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Single Idea 20934

[filed under theme 1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 3. Hermeneutics ]

Full Idea

Derrida described the hermeneutic impulse to understand another as a form of violence that seeks to overcome the other's particularity and unique difference.

Gist of Idea

Hermeneutics is hostile, trying to overcome the other person's difference

Source

report of Jacques Derrida (works [1990]) by Jens Zimmermann - Hermeneutics: a very short introduction App 'Derrida'

Book Ref

Zimmerman,Jens: 'Hermeneutics: very short introduction' [OUP 2015], p.137

A Reaction

I'm not sure about 'violence', but Derrida was on to somethng here. The 'hermeneutic circle' sounds like a creepy process of absorption, where the original writer disappears in a whirlpool of interpretation.

Related Idea

Idea 20927 The hermeneutic circle is between the reader's self-understanding, and the world of the text [Zimmermann,J]

The 28 ideas from 'works'

21887 Derrida focuses on other philosophers, rather than on science [Derrida]
21888 Philosophy is just a linguistic display [Derrida]
21896 Philosophy aims to build foundations for thought [Derrida, by May]
21892 Interpretations can be interpreted, so there is no original 'meaning' available [Derrida]
21883 Sincerity can't be verified, so fiction infuses speech, and hence reality also [Derrida]
21893 Philosophy is necessarily metaphorical, and its writing is aesthetic [Derrida]
21882 Sentences are contradictory, as they have opposite meanings in some contexts [Derrida]
21881 We aim to explore the limits of expression (as in Mallarmé's poetry) [Derrida]
20925 Hermeneutics blunts truth, by conforming it to the interpreter [Derrida, by Zimmermann,J]
20934 Hermeneutics is hostile, trying to overcome the other person's difference [Derrida, by Zimmermann,J]
21895 Structuralism destroys awareness of dynamic meaning [Derrida]
21934 The idea of being as persistent presence, and meaning as conscious intelligibility, are self-destructive [Derrida, by Glendinning]
4756 Derrida says that all truth-talk is merely metaphor [Derrida, by Engel]
21877 True thoughts are inaccessible, in the subconscious, prior to speech or writing [Derrida]
21889 'I' is the perfect name, because it denotes without description [Derrida]
21878 Names have a subjective aspect, especially the role of our own name [Derrida]
21879 Even Kripke can't explain names; the word is the thing, and the thing is the word [Derrida]
21894 Madness and instability ('the demonic hyperbole') lurks in all language [Derrida]
21891 The good is implicitly violent (against evil), so there is no pure good [Derrida]
21890 Heidegger showed that passing time is the key to consciousness [Derrida]
21880 'Tacit theory' controls our thinking (which is why Freud is important) [Derrida]
21886 Meanings depend on differences and contrasts [Derrida]
21930 For Aristotle all proper nouns must have a single sense, which is the purpose of language [Derrida]
21884 Capacity for repetitions is the hallmark of language [Derrida]
21935 The sign is only conceivable as a movement between elusive presences [Derrida]
21933 Writing functions even if the sender or the receiver are absent [Derrida, by Glendinning]
21931 'Dissemination' is opposed to polysemia, since that is irreducible, because of multiple understandings [Derrida, by Glendinning]
21885 Words exist in 'spacing', so meanings are never synchronic except in writing [Derrida]