Truth and Interpretation (SUNY series in Contemporary Italian Philosophy)

Contents 6 Acknowledgments 8 Translator's Note 10 Foreword 12 Translator's Introduction: Luigi Pareyson's Vindication of Philosophy 18 1. Origins of Interpretation 20 2. Ontological Personalism 23 3. The Art of Interpretation 26 4. The Unity of Philosophy 30 5. Truth and Interpretation 32 Truth and Interpretation 40 Preface 42 Notes 45 Introduction: Expressive Thought and Revelatory Thought 52 1. Historicistic Consideration and Speculative Discussion 52 2. Expression of Time and Revelation of Truth 54 3. Features of the Thought that Ignore the Bond between Person and Truth 55 4. Cryptic Discourse and Semantic Discourse: Demystification and Interpretation 57 5. Unobjectifiability of Truth 59 6. Not Mysticism of the Ineffable, but Ontology of the Inexhaustible 62 7. The Failure of Demythification: The Irrationalism of Reason Without Truth 63 8. The Servitude of Technical Thought and the Freedom of Revelatory Thought 64 Notes 66 Part I: Truth and History 68 1. Permanent Values and Historical Process 70 1. The Inadequacy of the Historicism and the Empiricism that Characterize Today's Culture 70 2. The Historicity of Values and Historical Durability 72 3. Beyond Values and Beyond Durability: The Presence of Being 74 4. The Inexhaustibility of Being as Foundation of Its Presence and Ulteriority in Historical Forms 76 5. Historical Forms as Interpretations of Being: The Elimination of Relativism 77 6. The Originarity of Tradition 79 7. Regeneration and Revolution 81 8. Being and Freedom 82 Notes 83 2. The Originarity of Interpretation 86 1. Relation with Being and Interpretation of Truth: Ontology and Hermeneutics 86 2. The Historical Aspect and the Revelatory Aspect of Interpretation are Co-Essential 86 3. Interpretation Is Neither Subjectivistic nor Approximate 88 4. The Impossibility of Distinguishing a Short-Lived Aspect and a Permanent Core in Interpretation 90 5. The Unicity of Truth and the Multiplicity of Its Formulations Are Inseparable 92 6. The Formulation of Truth Is Its Interpretation, Not Its Subrogation: Neither Its Monopoly nor Its Disguise 93 7. The False Dilemma between the Unicity of Truth and the Multiplicity of Its Formulations 96 8. The Hermeneutic Character of the Relation between Truth and Its Formulation 98 9. Interpretation Is Not the Relation of Subject and Object 100 10. Interpretation Is Neither the Relation of Form and Content, nor the Relation of Virtuality and Development 102 11. Interpretation Does Not Imply a Relation between Parts and Whole: The Insufficiency of Integration and Explication 104 12. The Constitution of Interpretation 108 13. Consequences of the Personality of Interpretation 110 14. Consequences of the Ulteriority of Truth 114 Notes 116 Part II: Truth and Ideology 118 3. Philosophy and Ideology 120 1. Expressive Thought and Revelatory Thought 120 2. The Historicization of Thought in Ideology 121 3. The Technicization of Reason in Ideology 122 4. The Inseparability of the Historical and the Revelatory Aspects in Ontological Thought: Truth and Interpretation 125 5. The Originary Unity of Theory and Praxis in Ontological Thought: Being and Testimony 128 6. False Consciousness and Mystification in Ideological Thought 132 7. The Falsification of Time in Ideological Thought 134 8. The Complete Explication of the Implied and the Infinite Interpretation of the Implicit 137 9. The Problem of the End of Ideological Struggles Is Resolved Neither by Sociological Historicism nor by Historical Materialism 140 10. The End of Ideological Struggles Increases the Technicization of Thought 142 11. Only Philosophy as the Guardian of Truth Makes Dialogue Possible 143 Notes 146 4. The Destiny of Ideology 152 1. The Ambiguity of the Neutral or Positive Meaning of Ideology 152 2. The Problem of the Concrete Distinction between Ideology and Philosophy 154 3. The Deliberate Confusion of Philosophy and Ideology 157 4. The Nonphilosophical Character of Ideology 159 5. Weltanschauung, Philosophy, Ideology 160 6. The Positive Reality of Evil and Error 163 7. The Irreparable Negativity of Ideology 165 8. The Falsely Positive Aspects of Ideology and Their Denunciation 167 9. The Non-Ideological Character of Philosophy 170 10. The Concreteness of Authentic Philosophy 172 11. The Difference Between the Historical Character and the Ideological Character of Thought 175 12. The Unicity of Truth, and the Plurality, but not the Partiality, of Philosophies 177 13. The Problem of Negative Ontology: Ineffability or Inexhaustibility 180 14. Revelatory Thought Is the One Mediator between Truth and Time: The Necessity of Philosophy between Religion and Politics 183 15. The Rational Effectiveness of Philosophy, not of Ideology: Theory and Praxis 187 16. The Inevitability of Moral, not Ideological, Commitment 190 17. The Philosopher and Politics 193 18. The Inadequacy of the Mutual Subordination of Philosophy and Politics 195 19. The Originarity of Practice 199 Notes 201 Part III: Truth and Philosophy 204 5. The Necessity of Philosophy 206 1. Science and Religion Claim to Supplant Philosophy 206 2. Art and Politics Claim to Subrogate Philosophy 207 3. Philosophy, by Marking the Limits of Science, Keeps It Within Its Nature 209 4. Only Philosophy Guarantees the Reciprocal Independence of Philosophy and Religion 210 5. The Degeneration of Art and Politics Without Philosophy 212 6. Due to Excessive Critique, Philosophy Declares Its Own End 213 7. The Crisis of Philosophy as the Renunciation of Truth 216 8. The Choice between Truth and Technics 217 9. Philosophy as Consciousness of the Ontological Relation and the Problem of Philosophical Language 219 10. The Effectiveness of Philosophy as Recovery of Truth 221 Notes 222 6. Philosophy and Common Sense 224 1. Examples of Relations between Common Sense and Philosophy 224 2. The Ambiguity of Common Sense, Held between a Demand for Universality and a Destiny of Historicity 225 3. The Inanity and Presumptuousness of Common Sense Taken Separately from Philosophy 228 4. The Impossibility of Surrendering Philosophy to Common Sense 230 5. The Rigor of Philosophical Knowledge 231 6. Philosophy as the Problematization of Experience and of Common Sense Itself 232 7. Common Sense as the Object of Philosophy Is the Originary Ontological Relation 235 8. The Inseparability of Universality and Historicity in Common Sense 236 9. Only Truth Unites Without Depersonalizing 238 10. The Identity of Theory and Praxis Can Only Be Originary 240 11. The Profound Collaboration of Common Sense and Philosophy 241 Notes 242 Bibliography 244 Pareyson's Works Translated in English 244 Articles, Book Chapters, and Reviews on Pareyson in English 244 Index 246 Luigi Pareyson (1918-1991) was one of the most important Italian philosophers to emerge after World War II and stands shoulder to shoulder with fellow hermeneutic thinkers Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur. The product of a well-developed theory of interpretation that stretches back to the late 1940s, his 1971 masterpiece Truth and Interpretation provides the historical impetus and theoretical framework for the questions of existence, art, and politics that would motivate his most famous students, Umberto Eco and Gianni Vattimo. In a time when the meaning of truth as an interpretation is challenged by the chaotic din of media on the one side and the violent force of absolute claims from science, religion, and political economy on the other, Pareyson's meditation on the value of thinking that is shaped by the traditions of philosophy and yet responds to contemporary demands remains timely and pressing more than forty years after its initial publication. A volume in the SUNY series in Contemporary Italian Philosophy Silvia Benso and Brian Schroeder, editors Book jacket