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Electra
Registered Member
Date Joined Feb 2002
Total Posts : 611
| Posted 3/11/2002 11:52 AM (GMT -6) |   | Isn’t hermeneutical suspicion at odds with epistemic humility? Electra
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“Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name.” § Isa. 40:26
Edited by - Electra on 03/11/2002 10:29:38 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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Mephi2K
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 713
| Posted 3/11/2002 11:58 AM (GMT -6) | | | I don't understand the question. Could you clarify it, please? | | Back to Top | | |
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Electra
Registered Member
Date Joined Feb 2002
Total Posts : 611
| Posted 3/11/2002 12:42 PM (GMT -6) | | I am having a hard time understanding how to simultaneously recognize my own limitations (epistemic humility) while seeking to expose others’ limitations (hermeneutical suspicion). Maybe the emphasis on limits is the ground for coherence?
I just don’t get how to be humble and suspicious at the same time, and I’m hoping someone can help me understand how this works.
Electra
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“Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name.” § Isa. 40:26 | | Back to Top | | |
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GregBoyd
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818
| Posted 3/11/2002 2:54 PM (GMT -6) | | V ERY intriguing question Electra.
One has to be in quite a superior position to question the "real" motives of an author.
Jesus' teaching about the speck and the beam comes into mind here.
I think the more extreme post-modern writers are full of contradictions, and this may be what you are fleshing out. They write books they intend to be read and understood about how we cannot know an authors real intent! They say we cannot know reality... which is quite a statement about reality. And they advocate that we must assume a position of epistemological humility while deconstructing others, thereby telling us what is "really" going on.
Good one Electra.
Doc
"Three is the magic number, oh yes it is, it's the Magic Number" - De La Soul | | Back to Top | | |
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Electra
Registered Member
Date Joined Feb 2002
Total Posts : 611
| Posted 3/11/2002 5:36 PM (GMT -6) | | Thanks Doc.
And another thing: What is the difference between the postmodern “heremeutics of suspicion” (Derrida) and the modernist mantra, “doubt everything” (Descartes)?
Electra
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“The star truly is high in the sky, is just as high in the sky although, reflected in the sea, it seems to lie far under the earth.” § Søren Kierkegaard
Edited by - Electra on 03/11/2002 10:38:40 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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Seymour
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2002
Total Posts : 105
| Posted 3/13/2002 7:27 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Isn’t hermeneutical suspicion at odds with epistemic humility?
No.
quote:
I am having a hard time understanding how to simultaneously recognize my own limitations (epistemic humility) while seeking to expose others’ limitations (hermeneutical suspicion). Maybe the emphasis on limits is the ground for coherence?
Very good question! Here's my take on it, but be carefull (translation: be suspicius of it  )
To be humble in front of another is to expose ourselves to their gaze. They will be able to help us see things we'd like to hide even from ourselves. OUR OWN MOTIVES are often hidden from ourselves. We need the other to help us out gracefully. When we humble ourselves before a text we let it search us out. Likewise when we expose someone else's finitude we are not being arrogant, we are merely pointing out something that is true. Only an arrogant person would take such truth as hurtfull. To say that an author is finite is truthful. To say that a text is finite is another matter. In truth, however, every other opens us up to the infinite, and this should truely humble us because as Derrida puts it tout autre est tout autre [every other is wholly other], the finite conceals the infinite, each other opens us up to God!!!
quote:
I just don’t get how to be humble and suspicious at the same time, and I’m hoping someone can help me understand how this works.
Are humility and suspicion mutually exclusive? You and I could have a wonderful debate, both of us could be very humble, yet in the end I still think that my possition is stronger and you still think that your possition is stronger. Just because I haven't let your words take on a difining authority (note the root word of 'author') on reality for me doesn't mean I wasn't humbled by you.
quote:
One has to be in quite a superior position to question the "real" motives of an author.
No. One need not be in a superior or inferior position, rather one needs only an altered position. As soon as we get to a text we are already at an altered possition. So the author doesn't even need a critic to enter the picture  . Only the unread can be so fortunate .
quote:
I think the more extreme post-modern writers are full of contradictions, and this may be what you are fleshing out. They write books they intend to be read and understood about how we cannot know an authors real intent! They say we cannot know reality... which is quite a statement about reality. And they advocate that we must assume a position of epistemological humility while deconstructing others, thereby telling us what is "really" going on.
Did you have anyone in particular in mind when you mention "extream postmodern writers"? I've read some extream ones myself but I haven't come across anyone who has said anything as silly as this. It sounds more like a second hand caricature of poser-po-mo lingo. Can you point to any text that actually argues something like this?
"When Zarathustra had spoken these words he beheld the people again and was silent. 'There they stand,' he said to his heart; 'there they laugh. They do not understand me; I am not the mouth for these ears."
Edited by - Seymour on 03/14/2002 12:32:29 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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GregBoyd
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818
| Posted 3/15/2002 5:25 AM (GMT -6) | | You rock Seymour!
the difference between "hermeneutic of suspicion" and "doubt everything"??? hmmmm?
Well, for starters, Descarte presupposed the soundness of reason, and this formed the bedrock of his doubt. The post-modern hermeutic of suspicion is predicated on the suspiciousness of reason itself. (Which, they think, is a very reasonable position to take.
"Three is the magic number, oh yes it is, it's the Magic Number" - De La Soul | | Back to Top | | |
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