that event, as Gadamer suggests above, DiCenso's focus

    here is on anatomizing the structure of the relationship between world andrepresentation. Gadam er's focus on degree places the emphasis on, and gives more

    definition to, the experiential value (an increase in being, as Gadamer says above) ofgetting caught up in a subject matter. Many of the essays in The Relevance of theBeautiful develop this interest of Gadam er's, a s the title might seem to announce, thoughDiCenso's bibliography suggests he was perhaps unaware of this c o l l e ~ t i o n . ~Nevertheless, the whole thrust of the section from Truth and Method to which DiC ensorefers is to give definition to mimesis conceived as em bodying, rather than imitating,something:10 In Play as the Clue to Ontological Explanation, Gadam er seeks toestablish that the actual experience of the artwork is, like aspects of play, more essentiallyautonomous than imitative, and in this sense it has a special identity (i.e., as itself, notwith an antecedent original). Art, Gadam er argues, is thus experienced as recognition,not a s im itation (1 15). In Truth and Method where G adamer goes from here is to theconsequent contemporaneousness of all art, no ma tter what its historical origin. His

    DiCenso s using the 1975 edition, ed. trans. Garrett Barden and John Cumming New York:Seabury).

    Ed. Nicholas Walker, trans. Robert Bernasconi, Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1986).

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    discussion of m imesis prepares the way in ruth and ethod for his inquiry into thetemporality of art: Thus w e have the task of interpreting the work of art in terms oftime, reads the last sentence of the section in question (1 21). Gadam er in fact developshis alternative concept of mim esis by stressing precisely its eventfulness, which he g ivesdefinition to, finally, by describing it as a modality marked by a special temporal aspect.

    It is important to con sider the possibility that, because D iCenso seem s to belooking for the sort of developmen t comp atible with objectivist thinking, he effectivelystrays from truth as disclosure and is not able to read G adamer in a way that takes accountof the orientation to event. The most im portant evidence of this occurs in his treatment o fa passage from Truth and Method, where Gadamer mentions a double representation(in the 1989 revised ed ition, it is a double mimesis ). I Gadamer is discussing theparticular case of the actor, whose ow n interpretive ac tivity places the w ritten play atanother remove from the interpretive activity of the audience, hence double. Gadam er'spoint is that, even here, this double mimesis is one (1 17, italics in original). In o therwords, the drama is simply a particularly em phatic exam ple of the event-character of artbecause even despite such a doubling of interpretation, it achieves its full being onlyeach time it is played (1 17). So mim esis has to do with the presence of this fullness, notwith the relationship of the performance to an original. But DiCen so wishes to comparethis doub le-representation, in what is after all only an illustration in G adam er'sdiscussion, to Ricoeur's three-fold m imesis, unfortunately suggesting that the size of theaffixed numb er somehow determines conceptual value. He sees Ricoeur's three-fold

    1 n2 Revised ed., Crossroads Publishing, 1989.Ed. & trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall, (New York: Continuum, 1993), p. 1 17 (italicsin original .

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    mimesis as far more complex than the notion of mimesis evident in Gadam er'sdiscussion (122). It is Ricoeur's mod el, in fact, that provides the kind of analyticaldevelopment DiCenso is seeking, but, again, it encompasses factors that are extraneous tothe hold on on e's consciousness which a subject matter might have:

    Ricoeu r differentiates the functions of mimesis into the three-fold structureof mim esi sl, mimesis2, and mimesis3. The significance of this developmentshould not be underestimated on account of its cumbe rsome appearance.Threefold mimesis is far more comp lex than Gada mer's extension of the mimeticprocess to co ver different stages of artistic activity. Ricoeur provides apreliminary definition of the three dimensions of mim esis as a reference back tothe familiar pre-unde rstandings we have of the order of ac tion; an entry into therealm o f poetic com position; and finally a new con figuration by means of thispoetic refiguring of the pre-unde rstood order of action. Th e central term in thistriad, mimesis2, indicates what is commonly understood as the representationalarts per se. (122)

    W e imm ediately note a misunderstanding of Gadam er in DiCenso's belief that Gadamer'sconcept of mim esis covers stages of artistic activity, when it only refers to interpretiveactivity. Also, it must be stated that DiC enso 's mention of the arts per se, in the lastsentence of his summ ary, suggests a referentiality that w ould seem wholly incompatiblewith disc losive truth.

    Leaving aside the question of Ricoeur for the mom ent, the point here is how areading o f Gadam er that remains oriented to the priority that Gadamer gives to art'sexperien tial hold on consc iousness resolves the difficulties raised by DiCenso. Ricoeu r's

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    development, as DiCenso presents it, would also seem to be the kind of development thatis irrelevant to the re-reading of Gadamer presented here: it is not a question of definingthe stages of the mimetic process to be included in the definition of mimesis, but ofhow to talk about the experiential locus and experiential value of understanding a rt. Hispoint was never to do with artistic activity, but to do with the autonomy of itsmanifestation in interpretive activity. Though Gadamer might be challenged on hisorientation to the event of understanding itself, he cannot be faulted for being consistentwith it.

    DiCenso's comparison of Gadamer and Ricoeur brings us to consider aninfluential essay by Paul Ricoeur on Gadamer, Hermeneutics and the Critique ofIdeology, originally published in French in 1973 12 This is Ricoeur's well-knownaccount of the disagreement between Gadamer and Habermas concerning the universalityof hermeneutics. At issue is the extent to which our interpretive condition, our positionof situated finitude, is inescapable. The question of Ricoeur's contribution tohermeneutics is treated more fully in Chapter Three of this dissertation, where I presenthow his objectivist orientation enables him to fill a certain poignant silence aboutnarrative left by Gadamer. However, Ricoeur's treatment of the Habermas-Gadamerdebate is worth mentioning here because, just as Gadamer points out to Habermas that

    * Herme neutique et critique des ideologies, in Demythization et ldeologie, ed. Enrico Castelli (Paris:Aubier Monta igne, 1973), pp. 25-64. It appears in English in Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences, ed.trans. John B. Thomson (Ca mbridge UP , 1864), pp. 63-100, and in Hermeneutics and Modern Philosophy,ed. Brice R. Wach terhauser (New York: State University of New York Press, 1986), pp. 300-39. The latteris the text referred to he re, since this work a lso contains the principle exchan ge between Haberm as andGadam er to which Ricoeur refers. Th e essays comprising this exchange are Jiirgen Habe rmas, A R eviewof Gadamer's Truth and M ethod, trans. Fred Da llmayr and Thom as McCarthy, pp. 243-276; andGad ame r's On the Scope and Function of Hermeneutical Reflection, trans. G.B. Hess and R.E. Palmer,pp. 277-299. Gadam er's essay has also been published under the title, Rhetoric, Hermeneutics, and

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    Habermas reverts to the very objectifying tendancy that Gadam er is critiqueing (the sametendancy that created problems for DiCenso), so does Ricoeur, despite his stated aim toreconcile the two sides. This makes Ricoeur's account a problematic c ontribution to ourunderstanding of Gadamer in the respect that Ricoeur's essay has been so widely read as adefinitive overview of this well-known debate, and possibly accepted as a reconciliationof their differences. The result is a certain effacement of Gadamer's actual position.

    One of the difficulties with R icoeur's account is the degree to which it echoes adominant theme in his earlier work, The Conflict of Interpretations , published in Frenchseveral years previously.'3 The overview of the Gadamer-Haberm as debate is similarlypresented in the language of a dialectic between humility and suspicious pride. Herenders the debate, reduced for the sake of clarity to a simple duel, in terms of anopposition between a herm eneutics of tradition (Gadamer), where finitud e can only beacknowledged (300). In this respect conscio usness carries the mark of humility

    before tradition (325). On the other side is an emancipatory consciousness (Habermas),where suspicion acts against false consciousness (300) and so carries the mark ofpride (325). This is the same antimony that a number of the essays in the earlier work

    explore, and is an antimony that has endured through Ricoeur's career, the significance ofwhich will be discusse d further in Chapter Three, below . In other words, ourunderstanding of the Gadam er-Habermas debate is first of all com plicated by Ricoeur'saccount because the debate occasions his further exploration of this theological doubt-

    Ideolo gy Critique in Philosophical Hermeneutics, and in Rhetoric and Hermeneutics in Our Time: AReader, eds. Walter Jost Michael J. Hyde (New Haven: Yale UP, 1987).l The Cor ict of Interpretation s: Essays in Herm eneutics, ed. Don Ihde, trans. Willis Domingo et al.(Evanston: Northwestern U P , 1974); Le conflit des interpretations. Essais d 'hermeneu tique (Paris: eSeuil, 1969).

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    faith dialectic. Given he states here that, it is the task of philosophical reflection toeliminate deceptive antimonies, this appropriative strategy is somewhat perplexing, butin any case, this superimposition makes it difficult to determine the actual complexion ofissues at play on each side (338).14 Specifically, our understanding is complicated by thefact that Ricoeur offers a bridge between the two sides he sets up in this somewhatquestionable way: he will reconcile these two sides with a third alternative:

    Would it not be appropriate to shift the initial locus of the hermeneutical question,to reformulate the question in such a way that a certain dialectic between theexperience of belonging and alienating distanciation becomes the mainspring, thekey to the inner life, of hermeneutics? (328)

    Ricoeur is suggesting that rather than hermeneutics and ideology critique representing theirreconcilable concerns he has identified, specifically the recollection of tradition thatconfirms belonging versus the anticipation of freedom that entails alienation 337),hermeneutics might encompass a dialectic between these aims. Skeptical, defiant critiqueof ideology might be incorporated into humble, passive hermeneutics through a theory ofthe text that, because it has by definition an autonomy in being separated from theoriginal context of the author's utterance, is distanciated. This distanciation necessitatescritique:

    In thus reverting to the problematic of the text, to exegesis and philology, weappear at first sight to restrict the aim and the scope of hermeneutics. However,because any claim to universality is raised from somewhere, we may expect thatthe restoration of the link between hermeneutics and exegesis will reveal its own

    l It is perhaps worth comparing Ricoeu r's notion of freedom in Freedom in the Light of Hope, one of

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    universal features that, without contradicting Gadamer's hermeneutics, will rectifyit in a man ner decisive for the debate with the critique of ideology. (328)

    But one may note in this passage a certain tension: he speak s in a language wh erecategories such as hermeneutics are abstracted from experience, while his ostensiblesubject is the experiencing of meaning. Even if we allow that the dialectic he proposescomprises two ways to experience meaning, what we are now in a position to recognizeright aw ay is the irreconcilability of such an objectification of the text with G ada me r7sorientation to the event o the text. Th e latter refers to the expe rience of the text's subjectmatter, while in the former, such an objectification of the text presumes that exactly thiscan be bracketed . For this reason, it is not logically possible for these to stand in anydialectical relation, a fact that Gadam er eventually pointed out to ~i c o e u r . ForGadam er, the universality of hermeneutics merely stem s from its priority to analysis inthis sense; analysis is already hermeneutical. One might also note the passive-activedichotomy implied by opposing humble hermeneutics and defiant critique, and howobjectification therefore becom es the locus of activism. This is Habermas's position,which a lso insists on the requiremen t of objectification for such a locus.16

    As m entioned, what is significant about Ricoeur7 serror is that G adamer hadobserved the same error in Habermas and had discussed it at some length in the exchange.Briefly, what Habe rmas argues is this: If language is a metainstitution who se totality is

    the essays in The C onflict of Interpretations with his discussion of freedom here.l See pp. 140-42 below, for a discussion of Gadarne r's exc hange with Ricoeur, a dialogue about thethesis of Ricoeur's The C onflict of Interpretations where Gadamer expresses the wish to go behind the

    conflict of interpretations formulated by Ricoeur.his is now an old debate. Haberm as has moved closer to Gadamer in adopting a theory ofcommu nicative action that is more closely connected to the concrete the event of dialogue. Jean Grondinstates this about Habermas in his 2003 Biography of Gadamer: Emancipatory utopia has been replaced by

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    unobjec tifiable, and the language o f oppression is part of this metainstitution, then i t too,bec om es unobjectifiable and so hermeneutics can offer no possibility for critiquing theauthority of tradition: Hermeneutics bangs helplessly, so to speak, from within againstthe walls of tradition. In other words, he believes that escap ing the authority oftradition cannot be accomp lished without its objectification, and objectification is notpossible according to Gadam er. But Gadam er replies to Habermas that Habermas revertsto the very false objectification inherent in the idealist conception of reflection [which]his hermeneutics is attempting to correct in the first place ( 29 1). Habe rmas, too, brack etsexperien ce to posit the ideal situation whe rein the authority of tradition can be viewedfrom an 'outside' that does not enter our world (288 , italics in orig.). Gad amerspecifically refutes the suggestion that hermeneutics is impotent, what Ricoeur mightterm passive, in the face of the authority of tradition. Gad amer states, it is aninadmissible imputation to hold that I som ehow m eant there is no decline of authority orno eman cipating criticism of authority (291). In his reply to Habermas, he himse lfclarifies at some length how hermeneutics can accomm odate a critique of tradition,pointing out that emancipation does not require objectification, but rather can occurwithin the element of language, not language that objectifies, as Ricoeur says, but thelanguage that we inhabit:

    Lang uage.. .is not the finally found anonym ous subject of all social-historicalprocesse s and action, which presents the w hole of its activities as objectivations toour observ ing gaze ; rather, it is by itself the gam e of interpretations that we a ll are

    a discourse ethics oriented to the hermene utic model of coming to an understanding. In Hans-GeorgGadamer A Biography (New Haven and London: Yale University Press), p. 1 1

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    engaged in every day. In this game nobody is abov e and before all the others;everybody is at the cente r, is it in this game . (289)

    Ricoeur does not in fact offer a position that mediates between Habennas and Gadamer.Basically, he shares Ha ben nas ' objectivist position. This is certainly allowed, but it is notconsistent with Ricoeur's stated aim , which was to present a mediating position. This isunfortunate for our understanding of Gadamer, for the effect is obfuscation rather thanclarification of the radical core of Gadamer's henneneutical philosophy, the eventfulnessof understanding. Ricoeur's imposition of a passive-active antimony, which I suggestneed s to be seen in the context of Ricoeur's own preoccup ations, has also helped createthe impression that Gadamer is a giant of conservatism by placing him on the side ofpassivity and humble belonging.I8 Ricoeur's subsequent theorization of the ontology of

    l Gadam er, On the Scope and Function of Hermeneutical Reflection, p. 288 , note. 13, citingHabermas.

    l It is also noteworthy that in his synopsis of the debate, Ricoeur did not comm ent upon Hab ermas'discussion of Danto and narrative, which is what leads Haberm as to his conclusion about Ga dam er's realachievement : 1 find Gadam er's real achievement in the demonstration that hermeneutic understanding islinked with transcendental necessity to the articulation of an action orienting self understanding ( 2 6 2 ) .Haberm as is referring to the unavoidable situation of the historian, who, Habe rmas says in a way thatanticipates Ricoeur's later preoccup ation with narrative, proceeds in the way that Danto wishes to forbidto the philosopher of history. From the viewpoint of practice he anticipates end-states from which themultiplicity o f events coalesc es smoothly into action orienting stories ( 2 6 1 ) . Habermas concludes thatperforming this objectifying operation is in fact a necessary condition of possible knowledge, andGadam er's critique, like Danto's, demo nstrates why knowledge is otherwise impossible ( 2 6 2 ) . ThatRicoeur d oes not comm ent upon this is perhaps surprising given his developing interest in just this actionorienting function of narrative. In his response to Haberm as on this point, Gadamer refers to theobje ctifica tion entailed in narrative knowledg e-mak ing, by distinguishing between the thematic reflectionwhich it em ploy s, and effective reflection:

    one must distinguish effective reflection (die ef fekt ive Reflexion) , which is that in which theunfolding of language takes place, from e xpressive and thematic reflection, which is the type out ofwhich Occidental linguistic history ha s been formed. Making everything an object and creating theconditions for science in the m odem sense, this latter type of reflection establishes the grounds forthe planetary civilization of tomorrow. ( 2 9 2 )Of course, as we have seen, Ricoeur's strategy is to choose the linguistic model G adam er here rejects, so

    that, says Ricoeur, the problem of distanciation can be given a more positive significance than Gadame rsuggests ( 3 0 3 ) . In other words, before an ontology of narrative similar to that suggested by Haberm asmight be defended , Ricoeur m ust, quite rightly, first legitimize the objectifying theory of language itpresupposes. That Ricoeur, like Habermas, in this way effectively limits the universality of hermeneuticsimplied by Gadam er's idea of effective reflection can be seen in his definition of this concept, Gadame r's

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    narrative is quite significant in this conn ection, for the question that a rises is whether itever takes account of Gadamer's answer to Habermas. And R icoeur's own ontologicalinterest in concepts of temporality m akes subsequent encounters with Gadam er all themore interesting and significant, as will be examined more c losely in Chapter Three.There, I hope to show that a narrative conception of temporality is normative, because itis tied ineluctably to objectivist thinking, while event herm eneutics questions time, anddevelop s another temporality that Gad amer calls the temporality of tarrying. Thou ghRicoeur's and Ga dam er's hermene utics are frequently seen as similar, my explication ofGadamer on temporality will reveal that in fact Ricoeur lays out its exact counterpoint:just as Gadamer attempts to articulate the temporal basis of a radical ontology, Ricoeurhas given full and definitive articulation to the normative ontology that Gadamer'shermeneutics is attempting to counter-balance.

    There is, in fact, another way of thinking abo ut universality that may furtherdevelop event hermeneutics, a meaning for universality that includes caution towardidealistic or utopian claims. Besides referring to the situation of finitude whichconditions every experience of understanding, there is another meaning of universalitythat aptly summon s the association of the worlding that Heidegger speaks of in theevent of truth. More than involving openness to world and world-building, though,universality may refer to a specific task entailed in understand ing, namely, the recursivetask of exposing the totality of one 's already possessed understandings to a neworientation of thought. A side from the question of herrneneutic appro priation, and aside

    wirkungsgeschichtliches BewuJtsein Ricoeur defines it as a category of the awarene ss of history,specifically, of the reflective consciousn ess of [historical] methodology 3 10 . Yet to limit it is to negate

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    from such a task's inherent mysteriousness, is the question of com pletion, of totality.Universality concerns the extent of the specifically integrative effort which understandingentails. W hile it may be idealistic to posit the totality or com pletion of such a task, therenevertheless remains the question of extent.

    For example, many readers of Gadam er other than H abermas accept his theory ofthe historically effected consciousness, whe re, due to our deep submersion in history,we cannot step outside of its operation. Habermas' critique notwithstanding, this idea hasbeen enormously influential. But fewer readers recognize that the necessary correlate ofthis is accepting a single instance understanding as a n event of consciousness whereindue to our deep submersion in a subject matter we canno t step outside of its hold on usto consider who we are o r are becoming. This is actually just another way o f expressingthe historical concept. This exam ple of disconnection in fact illustrates the difficulty ofundertaking the task of logically extending an orientation to the experience ofunderstanding. It is made more difficult by the depth o f our reliance on form alizing andobjectifying phenomenon, a form of analysis associated with scientific reasoning. Howwe posit subject matter, for instance, is altered by Gad amer. W hat I am sugges tingabout many readings o f Gadam er is that this task o f thinking through event ishandicapped in this way, and is often not complete. All the terms of herm eneutics needto be read in another way in Gad ame r, terms such as truth, mimesis, history,poetry, myth, and language. It is perhap s the case that until Gad ame r is allowed

    this, he cannot be fairly critiqued, and the real issues cannot be identified. Beyonddefining universality as a recursion of mind that m ight range in difficulty from the

    it, for, according to Gadamer, it is precisely to the impossibility of awareness or consciousness at the

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    pragmatist philosopher, Richard Rorty, should be seen, and this is the context of thepostmodern scandal of philosophy, its absence of method 345). Bernstein offers theview that what is needed is a form of philosophical therapy that will rid us of the illusionand the self-deception that philosophy is or can be such a foundational discipline (344).He points out the limiting nature of the philosophical standoff between pro- and anti-deconstructive tendencies that tends to involve oppositions of a binary sort:

    we are increasingly coming to realize that these traditional dichotomies obscuremore than they illuminate, and that they gain their power from an entire mode ofthinking, acting, and feeling that is itself being called into question. There is analmost desperate attempt to break out of and move beyond the dichotomies thathave characterized modern thought. (345)

    The particular application of this statement to Ricoeur's proposal of a dialectic involvingjust such a binary perhaps suggests a desire to correct Ricoeur, but in any case, against thebackdrop of the desire to free ourselves of illusory dichotomies, he re-examinesdifferences between the positions of Habermas, Gadamer, and Rorty to reveal that,despite them, these thinkers share a similar preoccupation with communicative praxis andpractical philosophy, which is the dimension of their thinking that to Bernstein is mostclearly anti-foundational. In other words, their differences don't make any difference; hesees it as much more important to recognize that they hold in common this step beyondthe Cartesian anxiety of modern and post-modern philosophy (344), calling theircommonality a nonfoundational pragmatic humanism (370).

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    In the case o f Habermas, for example, Bernstein acknowledges the legitimacy ofthe charge that Habe rma s is the 'last' great rationalist (345) wh o would solve thescandal of philosophy by developing a transcendental theory of comm unicative action:

    Habermas is a victim of the illusion that has haunted mo dem thinkers hat theymust dignify the contingent social practices that have been hammered out in thecourse of history with something that pretends to be more solid and substantial.(360).

    But B ernstein would recomm end overlooking the legitimacy of this criticism, and insteadencourages a reading of Habermas that stresses his pragmatic voice and his practice ofinterpretativ e dialectics over against the dubious transcendent'' voice , alluded to above(358). How ever, Bernstein is less successful in identifying tensions in Gad ame r that wemight similarly overlook in favor of simply affirming the practical side of Gadam er'sphilosophy. I will show that such tensions once again only arise if Gadamer is read in acertain way. Like DiCenso's claim that Gadame r's disclosive model of understandingcontradicts his conversational model of understanding, Bernstein's claim is that aconservative strain in Gadamer stands in contradiction to Gadam er's model of

    understanding as conversation. Bernstein writes:The fundamental thesis that I want to advance is that despite Gadam er's manifest(and real) conse rvative strain, his fear of the dogmatism and potential terrorof what he calls planning reason, there is a pow erful latent radial strain in histhinking that is constantly pulling us in a different direction. Gad ame r's e ntireproject of philosophical hermeneutics can be read as an attem pt to recover what hetakes to be the deepest and most pervasive theme in Western philosophy and

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    culture hat the quintessence of our being is to be dialogical .... It is thisdialogical character of what we truly are that is deformed and threatened bymodern technological society. (349)

    Though Bernstein's reading of Gadamer's entire project sounds accurate, thecontradiction he perceives needs to be read in another way. In order for Bernstein toidentify planning reason as the antithesis of conservatism, as he does here, he mustassume an opposition between the future-oriented direction of planning (i.e.: its so-calledprogressive nature), and the past-oriented upholding of tradition. This is a momentwhere a firmer grasp of the special temporality of event-hermeneutics may resolve whatotherwise appears contradictory: planning reason, in Gadamer, is not the antithesis to anostalgic dwelling in the past, but, rather, is the antithesis to an ideal hermeneuticalexperience in which a modality of thinking prevails which, as it were, puts all plans upfor grabs, just as it puts self and other in abeyance; Planning is the antithesis totarrying, not to upholding 'tradition. The distinction here depends upon a hiatus from alinear, dimensional view of time. I am arguing that elucidating this modality is the veryheart of Gadamer's development of the experiential ground of hermeneutics. It is on thebasis of this modality that Gadamer theorizes the possibility of emancipation fromspecious reasoning, theorizes the growth of consciousness, and theorizes the locus ofhuman spirit. Therefore, Gadamer is not an advocate of upholding tradition, is notconservative in any normative sense. To Gadamer, the only way to speak of the effect of

    2 In Jean Grondin's Hans-Georg Gadamer A Biography he seems to acknowledge that tempo rality isfundamental, but he sees it as distinctly linear. Hum an finitude is such that understanding lags behind ornever catches up with the ground of understanding; Gadamer's point about historically effected

    consciousness is that human self-knowing never catches z p with what and how a person really is (31718, emphasis added).

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    tradition is in terms of its operation in this other modality of thinking he calls tarrying,which is the mod ality in which genuine dialogue occurs. So, again, there is nocontradiction between the reading of Gada mer's entire project as an attempt torejuvenate our dialogical freedom, and Gadamer's formulation of tradition. Bernstein,like DiCen so, is not oriented to the tempor lity of event-hermeneutics. W ith DiCenso, itwas disclosu re that was thought to be at odds with conv ersation; here it is tradition. Butwhat is critical to realize is that tradition, just like disclosure, is what happ ens in the even tof dialogue.

    That Bernstein ascribes to G adamer a m ore or less normative understanding oftradition is also evident when he m akes the sam e criticism of G adamer that H abermas hadmade, nam ely that the upshot of Gadam er's hermeneutics is that while we obviouslyneed, es pecially today, to gain the critical distance from tradition necess ary to effectchange in our social-political lives, Gadam er's hermeneutics in effect tells us we cannot:

    But however sym pathetic one may be with Gadam er's critique of objectivism,foundationalism, and the search for an Archimedian point that lies outside of ourhistoricity, there is a question that he never adequa tely answ ers for us. Allcriticism presupposes some principles, standards, or criteria of criticism, no matterhow o pen, tentative, and historical these may be. Tradition itself is not a seamlesswhole, and w hat is most characteristic of our hermeneutical s ituation is that thereare conflicting traditions making conflicting claims upon us. W e need to gainsom e clarity about what are and what ought to be the standards for a criticalchallenge to tradition. It may be true, but it certainly isn't sufficient to tell us thatthere are no fixed rules or determinate universals that can serve as standards for

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    criticism. If reason is social reason or is genuinely intersubjective hen weneed to elucidate the intersubjective principles that can guide our individualcriticisms and decisions. Furthermore, to insist, as Gadamer himself does, that theprinciples, laws, nomoi are themselves handed down to us from the traditionand demand concrete application does not help us to resolve questions concerningthe conflict of these nomoi, or questions that arise when traditional nomoi nolonger seem to bind us. (35 1)

    We now know what Gadamer thinks about intersubjectivity, that completely misleadingconcept (see p. 13, above), but we might also point out that Bernstein's attachment togaining critical distance borders on the idealization of reflection that is aligned with

    objectivist methodology, and finally with foundationalism itself. At least, this is whatGadamer makes of Habermas' complaint. His response to this criticism in Habermas wassimple and clear: his philosophical hermeneutics is not a method, nor has it everclaimed to be 284). How we should view this attachment to gaining critical distance,however, is simply to recall that one cannot step outside one's engrossment in a subjectmatter in order to reflect upon one's process of thinking. To clarify this point, here is thepassage from Gadamer's response to Habermas:

    My thesis is and I think it is the necessary consequence of recognizing theoperativeness of history in our conditionedness and finitude hat the thing thathermeneutics teaches us is to see through the dogmatism of asserting anopposition and separation between the ongoing, natural tradition and thereflective appropriation of it. For behind this assertion stands a dogmaticobjectivism that distorts the very concept of hermeneutical reflection itself. In this

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    objectivism the understan der is seen even in the so-called sciences ofunderstan ding like history not in relationship to the hermeneutical situation andthe constant operativeness of history in his own consciousness, but in such a wa yas to imply that his own understanding does not enter into the event. (286)

    Perhaps above all the point here is to see the degree to w hich objectivism is a stubbornaffliction, since Bernstein, no less than Habe rmas, seems only partially to accept itscritique, reserving a comer for objectivism, when the reality is either one accepts theuniversal priority of our hermeneutical situation, say as Gadamer describes it, or onebrackets it completely. Objectification has its uses, obviously; in fact it is all aboutinstrumentality as we shall later see; Gadam er's hope i s only that it will no longer beemployed naively.

    Wh at is emerging at this point is again the extent to which terms becomeradicalized in event-he rmen eutics, for exam ple, truth, text, and tradition. AsGada mer indicates, it is a necessary consequence that these terms are each profound lyradicalized by the orientation to event, as are other terms, a s we shall see, such as ethicsand finally, spirit. As stated, I believe that the question of the universality of eventherm eneutics m ight also be understood in the context of fully extending thisradicalization across the field of relevant terms. Certainly, one needs to understand thenecessity of doing so for an understanding of Gadam er. For what I am trying to indicatehere is that the reservations many thinkers have about Gadam er arise from not com pletingthis task. It is ironic, of course, that one comes effectively to a halt at, say, recognizingthe operativeness of history, as Gadam er says above , by proceeding to objectify it,thereby at once rejecting in practice what is accepted in theory.

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    The q uestion that may a rise at this point is what exactly is gained bydistinguishing Gad am er s notion of truth, by rejuvenating this notion of experiential truthand making all the consequent adjustments? One gain is an insight into what humanoccup ation genuinely fulfills us, and, conve rsely, what makes us suffer. Specifically,wha t is at stake are elemental questions concerning what we ought to do with ourselvesin order to affect well-being, the everyday question of occupation. These are questions ofan ethical and sp iritual nature.

    The ethical dimension o f human finitude is the concern of John Cap uto in hisrecent (2000) More Radical Hermeneutics; On Not Knowing Who W e Are 22 And it isthe ethical significance of Gadamer s work that Caputo comments upon. To Caputo,human finitude as described by Heidegger is the unchallengeable universal which has tobe taken to heart in orde r to truly belong to the league of non-essentialists, whoseacceptance of our absolute unknowingness sets us apart from those who w ould bephilosophe rs (or theologians ). Capu to writes:

    my contention is that the more w e learn about ourselves, about our severalhistories, traditions, languages, and cultures, about the multiple ways in whichhuman lives are constituted, the more we will conclude that, in the face of suchpolym orphic, prolific, and positively dizzying diversity, our best bet is to put ourshoulders to the cart of a kind of felicitous nominalism , a happy, anti-essentialistopen-en dedness. Our best bet is to say, yes, yes, and amen to the prudent wisdomof the absolute secret, to a happy m inimalism abo ut who we think we are, or whoothers are, or what history or nature or sexua lity is, or who G od is. (6)

    22 (Bloomington and lndiana: Indiana UP, 2000 .

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    What Caputo suggest here is that the absolute secret of human finitude forcesacknowledgment of the state of not-knowing. Gadamer, too, has said that humanwisdom is an awareness of not knowing, and it is specifically related, as we have seen,not merely to minimal notions of identity, but to the very suspension of selfhood, of itstotality and its unity, which occurs during the experience of truth.23This is in fact a moreextreme version of Caputo's happy minimalism. But to Caputo, Gadamer does notquite qualify as non-essentialist:

    I am not interested in a wholesale critique of Gadamer, to whom I owe too much,but in pushing his hermeneutics a step further, into a more radical hermeneutics,and this by means of passing it though the passion for the impossible, the passionof the secret and of non-knowledge, that I take from ~ e r r i d a . ~ ~

    Generally, he maintains that deconstruction must hound and harass Gadamerianhermeneutics to keep it faithful to Heideggerian finitude (2). He asks, Does notdeconstruction explore in ruthless detail the domain of finitude, a domain that has beenmarked out in advance by hermeneutics? (2). Caputo's complaint about Gadamer is thathe undermines the subversiveness of Heidegger by appropriating finitude into ametaphysics of infinity. He examines Gadamer's critique of the concept of experience

    in Truth and Method, concluding that a metaphysics of infinity is hidden in the belief that,summarizing Gadamer, experience requires a continual openness to negativity, orreadiness for it, ad infiniturn. Experience means finitude ad infiniturn (46); one might

    3 L ' R e f l e ~ t i o n ~n my Philosophical Journey in Lewis Edwin Hahn, ed., The Philosophy of Hans G eorgGadamer (Chicago, Open Court: 1997), p. 33.4 (8). It is possible, of course, that Derrida himself does not move beyond the apo rias of self and other,

    and can thus be regarded as fundamentally oriented to a formal as op posed to experiential view ofunderstanding.

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    note that reversing this equation is a better sum mary of the true potential of Gadam er'shemermene utics: finitude always means experience; the eventfulness o f experience isalways th e substantive lo cus of finitude. Caputo wishes to show that Gadam erian finitudeis infinite in the respect that while the act of understanding is always finite.. .what isunderstood -- the artwork, the historical event, the work of language has a certaininfinity 4 6 ) n the respect that, by virtue of the uniqueness of each act of interpreting,there mus t be a correlative inexhaustible depth of material, whether historical ortextual, in that which is understood 4 7 ) . This is a perplexing account of theuniversality of finitude, because Caputo seems to merely split the finitude of experienceback into subject and object again, now disguised as the correlativity o f noetic finitudeand noematic infinity 4 7 ) . W e have seen this before; he is treating the experience offinitude abstractly where G adamer w ill only treat it substantially.25 It is a cognitive movethat would seem to go against Caputo's ethical stance of unknowingness. As support forthis reading of Gadam er, Caputo cites the following passage from Truth and Method:

    Similarly, the ph ilologist Philologe)dealing with poetic or philosophical textsknows that they are inexhaustible Unauschopjbarkeit): In both case s it is thecourse of eve nts that brings out new aspect [sic] of meaning in historical material.By being re-actualized Aktualisierung) in understanding, texts are drawn in to agenuine course of events Geschehen) in exactly the sam e way as are the events

    5 Interestingly, this single passage from Truth and M ethod said by Caputo to clearly indicate such ametaphysics is not a verbatim presentation of the English translation but is altered by Caputo, suggesting hehas taken issue with the translation. Capu to's alternate reads, Historical tradition can be understood onlyby being considered as something always in the process of being defined by the course of events.. . (inCaputo, 47). The 2ndRevised Edition from which he quote s actually reads as follows: Historical traditioncan be understood only as something always in the process of being defined by the course of events (373 ).Th e difference is subtle but significant; Capu to's addition of the word s by being considered impu tes a

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    Ereignisse) hemselves. This is what we desc ribed as the history of effect as anelement in hermeneutical e xperience. Every actualization in understanding can beregarded as an historical potential (Moglichkeit) of what is understood. It is partof the historical finitude o f our being that w e are aw are that others after us willunderstan d in a different way. And yet it is equally indubitable that it rema ins thesame work w hose fullness of meaning Sinnfulle) is realized i n the changingprocess of understanding, just as it is the sam e history whose m eaning isconstantly in the process of being defined. (47)

    This passage needs to be contextualized. Gadamer's point here is certainly not that thereis a correlate to finitude. Obviou sly, there are texts and historical materials, but Gadam eris not attributing anything mysterious or omn ipotent to their potential for meaning here.The context of the passage is Gadamer's elucidation of the dialogical nature ofunderstan ding. His immediate point is to distinguish the hermeneutical experience of thetext from the na k e historical attempt to reconstruct what the author intended. This isclear in the next senten ce, not included in Caputo's citation, which concludes theparagraph: The hermeneutical reduction to the author's meaning is just as inappropriateas the reduction of historical events to the inten tions of their protagonists 373). But hislarger point is that the text poses questions for us before any attempt might be ma de toreconstruc t the question to which the text itself was an answ er, which is hardly a pointabout the infinite potential inherent in things to be interpreted, but rather is a point thatreinforces the supposition of hum an finitude. Capu to's observa tion that an infinitenumber of unique interpretations must correlate with an infinite potential for

    greater deg ree of object-hood to tradition than had the original translators, who had placed the emphasis,

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    interpretation in the objects is beside the point; the correlative infinity that Capu toperceives is irrelevant to the condition of finitude itself.

    However, the point where Caputo's discussion could benefit the most from a re-reading of Gadam er occurs where he states that this metaphysics of infinity reminds usof the theological excess, the infinity of the divine being vis-a-vis the finitude of thehuman intellect (48). Capu to believes his view is supported in an interesting way byGadamer's work on art (48), where Gadamer often resorts to religious rhetoric toemphasize the significance of the experience of art. Here, Caputo carries ove r toGada mer's idealizing descriptions of the experience of art the same finite-infiniteantimony he see s elsewhere, and in doing s o once again falsely imputes an objectivepresence to what for Gadamer is an experiential presence, whose purely hermeneuticalstatus is wha t the examp le of art is intended to show. Capu to writes,

    All of this comes to a head when Gadam er speaks of the specialtemporality of the artwork, which is the temporality of mak ing present again, of

    a sacramental repetition which Gadamer explicitly compares to the theology of thereal (as opposed to the merely sym bolic) presence of Christ in the Eucharist inCatholic theology. Indeed Gada mer's is a deeply eucharistic hermeneutics, toborrow a phrase from Jean-Luc Marion, a good gift really present and madepresent aga in and again over the ages, in works o f art, historical events, andliterary and philosophical texts. In the temporality o f the artwork we becomecontemporaneous with a m eaning and truth w hich transcends time, which is om ni-

    with the word as, mo re on the eventfulness of the encounte r with tradition.

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    temporal. Of this Gadamer writes, and here the Gadamerian cat leaps out of thebag:

    When we dwell upon the [artlwork, there is no tedium involved, for thelonger we allow ourselves, the more it displays its manifold riches to us.The essence of our temporal experience of art is in learning how to tarry inthis way. And perhaps it is the only way that is granted to us finite beingsto relate to what we call eternity. (49, citing The Relevance of theBeautiful, 45)

    Using the concept of tarrying here, Gadamer is further qualifying and expanding uponagain, not the art object's sacred potential, but upon the potential in our experience ofspecifically, by designating, with the concept of tarrying, the temporal aspect of this

    it,

    experience. But elucidating this temporal quality not only serves to heighten the priorityof this experience over against the object in itself; it also distinguishes this mode ofexperience from other modes of experience. Tarrying is, as Gadamer says elsewhere inthe essay, an autonomous time (42), to be distinguished from the ordinary time ofplanning and habitual deference to authority where the cultivation of human interpretivejudgment does not occur. It is here that we see what I believe is the real 'antimony' inGadamer: it is not one of finitude-infinity, as Caputo says, but a distinction betweentemporalities, between tarrying time and time 'empty' of self-altering thought. Putanother way, it is an antimony of experiences.

    It is important to recognize the fact that tarrying is the coefficient of truthcorrespondingly expressed as a function of experience. Tarrying is a state of being thatallows truth to happen, which, to further specify the pertinent Gadamerian distinction,

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    stands in opposition to the other notion of given or scientific truth. Yet in Caputo'sreading above, specifically, where he states In the tem porality of the artwork we becom econtemporaneous with a meaning and truth which transcends time, which is omni-temporal, he passes over the modal distinction Gadamer is trying to make, and insteadreverts to a notion of truth-as-entity, as pre-existing a nd sim ply encountered by theinterpreting mind, rather than the truth that, s o to speak, occurs to one. Gada mer's use ofreligious idiom, such as above and in the single other example C aputo refers to amen tion of the holy in The Relevance of the Beautiful (50) s indeed part ofGadamer's ethics; it is an attempt to distinguish and express reverence for, finally, thehuman value o f such experiences, specifically to distinguish the value of theseexperiences from the hum an value of the other modality of experience in question. Theonesidedness that Gadam er frequently refers to indicate s the imbalance he finds here.

    This reading of Gadam er allow s the ethical potential to stand out, qualifying him as thenon-essentialist that Caputo would praise.

    As w e shall see in Chapter One, below, he view s this imbalance as a prevalentontological malady wherein we cultivate or practice this thinking experience too littlewhile overvaluing objective truth. So as far as its value is concerned, it is certainly notthe case that G adamer i s hinting at a religious or metaphysical explanation for suchexperie nces of the holy. If anything, it is rather the case that religion can be explainedhermeneutically. Religion, it seem s to me, greatly confuses the issue here.26 ina all^, in

    6 Gianni Vattimo 's recent Age of Interpretation contai ns an excellent summation of the relationbetw een non-foundationalism and Christianity, and specifically of how the subject-object split lies at theheart of an entanglement o f Christian theology and hermeneutics. It is not altoget her clear, however,whether Vattim