The Historical Development of Phronēsis from Homer to Aristotle, and Its Consequences for Hans-Georg Gadamer's Hermeneutic Ethics
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Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 2017 Being Wise Before Wisdom: The Historical Development of Phronēsis from Homer to Aristotle, and Its Consequences for Hans-Georg Gadamer's Hermeneutic Ethics Giancarlo Tarantino Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Tarantino, Giancarlo, "Being Wise Before Wisdom: The Historical Development of Phronēsis from Homer to Aristotle, and Its Consequences for Hans-Georg Gadamer's Hermeneutic Ethics" (2017). Dissertations. 2858. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/2858 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Copyright © 2017 Giancarlo Tarantino LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO BEING WISE BEFORE WISDOM: THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF PHRONĒSIS FROM HOMER TO ARISTOTLE, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES FOR HANS-GEORG GADAMER’S HERMENEUTIC ETHICS A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY PROGRAM IN PHILOSOPHY BY GIANCARLO TARANTINO CHICAGO, IL AUGUST 2017 Copyright by Giancarlo Tarantino, 2017 All rights reserved. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In August of 2008, just before starting grad school, I underwent emergency surgery at Loyola Chicago Hospital, which led to a diagnosis that required ongoing treatment. It also began a long fight with an insurance company (United Healthcare), which denied coverage of any of the associated costs. The insurance company won the fight, despite the advocacy work of my doctors, hospital administrators, and, especially, my mother. I filled out a form at Loyola Hospital asking for a reduction in the money I owed them. It was a last ditch effort, and I had begun brainstorming alternative careers before I had set foot in a classroom. One day a very nice woman at the hospital called to let me know that my request had been granted. I thanked her and asked her how much the bill would be now after the reduction. She told me that I didn’t owe the hospital anything. The technical term she used was “forgiveness.” Many other people played key roles in, as Hilde Lindemann might call it, “holding me in my personhood” while I worked on my PhD, and they all deserve acknowledgement – but, in particular, I want to say thank you to Mom and Dad, Marco, Mike and Shannon, Andy and Jesse, and the whole community of friends I discovered here at Loyola Chicago. I don’t know the name of that hospital administrator, but I am grateful to her and to the hospital for giving me a chance to keep studying philosophy, and for teaching me more about forgiveness. How does one know how to speak and act in a way that is what the Greeks would have called kalon – beautiful? Many puzzles arise when you try to answer that question, but I’m grateful to everyone named here for living in ways that constantly remind me that it is a question worth thinking about. iii Of course, you could quite easily object that my whole philosophy is nothing but phronēsis – but, of course, it is nothing but phronēsis, and this continues to be the case. – Hans-Georg Gadamer, A Century of Philosophy iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii LIST OF FIGURES vii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1 Overview 1 The Question: What is the Relationship between Ethics and Interpretation? 3 Chapter Outlines 5 CHAPTER TWO: CONCEPT AS TRADITION AND RESPONSIBILITY 9 History: Gadamer’s Methodological Commitment to a Certain “Begriffsgeschichte” 11 Experience and the “Conceptuality of the Concept” 32 Concluding with Dialogue: From Gadamer (Back) to Phronēsis 52 CHAPTER THREE: AN HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF PHRONĒSIS: PART ONE: THE PREHISTORY OF PHRONĒSIS 62 Introduction 62 Introduction to the Specific Historical Task 64 Homer 73 Hippocrates 83 Heraclitus 95 Conclusion and Transition: Phronēsis as an Historical Tradition 109 CHAPTER FOUR: AN HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF PHRONĒSIS: PART TWO: A TRADITION IN DIALOGUE: ARISTOTLE’S PHRONĒSIS BETWEEN PLATO AND ISOCRATES 113 Introduction 113 Overview of the Chapter 116 Part One: What is the Conversation in which Aristotle is Participating? 116 Part Two: Variations on a Theme: A Reinterpretation of Aristotle’s Analyses of Phronēsis in Book Six of the Nicomachean Ethics 133 Conclusion 191 CHAPTER FIVE: THE ETHICAL (RE)TURN OF HERMENEUTICS: PART ONE: THE HERMENEUTICAL PROBLEM OF APPLICATION 194 Introduction 194 The Fundamental Problem of Hermeneutics: Application 199 Two Problems with Application 211 Transition to Phronēsis: (Self-)Understanding on the Way to (Self-)Understanding 229 CHAPTER SIX: THE ETHICAL (RE)TURN OF HERMENEUTICS: PART TWO: GADAMER’S RETRIEVAL OF PHRONĒSIS 234 v Introduction 234 Main Lines of Gadamer’s Retrieval of Phronēsis in Truth and Method 237 Phronēsis as Virtue: Gadamer after Heidegger, Ethics before Ontology 258 The Heir to Practical Philosophy? Hermeneutic Phronēsis after Truth and Method 266 Conclusion 277 CHAPTER SEVEN: CONCLUSION: TOWARD AN EMOTIONALLY HEALTHY HERMENEUTICS 279 What has this dissertation done so far? 279 What still need to be done? 281 What is missing in Gadamer’s retrieval of Phronēsis? 284 Retrieving the Phrēn – the heart of understanding 289 BIBLIOGRAPHY 296 VITA 308 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. A Taxonomy of Phronein. 71 Figure 2. A Taxonomy of Phronein. 99 Figure 3. A Structural Overview of TM, Chapter Four. 204 vii CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION Overview This dissertation is concerned with the intersection between ethics and the interpretation of texts. That is to say, with the extent to which the act of interpretation can be and ought to be understood as a matter of ethics, and, conversely, with the extent to which ethics can be and ought to be understood as a matter of hermeneutics. It has not always been the case that ethics and hermeneutics (the art of interpretation) were considered possible philosophical bedfellows – the contemporary view that their intersection comprises an important site for philosophical inquiry has only recently been made possible largely via the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer in the second half of the 20th century. Although the intersection of ethics and hermeneutics is no longer dominated merely by Gadamer’s philosophy, his work remains a philosophical touchstone for those who wish to trace out other, critically different views on the matter. This dissertation provides a thorough critical reconstruction and hermeneutical evaluation of Gadamer’s oft-repeated, yet under-explored, claim that the process of interpretation requires phronēsis (practical wisdom).1 I argue not only that this claim is the unique conceptual centerpiece of Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics, already attested to in the epigram above, but also for a particular view of how to understand Gadamer’s retrieval of the ancient Greek 1 Although there have been many articles and chapters written on this topic, it is still noteworthy that presently there exists no book-length study on Gadamer’s retrieval of phronēsis. 1 2 concept. In particular, I argue for a “strongly ethical” understanding of Gadamer’s retrieval of phronēsis, and therewith I outline the conceptual basis for a “hermeneutic ethics.” Gadamer scholars have only recently begun to emphasize the ways in which Gadamer’s philosophy is primarily concerned with ethics, and not with mere epistemological or metaphysical problems, or with mere questions of historical interpretation of particular classical texts.2 My argument for this view of Gadamer’s hermeneutics is straightforward enough. It proceeds by working within Gadamer’s own framework in order to show the necessity of the view that I articulate of his retrieval of phronēsis. By taking Gadamer on his own philosophical terms – specifically, on his own terms regarding the nature of concepts and the relationship of language to history and tradition – I am able to show that the retrieval of phronēsis for hermeneutics must be understood in a strongly ethical sense, whether or not Gadamer himself fully explored or understood this. Gadamer’s retrieval of phronēsis says more and entails more than he himself seems to have realized. In particular, Gadamer’s retrieval of phronēsis, according to his own hermeneutical presuppositions, is the retrieval not of an abstract concept, or of a clearly defined piece of terminology invented by Aristotle, but rather it is the retrieval of a whole great historical tradition of thinking about and wrestling with the phenomena named by that ancient Greek word. Gadamer’s claims about the nature of concepts and their relationship to history and tradition very clearly point in this direction. However, Gadamer does not appear to have fully grasped how those claim “apply” to his own retrieval of phronēsis. Therefore, by re-retrieving the concept of 2 Two examples that emphasize an ethical reading of Gadamer’s work, and which I refer to occasionally in the dissertation, are the following: P. Christopher Smith, Hermeneutics and Human Finitude; and the recent book by Monica Villhauer, Gadamer’s Ethics of Play: Hermeneutics and the Other. 3 phronēsis in a “Gadamerian” manner, I am able to argue for a view of “hermeneutic ethics” that is deeply indebted to Gadamer, but which points in relatively unexplored or long forgotten directions, and toward new possibilities for thinking through the general relationship between ethics and the process of interpretation. The Question: What is the Relationship between Ethics and Interpretation? Since at least Schleiermacher it has become commonplace for modern hermeneuticists to affirm the unity of “understanding” and “interpretation,” and to reject the possibility that reading could ever be an interpretation-free activity for human beings.3 Put baldly, wherever and whenever reading occurs, it does so on the basis of some interpretive (not yet explicit) framework, “lens,” “tradition,” or hermeneutical apparatus, and so on.