Critical Hermeneutics

COVER

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Cover

Editor's Introduction

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It was recently announced that China has launched the world’s first AI-powered hospital, the “Agent Hospital”, designed and developed by Tsinghua University in Beijing. The facility has 14 AI doctors and four virtual nurses capable of providing the most advanced healthcare solutions. In fact, it is expected that AI doctors will be able to diagnose and treat a very large number of patients in a much shorter time than human doctors: it is estimated that they can treat up to 3,000 patients per day. This is a real step forward in medical technology, leading to greater efficiency in the healthcare sector and even greater precision in the prevention and treatment of diseases, as AI doctors have already demonstrated an accuracy rate of over 93% in medical examinations, raising the standards of success...

Editoriale

2025-10-27T10:44:18+01:00

It was recently announced that China has launched the world’s first AI-powered hospital, the “Agent Hospital”, designed and developed by Tsinghua University in Beijing. The facility has 14 AI doctors and four virtual nurses capable of providing the most advanced healthcare solutions. In fact, it is expected that AI doctors will be able to diag-nose and treat a very large number of patients in a much shorter time than human doctors: it is estimated that they can treat up to 3,000 patients per day. This is a real step forward in medical technol-ogy, leading to greater efficiency in the healthcare sector and even greater precision in the prevention and treatment of diseases, as AI doctors have already demonstrated an accuracy rate of over 93% in medical examinations, raising the standards of success.

Ethical Considerations on Robot-Mediated Care Relationships

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This article begins with an analysis of the current literature on the use of social robots in care settings, aiming to clarify the ethical contours of their applicability. The objective is to identify both the potential risks and the beneficial possibilities of robotic mediation in care-giving relationships. This ethical inquiry is guided by the recognition of the essential role of bodily presence in human interactions. The reflection is supported by Aristotelian ethical theory and Phenomenological thought.

The Ethics of Tomorrow’s Medical Care

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This article analyzes the fundamental ethical dilemma of future medicine: The choice between robotic precision and human touch. In the transhumanist era, patients face a choice between human experts and autonomous medical systems that promise statistically higher success rates. The work explores the benefits of advanced medical technologies (surgical precision, AI diagnostics, personalized medicine) and the indispensable value of the human element (empathy, clinical intuition, and compassionate communication). Key ethical dilemmas are discussed: responsibility for errors, algorithmic bias, informed consent, and the risk of de-professionalization in medicine. The conclusion supports a synergistic centaur model, where technology does not replace the doctor but complements him, allowing him to focus on ethical judgment and the therapeutic relationship. The ethical future of medicine lies not in the triumph of man over machine or vice versa, but in the creation of a reasonable and well-organized partnership.

The Human Being as a Synthesis of Body and Soul

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This essay addresses the concept of the person as a synthesis of body and soul, beginning with Kierkegaard and drawing on Pareyson, Lukács, and Heller. It examines the paradox between authenticity and alienation, between the need for rootedness in the world and the pressures of performance society, technology, and artificial intelligence. The body, initially understood as shell or mask, emerges as the site of moral and existential experience, but also of vulnerability. The article points to the risk of a colonization of the soul by technology and stresses the urgency of an ethics safeguarding human authenticity.

Theories of Interpretation and Wertfreiheit

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This work stems from the need to deepen the reconstruction proposed for the headword “Avalutativity” in a large Dictionary of Hermeneutics (in preparation). The confrontation with the theme of “avalutativity” brings up very relevant and sometimes central questions in the 20^th-century philosophical debate: from the relationship between language and experience to that between ontology and epistemology, and from the relationship between philosophy and science to accounts with the Kantian heritage. In order to address the philosophical complexity of the sources, the author develops an internal textual reconstruction of the topic, to get to the bottom of its autonomous theoretical depth.

What Challenges for Italian Theoretical Philosophy

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This paper aims to identify some significant traits of contemporary Italian theoretical philosophy, starting from a new definition of theoretical philosophy and following an idea put forward by critical hermeneutics. Critical hermeneutics places particular emphasis, on the one hand, on the centrality of the philosophical work with the sciences and, on the other hand, on the openness towards different schools and traditions, overcoming the radicalised position. It is precisely the knot of radical opposition that emerges among the most important challenges, alongside the challenges of seeking moderate autonomy, upgrading relations with the extra-philosophical world, and distancing from communicative-media and commercial seductions.

Johann Michel's Hermeneutic-pragmatist Approach to Interpreting Visual Works of Art

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This paper examines some of Johann Michel’s contributions to hermeneutics, with an emphasis on interpretation as a resolution for “problems of meaning”, utilizing specific techniques in both erudite activity and everyday life. Based on Michel’s goal of transforming hermeneutics along pragmatist lines, this paper focuses on discussing the limits of the textual model of hermeneutics and Michel’s proposal to broaden hermeneutics through a pragmatic approach to interpretation, which aims to move beyond texts and towards visual works of art. The assumption is made here that hermeneutics is not limited to the “text”. Although we can reject this limitation, part of hermeneutics emphasizes this notion and the dominance of language over image. This failure to recognize the visual image would make it difficult for hermeneutics to participate in the debate on images and works of art.

Ermeneutica (P. Ricoeur)

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Questo volume raccoglie alcuni testi che Paul Ricœur ha dedicato all’ermeneutica. Dopo l’edizione francese del 2010 curata dal Fondo Ricœur, compare nel 2023 quella italiana con traduzione e cura di Vinicio Busacchi. Questa raccolta offre al lettore dei percorsi utili alla conoscenza e alla comprensione delle diverse fasi dell’ermeneutica rocœuriana; inoltre, mette in luce l’apporto di Ricœur all’ermeneutica contemporanea...

Qu’est-ce que l’herméneutique? (J. Michel)

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Fin dal titolo posto emblematicamente in forma di domanda, “Che cos’è l’ermeneutica?”, il testo di Johann Michel si interroga su questa disciplina le cui origini sono antiche, ma che solo nei secoli più recenti ha stretto un contatto diretto con la filosofia. L’autore fa i conti con due tendenze differenti: da un lato la considerazione tradizionale dell’ermeneutica in un senso molto ristretto, come disciplina specialistica legata all’interpretazione filologica dei testi e relegata a pochi eruditi, dall’altro la sua estensione e diffusione amplissima – dopo la svolta filosofica nel Novecento con Dilthey, Heidegger e Gadamer – come “koinè culturale”, secondo la celebre definizione di Vattimo...

Ermeneutica e decostruzione (E. Romagnoli)

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Il volume di Elena Romagnoli Ermeneutica e decostruzione. Il dialogo ininterrotto tra Gadamer e Derrida rimette al centro le relazioni fra due importanti paradigmi di pensiero che hanno profondamente segnato lo scorso secolo: ermeneutica e decostruzione. Per fare ciò, l’autrice prende le mosse dal celebre confronto tra Hans-Georg Gadamer e Jacques Derrida avvenuto nel 1981 al Goethe-Institut di Parigi, spesso definito nei termini di un “dialogo tra sordi”...

Supplementary note to Critical Hermeneutics, 8, special issue (2024)

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Supplementary note

Contents / Indice

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Contents/Indice