The Multidimensionality of Hermeneutic Phenomenology CONTRIBUTIONS TO PHENOMENOLOGY IN COOPERATION WITH THE CENTER FOR ADVANCED RESEARCH IN PHENOMENOLOGY Volume 70 Series Editors: Nicolas de Warren, Katholike Universiteit Leuven, Belgium Dermot Moran, University College Dublin Editorial Board: Lilian Alweiss, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland Elizabeth Behnke, Ferndale, WA, USA Michael Barber, St. Louis University, MO, USA Rudolf Bernet, Husserl-Archief, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium David Carr, Emory University, GA, USA Chan-Fai Cheung, Chinese University Hong Kong, China James Dodd, New School University, NY, USA Lester Embree, Florida Atlantic University, FL, USA Alfredo Ferrarin, Università di Pisa, Italy Burt Hopkins, Seattle University, WA, USA José Huertas-Jourda, Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada Kwok-Ying Lau, Chinese University Hong Kong, China Nam-In Lee, Seoul National University, Korea Dieter Lohmar, Universität zu Köln, Germany William R. McKenna, Miami University, OH, USA Algis Mickunas, Ohio University, OH, USA J.N. Mohanty, Temple University, PA, USA Junichi Murata, University of Tokyo, Japan Thomas Nenon, The University of Memphis, TN, USA Thomas M. Seebohm, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, Germany Gail Soffer, Rome, Italy Anthony Steinbock, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, IL, USA Shigeru Taguchi, Yamagata University, Japan Dan Zahavi, University of Copenhagen, Denmark Richard M. Zaner, Vanderbilt University, TN, USA Scope The purpose of the series is to serve as a vehicle for the pursuit of phenomenological research across a broad spectrum, including cross-over developments with other fi elds of inquiry such as the social sciences and cognitive science. Since its establishment in 1987, Contributions to Phenomenology has published nearly 60 titles on diverse themes of phenomenological philosophy. In addition to welcoming monographs and collections of papers in established areas of scholarship, the series encourages original work in phenomenology. The breadth and depth of the Series refl ects the rich and varied signifi cance of phenomenological thinking for seminal questions of human inquiry as well as the increasingly international reach of phenomenological research. For further volumes: http://www.springer.com/series/5811 Babette Babich • Dimitri Ginev Editors The Multidimensionality of Hermeneutic Phenomenology Editors Babette Babich Dimitri Ginev Fordham University St. Kliment Ohridski University New York, NY , USA Sofi a, Bulgaria ISSN 0923-9545 ISBN 978-3-319-01706-8 ISBN 978-3-319-01707-5 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-01707-5 Springer Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London Library of Congress Control Number: 2013957066 © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014 This work is subject to copyright. 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Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) Foreword The Universality of Hermeneutics in Joseph Kockelmans’s Version of Hermeneutic Phenomenology In an autobiographical sketch, Joseph Kockelmans (2008) refl ects on his Denkweg in a manner that allows him to delineate the profi le of his version of hermeneutic phenomenology. Based essentially on this sketch, I should like in what follows to bring into focus three principal moments of his “ journey into phenomenological philosophy” that allude to his idea of the universality of interpretation in all cultur- ally specifi ed modes of being-in-the-world. I will call these moments respectively (a) the phenomenological reformulation of the Greek episteme; (b) the integration of the ontological difference in the theory of scientifi c truth; and (c) the historicity of objectifying thematization. There is in Professor Kockelmans’s works from the 1950s a gradual transition from Nikolai Hartmann’s theory of the ontological modalities and categories (addressed in its capacity to serve as a prerequisite for reconstructing the onto- logical assumptions of basic scientifi c theories) to a kind of hermeneutic ontol- ogy. This transition is especially palpable in his reading of Hartmann’s “Philosophy of Nature.” In Hartmann’s categorial metaphysics of knowledge Dasein and Sosein (as ways of being) are subordinated to the modes and spheres of being. The transition was by no means accomplished via a direct borrowing of Heidegger’s concept of Dasein . It is rather the idea that the very metaphysics of knowledge should seek to make sense of the ontological categories by having recourse to the interrelations of Dasein and Sosein within the scope of scientifi c knowledge. A true “Philosophy of Nature” cannot avoid addressing the revealing of nature’s being in these interrelations. Professor Kockelmans’s subsequent transformation of Hartmann’s concept of Dasein in terms of ek-sistence as a pre-categorial way of being opened the avenue to hermeneutic phenomenology. The constitution of meaning is the “facticity” which the theory of categories presupposes, being unable at the same time to refl ect upon it. Yet important motifs of a categorial metaphysics of knowledge were retained v vi Foreword in the new philosophical project. These motifs precisely informed the desire for a rehabilitation of the Greek episteme within the ontological framework. Still in his Dutch period, Professor Kockelmans adopted the view that philosophy is neither a meta-scientifi c world-view nor can it be “naturalized” by recasting its problematic in scientifi c terms and languages. The constitution of meaning in human ek-sistence is the subject which philosophy has to address. Philosophy can master this task by developing a kind of hermeneutic ontology that leaves enough room for epistemo- logical investigations. It is the rehabilitation of the Greek episteme that provides the chance for reconciling such investigations with the ontological search for meaning constitution and truth as un-concealment. But what kind of epistemology does this rehabilitation imply? An answer to that question is to be found in Professor Kockelmans’s long-standing critical encounter and dialogue with the post-empiricist philosophy of science. Roughly speaking, in this dialogue he was after an epistemology that is capable to complement hermeneutic phenomenology in a manner that can bridge the analytic of meaning constitution with a theory of epistemic-thematic articulation of various kinds of objects. Obviously, such a theory has little to do with the established (in the analytic philosophy) concept of epistemology as a normative theory about “justifi ed true beliefs.” By exploring the leeway released by the combination of the Greek episteme with the Greek phronēsis, Professor Kockelmans unfolded in diverse directions the claim that there is a horizonal understanding at the root of all specifi c forms of articulated knowing. It is this understanding that is a subject shared by both, herme- neutic phenomenology and the kind of epistemology which he looked for. Refl ecting on horizonal understanding provides the access to both the transcendence of the world, i.e. to what is at issue in the ontology of the potentiality-for-being, and to the ongoing fore-structuring of knowing by contextualized epistemic practices and procedures. Kockelmans (1993, p. 101) made the case that horizonal understanding “has in itself the eksistential structure of being a projection.” Because of this structure it acquires epistemological relevance. Understanding as “grasping by anticipation”—so the argument goes—fore- structures the formation of each epistemic-thematizing attitude toward the world. (Professor Kockelmans was preoccupied in the fi rst place with the triads of fore- having, fore-sight, and fore-conception that characterize the kinds of scien- tifi c thematization qua objectifi cation of the world.) The “anticipatory sighting” of what gets constituted by epistemic practices assures the passage from hermeneutic