The Hermeneutical Arc

Abstract

In contemporary interpretation theory, Hans-Georg Gadamer's metaphor of the 'two horizons' has become a familiar expression for the relation between the historically engaged interpreter and traditioned texts. Schooled by Heidegger, Gadamer will not accord heteronomous power to classical texts to impress understanding; nor, on the other hand, will he vest authorial power in the interpreter subject. He views understanding, rather, as a cognitive function completed in the fusion of two horizons. The understanding achieved is never absolute or abstract but lies within a continuum of encounters, each of them a moment of 'effective-historical consciousness' (wirkungsgeschichtliches Bewusstsein).