Jonathan Roberge

What is critical hermeneutics

This article explores the promises of critical hermeneutics as an innovative method and philosophy within the human sciences. It is argued that its success depends on its ability to articulate a theory of meaning with one of action and experience as well as its capacity to renew our understanding of the problem of ideology. First, critical hermeneutics must explain how cultural messages ‘show and hide’; that is, how the ambiguity of meaning always allows for a group to represent itself while opening the door for distortion and domination. Second, critical hermeneutics ought to show how action can be best understood as opposing performances driven by ideological-moral views. Through an analysis of social movements, for instance, it is shown that any attempt to do justice could also and easily create exclusion. Third, critical hermeneutics has to clarify how tension and dualism within meaning and action are not to be dissociated from the self-interpretation of concrete individuals. A theory of experience is thus required in order to explain why the autonomy of the subject is finally at stake with regard to the problem of ideology.

The aesthetic public sphere and the transformation of criticism

This article argues that criticism is fundamental for understanding how culture and politics shape the ambiguous self-interpretation of society. An initial exploration of Habermass theory of the public sphere reveals that it is inadequately cultural. An alternative is thus offered by discussing the work of Jacobs, and especially his concept of an “aesthetic public sphere”. His insight that nothing is too trivial when it comes to broadening the limits of the public sphere prompts scholars to take into consideration the positive as well as negative aspects of criticism. As a cultural mediation, criticism is shaped by a struggle for recognition that gives rise to the interpretation of its own crisis. The purpose of the article, however, is to propose a more balance account of such predicament. By discussing online criticism, the rise of the “prosumer” and user-generated content, it is argued that there is now a new battle for authority and legitimacy undergoing. This creates the potential for the democratization of criticism, even though this potential has great chance to remain within an inescapable democratic tension.

Being the King Kong of algorithmic culture is a tough job after all Google’s regimes of justification and the meanings of Glass

This article explores the growing importance of algorithms in digital culture and what they could mean for the visibility and interpretation of culture as a whole. Taking Google as a prime example of a company that participates in widespread information overload whilst simultaneously providing some algorithmic answers to it, we show how it exhibits four different regimes of justification: the techno-scientific, economic, political and moral–aesthetic. These efforts to gain legitimacy operate as a network that is both highly performative and adaptive. For instance, Google builds on and translates such justifications in order for its Project Glass to be widely, if not universally, accepted. But there is another influential mode of performativity at work: the mounting criticism of the device. In the 18 months following the public announcement of Glass, we have observed the media phenomenon and passionate debate it has sparked. What Glass represents is being contested on multiple grounds, and this, in turn, indicates that its meanings will likely remain profoundly ambiguous for some time to come.

Algorithmuskulturen : Über die rechnerische Konstruktion der Wirklichkeit

This book a is German translation of Algorithmic Cultures: Essays on Meaning, Performance and New Technologies published in 2016. http://espace.inrs.ca/4837/

Critique and the Deliberate Professional: Framing the New and Enhanced Role of Intermediaries in Digital Culture

The ‘new spirit of capitalism’ has profoundly transformed the realms of education and culture, while also altering what it means today to be reflexive, and critical more broadly. New problems and constraints have risen, yet new avenues of engagement with cultural content—via Web-based technologies especially—have risen too. The first section of this chapter is dedicated to the new digital ecology where participation and critique are linked to important changes in the nature of cultural gatekeeping. Entrenched intellectuals and intermediaries are currently redefining cultural legitimacy and connoisseurship by crafting a more horizontal, deliberative and thus somewhat democratic public sphere. All of those positive developments should not lead, however, to a blind faith in digital technology. In the second section, it is argued that there is a role for deliberate professionals to participate in the critique of technological infrastructures. There is also a role for them to critique how the organisation and circulation of cultural content, impart visibility to what is too often inscrutable or unaccountable, and question —inside as much as outside universities— how social media platforms create a ‘new normal’.

Ricoeur, Paul (1913–2005)

Paul Ricoeur (1913–2005) was an eminent French philosopher working at the crossroads of many schools of thought (hermeneutics, phenomenology, analytical philosophy, etc.) and in constant dialogue with the human sciences. He taught mainly in France and the United States, and gained international recognition after the publication of Oneself as Another in the early 1990s. This book is emblematic of Ricoeurs broader work in the way it binds existence and interpretation through language, culture, and interactions with others. Ricoeur proposed a practical approach to what he called ‘meaningful action,’ which is open to different and often conflicting readings. For him, meanings are not ascribed once and for all, but must be constantly negotiated and experienced as such. This also holds true for politics and ethics, as Ricoeur reworked the ancient notion of phronesis.