Transfer Student Research Seminar: Truth and Method in Western Thought

Catalog description

What is “meaning?” And how do we create meaning in our social and intellectual lives? In 1960, the philosopher Hans Georg Gadamer published his famous Truth and Method, wherein he outlines and deploys the idea of “philosophical hermeneutics.” But what is “hermeneutics?” For Gadamer, hermeneutics is simply a mode of interpretation through which we investigate meaning by way of communication. The poet Rainer Maria Rilke offers insight into this task when he describes the creative process in terms of catching a ball thrown by an unseen partner, a process that is essentially world creating. Broadly, hermeneutics can be understood as a circle of meaning and interpretation, wherein our task is simply to decide how to enter this circle in the right way. This class offers a detailed yet introductory survey of hermeneutics as a research method focused on cultivating the art of active listening when reading in order to produce novel, meaningful questions. An essentially interdisciplinary method, hermeneutics offers a holistic approach to questions in both science and art, drawing these fields together rather than holding them apart. In this course we will learn to tune our ears not only to a variety of complex texts and groups of texts but to how scholarly conversations change over time. As a First-Year Research Seminar, this class encourages students to read as listeners and bring meaning to bear on challenging works to produce original, rigorous, and unique research in topics of their own choosing, be this philosophy, literature, science, or beyond.