You know Sugrue is about to drop something profound when he finishes a sentence, then starts again, “Now...”

We lost him today. I've listened to this one over and over, and over again in recent years.

Dr. Sugrue's lectures set the bar for academic excellence. There is no chaff here. This is pure intellectual paydirt.

1:10 - goal of Gadamer's hermenetic project: bring student to Effective Historical Consciousness. Form of "Phrenesis." 4:35 - mentions "gestalt" of knowledge arising from historical development 5:15 - likens his stance to Aristotle's stance on Tragedy in the Poetics: there are rules for its construction, although its appreciation is a subjective endeavor. 12:40 - brings up that everyone, even a positivist, will learn things from the writings of Shakespeare, even though there is hard and fast method for doing so "nomathetic" - generates hard and fast rules; "idiographic" = generates pictures (perhaps there's a third one that generates words or thought?) 14:30 - two kinds of knowledge: "ferstunf" = reason (i.e. pertaining to any rational being); "ferstain" = understanding (i.e. specifically human understanding) 18:40 - Goethe quote: "if you would inherit from your forefather you must win it again anew" - because we live in temporality, if we are to understand our own conception of the world, our a priori assumptions, even the political and cultural context we find ourselves in, we must investigate what we have, where we got it from, and how our forefathers came to that conclusion in the first place. 26:30 - "transparency of apprehension" - the idea that a good interpretation is a transparent interpretation - one where you no longer see the distinction between the interpreter and the thing interpreted. e.g. a good actor portrayal of Hamlet is one where we see only Hamlet, not the actor playing Hamlet; a good psychoanalyst is one who describes the patient's thoughts in their own words, not twisting them into the structure of their own theories. 37:20 - Gadmer's effective historical consciousness is using language to understand that language is historically conditioned, and that this conditioning distorts interpretation, and that that's not a problem, it's just a part of Dasein 37:40 - dialectical nature of the hermeneutic circle (not a vicious circle; rather, a reverse ourobouros). We approach a text with expectations, our expectations are thwarted, we redefine our expectations, we approach a text with those expectations, those get thwarted, ad infinitum 40:50 - similar conclusions of Wittgenstein and Gadamer in theory of knowledge: does not follow that "soft rules" equate to either gibberish or absolute relativism. Remember Aristotle's "we do not ask more certainty from a discipline than it could possibly give."

Dr Michael Sugrue’s brain is an encyclopaedia 💯

My favorite lecture of all time

39:36 *Gadamer’s problem with positivism: hard science vs. soft science* “You might want to say then (and this is an interesting way, a Heideggerian way of reading hermeneutics) is that his problem with science is that, like Heidegger, Gaddamer believes that science discloses _beings,_ with a small “b” and an “s” at the end-whereas hermeneutics discloses _Being,_ capital “B” with no “s” at the end because that’s the realm of the truly human. When you have completely absorbed your entire cultural tradition that is the realm of _Dasein,_ that is the realm of Being-language and Being perfectly overlap then. So we never quite get to that point but every one of us at any given moment in historical time, we’re living _somewhere,_ we’re in _Dasein_ and our job is to make the most of our horizon by reconnecting ourselves to that historical horizon of our culture and that means the constant ongoing process of _reinterpretation.”_ ...and Hegel adds: _Being_ exists as contradiction, as the power of negation connecting the two. Cadell Last: _“[R]eality as a totality, for Žižek, is not just “something” of material processes and “nothing” of the void; but also the “less than nothing” of virtuality which he claims has not yet been understood properly ontologically.”_

Damn, that German pronunciation at the beginning was top 👌. Shows how much of a professional, Professor Sugrue is.

As a Fine Art student at university, that lecture has taught me more about the nature and interpretation of art, then any of my current lecturers… that’s pretty damning hahah but thank you so much!

Writing a dissertation now on 'should we separate the art from the artist's intention?' this has been especially helpful as it is hard to place Gadamer within any specific theory. Now understanding he has a philosophy of his own. Has helped me shape my thesis!

His presentation and delivery are delightful and charming and passionate; dare I say a nerd’s nerd? I am so impressed!!!

0:28 Hans Gadamer Effective Historical Conciousness Tact Proportion Good Judgement Phronesis 2:10 Wisdom, Proportion, Common Sense 4:00 Move out of Positivism! 5:18 Rules for Asthetic Appreciation 6:13 Aristotle How far can an idea be taken until it breaks down? 8:46 Science of Interpretation: Hermeneutics 11:37 It’s not entirely subjective Art has Truth

I’ve spent the better part of 3 days cramming these lectures in. They’re fantastic!

I unsuccessfully watched several German videos to understand what Hermeneutics mean. This video finally made me understand it. Thanks.

32:43 Similarly, this _influence_ on interpretation here (reappropriation) is exactly what Zizek takes up in his project with Hegel/Lacan. _A Lacanian Hegelianism:_ “Žižek’s readings of Hegel’s texts are based on Jacques Lacan’s theories of the subject and the unconscious, and less on Marx. Indeed, Žižek explicitly defends a psychoanalytically impregnated Hegelianism. With an implicit but obvious reference to Marx’s eleventh thesis on Ludwig Feuerbach, he writes in The Plague of Fantasies that the motto of such a Lacanian reading of Hegel could be: _”Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted Hegel; but the point is also to change him.”’_ -Anders Burman

Damn, he doesn't even pause for a breather. Its like everything is flowing out of him so smoothly.

Incredible lecture, as always Dr Sugrue. I've listened to almost all your great minds and great authors series, yet te way you have explained the gadamerian proposal has touched me deeply. Thank you again for this treasures from the past that you and your daughter have made available for us.

I can't believe the standard of lecture in every video in the series. Thank you so much for sharing these, Michael!

Fantastic presentation. With ease and simplicity he delivers like true scholar.

I am liking Gadamer.

Sandel and his Harvard lectures on moral/political philosophy/communitarianism were one of the first free academic lecture series (like this and other higher educational materials) to grace KZfaq.

Nothing from nothing leaves nothing. -- Billy Preston

This cat I never heard of him before (dadamer)... 🤷🏻‍♂️ but you always learn something new here. Thank you professor for all these lectures and wish you a very happy Christmas 🎄 with your family 🤝 bless you all

Great video as always. Gadamer's transparency is like the criteria for good acting. "A good actor makes you forget they are reading from a script".

Oh my goodness! What an amazing and so very clear lecture! At university, 45 years ago, I took a philosophy course on hermeneutics. I had a most wonderful professor then. In the intervening years, I have become much more biased toward science and its method as offering truth. I sorely needed to hear this. This lecture is truly a gift. Thank you so very, very much for this! I will be looking for Dr. Sugrue's other lectures.

14:15 is wonderful and I feel follows a strain of thinking on truth that is very in line with Nietzche and Alain Badiou

I totally remember reading "Truth and Method". Awesome!

...breathtaking breadth of reference crystalline distillation of thought a quietly murmuring stream that turns into a torrent of truly scintillating erudition and learning thanks

11:11 This is Rick Roderick’s definition of hermeneutics “a fancy word for _the interpretation of texts”,_ which includes things like _deciphering_ a film or _reading_ a stop sign.”

Gosh this content is good. How did I find this? I can almost forgive KZfaq for its censorship and meddling....

Thank you so much for posting this!

Great lecture. Thank you

Can't wait!

Thank you very much for posting this. I understood interpretation in an entirely new way after this presentation of yours.

Are there any lectures on Foucault or Derrida coming soon; I would love to see them.

I am absolutely adoring these lectures, they’re an incredible resource. I’m curious, is there anything in the archives about Spinoza’s work? If so, I’m really looking forward to it!

Astonishing lecture! ❤

Loved this one. The passion in your voice punctuated your summary at the end of this video beautifully. Thank you.

my favorite part of the series. the barthes lecture is good listening

Fascinating and extremely competent lecture. This is it!

I love him and the speed at which he disseminates his knowledge! Thank you for sharing so much intellectual treasure with the general public, Michael Sugrue!

This is incredible!! So happy this popped up on my recommended! I’m actually creating an interdisciplinary art seminar which uses modernist avant gardes to teach a sort of soft literary/cultural theoretical sense. The general idea is that artists at the undergraduate don’t always have all the theoretical knowledge that they need to have effective conversation across mediums. The hope is, then, that modernism-as an aesthetic concept that embodies so much of the ferment that drives theory, but without all the potentially intimidating vagaries of formalized theory-might be able to bridge this gap in a fun and engaging way. In any case, I might use some of these lectures. They are fantastic!

I write my interpretations to help others understand and also to see if I understood anything. I also expect and encourage someone pointing out my potential mistakes. Whenever one mode of knowledge, be it metaphysical, scientific, ideological etc claims to be the ultimate method to rule all knowledge, then we're beholding a dogmactic hard rule: a mode, born out of history, which claims the very form of knowledge, measuring all other modes by its own method. This is being, as opposed to Being, necessarily contingent, sufficient at best, but never the whole Truth, which escapes any form of propositional knowledge, is tapped by many methods, all ways lead to it, but none may claim its possession. Gadamer brilliantly integrates Heidegger Dasein with Wittgenstein's language-games, the hermeneutic circle is the only legitimate method of knowledge, as it does not claim absoluteness, insted it relies on the integration and articulation of truths from many domains, all in relation to one's own historical circumstances, reviving and re-representing, reincorporating the deads' society into the new society, providing us with a transparent interpretation, one which is a soft rule. A soft rule is that which delineates the form of things, but which can't be properly formulated. It's an interpretation that denies one's own representations to take over its form, instead limiting the subject to be the body by which the objective form may inhabit. This may sound very abstract and difficult to grasp, but becomes clearer as we imagine a good actor vs a bad actor. The good one is that which loses himself on the character, the one which allows his well-known face to become the concrete body of that which he represents. The bad actor is that one we all recognize: he carries his mannerisms to all his characters, he “plays himself” on all his roles.

This is an isthmus between sheer technical account of a thinker and mere gnawing at synoptic phrases typical of a textbook. Much love in the interpretation!

10 out of 10. Thank you.

Thank You!

Great stuff.

Hello Professor Sugrue, Thanks again for your amazing lecture. I have a question though: I'm sceptic of the Art being a source of knowledge, because e.g. we "learn" from Shakespear. firstly, we may "learn" something from Shakespeare, but if it is knowledge, is another question. Given knowledge being "true justified belief/statement". We might get justified statements from Shakespeare. how could we now proof its truthfulness other than investigating its correspondence to reality, which the scientific method and empiricism in general offer. secondly, if it gets proven as truthful, doesn't it show that the Shakespear himself got to know something and he communicates his knowledge to us through his art. (Art being a medium for communicating knowledge and not the source of it). If it is the case, the question still exists, where and how Shakespear himself found/examined the truthfulness of his narration in the first place? I would be really looking forward to your answers. Sincerely Benn Bell PS.: Sorry if my text is poorly written. I hope I could nevertheless describe my thinking understandable. (English is not my native language)

I'm always looking for new interesting lectures on Psychology/Philosophy, please let me know if you guys have any recommendations, would be highly appreciated

So brilliant. Is William James ever covered in any lectures? Would love to hear what he has to say about the Pragmatist school.

What Prof Sugrue thinks of Bertrand Russell and his contribution to Philosophy?

This lecture gives a very circular arc to the historicism of philosophy similar to Chinese conception of history being circular in the sense that each turn of the proverbial wheel of philosophical advancement is a refinement on the previous ideas but more akin to drilling down to the roots of philosophical knowledge. Gadamer was refining the encyclopedic knowledge put forth by Aristotle but also wrestles with the legacy of Comte's Positivism. Perhaps that is the philosophical methodology at its very essence. To take a mining bore to drill down the layers of knowledge down to its core, with each passing turn of the drill bit, philosophical methodology is being refined to bring us into some central core that will only be accessible for a future generations but built upon the legacy left by Gadamer and other philosophers. Perhaps that is the best application of Hegel's belief in progress being the Synthesis in which Thesis acts as some Yin property and Antithesis being a countervalent force acting as some Yang property. However, Synthesis can only be obtained through the harmony of both as idealized in the Yin Yang conception of dualism.

freaking awesome lecture, Sugure in his prime was top dogg

Brilliant. RIP

~ 31" I would have thought that the sign of a good interpretation in psychoanalysis isn't the agreement of the analysand to that particular analysis but the elicitation of appropriate affect. Which can then be further analysed.

~ 35" Is 'Hello.' not a sentence? Or 'The end.'? In this last sentence the verb is understood. But many good English sentences do precisely this.

1:14 Effective historical consciousness, phronesis

Wonderful! Anything on Gnostic theology?

Can anyone point me in the direct of learning more about "Transparency of apprehension" in Gadamer's work? It sounds a great idea and I am really interested … but I am not able to find ANY reference to the idea outside of this lecture. Perhaps you read it in the original German and translated it differently than most?

Excelent!

~ 29"" But is that true for instance of painting? When I see a landscape by Van Gogh I don't just see a landscape I see Van Gogh. And what I see is very different from Cezanne or Seurat or Monet. In only the case of Vermeer do I see something that is almost transparent enough to be a photograph. Nor is it in this that his great virtue lies as a painter. Or we would long ago have learnt to prefer photographs. If transparency is not a virtue in painting then how can it be in the other arts? Or is the motif merely an excuse for the display of something else? In a sense any painting by Van Gogh, say, is a more or less transparent self-portrait of Van Gogh. Or is it only the interpreter who has to be transparent? There being of course no interpreter when it comes to painting.

20:30 is like a cultural theoretical parallel to J. Butler’s idea of iterability which seeks to add both precarity and difference & repetition to the subject’s perpetual unfolding

All hail Sugrue

Rest In Peace

Everything he touches is made perfect. My life as a lecturer is made easier. Janvier Murenzi, 10:05 Rwandan time!

after realizing that comments weren't turned off and reading some I feel the lectures are somewhat diluted now. Allowing comments does make him seem a bit less transcendental though, if you will.

The German language both kills me and amazes me. I’ll have to practice that one for a bit before I get it down 😂

The project of hermenuetics would seem to have the effect of relativizing knowledge , thereby calling into question its very existence as 'knowledge'. It seems to end being something more akin to a species of 'belief'...it could be otherwise....Would we then want to call it knowledge ?

Always...

Sir , social anthropology and sociology and culture

this one, though, its interesting. I found out that you can ,,look,, at history as you look at you childhood memories. as if it were true. as you know by heart the places you lingered as child, the craccks in the wall, the lighting of the room at noon under the tree etc. or is just me.

26:00

Anybody thinking about returning to a Leave it to Beaver MAGA world need only praise the technology that allows us to watch these lectures for free on You Tube. Princeton is out of my price range.

27:30

You just know at some point , "At Night All Cows are Black" has been considered as the title of either a Jeff Foxxworthy , George Carlin or Calvin and Hobbes book

This lecture made my head hurt

I honestly grew a second brain watching this.

I learn lots from Netflix, profound philosophy in Art.

Between my rocks there's a hard place. Sometimes.

30:00

Like when kung fu masters interpret an animal in their kung fu style if it is an effective interpretation their fighting is effective as well and they embody the animal they represent

This is not Wittgenstein

There is no Universal Skeleton Key to open every door.

If you wanna know where western philosophy started to go wrong, it’s nominalism. Gadamer seems to have missed it

phronesis

Not Shakespeare

Interpretation must include the interpreter

Being smart is sexy AF

-TIME HAS RUN OUT !! BERISHEET 2023-2030 !! Tribulation ! John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.-

Rhysome

OXCIMMMERON!

Love your lecture, but you talk too fast.

It seems that Jordan Peterson is refreshing the bible to be interpreted from a psychological perspective. So I guess he's doing a Gadamer.

Paragraphing....are you fucking serious

Smugglers

What an overture!

All of knowledge is physics except when trying to understand women being a man as there is no hope for doing that.

You "learn" wisdom from experience and wise people. And having listened to hundreds of hours of albeit summarized theories of famous philosophers (vs. original texts), not very many seem wise--although supremely educated, often exceedingly articulate, and frequently ingenious in mental gymnastics. Alas, wisdom (like happiness) is a rare bird and not easily found. Quite disappointing, actually. I had expected much, much more. Literature seems to be a better, more apt teacher.

Yikes! He seems like a nice man, but I am not sure if he has actually read Gadamer's work. There is such a distortion in his remarks of what Gadamer actually says, you are better off listening to Jessica Frazier on KZfaq or even Gadamer himself (with English subtitles).