Conflicting Materialities: Rethinking Hermeneutic Experience in Contemporary Philosophy

Abstract

Hermeneutic experience, ubiquitous in both daily life and scholarly endeavors, has traditionally been approached through a linguistic lens. However, as recognition grows that this experience is as material as it is linguistic, hermeneutic philosophy is tasked with developing a new, materialist theory of interpretation and understanding. This project investigates such theories by addressing the following question: How and why should hermeneutic experience be reconceptualized from a new materialist perspective? This inquiry is driven by three key considerations arising from contemporary efforts within material feminist and new realist hermeneutic philosophy to rethink experience materially. I engage with these considerations by examining two conflicting theories on the material nature of hermeneutic experience, as developed by Linda Martín Alcoff and Günter Figal, respectively.