by Angelo Mazzei

The comparison with prehistoric civilizations opens up hermeneutic horizons for us, even with a view to the future. The possibility of alternative worldviews to our own offers us conceptual tools that allow us to open new doors toward the future. A world where Woman is in a dominant position, outside the phallocentric monotheistic framework, was possible and can still be so. A sacred view of the planet and the awareness that we are only fleeting occurrences, born and dying in an instant, made of earth and dissolved by the earth, offers us non-anthropocentric hermeneutic keys and ecological opportunities that modern positive science has severely compromised.

PhilosophyofArchaeology

---

The comparison with prehistoric civilizations opens up hermeneutic horizons (ἙΡΜΗΝΕΊΑ “hermēneia”) for us. Heidegger’s understanding of hermeneutics emphasizes “understanding” as a mode of being. Gadamer, on the other hand, saw understanding not as a purely subjective matter, but as something that arises in the dialogue between text and reader. Vattimo extended this perspective and spoke of a “weak” hermeneutics that foregrounds the acceptance of ambiguity and interpretation.
The possibility of alternative worldviews provides us with conceptual tools that open new doors to the future. A world in which Woman plays a dominant role, beyond the phallocentric (ΦΑΛΛΌΣ “phallos”) monotheistic framework, was possible and can be again. In this context, Derrida criticized phallocentric structures in Western philosophy, and Kristeva questioned the role of the phallus in psychoanalysis.
A sacred view of the planet and the awareness that we are only fleeting occurrences (ΤΎΧΗ “tuchē”) that arise and vanish in a moment, made of earth and returning to earth, invites us to reflect on being and nothingness. This reflection has its roots in the phenomenological tradition, from Husserl to Merleau-Ponty.
The thought of non-anthropocentrism (ἌΝΘΡΩΠΟΣ “anthrōpos”) leads us to posthumanist theories, which no longer place humans at the center of the universe but as part of a relational network.

PhilosophyofArchaeology

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

1) The Greeks:

Heraclitus, Fragments.

• Müller: Fragment 112
• Diels-Kranz (DK): B1

Plato, Cratylus.

Aristotle, De Interpretatione (Περὶ Ἑρμηνείας).

Sextus Empiricus, Adversus Logicos.

Sophocles, Antigone. (For the discussion of human law [νόμος] versus divine law, which relates to ἌΝΘΡΩΠΟΣ. Cf. Lacan. Seminars.)

Democritus, Fragments. (Regarding τύχη).

• Diels-Kranz (DK): B125

2) The Moderns:

Derrida, J., De la grammatologie (1976).

Gadamer, H.-G., Truth and Method (1989).

Heidegger, M., Being and Time (1962).

Irigaray, L., This Sex Which Is Not One (1985).

Kristeva, J., Language, the Unknown: An Initiation into Linguistics (1980).

Merleau-Ponty, M., Phenomenology of Perception (1962).

Cixous, H. & Clément, C., The Newly Born Woman (1986).