Welile Mazamisa in Gadamer’s Geisteswissenschaften

Abstract

The aim of this article is to locate the connections between Welile Mazamisa’s hermeneutics and Gadamer’s hermeneutics of tradition. It will investigate Mazamisa as a dialectical thinker within the Geisteswissenschaften of Gadamer. Mazamisa is viewed as a Gadamerian in the sense he subscribed to the hermeneutics of tradition which is sourced from ontology of Gadamer’s Geisteswissenschaften. The contribution will consider how Mazamisa applied and interpreted Gadamer’s Geisteswissenschaften, in his philological Horizontverschmelzung and how this makes him a Gadamerian. For both Gadamer and Mazamisa, hermeneutics is not only a method to do philology but a necessary backdrop in any exercise of hermeneutics that is not avertable. Finally, I wish to examine Mazamisa’s hermeneutics of ubuntu through the thoughts and annotations of Geisteswissenschaften. I will consider whether the pillars of Gadamer’s Geisteswissenschaften can be seen through the eyes of Mazamisa’s hermeneutics of ubuntu or Gadamer could be found residing in the Geisteswissenschaften of Mazamisa.
Contribution: The article contributes to resuscitation of philosophical hermeneutics in South African’s academic institutions. Furthermore, it tries to re-wed the two crucial cohorts: theology and philosophical hermeneutics. Philosophy is not theology, but theology without philosophical hermeneutics deteriorates philology.