The Hermeneutic Circle versus Dialogue

Abstract

AT THE START OF HIS ACCOUNT of hermeneutic experience, Gadamer quotes Heidegger's Being and Time: first, last and constant task is never to allow our fore-having, fore-sight and fore-conception to be presented to us by fancies and popular conceptions, but rather to make scientific theme secure by working out these fore-structures in terms of things themselves. (1) Both Heidegger and Gadamer stress extent to which understanding is part of our practical immersion in our world. For Heidegger, fore-having, foresight, and fore-conception constitute fore-structures of understanding, while Gadamer refers to fore-meanings and fore-projections. Both sets of terms signify our practical preunderstanding and ongoing engagement with things for which we might also try to articulate more explicit interpretations. Yet, if fore-structure of understanding already reflects an engagement with and preunderstanding of the things themselves, how can we work these fore-structures out in terms of them? How can we come to recognize that fancies and popular conceptions have presented these fore-structures to us or distinguish between fancies and popular conceptions and things themselves? Gadamer claims to take his answer to this question from Heidegger and to appeal, like him, to hermeneutic circle. However, in this paper, I want to argue that Gadamer takes question more seriously than Heidegger does and supplements recourse to hermeneutic circle with an appeal to dialogue. I also want to explore some concerns about this supplement. Gadamer conceives of understanding as a dialogue in which we test our fore-meanings against those of others and come to a consensus with others about a subject matter (Sache). Yet, what if dialogue just as easily reinforces or even exaggerates our fore-meanings? And what if consensus is as easily to be feared as sought? I Being and Time revises German hermeneutic tradition by conceiving of understanding not primarily as a rule-bound procedure for correct comprehension of texts, but rather as our practical capacity to cope with world. (2) Indeed, Heidegger's paradigmatic cases of understanding are not texts, but activities, such as opening doors and hammering. In these activities, we do not first see door or a hammer and then discover its properties. Instead, understanding is, first of all, knowing how--whether knowing how to hammer, knowing how to do what I am doing, or knowing how to be. For Heidegger, we make this sort of knowing how explicit in an interpretation by understanding something as something in context of our ongoing projects and purposes, as part of a set of functional interrelationships. We see thing as something, a hammer, a door, and so on. As Heidegger puts this point, That which is disclosed in understanding--that which is understood--is already accessible in such a way that its 'as which' can be made to stand out explicitly. The 'as' makes up structure of explicitness of something that is understood. It constitutes (3) In Heidegger's terminology, context of purposes, projects, and interrelations that allows us to interpret something as something constitutes fore-structure of understanding, composed of fore-having, fore-sight, and fore-conception. Fore-having signals our immersion in practical activities that constitute arena for our interpretation. Our fore-sight indicates perspective this immersion opens up for us, while our fore-conception fixes range of possible meanings of that which we are trying to grasp. (4) To be sure, this fore-structure does not precede interpretation; it is rather part of it insofar as interpretations realize and articulate possibilities that are disclosed in understanding as aspects of activities in which we are engaged. Yet, if interpretations already involve an understanding of that which they are interpreting, how do they add to or, indeed, possibly correct our store of knowledge? …