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The suggestion espoused by Gadamer that prejudices are a natural attribute of individuals
and should be accepted and dealt with has been thoroughly demonised by Wolin (2000,
p. 45) although the basis for that vitriol is not the philosophical aspect.
Kidder (Kidder, 1997, p. 1194) on the other hand takes up the issue of the investigator's
prejudice as being a useful starting point for the enquiry. He quotes from Augustine
that one should 'identify the clear and obvious meanings first and then use this under-
standing to make sense of the more obscure and confusing passages' (Augustine, 427).
Kidder (1997, p. 1194) goes on to state that 'what is clear and obvious to one in reading
a text is likely to be a function of one's own cultural orientation and one's own prejudices
rather than the function of some given accessibility of the text'. He goes on to say:
So where does one begin? If one cannot begin with the obvious, are we to
somehow begin with the obscure? The answer is that either option is more or
less viable, but the crucial thing is that one avoids allowing the starting point
to control the enquiry. False assumptions can be excellent roads to genuine
understanding, but only if one is open, in the course of interpreting, to the
clues that reveal the inadequacy of those assumptions and point the way to
needed revisions. Thus hermeneutic properly manifests a circular or cyclic
pattern in its unfolding: the progress of the enquiry returns one to the begin-
ning, and the new beginning sets a new course of progress; the interpretation
of parts yields a conception of the whole, but that conception brings new
meaning to the parts, whose reinterpretation may again require reconception
of the whole, and so on, in a circle that would be merely vicious were it not
propelled by concrete and cumulative acts of genuine understanding (Dilthey,
1990; Schleiermacher, 1819) (Kidder, 1997, pp. 1194-5).
Critical hermeneutics is often called the hermeneutic-dialectic. There is the dictionary
definition of 'dialectic': the art of investigating the truth of opinions, testing of truth
by discussion, logical disputation (Turner, 1987, p. 284). The accepted usage of this term
is taken from the original Socratic dialogues. Kidder's (1997, p. 1197) explanation of
dialectic is eloquent:
In an ideal Socratic dialogue, no one is in it to win the debate, but everyone
is engaged together in the search for the very best arguments in support of
whatever opinion is being considered, along with the very best objections
that can be set against those arguments. If in the context of a Socratic dialectic,
I propose an argument to which no one can respond with a substantial objec-
tion, it may fall to me to become the objector (and Socrates is often put into
this situation, particularly with his younger interlocutors). If I discover that
my objection is more reasonable than my argument then I do a virtuous thing,
from the point of view of the dialectic, if I immediately abandon my original
opinion and seek a new one. This sort of reasoning process, then, has
everything to do with persuasion, but it is not one person persuading another
to hold a particular opinion; it is rather a matter of putting persuasion into a
larger context of enquiry and discovery, allowing the power of argument to
sway oneself along with the others, and in a way that is open and deeply at-
tuned to the reasoning on all sides of an issue.
In this paper a critical hermeneutic philosophy of enquiry will be brought to bear on
the selected case study into Denver International Airport (DIA) Baggage Handling System
(Montealegre et al., 1999, pp. 553-4) to develop better understanding of the event itself
through the supporting documents under investigation. This case study is commonly
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