Abstract
This chapter aims at an understanding of the distinctive role of the humanities. The first part offers, with reference to Helmuth Plessner, an outline under which conditions it is conceivable that a specific life form might develop the capacity to strive for understanding and self-understanding. Such a foundation in philosophical anthropology is needed for the possibility of a hermeneutical understanding of the role of the human being. On the basis of this hermeneutic perspective the second part sketches how knowledge, orientation and morality are possible. The capacity of humans to judge makes ‘reflective knowledge’ possible. Likewise, morality is given with the ability of human beings to form a reflective relationship with themselves. On the basis of such a hermeneutic and critical view of the human being, the societal role of the humanities can be understood. The third part outlines this role by stressing that it is this fundamental role of the humanities, to make understanding in a methodologically reflective way possible, that gives the humanities both intrinsic importance and societal relevance.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Bibliography
Beyleveld, D. 1991. The Dialectical Necessity of Morality. An Analysis and Defense of Alan Gewirth’s Argument to the Principle of Generic Consistency. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Cassirer, E. 2020 (orig. 1923–1929). The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. Three Volumes (trans: Lofts, S.G.). Abingdon/New York: Routledge.
Cooper, N. 1994. The Inaugural Address: Understanding. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes 68: 1–26.
de Lazari-Radek, K., and P. Singer. 2014. The Point of View of the Universe. Sidgwick & Contemporary Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Drees, W. 2021. What are the Humanities for? On the Value of Humanistic Inquiry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Düwell, M. 2022. Kantian Human Dignity and a “Community of Rights”. In Human Dignity and the Kingdom of Ends: Kantian Perspectives and Practical Applications, ed. J.-W. Van der Rijt and A. Cureton, 90–205. London/New York: Routledge.
Düwell, M., G. Bos, and N. van Steenbergen, eds. 2018. Towards the Ethics of a Green Future. The Theory and Practice of Human Rights for Future People. Abingdon, Oxon/New York: Routledge.
Frankfurt, H. 1971. Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person. The Journal of Philosophy 68 (1): 5–20.
Gehlen, A. 1988 (orig. 1940). Man, His Nature and Place in the World (trans: McMillan, C., and Pillemer, K., introduction by K.-S. Rehberg). New York: Columbia University Press.
Gewirth, A. 1978. Reason and Morality. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Hollis, M. 1996. Reason in Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Korsgaard, C.M. 1996. Sources of Normativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Longuenesse, B. 1998. Kant and the Capacity to Judge: Sensibility and Discursivity in the Transcendental Analytic of the ‘Critique of Pure Reason.’ Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Makkreel, R.A. 2015. Orientation and Judgment in Hermeneutics. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
———. 2021. Kant’s Worldview: How Judgment Shapes Human Comprehension. Chicago: Northwestern University Press.
Merleau-Ponty, M. 1964. Cézanne’s Doubt. In Sense and Non-Sense, ed. M. Merlau-Ponty, 1–25. Evanstone: Northwestern University Press.
O’Neill, O. 1989. Constructions of Reason: Explorations of Kant’s Practical Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Plessner, H 2019 (orig. 1928). Levels of Organic Life and the Human. An Introduction to Philosophical Anthropology (trans: Hyatt, M., Introduction by J. M. Bernstein). New York: Fordham University Press.
Rolston, H., III. 1988. Environmental Ethics. Philadelphia: Temple UP.
Scheler, M. 2008 (orig. 1928). The Human Place in the Cosmos. Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy (trans: Frings, M.S., introduction by E. Kelly). Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Sidgwick, H. 1877. Methods of Ethics. London: McMillan & Co.
Westphal, K.R. 2016. How Hume and Kant Reconstruct Natural Law: Justifying Strict Objectivity without Debating Moral Realism. Oxford: Carendon Press.
Wunsch, M. 2017. Ziel und Gegenstand. In Die Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch, ed. H.-P. Krüger, 37–54. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Düwell, M. (2024). The Humanities in Hermeneutic-Anthropological Perspective. In: Runehov, A., Fuller, M. (eds) Science, Religion, the Humanities and Hope. Issues in Science and Religion: Publications of the European Society for the Study of Science and Theology, vol 8. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-52292-5_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-52292-5_11
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-52291-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-52292-5
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)