Publication details
From Cultural Hermeneutics to Social Criticism
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2013 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
| Citation | |
| Description | Both Habermas and Gadamer, critical theory and hermeneutics, share the theoretical presupposition of dialogic communication: the communicative form of linguistic understanding between two subjects. Language is an elementary form of social phenomena, which cannot be conceived without its formal direction to intersubjectivity. In Gadamer's words "Whoever speaks a language that no one else understands does not speak. To speak means to speak to someone." (Philosophical Hermeneutics, p.65.) Nevertheless, there is a big difference between Habermas's and Gadamer's interpretive strategies that came into being from this shared presupposition. My paper deals with a project of critical social science as it was developed in the mid1970s around the journal Cultural Hermeneutics. The theoretical dilemmas articulated at that times in those innovative attempts to integrate critical theory and hermeneutics are still relevant for today's attempts to establish a cultural sociology. |