Document Type
Article
Publication Date
12-30-2022
Publication Title
Labyrinth
Volume
24
Issue
2
Pages
118-133
Publisher Name
Axia Academic Publishers
Abstract
This paper is concerned with the problem of speaking past one another due to an asymmetry of the interlocutors' backgrounds. When individuals with different levels of relative privilege interact, the party with relative privilege may fail to engage with what is being communicated. I take up critical Gadamerian hermeneutics to ask how we, as individuals with relative privilege, can 'unstop' our ears so that the burden of explanation does not (unfairly) remain on those we hurt by our mishearing/non-hearing. I offer two methods to achieve this 'unstopping': 'critical self-knowledge' through Quassim Cassam's 'Vice Epistemology' framework and 'critical world-knowledge' through the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory (Max Horkheimer and Jürgen Habermas, specifically). I then take up contemporary critical hermeneutics (Lorenzo Simpson) to show how, through the application of the critical methods, one might be able to achieve a useful, cross-cultural dialogue. This is imperative given our inexorably multi-cultural world today.
Recommended Citation
John, Lillianne, "On the (Un)Stopping of Our Ears" (2022). Department of Philosophy. 1.
https://ecommons.luc.edu/philosophy_studentpubs/1
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Copyright Statement
Copyright (c) 2022 Labyrinth
