Hermeneutics contra fundamentalism: Zygmunt Bauman’s method for thinking in dark times

Abstract

Faced with a rise of populism seemingly in all corners of the globe, the need to facilitate meaningful communication between different world-views and to resist the closing down of dialogue is pressing. In this paper, I argue that Zygmunt Bauman’s sociological method has always been concerned with this problem and that a better appreciation of his writings on hermeneutics provides us with a vital strategy for resisting fundamentalist thinking in today’s dark times. To begin, I briefly explore the relationship between hermeneutics and fundamentalism before moving on to elaborate Bauman’s method of sociological hermeneutics. In the final section of the paper, I assess the implications that Bauman’s method has for the discipline of sociology at a time when the certainty of things is the most avid of dreams dreamed by people harassed and oppressed by the uncertainty of liquid modern life, apparently whatever the human consequences.