Hermeneutics and The Language of Things: Gadamer and Rilke

Ståle Finke
Department of Philosophy
The Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Trondheim, Norway

Monday, October 1st
4:30 PM
Papazian 324
Swarthmore College

Gadamer's hermeneutics developed in dialogue with literature and poetry. His special interest in Rilke was related to certain crucial aspects of the hermeneutic turn in phenomenology and philosophy of language: addressing the intrinsic intimacy of language as well as the importance of understanding and expressing with the experience of things. The poet's call for expressing and remembering things became for Gadamer an important dimension of hermeneutics as it turns on the finitude of human experience. In this talk, I shall offer a reading of Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics which makes the experience of poetic discourse intrinsic understanding of meaning and to the hermeneutic experience.