Negative Hermeneutics and the Question of Practice

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A01=Nicholas Davey
aesthetics
Author_Nicholas Davey
Category=CFA
Category=JNA
Category=QDHR
Category=QDTN
creative thinking
education
eq_bestseller
eq_dictionaries-language-reference
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
expressive practice
Gadamer
humanities
language ontology
negation
philosophical hermeneutics
the arts

Product details

  • ISBN 9781350347649
  • Weight: 480g
  • Dimensions: 154 x 232mm
  • Publication Date: 24 Jul 2025
  • Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
  • Publication City/Country: GB
  • Product Form: Paperback
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How do words and images function hermeneutically? How does hermeneutic practice work? Answering these questions and more, Nicholas Davey develops the hermeneutical foundations of creative practice. In doing so, he not only uncovers the significance of philosophical hermeneutics for the arts and the humanities, but defends the humanities as a whole from the current scepticism inspired by deconstruction and post-structuralism.

Taking Gadamer’s language ontology as its cue, this pioneering volume not only addresses certain weaknesses that Davey observes in Gadamer’s thought but further takes Gadamerian thinking beyond Gadamer himself. In particular, Davey investigates the productive value of negativity that is central to hermeneutics and to wider spheres of creative learning.

Advocating a renewed confidence in hermeneutics and the humanities, Negative Hermeneutics and the Question of Practice reveals how hermeneutical thinking provides a map of the dynamics within creative practice, eliminating the need for an externally imposed ‘theory’ of the arts.

Nicholas Davey is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Dundee, UK. His previous publications include Unquiet Understanding (2006) and Unfinished Worlds (2014).

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