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Gadamer, Hans-Georg

There is the irony that the title of Gadamer’s Truth and Method seems to promise a method to truth. But he says: “My revival of the expression ‘hermeneutics,’ with its long tradition, has apparently led to some misunderstandings. I did not intend to produce an art or technique of understanding, in the manner of the earlier hermeneutics. I did not wish to elaborate a system of rules to describe, let alone direct, the methodical procedures of the human sciences. Nor was it my aim to investigate the theoretical foundations of work in these fields in order to put my findings to practical ends (Gadamer, 1975, p. xvi).”

Methods cannot be considered a guarantee for human truth and understanding. This is of course, a significant observation for all human science research. There is no method to truth. This is also an important reminder to those who think that they can find a procedural hermeneutic method in Gadamer’s work. An important notion is Gadamer’s explication of prejudice as human understanding. According to him, all knowledge consists of prejudice, really pre-judgments. However, in modern scientific context prejudice is seen as the opposite of sound judgment. The significant difference between prejudice and judgment is that prejudice cannot be traced back to a single source—prejudices are deeply embedded in historical consciousness. This means as well that human understanding cannot really be controlled through the use of a method or by means of rules.

 

Selected Readings:
Gadamer, H.-G. (1975). Truth and Method. New York: Seabury.
Gadamer, H.-G. (1976). Philosophical Hermeneutics. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Gadamer, H.-G. (1986). The Relevance of the Beautiful and Other Essays. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Gadamer, H.-G. (1996). The Enigma of Health: The Art of Healing in a Scientific Age. Oxford: Polity Press.
Gadamer, H.-G. (1998). Praise of Theory. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

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