The Dialogue of Experience

Abstract

In The Dialogue of Experience Dorthe Jørgensen presents Gianni Vattimo’s understanding, expressed in his The Responsibility of the Philosopher, of what it means to be a philosopher. According to Jørgensen, Vattimo’s work as a philosopher is an example of  ‘world–engaged philosophy’ as distinct from ‘school philosophy’ or ‘applied philosophy.’ The concept of ‘world–engaged philosophy’ is associated with Jørgensen’s concept of ‘world poetry’: that the immanent world is ambiguous; it occasions experiences of a surplus of meaning, traditionally called beauty. Furthermore, both concepts are associated with her concept of ‘basic experience’ and with her understanding of it as characterized by an immanent ‘dialogue’ between sensation, faith, and comprehension. According to Jørgensen, all experiences are rooted in sensation, faith, and comprehension; art, religion, and thought, or aesthetics, theology, and philosophy, are thus interrelated. ‘Experience’ and ‘dialogue’ also play crucial roles in Vattimo’s understanding of philosophy, and recent works such as Hermeneutic Communism confirm that his thought continues to be world–engaged. Jørgensen’s philosophy of experience allows for a development of the systematic consequences — for the relationship between aesthetics and philosophy, for instance, and in terms of the possibility of understanding theoretical thinking as a practice in itself.