Journal of Applied Hermeneutics December 10, 2011 What is The Author(s) 2011 Diacritical Hermeneutics? Richard Kearney What is diacritical hermeneutics? First a brief ogy. Why these? Because each solicited an word on what I mean by hermeneutics gener- interpretation of dual meanings: a) divine and ally, then several words on the qualifier, dia- human (theology), b) prosecutorial and defen- critical.1 sive (law), c) ancient and actual (philology). All three disciplines called for a method of I understand hermeneutics as an art of de- discriminating between different and often ciphering multiple meaning. In its most basic conflicting readings. Wilhelm Dilthey would sense this relates to the human capacity to add ‘history’ to the list as a universal human have ‘two thinks at a time,’ as James Joyce science devoted to reading between past and said. More precisely, it refers to the practice present; a science, which he saw as a model of discerning indirect, tacit or allusive mean- for a general hermeneutics of life as it inter- ings, of sensing another sense beyond or be- prets itself. Whence the birth of philosophical neath apparent sense. This special human ac- hermeneutics. tivity may in turn call for a method of second- order, reflective interpretation involving a Later, Heidegger would broaden the defi- process of disclosing concealed messages, nition further in speaking of an ontological either by a) unmasking covered-up meaning hermeneutic committed to understanding the (hermeneutics of suspicion) or b) by disclos- fundamental difference between Being and ing surplus meaning (hermeneutics of affir- beings - a task based on a pre-understanding mation). In short, I understand hermeneutics of our everyday existence as being-toward- as the task of interpreting (hermeneuein) plu- death. The famous hermeneutic circle. Finally, ral meaning in response to the polysemy of and more recently, thinkers like Gadamer, language and life.2 Ricoeur, and Caputo have augmented the con- temporary project of philosophical hermeneu- Hermeneutics, thus viewed, is an activity tics in various significant ways (semantic, carried out in the name of its founding spirit, psychoanalytic, deconstructive). But what all Hermes: Messenger of gods, guardian of these different hermeneutic movements share thresholds, and carrier of cryptic codes. The is a commitment to the task of adjudicating three original disciplines of hermeneutics, formulated by Friedrich Schleiermacher in the 19th century, were theology, law, and philol- Corresponding Author: Dr. Richard Kearney The Charles B. Seelig Professor in Philosophy Philosophy Department Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA Email: [email protected] 2 Kearney Journal of Applied Hermeneutics 2011 Article 2 between different levels of meaning. cipation does not erupt ex nihilo. It does not start with modern revolutions and the En- So where exactly does diacritical herme- lightenment; rather it draws from a whole pal- neutics fit in? And how might it contribute to impsest of prior narratives of liberation going the hermeneutic legacy described above? back, in the West, to Biblical stories of exo- dus and the Socratic awakening. Aristotle ad- I have already sketched my project of dia- dresses the question of ethical criteria already critical hermeneutics in the Introduction to when he remarks that if you wish to com- Strangers Gods and Monsters and other relat- municate the meaning of a virtue you recount ed texts.3 But as John Caputo has remarked, the story of someone who embodies it - e.g., this project has, to date, been more performed Achilles for courage, Penelope for constancy, than explained. I will attempt to redress the Tiresius for wisdom. Such narratives - ancient balance here by addressing the question under or modern - provide phronesis with exempla- five main headings: ry paradigms by which to measure, judge, and act. Otherwise how could one tell the differ- 1) In the most obvious sense, dia-critical ence between just and unjust actions? These involves a critical function of interrogation. I differences require careful criteriological dis- mean this in the modern sense of the term criminations. And there are obviously other from Kant’s three Critiques down to the more essential criteria apart from the narrative one contemporary movements of Critical Theory mentioned (e.g., rational deliberation of rights, from Horkheimer and Adorno to Habermas virtue ethics, pragmatist judgment, phenome- and Foucault. In this broad sweep, I would nological intuition of values, spiritual exercis- obviously include critiques of race, class, es, feminist and socio-cultural critiques, wis- gender, power, and the unconscious: All criti- dom traditions etc.). In short, pace decon- cal philosophies, which carry on the legacy, struction, I am not against criteria as long as amongst others, of the ‘three masters of sus- they involve vigilant discernments and dis- picion’ (Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche). In short, tinctions. I understand critique here as both a) an in- quiry into the conditions of possibility of 3) Third, in keeping with the more precise meaning; and b) a critical exposure of dictionary definition of dia-critical, I refer to a ‘masked’ power in the name of liberation and grammatological attention to inflections of justice. This latter more ethico-political aspect linguistic marks. In this technical sense, dia- of critique is one I find lacking in most main- critics provides rules for differentiating be- stream hermeneutic methods to date (Dilthey, tween minute units of language (signifiers, Heidegger, Gadamer) until we arrive at Ric- graphemes, accents). Think, for example, of oeur’s hermeneutics of suspicion and the difference, which the following accents - Vattimo’s hermeneutics of subversion. grave, acute, circumflex, and diaeresis - make on the same letter in the French language: é è 2) Second, dia-critical involves the criteri- ê, ë. Or think of how ‘où’ with an accent ological function of discerning between com- (meaning ‘where’) differs from ‘ou’ without peting claims to meaning. This comprises accent (meaning ‘or’). These silent, discreet hermeneutic retrievals of previous testimonies signs distinguish between values of the same as well as future oriented projects - utopian, character. Small graphic demarcations thus messianic, eschatological. ‘Emancipation is serve to avoid confusion between otherwise itself a tradition,’ as Ricoeur says; it is a form identical letters, helping us differentiate be- of ‘anticipatory memory.’ The idea of eman- tween distinct meanings. More generally, in 3 Kearney Journal of Applied Hermeneutics 2011 Article 2 structural and post-structural linguistics, dia- dog Argos.5 For if Hermes discloses hermetic critics denotes a way of reading differentially, messages from above, Argos brings animal across gaps and oppositions, in keeping with savvy from below. The former guides our de- the Saussurian maxim that language is a net- ciphering of cryptic masks and messages work of ‘differences without positive terms’. (Hermes appears to Baucis disguised as a In these respects, diacritics is all about micro- beggar). The latter, Argos, imparts a canine reading. And here, I think, I share common flair for recognizing the friend or enemy in ground with John Caputo’s radical hermeneu- the visitor (e.g., Odysseus returned to Ithaca tics and Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction.4 to oust the suitors).6 4) In addition to this technical usage in Diacritical hermeneutics may thus be de- linguistic and semiotic practice, diacritics also fined as both sacred and terrestrial in so far as has the older diagnostic meaning of reading it ranges up and down - in ascending and de- the body. The Greek terms, dia-krinein and scending spirals - from the highest hintings of dia-krisis, referred to the medical or therapeu- the absolute to the lowest soundings of the tic practice of diagnosing symptoms of bodily abyss. While hands reach up, feet reach down. fevers, colorations, and secretions. In this But no matter how high or low hermeneutic sense, the word designated the hermeneutic ‘sense’ goes, it never leaves us totally in the art of discriminating between health and dis- dark. It is not blind but half-seeing and half- ease. Such a skill to read between the lines of believing. It is a sort of incarnate phronesis, skin and flesh - in order to sound the move- which probes, scents, and filters. Something ments of the soul (homeopathic or allopathic) akin to Wittgenstein’s seeing-as in our most - was often a matter of life and death. Need- ordinary perceptions or Heidegger’s under- less to say, this model of micrological reading standing-as in our most basic moods (see his of somatic and psychosomatic symptoms has analysis of Verstehen-Befindlichkeit in Being deep implications for the practice of philo- and Time). This fundamental form of existen- sophical reading in its own right. I agree with tial sensibility is further radicalized in Mer- Wittgenstein that philosophy is therapy. In leau-Ponty’s more embodied notion of ‘dia- sum, diacritical hermeneutics should do you critical perception’ to which I shall return be- good! low.7 5) These four characteristics – critical, cri- At this stage, and by way of addressing teriological, grammatological and diagnostic - some of the more recent discussions of her- comprise the basis of what I call, finally and meneutics, we might ask how our fivefold most primally, ‘carnal hermeneutics.’ Here model of diacritical hermeneutics compares we are concerned with a hermeneutics that with John Caputo’s method of ‘radical her- goes all the way down. It covers diacritical meneutics’ inspired by Derrida’s deconstruc- readings of different kinds of Others - human, tion. While the diacritical and radical ap- animal or divine. All with skins on. Such car- proaches share a common commitment to mi- nal hermeneutics has a crucial bearing, to take cro-logical reading, there are significant dif- just one example, on how we ‘sense’ subtle ferences. In contrast to deconstructive sans- distinctions between hostile and hospitable savoir, diacritical hermeneutics practices a strangers (the same term, hostis can refer to certain savoir, which goes beyond Derrida’s guest or enemy).