Philosoheller

Here's a quick explanation of 2 cool branches of philosophy: Phenomenology & Hermeneutics.

"Phenomenology" takes the intuitive experience of phenomena (what presents itself to us in conscious experience) as its starting point and tries to extract from it the essential features of experiences and the essence of what we experience.

Martin Heidegger expanded the study of phenomenology into "Hermeneutics," a method of interpreting historical texts by considering what thoughts the authors must have been having given the kinds of influences they were likely to encounter at that time and in that environment. Heidegger stressed two new elements of philosophical hermeneutics, that the reader brings out the meaning of the text in the present, and that the tools of hermeneutics can be used to interpret more than just texts (e.g. "social text").

Someday, this information may come in handy in my daily life. But for now, it gets stored in the "useless information" file at the back of my brain, right next to the latest episode of American Idol. Speaking of AI, wasn't Taylor's version of "Takin' It To the Streets" awesome!?! You can't go wrong with the Doobs!