Centre for Advanced Studies in the Humanities

Marcia Sá Cavalcante Schuback Pochwała nicości. Eseje o hermeneutyce filozoficznej, [In praise of nothing. Essays on philosophical hermeneutics] Jagiellonian University Press, Krakow 2008

A collection of shining essays about the relationship between philosophy and hermeneutics, specifically the classic and post-romantic hermeneutics. The author, a Brazilian philosopher, living and teaching in Switzerland, poses the traditional question: "What does it mean to understand?", to which she doesn't answer in a traditional way. It's not only about a quarrel about objectivism and true interpretation, but also about how a subject takes shape. Objectivity and true interpretation, says Shuback, don't lie in the text itself, nor does it lie in the ability of the interpreter to objective interpretation. We must look for it rather in the event of interpretation and understanding. From a hermeneutic point of view, the meaning can only arise after a certain point, in a space or crevasse between the interpreter and the text, in this "in-between", rarely discussed and taken for granted by epistemology.

The author with an apt hand leads the reader through the Western hermeneutic tradition, from pre-Socratic philosophy to Heidegger (whose Sein und Zeit she translated to Portugese), not leaving behind of course the literature itself, from Homer to Holderlin.

In praise of nothing, translated by Leonard Neugerr, professor of Slavic literature at the University of Shtockhlom, is a great beginning to the discussion on understanding – the source and basis of the humanities.

The book was published in July 2008