Monday, August 19, 2024

FEATURE - The Hermeneutics of Suspicion


I've been trying to find a John Vervaeke video where he explains The Hermeneutucs* of Suspicion and here it is. He's responding to a question about Freedom and Free Will. He gives quite a full response, weaving in Berlin's Freedom From & Freedom To and a simple breakdown of The Hermeneutics of Suspicion and The Hermeneutics of Beauty.

The Hermeneutics of Suspicion was conceptualised originally by Paul Riceour. Emerging from analysing the work of people like Mark, Freud and Nietsche. Every thing has to be encountered with suspicion, and your purpose is to reveal the delusion or deception that underlies it.  It has become the default mode of most contemporary political analysis, journalism, social media and conspiracy theorists. A sign of how clever you are, you have spotted and revealed this deception.

Though this is not necessarily a bad thing, it is massively overused, and as Verveake states here, it should primarily be being applied to oneself, to root out ones own delusions and self deceptions. Not as it's  most commonly used to point the finger at the egregious faults or motives of others. 

In an interesting slant he explains that beneath The Hermeneutics of Suspicion is its real deeper purpose to discover the Truth in a situation via The Hermeneutics of Beauty.

* Hermeneutics is a word not in common use, it means the study and interpretation of how language is used.

No comments: