Economics Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Question: a sentence within a communication context that requires one or more further sentences (see also answers). The question in many languages is characterized by a slightly altered word position, as opposed to the corresponding sentence, as well as an attached or pre-set symbol (question symbol). A response is not guaranteed and does not have to be done so that a question retains its form and content. See also statements, commands, sentences, speech act theory._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Hans-Georg Gadamer on Questions - Dictionary of Arguments
I 304 Question/Gadamer: The first thing that understanding begins with is (...) that something appeals to us. This is the highest of all hermeneutical conditions. We now know what is demanded by it: a fundamental suspension of one's own prejudices. All suspension of judgements, however, and therefore even more so that of prejudices, has, logically seen, the structure of the question. The essence of the question is the disclosure and keeping open of possibilities. If a >prejudice becomes questionable (...) this does not mean that it is simply set aside and the other is directly brought to the fore in its place. GadamerVsHistorism/VsObjectivism: This is rather the naivety of historical >objectivism: to assume such a relinquishment of itself. In truth, one's own prejudice is actually brought into play by the fact that it is itself at stake. Only by playing itself off it is able to experience the other person's claim to truth at all and enables him or her to play him- or herself off. Cf. >Historism, >Understanding/Gadamer, >Hermeneutics/Gadamer. Historism/Gadamer: The naivety of the so-called historism consists in the fact that it withdraws itself from such a reflection and forgets its own historicity in trusting in the methodology of its procedure. I 368 Question/Gadamer: It is obvious that in all experience the structure of the question is presupposed. One does not experience without the activity of questioning. The realization that the thing is different and not as one first believed, obviously presupposes the passage through the question, whether it is the case or not. The openness that lies in the nature of experience is, logically speaking, precisely this openness of one way or another. It has the structure of the question. And just as the dialectical negativity of experience found its perfection in the idea of a completed experience, in which we are aware of our finiteness and limitedness as a whole, so the logical form of the question and the negativity inherent in it finds its completion in a radical negativity, the knowledge of not-knowing. It is the famous Socratic docta ignorantia that opens up the true superiority of questioning in the extreme negativity of aporia. Meaning: The essence of the question is that it has meaning. But meaning is a sense of direction. The sense of the question is therefore the direction in which the answer alone can take place if it wants to be a meaningful answer. The question puts the respondent in a certain respect. The emergence of a question, as it were, breaks up the being of the respondent. The logos that unfolds this broken being is in this respect always already the answer. Socrates/Plato: One of the greatest insights that the Platonic Socrates account gives us is that asking questions is - quite contrary to the general opinion - more difficult than answering them. I 369 In order to be able to ask, one must want to know, i.e., but know that one does not know. The openness of the questioned person consists in the fact that the answer is not fixed. Every question completes its meaning only when it passes through such limbo, when it becomes an open question. Every real question requires this openness. If it lacks the same, it is basically an illusionary question that has no real meaning. But the openness of the question is not a boundless one. Rather, it includes a certain boundary through the horizon of the question. A question that lacks the same question is void. It only becomes an emergent question when the fluid indeterminacy of the direction in which it points is placed in the specific of one way or another. Wrong question: We call a question a wrong question that does not reach the open, but rather distorts the same by holding on to wrong premises. As a question, it feigns openness and decisiveness. But where the questionable is not - or not correctly - set off against the preconditions that are really fixed, there it is not really brought into the open and therefore nothing can be decided. I 370 Crooked question: We do not call it wrong, but crooked, because there is a question behind it, i.e. an open question is meant - but it is not in the direction that the question has taken. The crookedness of a question consists in the fact that the question does not really follow a direction and therefore does not allow an answer. Similarly, we say of assertions that are not entirely wrong, but also not right, that they are crooked. I 372 Idea: Every idea has the structure of the question. The idea of the question, however, is already a dive into the levelled width of the widespread opinion. (>Doxa/Plato). We also say of the question that it arises or poses itself - much rather than that we rise or ask it. Experience: We have already seen that the negativity of experience logically implies the question. In fact, it is the impulse that is represented by the one who does not fit into the pre-opinion through which we experience. Questioning is therefore also more a suffering than an action. The question suggests itself. It can no longer be evaded and we can no longer remain with the usual opinion. See >Question and Answer/Collingwood._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Gadamer I Hans-Georg Gadamer Wahrheit und Methode. Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik 7. durchgesehene Auflage Tübingen 1960/2010 Gadamer II H. G. Gadamer The Relevance of the Beautiful, London 1986 German Edition: Die Aktualität des Schönen: Kunst als Spiel, Symbol und Fest Stuttgart 1977 |
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