Notes on Ferrara and Heidegger

Chapter IV of Dr. Lawrence Ferrara's Philosophy and the Analysis of Music presents a look at Heidegger and his conceptualization of hermeneutics and phenomenology. Since Chapter III deals with Husserl, Ferrara discusses Husserl's influence on Heidegger. He writes, "[Heidegger] grounds his hermeneutic phenomenology in a philosophy of life" and articulates that Heidegger concludes that acts of description are ultimately interpretations. According to Ferrara, Heidegger's motivation for developing a method of hermeneutics is to recognize and utilize biases.

Ferrara also touches on a few of Heidegger's forerunners in the field of hermeneutics. First is Illyricus who (in the 16th Century) felt the need to balance a specific passage of the Bible against the entire Bible for a clearer interpretation of the text. Chladenius in the 18th Century introduced a notion of relativism in historical study. He notes that one can put himself/herself in the shoes of any historian and judge the correctness of each interpretation when doing a comparative study on the same subject. In the early 19th Century, Friedrich Ast noted that each piece of art is affected by a spirit (Geist) that provides for all development, becoming and understanding. According to Ast, bridging the contemporary Geist to the past Geist is only possible by creating a hermeneutic system. Schleiermacher then takes this idea and says "to understand a whole, one must understand its parts; to understand the parts, one must understand the whole" which Ferrara then terms as the "hermeneutic circle." Hermeneutics could then, according to Ferrara, be loosely named as the art of understanding (92) or the art of avoiding misunderstanding (94).

Moving to Heidegger, Ferrara discusses Heidegger's connection to Husserl and the idea of Dasein or "being-there". Heidegger's form of hermeneutics are, according to Ferrara, "a form of discourse that is in touch with things in their immediacy." Heidegger's philosophy of phenomenology also speaks to "letting things show themselves without overpowering them with linguistic categorization." Heidegger's notion of "understanding" relates to one's ability to examine the structures of one's own ontological world. Ferrara writes, "'Understanding' is a fundamental disposition in which man can bring his being in-the-world into the 'light' for ontological inspection." This theory has been confused with existentialism, but unlike existentialism, Dasein for someone is in and with the world rather than isolated. (108-110)

Ferrara also writes that Heidegger sought to "develop a hermeneutic method that would reveal human existence in terms of life itself... for Heidegger the reality of the 'natural attitude' cannot be dislocated from transcendental consciousness." Heidegger's philosophies also pushed hermeneutics and phenomenology toward the direction of historical relativism. (112-116)

While I was reading this chapter, I kept thinking of Being There. The film is such an interesting potrayal of someone who embodies Heidegger's ideals. In connection with Dr. Ferrara's observance of the similarities of Dasein and existentialism, I remember thinking through the entire film how Chance might be an existentialist. But, now starting my engagement with Heidegger, I can see how Chance "understands" (in the Heideggerian sense of the word) his world through the television. If Heidegger were alive, I wonder how he would react to Being There and its framing of his philosophy.