Understanding & Interpretation. An Introduction to the Hermeneutical Philosophy

Timetable

Module aim (aims)

• Achieving knowledge and skills connected with the modern hermeneutics, with its theories of understanding and interpretation• The aim of this module is to understand contemporary culture using different theories of interpretation

Pre-requisites in terms of knowledge, skills and social competences (where relevant)

Syllabus

Week 1: Why should we understand anything at all? Week 2: Philosophy, humanities and hermeneutics Week 3: History of hermeneutics: from Schleiermacher to VattimoWeek 4: The task of hermeneutics: understanding contemporary culture Week 5: Nietzsche: from facts to interpretations Week 6: Heidegger: understanding being and technics Week 7: Habermas: understanding contemporary society Week 8: Gadamer: understanding culture Week 9: Vattimo: weak thought and hermeneutical ontology Week 10: Winograd, Flores: understanding computers Week 11: Hermeneutics and science Week 12-14: Hermeneutics and media Week 15: Future of hermeneutics and its meaning for humanities

Reading list

1. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and method / transl. rev. by Joel Weinsheimer, London [u.a.] : Continuum, 2011. (fragments).2. The Nietzsche reader, Ansell-Pearson, Keith (ed.), Oxford ; Blackwell ; 2006. (fragments)3. Heidegger, Martin, The question concerning technology and other essays, New York u.a. ; Harper Torchbooks ; 1977. (fragments)4. Habermas, Jürgen, The structural transformation of the public sphere : an inquiry into a category of bourgeois society / Jürgen Habermas. Transl. by Thomas Burger with the assistance of Frederick Lawrence, Cambridge : Polity Press, 2010. (fragments)5. Vattimo, Gianni, The end of modernity nihilism and hermeneutics in post-modern culture, Cambridge ; Polity Press ; 1991. (fragments)6. The Routledge companion to hermeneutics, ed. by Jeff Malpas and Hans-Helmuth Gander, London [u.a.] : Routledge, 2015. (fragments)7. Thompson, John B., Media and Modernity: A Social Theory of the Media New York, NY : John Wiley & Sons 2013. (fragments)8. Winograd, Terry ; Flores, Carlos F., Understanding computers and cognition a new foundation for design, Norwood, NJ ; Ablex Publ.Corp. ; 1988. (fragments)