Hermeneutics of Suspicion

ABSTRACT
This article explores the meanings of imagined, secret and hidden
wealth that followers of conspiracy theory account for on different
sides of the moral compass, as bad and good. Conspiracy theory, a
strand of intellectual practice exacerbated by the recent crisis in
Greece, calls for exploring hidden wealth assets, while conspiracy’s
mirror-image, transparency, becomes central in the understanding
of wealth in this conundrum. Through three stories, that of Artemis
Sorras – a self-proclaimed trillionaire, of an anti-Semitic book and
of conspiracist publishers in Greece, I examine the centrality of
(un)accountable wealth in imaginations of peoples’ presents and
pasts. I explore narratives of wealth in conspiracist discourse
trajectories, showing how wealth can play a role in imagined
allegiances and political practices. A focus on conspiracy theory
allows an exegesis of how obscure narratives of wealth are
shaping the ways in which people conceptualize economic crisis.
Notions of accountability and secrecy are central to their (and our)
understandings of wealth – and are laden with contradictions,
according to diverse paths of moralizing the past. An anthropology
of conspiracy theory allows scaling narratives of wealth from the
microhistories of money flows to the political economy of crisis.

The claim that the Earth is flat (Flat Earth theory, or FET) has recently
become a popular, Internet-based conspiracy theory. In addition to creating digital content in the form of websites, social media accounts, podcasts, and YouTube videos, FET supporters (or Flat Earthers) have also organized international conferences and even launched an FET-oriented dating site. While it is difficult to determine how many people sincerely believe FET, its very existence—at a time when probes have been sent to every planet of our solar system—is perplexing. Is FET a nostalgic attempt to revive the religious cosmology of our ancestors? Or is it simply the product of scientific illiteracy? Due to the absurdity of FET’s central propositions, serious scholarship on the topic is lacking. Most explanations focus on the psychology of the theory’s proponents. Supporters of FET are often likened to Creationists, and the theory itself is often equated with religious claims about the natural world. However, it is far from clear that FET is necessarily linked to any one religious doctrine or religious epistemological approach. In this study, I argue that current explanations of FET are not based on an adequate understanding of the differences between religious and scientific
epistemology; as such, they fail to grasp the epistemic shifts that have
made it possible for this belief to thrive today.

Jacques Derrida’s hauntology gives meanings to the avant-garde comic Here, initially published in RAW magazine. The specter would arise, preceded by the classical Ars Memoriae, within the modern Camera Obscura, intending to capture the whole experience into a single room, such as Here. By inverting this capture machine into a spectral projector, contemporary suspicion is unleashed: Psychoanalysis decodes its inter-generational hieroglyph through the notions of the crypt and the ghost, while Marxist oikonomia cuts up McGuire’s collages through spectrality of value and commodity fetishism as a fantasy-dreamlike manifestation, in the eyes of Derrida, forever indiscernible.

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This paper analyses the semiotics of the Easter Sunday suicide attacks on churches and luxury sea -front hotels in Sri Lanka and the Weaponization of religion in this multi-faith and multicultural island.  As there is no history or motive for local Muslims to attack Christians since both these religious communities are minorities in Buddhist-majority Sri Lanka, and given the economic targets of the crime,  it is clear that external parties  and networks are promoting ethno-religious divisions in the strategically located island in order to covertly further their security agendas, as well as, a  Cold War in the Indian Ocean against China and the rise of Asia. The narrative of Christian–Muslim conflict is a Euro–American one that does not mesh with local history and does not have traction in Sri Lanka, but may provide clues to the external parties that staged the highly sophisticated logistics operation of simultaneous bombings in disparate locations.

Marx and Nietzsche are often compared as practitioners of a hermeneutic of suspicion.  I want to pursue this comparison by focusing on an overlooked similarity between the two.  In strangely similar passages, Marx (in Capital) and Nietzsche (in the Genealogy of Morals) introduce explicitly theatrical scenarios into the course of their discussions, complete with what Marx calls dramatis personae, where we witness a descent into a workshop (in some sense underground) in order to learn the secrets of production - the production, in both cases, of value.  But neither scenario conforms to the structure of the discovery of a concealed truth – in fact, each challenges this structure directly.  By looking at the specific nature of these theatrical descents, we can come to a better understanding of the task of the philosopher in both Nietzsche and Marx, as well as the distinctive position of historical knowledge within a hermeneutics of suspicion.

[Proofs; please cite published version] In recent years, some prominent scholars have been making a surprising claim: examining literary texts for hidden depths is overblown, misguided, or indeed downright dangerous. Such examination, they’ve warned us, may lead to the loss of world Heidegger warned of (Gumbrecht), to the world-denying metaphysics Nietzsche warned of (Nehamas), or to the suspicious form of hermeneutics Ricoeur warned of (Best, Marcus, Moi). This paper seeks to suggest that, though the concerns are understandable, there’s ultimately nothing to worry about. The fact that Nietzsche himself happily used metaphors of surface and depth suggests that they are not, in fact, metaphysically fraught. The fact that it’s possible to appreciate surfaces at the same time as depths means that there’s no real danger of losing the world. And as for depth-talk turning us into suspicious hermeneuts, that would happen only if we made two fallacious assumptions: first, that all depths are meanings; second, that all hidden features are in a text by accident. But since plenty of authors hide things deliberately, and since what’s hidden often has nothing to do with propositional content, both assumptions are profoundly mistaken.  Meanwhile, the surface/depth metaphor is the only thing that adequately captures the phenomenology of reading, especially when it comes to misdirection-based, hermetic, enigmatic, ironic, or satirical texts, where special activity on our part prompts a sudden leap to a radically different mode of understanding. And unlike its rivals, the surface/depth metaphor reflects a real asymmetry: depths explain surfaces, but not vice versa; surfaces are available without depths, but not the other way around. We need the metaphor, and we need to stay open to hidden depths as we read. As long as we don’t come in with terrible assumptions, nothing bad will happen to us, and plenty of good things will. It’s perfectly safe to go back in the water.

Critical sociology suggests that taste judgments are not independent of the social, as actors use them to claim social value. This article demonstrates that this critical perspective has gained currency among laypersons, transforming everyday struggles over cultural evaluation. I discuss the new discursive category ‘farterism’, which emerged in Israel in the 1990s to denounce vain pretence and became ubiquitous in everyday evaluation. I analyse online user-generated reviews on films and restaurants alongside broadsheet newspaper articles to explore how this category is used in different contexts by different actors, which aesthetic surface characteristics are most associated with it and why, and how farterism critique reshapes the relationship between lay judgments and established market (prices) and field/art-world (status) hierarchies. Farterism critique is often used to fend off symbolic violence, but cultural elites use it too, despite their interest. I discuss the implicit ethic behind farterism critique, and its connections with recent transformations of capitalism.

This paper shows how persecution is a condition that binds each in an ethical obligation. Persecution is functionally defined here as an impinging, affective relation, one that is neither mediated by reason nor open to apology. The works of Sigmund Freud help illuminate the psychological mechanism responsible for impeding rational transparency in delusions of persecution and super-egoical moral demands. Similar to Freud who employs what Paul Ricoeur has called a " hermeneutics of suspicion " to interrogate the status of a fully knowing subject, I contend that Emmanuel Lévinas's work on the ethical subject is useful for developing a " hermeneutics of trust " in an ambivalent ontological condition that is unavoidably ethical. By thinking Freud and Lévinas together, I show how the commitment to total mastery of an unknowable ego leads to a persecutory relation, yielding moralities that are unconcerned with injuring the other in the name of that which is judged as good. In answer to this ethical dilemma, I propose that a turn toward relational ethics and an intentionality of search offers traces of a morality where differences are preserved and thus prevent the persecution of the other for one's own moral fulfillment.

This is my first conference presentation from 1995.  I defend Merold Westphal, my mentor at Fordham University, who has developed a hermeneutics of suspicion the purpose of which was to try to bring the noetic effect of the fall  to bear on our epistemology (knowing abilities). 
"In a 1991 article, Alvin Plantinga mentioned that the effect of sin upon the cognitive faculties is a curious but important question for epistemology.  Coincidentally, that same year, Merold Westphal's essay, "Taking St. Paul Seriously: Sin as an Epistemic Category" appeared.  Westphal's article dealt with the noetic effects of sin upon our cognitive faculties,  just what Plantinga had ordered.  Since then, Westphal has written other pieces, including his book, Suspicion and Faith, trying to demonstrate the similarities between Marx, Nietzsche and Freud's hermeneutics of suspicion and Paul's suspicion of sin.  However, Westphal's work has received little notice from the Reformed Epistemology camp, and William Hasker rejected Westphal's project as fiedeistic and destructive.
  Westphal's project deserves a better hearing than it has received.  His work provides helpful bridges of thought between Christian and atheist philosophers, social and epistemological philosophers, and analytic and continental, (even postmodern) philosophers.  The purpose of this essay is to promote Westphal's central claim in the above-mentioned articles, namely, that "for the Christian philosopher, sin should be an essential epistemological category..."  First, I will lay out Westphal's project.  Second, I will respond to William Hasker's objections (which I take to be typical objections) to Westphal's project.  And Third, I will conclude with a few comments about skepticism and the doing of epistemology.

Bu makalede, okurun edebi metnin sesine kulak vermesi yahut da bu sesi göz ardı etmesinin edebi metnin anlamının oluşmasına nasıl etki ettiği ‘güven ve şüphe hermenötiği’ kavramları eşliğinde ele alınacaktır. Buna göre, bir metni gerçekten anlamaya çabalayan bir okurun samimi olarak üstlenmesi gereken rol, iyi niyetini elden bırakmadan metnin kendisine bir şeyler söylemesine izin vermektir. Okurun bu konumu, metnin kendisine bir şeyler söylemesine engel olan şüpheci bir tavrın uzağındadır. Ancak metnin dili ile okur arasındaki bu ilişki, körü körüne bir güvene dayanmaktan ziyade, ayrıca saf bir naifliğe de düşmeyen bir pozisyondur.

Published in: Michel Chaouli, Jan Lietz, Jutta Müller-Tamm, Simon Schleusener, Eds.: Poetic Critique: Encounters with Art and Literature. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021 (pp.175-201).
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110688719-013/html
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110688719-013

Merold Westphal wrote the book Suspicion & Faith (1998) to explain that although modern atheists used the hermeneutics of suspicion to critique religious motives, their arguments can aid Christians in a devotional form of self-examination. Westphal claimed that the 'masters of suspicion' often utilized a deeply biblical logic that is reminiscent of the prophetic polemics against false religion. In this article, the author adds to these reflections by pointing to the Adversary from the Book of Job as one who embodies the hermeneutics of suspicion. The author contends that, like the critiques of modern atheists, the Adversary's question 'Does Job fear God for nothing?' (1:9b) can serve as a tool for self-examination and moral development. The Book of Job shows how he asks critical questions about Job's motives for religious piety by taking advantage of the logical groundwork of the prologue. This dialogue highlights the significance of Job's integrity and his commitment to virtue without the need for incentive, but at the same time, it also encourages readers to doubt his motives through a pattern of doubt that is integral to the narrative. The first section of this article examines Suspicion & Faith and discusses its approach to modern atheism. Then, in the second section, the author engages in an exegetical analysis of Job 1-2, with special attention to the prologue's logical groundwork and motif of doubt. The article concludes with a theological reflection on how the hermeneutics of suspicion can augment Christian practice.

The article discusses the basic concepts of Janusz Sławiński’s O opisie that are important for Polish literary studies in the wider context of the current discussion on the need to abandon the linguistic approach to literature in search of other ways to better understand the meaning of the work. Doubts expressed by Toril Moi in her book Revolution of the Ordinary regarding the analysis of texts from a traditional textual perspective become a pretext for revising some of the assumptions made by the structuralist school regarding the categories of description formulated, among others, by researchers such as Sławiński and Roland Barthes.

In the present essay, I examine truth and trust as socially embedded co-constructions. To ground my analysis, I focus on Julián Fuks's A resistência (2015), a novel that addresses Brazil's dictatorial past (1964-1985) while alluding to contemporary and future concerns. Through close readings of Fuks's metafictional novel, I examine the ways in which trust develops in tandem with doubt and suspicion. This focus sheds light on how attention to trust is crucial for both lectoral engagement and the democratic processes of discussion and consensus.