Hans-georg Gadamer On Prejudice And The Transmodern Project

Hans-georg Gadamer On Prejudice And The Transmodern Project

Abstract

There’s no mistrustfulness that there’s an critical need to imagine another world in the face of the fall outs of the current world order. The urgency of this need for ‘ another world ’ or ‘ a world in which all worlds fit ’ is the primary provocation for this exploration. In line with this provocation, this work is aimed at examining the conception of prejudice within Gadamer’s gospel as well as the transmodern design with a view to constructing an understanding ofcross-cultural contact that can focus the possibility of ‘ another world ’ o r ‘ a world in which all worlds fit ’. The base for this is that Gadamer’s direct appropriation of prejudice and its impact on the transmodern idea of the memoir/ geo/ body- politics of knowledge challenges the idea of universality as it operates in the current Euro- American cosmovision. This challenge isn’t in favour of subjectivism or relativism, but in favour of ‘ intersubjective dialogue ’ and ‘ pluriversality as a universal design ’. espousing the philosophical tools of exposition, notice and textual analysis the work seeks to demonstrate that a proper appropriation of Gadamer’s conceptualization of prejudice and of the influence it has had on the transmodern design can serves as the base for a new principle ofcross-cultural commerce/ evaluation; the ethical- hermeneutic principle of intercultural contact/ evaluation which can guarantee ‘ a world in which all worlds fit ’. In the addition to this, the work also establishes that i) the transmodernanti-Cartesianism and resistance of parochial universality are strong influences from Gadamer in their gospel. Hence, their claim of delinking isn’t completely true; ii) the transmodern design in taking on board the coloniality question within the environment of the memoir/ geo/ body- politics of knowledge is a clear extension and operation of Gadamer’s prejudicial gospel; iii) despite the strength of Gadamer and the transmodern case, Gadamer’s assumption is visited down by the ascendance of the verbal understanding/ factual modes of expression, while the transmodern design is wrong in condemning coloniality solely on foreign agency.

Chapter One

Preface

Background of the Study

Given the fall outs from the current world order, a certain beachfront of contemporary gospel makes the case for another world. In their estimation, ‘ another world is possible. ’ 1

For some others within this academy of study, the volition to the current world order should aim at creating ‘ a world in which all worlds fit ’. 2 Yet for another group, they seek ‘ worlds and lores else ’. 3 For these seminaries of study, the current world order is Euro- American and it possesses an exclusivist cosmovision. On this count, the current world order rather than seeking to arrive at a world in which all worlds fit just elevates the ideals of a particular world as a standard for other worlds to follow. In further specific terms, it’s the Euro- American vision that has been universalised for all to follow. But the profitable heads that saluted the West between 2007 and now places a lot of mistrustfulness on the continued efficacity of this cosmovision. The grand narrative which this vision held that “ formerly situat ed humanity in some continuing sluice of

meaning has faltered amidst empirical mistrustfulness or profitable and political remains ” 4 This places before us thus, the critical need for an indispensable cosmovision. The urgency of this need is one provocation for this exploration.

Bearing in mind the fact that the world in which we live moment is a global vill, it becomes egregious that any trouble at a new cosmovision can not go to ignore the demands for ‘ a world in which all worlds fit ’. Arriving at this world is primarily a practical task. But before this task can be executed in practice, it must review itself at a theoretical position or better still as a theoretical bid. It’s within this environment of theoretical redefinition that Gadamer and the transmodern engagement with prejudice is appropriated in this exploration.