Philosophy in the Contemporary World

Volume 5, Issue 2/3, Summer/Fall 1998

Realism, Constructionism, and the Self

Insight, Judgment, World
Rethinking the Ontology of Being and Time

Revisiting Heidegger’s interpretation of “world” in Being and Time can help us come to grips with the conflict between the naturalistic and hermeneutical points of view which post-modernism has aggravated rather than resolved. After discussing Heidegger’s account of the “hermeneutical circle,” and his rejection of the correspondence theory of truth, I argue that, to “save” truth from hermeneutical relativism, Heidegger smuggles naturalism inside the hermeneutical circle. I suggest that, in order to abandon naturalism without abandoning truth, it is necessary to radically rethink the nature of judgment and recognize that it alone completes our ontological access to the world.