Misunderstandings are one of the typical features of being human. We can be confident in declaring that every person who has ever lived has misunderstood others and was misunderstood by others at least once in life. This reveals the interpretive structure of our thinking and the fundamental role understanding plays in our lives. Understanding is …
Continue reading Heraclitus Meets Derrida and Saunders: Misunderstanding and Oversimplification
Humans are social beings. We all have experienced the importance of feeling part of a group, relating to others, being with others, not just next to each other. But how should we go about understanding our own sociality? Where does it begin, and what is its foundation? What is more fundamental - recognising the individual differences between …
Can art be a channel of understanding? Does it have a claim to truth, to knowledge? What comes first, understanding or knowing? Does art have a part to play in our processes of meaning-making? These are just some of the fascinating and stimulating questions explored in the video I share with you today. It is …
Continue reading Spreading the Word: Art, Understanding, Meaning
Does it matter how we name things? Do words influence our worldviews? A curious case of renaming a dinosaur suggests there is more to words and worlds relation than meets the eye. Check out this fascinating article over on aeon, "A dinosaur is a story". Enjoy! Keeping up the "Spreading the Word" tradition, I hope …
Continue reading Spreading the Word: When Words and Worlds Collide
"We always find ourselves within a situation, and throwing light on it is a task that is never entirely finished. This is also true of the hermeneutic situation—i.e., the situation in which we find ourselves with regard to the tradition that we are trying to understand. The illumination of this situation—reflection on effective history—can never …
Continue reading Philosophical Quote About Our Self-Understanding
When we experience the world and interpret its meaning, it is not so much "I'll believe it when I see it", it is rather "I will see it if I believe it". And - in the way that I believe it to be. Curious? Then you might be interested in this short BBC Ideas video: …
Continue reading Spreading the Word: Different Worlds We Experience
Why is it much more important to understand than to know? Why are all the 'why' questions significant, and how an understanding of reasons shapes our actions? I found these two articles that I would like to share with you today: on understanding and on 'why'. In each article, the authors offer their take on …
Continue reading Spreading the Word: Importance of Meaning-Making
"...the way we experience one another, the way we experience historical traditions, the way we experience the natural givenness of our existence and of our world, constitute a truly hermeneutic universe, in which we are not imprisoned, as if behind insurmountable barriers, but to which we are opened."Hans-Georg Gadamer "Truth and Method" (my emphasis) keep …
Continue reading Philosophical Quote on Interpretation as Way of Being
Have you ever felt bewildered when looking at contemporary art? I know I have. Sometimes it is even difficult to understand what is art anymore. Maybe such musings are part of art's genius. So imagine what it is like for an AI to 'interpret' contemporary art. How would an algorithm go about recognising art and …
We, humans, are remarkably flexible beings. Sometimes, we surprise even ourselves if we pay attention. For example, take Jacques Derrida's idea of deconstruction. As a way of thinking, it takes a settled meaning we accept as true and dismantles it to show how inherently arbitrary any one such interpretation is. In other words, its opposite …
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