[Hermeneutics and health: reflections on the thinking of Hans-Georg Gadamer].

Law, Hermeneutics, and Public Debate

Assaying Vandevelde’s Approach to Gadamer

  The purpose of this paper is to look at four important aspects of Vandevelde’s criticisms of Gadamer. First is his position on Gadamer’s claim that his hermeneutics is a “philosophical hermeneutics” and not a methodology. Second is Vandevelde’s view of interpretation as necessarily going back to the author’s intention, and the status of the “mental state” of the author. Is it relevant to int...

Gadamerian dialogue in the patient-professional interaction.

In his seminal work, Truth and Method, the German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer distinguishes between three types of what he calls the experience of the 'Thou'. In this paper, Gadamer's analysis of this experience is explained in terms of his philosophical hermeneutics and brought to bear upon the patient-professional relationship. It is argued that while Gadamer's analysis implies fruitful in...

A Dialogical Action Research Approach to Innovation as Organisational Change

This paper argues that dialogical action research (AR) recently proposed by Mårtensson & Lee, provides a novel framework for both relevant and rigorous collaboration between academics and practitioners. The work is presented in the context of a case study of innovation in APC-MGE Ireland, a subsidiary of the critical power and cooling services division of the Schneider Electric Corporation. The...

Gadamer’s Ambivalence toward the Enlightenment Project

This essay explores Gadamer’s ambivalent relationship with modernity.  Gadamer is a prominent critic of the Enlightenment project.  His criticisms are both theoretical and practical.  Theoretically, representationalism is at the center of modern epistemology for Gadamer.  Practically, Gadamer sees the demotion of prudence (phronesis) as fundamental to the “bad” Enlightenment.  Gadamer’s attempt...