20260617--Inga Romer

 Thema: Heidegger, Hermeneutics, and Rhetoric

Problemstellung: How Language reveals about our Existence? The interrelationship between language and our existence shows us how we can be affected by language and thus make new ways of understanding the world. I wish to show how language parallesl with our existence, extending Paul Ricoeur's discussion on metaphor and narrative to other rhetorical tropes and devices. Art can show us about the world and earth strife and other stuff, and Heidegger's discussion of art is not that explored. I wish to show that literary art foregrounds their own workings and our existence as well. 

Situierung im Forschungskontext: Daniel M whatever highlights the importance of Rhetoric in Heidegger. Yang shows the importance of art in Heidegger. Heidegger's discussion in Letter on Humanism and Question Concerning Technology points at a language, art, and politics. Adorno's critique of Heidegger reveals a hermeneutical attitude that is betrayed by Heidegger. Lamber Zuidervaart points out a possible reconciliation/competition between Heidegger and Adorno, but art is missing. Adorno's discussion of art resonates well with Gadamer's discussion of art and hermeneutic. The key is to look into form and rhetoric, which is done well by Paul Ricoeur.

Arbeitsplan: I hope to familiarize myself with Ricoeur's discussion on literary tropes. I will also read more about Heidegger's discussions of art. I wish to develop my work from my MA thesis, and try to see if I can get some of them published. I will develop an analysis of rhetorical tropes along with classic rhetoric on the basis of Heidegger's discussions of Stimmung, das Mann, language, concealment/revealment, and world. To achieve the goal of developing an analyssi of rhetoric, language, and ontology through rhetoric, I need to study Heidegger, Rhetoric, and Ricoeur. This project has the first step of assuring the parallel relationship between literary techniques and our existence. Since I have already earned a comprehensive knowledge of Heideggerian ontological structures, I will put my focus on Ricoeur and rhetorical tropes in the beginning. 

I will start with studying Ricoeur's discussion on metaphor and narrative, hoping to connect Ricoeur's method to Heidegger through Ricoeur's article on temporality and narrative. 

In the next step, I will dilineate hermeneutical ontology through rhetoric as our ontological structure. In this step, I will look into the workings of various rhetorical tropes (like Ricoeur) and compare them with Heideggerian ontology and Heidegger's discussion of art. The reason I want to discuss art is that Heidegger points out that langauge is related to our existence in the world. And we are in a fucked up world, and only art can help us. 

So in discussing art, I will introduce Adorno and Gadamer, who have interactions with Heidegger's hermeneutical ontology as well as have interest in art. In this stage, I will argue that art grant us better insights into our hermeneutical conditions through their phenomenological features--foregrounding or invitation and frustration. This IFR model aligns with the Heideggerian concept of Unzuhandenheit. The importance of Unzuhandenheit is that in Being and Time it helps us notice Sein, which is everywhere yet remains hidden. Only with a kind of disruption, a confrontation from the phenomenon or the demand of the phenomenon can we recognize our hermeneutical conditions. 

The importance of such a recognition is important, because it is Gadamer's and Adorno's ideal--a consciousness of our temporality. 

I will first focus on the relationship between Heidegger and Paul Ricoeur, stating the connection between the argument of the interrelationship between rhetorical tropes and our understanding of the world. As Ricoeur argues that literary techniques are not just techniques, but also something fundamental to our understanding of the world, I agree with him and hope to extend and expand his discussions by highlighting the kinship between existence and literary art. To do so, I will not only review Ricoeurs discussions of metaphor and narrative, but also develop from his discussion along with Heidegger's discussion a discussion of art that focus on rhetorical devices. 

One way to justify the importance of form, rhetorical devices, and art in Heidegger's philosophy is through TOWA and indirectly through Adorno's criticism of Heidegger. In this way, a focus on the working of language, the Ricoeurian power of tropes are highlighted. And I will argue that such discussions can be done properly only on the basis of Being and Time's insight and Heidegger's non-problematic parts, despite his evidently confused discussion of Hoelderlin. This will be a revision of Heidegger II from the point of Heidegger I. I will argue that Heidegger's problematic approach to artworks betrays the method he proposed in Being and Time, he betrayed himself. His idea of the evil Gestell becomes his own pratice, but his critique remains correct even though his practice is self-contradictory. 

To reconstruct and revise Heidegger's concept of art, literature, language, and rhetoric, I will also borrow some concepts of Gadamer to highlight that a hermeneutical consciousness is to be aroused by the truth revealed by art. Such an hermeneutical insight resonates with Heidegger's call for redemption in art--which he fails to specify but promised in QT--art has the redeeming power to show us other possibilities, while letting us know that Gestell is but one possibility. I will argue that the hermeneutical consciousness proposed by Gadamer is the key to this project. 

So Heidegger and Ricoeur--the main argument is that literary device parallels with our existential structure. 

 To put Heidegger in the center, I will argue that such a concept is both in Heidegger's philosophy yet somehow betrayed by himself. To do so, I will invoke Adorno's critique of Heidegger. At the same time, I will also discuss Heidegger's concept of art. In the meantime, I will also argue how his own pratice of art analysis betrays his own philosophy by not adopting a phenomenological or hermeneutical attitude.

To revise Heidegger according to Adorno's critique and to Heidegger's own philosophy, I argue that Gadamer's discussion of the hermeneutical consciousness is an appropriate revise from the hermeneutic point of view. So here I will compare Heidegger and Gadamer, pointing out the similarities, and how Heidegger's philosophy can be benefitted from Gadamer's insights. Of course, all of the discussions are based on Heidegger's insights, and that is why Heidegger should be the center. 

After these, I will return to Heidegger and Ricoeur. On the basis of the foregrouding and recognition of our process of interpretation highlighted by Gadamer, the Ricoeurian approach can show us what it is to be recognized and what we can do with it.