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The Historicity of Understanding and the Problem of Relativism in Gadamer's Philosophical Hermeneutics

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The Historicity of Understanding and the Problem of Relativism in Gadamer's Philosophical Hermeneutics Cultural Heritage and Contemporary Change Series I, Culture and Values, Volume 27 Series IIA, Islam, Volume 11 The Historicity of Understanding and the Problem of Relativism in Gadamer's Philosophical Hermeneutics by Osman Bilen The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy Copyright © 2000 by The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy Box 261 Cardinal Station Washington, D.C. 20064 All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Bilen, Osman, The historicity of understanding and the problem of relativism in Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics/ Osman Bilen. p. cm. -- (Cultural heritage and contemporary change. series i, culture and values, vol. 27) (Cultural heritage and contemporary change. series iia, islam, vol. 11) Includes Bibliographical References and Index. 1.Gadarmer, Hans Georg, 1900. – Contributions in Hermeneutics. 2. Hermeneutics—History— 20th Century. I. Title. II. Series. III. Series: Cultural Heritage and Contemporary Change. Series IIA, Islam, vol. 11. B3248.G34b55 2001 2001005388 121’686’092--DC22 CIP ISBN 1-56518-167-0 (pbk.) Table of Contents Introduction 1 Chapter I. The Problem of Relativism and the Historicity of Understanding Historical Relativism and Hermeneutic Understanding 6 The Historicity of Understanding 8 Constraints of Historical Hermeneutics 14 Chapter II. Hermeneutics and Historical Understanding Hermeneutics and the Method of the Historical Sciences 33 The Historicity of Understanding a Hermeneutic Principle 48 Chapter III. Transcendental Elements of Hermeneutic Experience Experience, Understanding and Interpretation 60 Interpretation and Understanding 65 The Historicity of Experience 67 The Experience of Art 68 Practical Experience and Judgement 76 Hermeneutic Experience and Its Conditions 79 Chapter IV. Methodological and Critical Problems of Philosophical Hermeneutics Canons of the Objectivity of Intepretation: Betti 91 Validity of Interpretations: Hirsch 95 Critical Norms and Hermeneutics: Habermas 101 Transcendental Conditions of Critique: Apel 107 Hermeneutics and Perspectivism 112 Chapter V. Ontological Conditions of Philosophical Hermeneutics Transcending the Limits of Method and Critique 120 Language as the Ontological Ground of Hermeneutic Experience 133 Constitution of Historical Continuity and Temporality 143 Conclusion 149 Notes 151 Bibliography 185 Index 193 Introduction Since the publication of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s Truth and Method1 in 1960, philosophical hermeneutics has become one of the most influential currents of modern thought. Gadamer’s theory of hermeneutics continues the traditional discipline of the interpretation of texts, but at the same time transforms the problems of the art of textual understanding into a universal, philosophical issue. Philosophical hermeneutics breaks with the development of hermeneutics as a general theory dealing merely with the methods of understanding and interpretation of texts and historical sciences as represented by the tradition of Schleiermacher and Dilthey. As a philosophical theory of human experience in general, the task of hermeneutics has been extended to a reflection on the nature of "all that can be understood."2 Gadamer declares his purpose to be the description of the conditions of understanding and states that this concerns the ontological structure of understanding. He takes his cue for the ontological aspect of hermeneutics from Heidegger’s use of hermeneutics as the phenomenological method of ontology. However, Gadamer makes an attempt to re-apply the ontological significance of hermeneutics to the problem of understanding and interpretation in the human sciences. In this attempt, Gadamer’s hermeneutics has opened up new horizons, but has also encountered specific difficulties and resistance from those loyal to the actual practices of regional hermeneutics, as well as to the social sciences. Primarily as a result of the debates following the publication of Truth and Method, there has been a proliferation in the use of hermeneutics, ranging from the traditional art of interpretation to the so-called hermeneutics of suspicion. This state of affairs has also created a great deal of confusion and several misconceptions about Gadamer’s thesis. Among the issues under discussion, the criticism that philosophical hermeneutics promotes a form of relativism seems to be the most controversial, given the general tenor of Gadamer’s works. In the following study, we will examine the charges of relativism made against Gadamer’s theory of hermeneutics and try to confront them by exploring the transcendental and the ontological basis of philosophical hermeneutics. The problem of relativism emerges as central because of Gadamer’s emphasis on the historicity of understanding. However, the question of relativism has another side in Gadamer’s philosophy. Gadamer claims that his theory, precisely by relying on the historicity of human experience and life, can provide a solution to the problem of relativism as it arises when the human sciences deal with the problem of historicism. In critical debates, this aspect of Gadamer’s thesis is often ignored. This dissertation investigates whether Gadamer’s hermeneutics is committed to a certain kind of relativism, given his account of how the historicity of understanding is part of the ontological structure of human existence. This dissertation argues that the historicity of understanding, as Gadamer construes it, is the non-relative transcendental foundation of his philosophical hermeneutics. This argument is sustained by showing that, in the application of the hermeneutic theory of understanding, Gadamer demonstrates how historicity constitutes the mode of being which is common to the knowing subject and the object of knowledge in the humanities. This defining feature of Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics has often eluded interpreters of Truth and Method. Usually the application of hermeneutics to the interpretation of texts and to the study of history, as advanced in Truth and Method, is regarded as a theory of interpretation, or interpretive practice. In the following dissertation, it will be shown not only that philosophical hermeneutics cannot be charged with relativism, but also that it has a transcendental-ontological aim. Hermeneutic principles are not simply applied to textual interpretation but rather are drawn from a wider sphere of experience, including art, history and moral practice. Critics charge that Gadamer fails to identify a norm or a criterion by which it would be possible to determine the validity of an interpretation. They also argue that if understanding is always historical, a critical stance towards a current interpretation of the past or towards the self- understanding of a tradition is impossible. In accord with this view, critics fault Gadamer for appealing to tradition as a criterion for judgments concerning social practice. In contrast to these interpretations, we argue that the hermeneutic theory and the concept of historicity must be related to the transcendental conditions of human knowledge. The historicity of understanding and the truth revealed through language belong to ontological conditions of human existence in the sense that both the finiteness of human understanding and the potentially infinite scope of language share the same fundamental grounding. Philosophical hermeneutics is a project that both appropriates the finite and historical nature of human experience of the world and develops a concept of the experience of truth capable of meeting the finite conditions of human experience. In the light of arguments presented by the critics cited above, this study uncovers the ontological foundations of a hermeneutic theory of understanding. In the first chapter, the relativistic problem presented by the historicity of understanding is examined. We introduce a schematic account of how the problem of relativism and the historicity of understanding are conceived in philosophical hermeneutics. This is followed by an examination of the main elements of the historicity thesis as a hermeneutic principle in Gadamer’s account of philosophical hermeneutics. In the second chapter, Gadamer’s own attempt to overcome historicism and its relativism is set against the background of his critical appraisal of methodological hermeneutics. Gadamer introduces a critique of romantic hermeneutics and its application to historical studies. Gadamer’s own thesis concerning the understanding and interpretation of texts and the meaning of the past is also presented. The third chapter addresses the relation between ontology and the historicity of understanding, as articulated by Gadamer in Truth and Method. We examine Gadamer’s analysis of forms of experience other than that of the understanding of texts. This analysis deals with interpretation and understanding as experiences. The historicity of experience and understanding, considered in their ontological structure, demonstrates the limitations of the scientific concept of experience. Also, the experiences of art and of moral practice are examined as examples of the universality of hermeneutic experience. The historicity of understanding appears on three levels: the historicity of experience, the historicity of objects of the human sciences, and the historicity of the understanding subject him or herself. Of these, only the last has been taken into account in critical debates. In the fourth chapter, scholarly responses to Gadamer’s hermeneutic theory are examined
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