Gadamer penned one of the more famous works on hermeneutics, Truth and Method (1975). It is a classic by all the familiar standards, but because of its claims, it is challenged often. Gadamer is challenged because he challenges the standard thoughts throughout his classic. He begins by challenging the overall notion of hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is, to Gadamer, not a method of understanding as it is to most others, but instead, an attempt to clarify the conditions and environment in which understanding takes place.
The art of understanding is one of those things swept aside by the speed of current culture, but it is the one thing that results in more issues and miscommunications than we care to admit. To Gadamer, understanding is not reproductive as most of the world believes; instead, it is a productive process. Gadamer understands that understanding always involves both our own interpretation and our own perception of the meaning of an object.Gadamer acknowledges that these two elements lead to personal prejudices which Gadamer does not deny, but deems as important. His issue is this: how do we understand the true prejudices by which we truly understand from the false prejudices by which we misunderstand. Notice that Gadamer does not label prejudices negatively or as something to overcome, but accepts them as a natural part of the process of understanding.
Another important condition to Gadamer in which understanding takes place is temporal distance. Gadamer writes,
"Time is no longer primarily a gulf to be bridged, because it separates, but it is actually the supportive ground of process in which the present is rooted. Hence temporal distance is not something that must be overcome. This was, rather, the naive assumption of historicism, namely that we must set ourselves within the spirit of the age, and think with its ideas and its thoughts, not with our own, and thus advance towards historical objectivity. In fact the important thing is to recognise the distance in time as a positive and productive possibility of understanding. It is not a yawning abyss, but is filled with the continuity of custom and tradition, in the light of which all that is handed down presents itself to us." (Gadamer 1975: 264f.)
For Gadamer, past and present are firmly connected; one does not dominate the other. We tend to dwell in our past. It is the way we are educated and taught... to reach back in our past for information learned in order to make sense and understanding of our present. We like our past because we are comfortable with it, and because we understand it in the same way we first understood it. We tend to believe that once we understand something that something is something we will understand forever. This is understanding understanding as an event and not as a process. A process is active and moving while an event is static and objective. Reducing understanding to merely an objective event is to miss the art of understanding altogether.
This is just the beginning of this great book, a mere scratch on the surface but for me, the important aspect of his thoughts are his ideas of process. Understanding, to Gadamer, exists inside this ongoing action of process which translated from his native German defaults to the word "play." Understanding is not a static subjective event but an active process; Gadamer writes, "Understanding is not to be thought of so much as an action of one's subjectivity, but as the placing of oneself within a process of tradition, in which past and present are constantly fused." (Gadamer 1975: 258)
There is so much more for me to understand here. How do we understand? Do we really understand anything anymore? I am sure my understanding of true understanding will change as I understand more of Gadamer's work. As people, existing in a world occupied by other people, sometime I get the sense that we just as soon not understand each other. I hope that is not the case. Blessings!
No comments:
Post a Comment