Truth and method

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Truth and Method (1960, Tübingen) is probably the best-known work of the German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer , who formulates his idea of ​​a universal hermeneutics in it.

Gadamer understands hermeneutics neither as theory nor as method or methodology . Rather, it is the phenomenon of understanding and the proper interpretation of what has been understood . In his work, Gadamer tries to develop the concepts of truth , meaning , knowledge and understanding .

Hermeneutics is not limited to the scientific establishment of truth. Because truth can also be revealed through art and history . This truth is learned through understanding in the form of a dialogue , regardless of whether you are dealing with a conversation partner, a text, a painting or any other object. Hermeneutics is supposed to legitimize this truth, which transcends scientific methodology.

The hermeneutic circle and the problem of prejudice

A hermeneutical rule is to understand the whole from the individual and the individual from the whole. The movement of understanding runs from one to the other and back again, expanding the understanding of both ( hermeneutic circles ).

Understanding something means confronting a text, conversation partner or work of art with a concrete expectation and then constantly revising this while penetrating into the meaning of the other person. This expectation is a premonition or a prejudice on the respective topic. In order to understand the other person, it is not enough to integrate their meaning into your own pre-opinion. Rather, you have to find the will to check your own pre-opinion for validity and origin and to set it in relation to the meaning of the other person. Out of this grows a truth that encompasses one's own pre-opinion and the meaning of the other person in the sense of broadening one's horizons .

Prejudice is of particular importance. A distinction must be made between a prejudice in the sense of prejudice and narrow-mindedness from a prejudice in the sense of pre-opinion that one is prepared to expand. Through the Enlightenment , this term has been negatively proven in the sense of an unfounded judgment. The modern science of the Enlightenment wants to understand everything sensibly and without prejudice. It is not tradition but reason that is the ultimate source of authority. Other authorities are subordinated to it. But absolute reason is impossible, since even the freest mind is limited - because human - and is thus dominated by prejudices. A human - thus limited - mind can never experience or understand an all-embracing - i.e. infinite - truth.

The emphasis on reason and freedom in the Enlightenment led to the negative coverage of the concept of authority in connection with blind obedience. It is precisely out of reason that one should grant authority to someone who is superior in insight and judgment. Authority must be acquired through recognition of superiority in judgment and insight and cannot be bestowed. Thus an authority is a source of truth, while the Enlightenment defamed it as a source of prejudice. Every tradition (e.g. the reality of morals) springs from tradition. Thus for Gadamer tradition or tradition is of higher authority. Because the science of reason is also subject to development and change. It is thus part of history and therefore subject to a tradition.

The hermeneutical problem of application

Understanding is an application to a situation. The application involves dealing with the text by questioning it. In this way, the meaning of a text is to be understood separately from the author's intention. Hermeneutics is a reflection on what happens to oneself in a dialogue: understanding oneself in understanding something.

The logic of question and answer

The question corresponds to the open structure of hermeneutic consciousness . She has a sense of direction that puts the interviewee in a certain light, but still points to the open. The answer only makes sense in the sense of the question. The question requires knowledge of ignorance. Certain ignorance leads to a certain question. The essence of an idea is not the idea of the solution to a problem , but the idea of ​​a certain open question.

Language as a medium of hermeneutic experience

Dialectic is the art of having a conversation, that is, it is the art of concept formation as the development of what is common. A conversation has its own spirit, its own truth, because the progress and outcome of a conversation is not controlled by the speaker. Understanding arises through communicating and not through simply understanding someone else's opinion. Communicating, in turn, only happens through language. Understanding requires putting yourself in the position of the other person in order to grasp the factual right of his or her opinion.

According to Gadamer, language serves as a fundamental part of our “being-in-the-world” that encompasses our entire world constitution. “We grow up, we get to know the world, we get to know people and, in the end, ourselves by learning to speak.” Gadamer is convinced that we have always been biased in all our thinking and cognition, due to the linguistic interpretation of the world into which we grow and the more the language is a living execution, the less one is aware of it. Our world articulation is built up through language, and language determines our thinking.

The universal aspect of hermeneutics

Language is the middle between the self and the world. Language is speculative - not an illustration, but an expression. Coming up to speech does not create a second sense. Being and representation are indistinguishable. Linguistic events, like humans, are finite. The finiteness of the human mind is the prerequisite for hermeneutic experience. An infinite spirit (God) only sees the beauty of the whole, can think every meaning out of itself ("God does not philosophize"). Hermeneutic experience shares in the immediacy of the experience of beauty and the evidence of truth.

The task of hermeneutics according to Gadamer

In his main work, Gadamer himself sees "the task of his hermeneutics in the justification of the claim that understanding presupposes recognition through which it becomes a different understanding". This could justify the principle of the hermeneutic circle, and would lead to the corresponding conclusion that we continue to understand what has already been understood once in a tradition (on a higher level). And although these new conclusions can generally only be made because they can be tied into an infinite number of references, Gadamer insists on the finitude of our thinking and understanding. In agreement with Heidegger, he takes the following view: By running closer and closer to death in general, it is possible to understand our life as a complete whole.

expenditure

literature

  • Günter Figal (Ed.): Hans-Georg Gadamer. Truth and method . Akad.-Verl., Berlin 2007
  • Peter Christian Lang: Hans-Georg Gadamer. Truth and method. Basic features of a philosophical hermeneutics . Major works of philosophy. 20th century. Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart 1992, pp. 256-282.
  • Michael Hofer and Mirko Wischke (eds.): Understanding Gadamer - Understanding Gadamer. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2003, p. 8
  • Karl-Otto Apel (ed.): Hermeneutics and ideological criticism. With contributions by Karl-Otto Apel, Claus v. Bormann, Rüdiger Bubner, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Hans Joachim Giegel, Jürgen Habermas . Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1971. ISBN 978-3518063576 .
  • Jean Grondin: Introduction to Gadamer . Mohr Siebeck (UTB), Tübingen 2000.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hans-Georg, Gadamer: Kleine Schriften I, Philosophie, Hermeneutik , JCB Mohr (Paul Siebeck) Verlag, Tübingen, 1967.