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Feminist
Interpretations of Hans-Georg Gadamer Edited by Lorraine Code
December | 2002 | 6 x 9 inches
Feminist Philosophy, Philosophy
Hardback: $91.00 SH
ISBN-10: 0-271-02243-4
ISBN-13: 978-0-271-02243-7
Paperback: $35.00 SH
ISBN-10: 0-271-02244-2
ISBN-13: 978-0-271-02244-4 Re-Reading the Canon
Images of and references to women are so rare in
the vast corpus of his published work that there seems to be no
"woman question" for Hans-Georg Gadamer. Yet the authors of the
fifteen essays included in this volume show that it is possible
to read past Gadamer's silences about women and other Others to
find rich resources for feminist theory and practice in his views
of science, language, history, knowledge, medicine, and literature.
While the essayists find much of value in Gadamer's
work, he emerges from their discussion as a controversial figure.
Some contributors see him as promoting genuine respect for and engagement
with Otherness: others claim that in a Gadamerian conversation the
Other has no voice. For some, Gadamer's immersion in tradition is
an impediment to feminist inquiry; for others, cognizant of the
need to understand tradition well in order to contest its intransigence
or benefit from its insights, his way of engaging tradition is especially
productive. Some contributors take issue with the separation he
maintains between philosophy and politics; others find problems
in his relative silence on matters of embodiment; still others maintain
that a "fusion of horizons" amounts to a colonizing of difference.
But a common aim of each of these controversies is to discern what
feminists can learn from Gadamer as well as what limitations feminist
reinterpretations of his work must inevitably encounter.
Contributors are Linda Martín Alcoff, William Cowling,
Gemma Corradi Fiumara, Marie Fleming, Silja Freudenberger, Susan
Hekman, Susan-Judith Hoffmann, Grace M. Jantzen, Patricia Altenbernd
Johnson, Laura Kaplan, Robin Pappas, Robin May Schott, Meili Steele,
Veronica Vasterling, Georgia Warnke, and Kathleen Roberts Wright.
Contents
Preface
Nancy Tuana
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Why Feminists Do Not Read Gadamer
Lorraine Code
Part I: Hermeneutic Projects, Feminist Interventions
Engendering Gadamerian Conversations
1. (En)gendering Dialogue Between Gadamer’s Hermeneutics and
Feminist Thought Kathleen Roberts Wright
2. Hermeneutics and Constructed Identities Georgia Warnke
3. Gadamer’s Philosophical Hermeneutics and Feminist Projects Susan-Judith Hoffmann
4. Gadamer’s Conversation: Does the Other Have A Say? Marie Fleming
5. The Development of Hermeneutic Prospects Gemma Corradi Fiumara
6. Postmodern Hermeneutics? Toward a Critical Hermeneutics Veronica Vasterling
7. The Ontology of Change: Gadamer and Feminism Susan Hekman
8. Toward a Critical Hermeneutics Robin Pappas and William Cowling
Part
II: Feminist Issues: Enlisting Gadamerian Resources
9. Gadamer’s Feminist Epistemology Linda Martín Alcoff
10. The Hermeneutic Conversation as Epistemological Model Silja Freudenberger
11. The Horizon of Natality: Gadamer, Heidegger, and the Limits
of Existence Grace M. Jantzen
12. Questioning Authority Patricia Altenbernd Johnson
13. Gender, Nazism, and Hermeneutics Robin May Schott
14. Three Problematics of Linguistic Vulnerability Meili Steele
15. Three Applications of Gadamer’s Hermeneutics: Philosophy-Faith-Feminism Laura Kaplan
Selected Bibliography
Contributors
Index
Lorraine
Code is Distinguished Research Professor in the Department
of Philosophy and the Graduate Programs in Social and Political
Thought, and Women's Studies, at York University in Toronto. Her
other books include Encyclopedia of Feminist Theories (editor,
2000), Rhetorical Spaces: Essays on (Gendered) Locations
(1995), What Can She Know? Feminist Theory and the Construction
of Knowledge (1991), and Epistemic Responsibility (1987).
