Macavoy, Leslie. Review of Francis Mootz, et al., eds. GADAMER AND RICOEUR. NDPR (November 2011).

Mootz III, Francis J., and George H. Taylor, eds.  Gadamer and Ricoeur: Critical Horizons for Contemporary Hermeneutics.  London: Continuum, 2011.

This volume is a collection of essays on the hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur. Taylor and Mootz state in their introduction that the motivation for the project was to encourage further interest in both philosophers’ work. The collection aims to "demonstrate the continuing fruitfulness of Gadamer's and Ricoeur's work and to assess continuing points of similarity and difference in order to refine and extend their legacies" (1). All in all, the book accomplishes this goal. The essays are engaging and work to bring philosophical attention back to issues in hermeneutics that remain of pressing importance but which have been less prominent in the continental philosophical literature of late. They also suggest new directions for the application of insights drawn from hermeneutic philosophy.

The collection consists of twelve essays and is organized into three sections. The first and shortest section is entitled 'History' and aims to provide some historical context to the development of hermeneutic philosophy. This section contains only one essay, which seems somewhat out of balance in relation to the number of essays in the other sections, and those interested in the historical development of hermeneutics leading up to Gadamer and Ricoeur might find themselves wanting something more than is offered here. The second, largest part of the book is entitled 'Engagements' and features seven essays that elaborate upon prominent themes in the work of Gadamer and Ricoeur and put their positions into critical engagement with one another. The first four essays in this section critically examine the work of Gadamer and Ricoeur with respect to issues that emerged as significant in the Gadamer-Habermas debate, specifically the emphasis in Gadamer on universality and on belonging to a tradition and its implications for the possibility of a critical hermeneutics. Those interested in this debate and Ricoeur's position in relation to Gadamer on these issues will especially appreciate this part of the book. The third and final section of the book contains four essays and is called 'Extensions.' As the heading suggests, the organizing theme here is to develop and extend the thought of Gadamer and Ricoeur in directions that they do not explicitly pursue. The topics engaged here are quite divergent, ranging from feminism and the body to political action to the philosophy of technology to Chinese philosophy. In what follows, I will offer a few remarks on each of the essays. . . .

http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/27486-gadamer-and-ricoeur-critical-horizons-for-contemporary-hermeneutics/

Osborne, Tony. Review of Francis Mootz's RHETORICAL KNOWLEDGE IN LEGAL PRACTICE AND CRITICAL LEGAL THEORY. COMMUNICATION RESEARCH TRENDS June 2008.

Mootz, Francis J. Rhetorical Knowledge in Legal Practice and Critical Legal Theory. Tuscaloosa: U . of Alabama P, 2006. Mootz's Abstract: My central themes are that rhetorical knowledge - however imperfectly pursued and attained - is a feature of social life; that rhetorical knowledge plays an important role in legal practice; and that legal critique is appropriately grounded by the normative injunction to maximize the generation of and reliance on rhetorical knowledge in the administration of justice by legal actors. If nothing else, I want to make clear that by recovering and cultivating the classic insights of Gadamer, Perelman, and Nietzsche we can gain substantial perspective on our current situation. By definition, the theory of rhetorical knowledge does not call for a brilliant theoretical reconstruction of legal practice that generates prescriptions; instead, it seeks to draw out resources that can help us understand legal practice and engage critically in this practice. Rhetorical knowledge may only be enacted rhetorically. . . . Read the rest here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=935949. Osborne's Review: In pre-Nazi Germany the philosopher Ernesto Grassi learned of the general disdain for Renaissance humanism and rhetoric from his principal colleague at the University of Freiburg, Martin Heidegger, who deemed the Italian tradition "insignificant." The Hegelian rationalism that dominated German universities excluded rhetoric as too messy. Rhetorical categories--the emotions, linguistic ambiguity, tropes, paradox, silence, mystery--resisted neat systemization. However, to judge these concerns "irrational," and thus irrelevant, Grassi argued, would bar rhetorical discourse from philosophical investigation. In Rhetorical Knowledge in Legal Practice, Francis J. Mootz III echos Grassi's argument in his case against legal formalism--a fixed, abstract conception of law that denies the essential rhetorical nature of legal practice. Unlike invariable mathematical theorems, questions of right and wrong are contextual, historical, not fixed. A theft in one context is a heroic deed in another. If the courts must "say what the law is," as Chief Justice Marshall famously declared, then it follows that this "saying" is a rhetorical activity, a matter of argumentation (p. 130-31). In effect, Mootz subscribes to the maxim that "rhetoric is a way of knowing." Mootz puts it thus, "rhetorical knowledge" is a constitutive feature of legal practice. He defines rhetorical knowledge as "the outcome of efforts to learn from and to persuade another person by engaging in argumentation" (p. 127). Rhetorical knowledge is intersubjective and self-reflexive, acquired through inquiry into "how we persuade others of our resulting understandings" (p. 188). Mootz believes American legal theory is adrift, cut loose, in part, by the postmodern suspicion of any theory rooted in reason. Mootz also rejects legal formalism (positivism), which decrees an argument must have a winner and a loser. Forsaking the extremes, Mootz opts to ground legal practice in "rhetorical knowledge." This bold move requires rehabilitating the tainted notion of rhetoric as "the glib manipulation and incapacitation of reason" (p. 12). Undergirding Mootz's project are the ideas of Hans Gadamer (Heidegger's most famous student) and Chaim Perelman (a Polish-Belgian rhetorical theorist best known for his typology of argumentation). Rhetorical Knowledge in Legal Practice is essentially an exegesis of their work. . . . Read the rest here: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_7081/is_/ai_n28545109.

Mootz, Francis J. "Perelman in Legal Education: Recalling the Rhetorical Tradition of Isocrates and Vico."

Abstract: This paper was presented on October 14, 2008 as part of a panel addressing "The Influence of Perelman in Legal Philosophy" at a conference hosted by the Perelman Center for the Philosophy of Law, Free University of Brussels. I argue that Perelman's philosophy is connected with legal practice, but that he never made the connections between his philosophy and legal education explicit. I refer to the work of Isocrates and Vico, and conclude that Perelman's philosophy can teach us much about contemporary legal education as we strive to address the questions raised by the Carnegie Report. Download the paper here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1291570.

Mootz, Francis. "Faithful Hermeneutics." Annual Meeting, Association of American Law Schools, January 9, 2009.

Abstract:

This article was presented as part of a panel on "Scriptural and Constitutional Hermeneutics," co-sponsored by the Law and Religion Section, Section on Jewish Law, and Section on Islamic Law, and the papers will be published by the Michigan State Law Review.

My article compares legal and religious hermeneutics by exploring the dual nature of what I term "faithful hermeneutics." The ambiguity evoked by this phrase is intentional. On one hand, it suggests an investigation of the relationship between legal and religious interpretation by comparing hermeneutical activities undertaken by faithful adherents to these two different textual traditions. In this first sense, it is to compare how these practices are the hermeneutics of the faithful. On the other hand, the phrase suggests an analysis of how interpreters in these two traditions remain faithful to the nature of their practice. In this second sense, it is to compare how hermeneutics can be faithfully accomplished. My thesis is that these two senses of "faithful hermeneutics" are connected. The fact that it is faithful adherents who engage in the interpretive practice in large part defines how they can, and should, remain faithful to the interpretive enterprise. I anchor my argument in Hans-Georg Gadamer's critique of historicism, in which he references the practices of legal and religious hermeneutics. Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics explains how faith is a prerequisite of understanding, even as understanding revitalizes and reshapes the faith one brings to a textual tradition. I then unfold the critical dimensions of faithful hermeneutics by comparing the work of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) and Gianni Vattimo on the Catholic tradition. I argue that these two thinkers display both the broad range and the non-methodological character of the critical insights of faithful hermeneutics. I conclude by suggesting that the parallels between religious and legal hermeneutics are instructive, but that we remember that it would be a mistake to conflate these two instances of faithful hermeneutics in our secular age.

Download the paper here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1321175.

Mootz, Francis. "The Irrelevance of Contemporary Academic Philosophy for Law: Recovering the Rhetorical Tradition."

From Mootz, Francis. On Philosophy in American Law. Cambridge: CUP, 2009 (forthcoming). By understanding how rhetoric produces knowledge within certain social and institutional settings we might foster the “good” rhetoric of the philosopher without having to endorse Plato’s misguided faith in the forms that can be seen in the sunlight of timeless knowledge. Rhetorical knowledge is a practical accomplishment that neither achieves apodictic certitude norcollapses into a relativistic irrationalism, which is enough to sustain legal practice as a reasonable– even if not thoroughly rationalized – activity. Using rhetorical knowledge as a polestar, philosophers and lawyers can avoid the practicetheory quandary by not severing the two at the outset. At the most practical level, the concept of rhetorical knowledge will guide investigations of how the legal system fosters reasonable resolutions of controversy, examining how understanding and persuasion work in myriad contexts from client interviews to appellate argumentation. At the most theoretical level, the concept of rhetorical knowledge will guide an investigation of the ontology of understanding and persuasion, not by identifying a fixed human nature but rather by illuminating the unfolding hermeneutical-rhetorical character of human understanding in which the investigation itself participates. The merging of the philosophical traditions of hermeneutics and rhetoric provides the basis for understanding the rhetorical character of knowledge that is achieved in legal practice. Rhetorical knowledge is an incredibly rich starting point for thinking about legal practice and legal theory, stretching back to the pre-Socratics and Roman jurisprudence, and carrying forward today in a variety of work being done in both philosophy and law. Mining this vein of thinking promises to bring together philosophers and lawyers who currently bump into each other in the darkness of the cave, hardly pausing to take real notice of each other. . . . Read the rest here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1112507.