Firefighting, Temperance, and Hermeneutical Virtue

Gadamer's Fusion of Horizons as Key to Understanding Temperance in the Fire Service

Authors

  • Ty D. Camp Albuquerque Fire Rescue

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.55016/ojs/jah.v2025Y2025.81755

Abstract

Traditional understandings of temperance do not adequately address the ethical alienation and displacement firefighters experience because these definitions do not account for the constant and often extreme transitions firefighters make in their work. I argue that firefighters would be better served by a novel, hermeneutically-conceived approach to temperance. Moreover, temperance is not only or even primarily about self-control. Rather, temperance is best understood on the basis of Gadamer’s conception of the “fusion of horizons” as a kind of ethical agility to move between difficult and disparate situations. This, I suggest, is an essential aspect of philosophical hermeneutics because the fusion of horizons is the means by which we experience the transitions, oscillations, and amalgamations of the world. Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics provides a vital way, therefore, in which firefighters can cultivate the virtue of temperance as they transition and move between difficult and disparate circumstances.

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Author Biography

Ty D. Camp, Albuquerque Fire Rescue

Ty Camp is a firefighter and paramedic who, since 2013, has worked at Albuquerque Fire Rescue in Albuquerque, New Mexico. During this time, Ty has served as an executive board member for his local union, a delegate at the General Convention for the International Association of Fire Fighters, and as a member of his department’s Peer Support Team, advocating for mental health and wellness for firefighters. Ty is also the co-organizer of the Albuquerque Philosophy Collective—a monthly discussion group that cultivates public philosophy in a non-academic setting. Ty received his MA in Theological Studies from Asbury Seminary and his MA in Philosophy from Texas A&M University, where, under the direction of Professor Ted George, he wrote his thesis entitled: “From the Schematic to the Symbolic: The Imaginative Possibilities of Kant’s Third Critique.”

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Published

2025-07-01

Issue

2025: 2025

Section

Articles

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