Faiza Ismail (14874)Mushkbar Arshad (14268)

Shabahat Ali Jafferi (14915)

HANS-GEO

RG GADAMER

Submitt

ed to:Sir Asad Shahzad

Table of Contents

Sr.No Title Pg No.

1. Hans-Georg Gadamer 32. Hermeneutics 33. Origin 44. Dialectical Hermeneutics 55. Hermeneutical Circle 66. Conversation 67. The Question Of Question 98. Philosophical Hermeneutics 109. Fusion Of Horizons 11

10. Historically Effected Consciousness 1411. Brief History Of Descates Method 1512. Gadamer’s Critique On Descartes 1613. Language As a Medium Of Experience 1714. Language And Text 18

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GADAMERS HERMENEUTICSHANS-GEORG GADAMER

Hans-Georg Gadamer ( February 11, 1900 – March 13, 2002) was a German philosopher of the continental tradition, best known for his 1960 magnum opus on hermeneutics, Truth and Method. He is a contemporary philosopher. He was a student of Martin Heidegger. His main interest was in Metaphysics · Epistemology Language · Ontology · Aesthetics but the one in which he earned a lot of fame was in Philosophical hermeneutics. He died on March 13, 2002 (aged 102) at theHeidelberg University Clinic, Germany.

HERMENETICS

Hermeneutics is the theory of text interpretation, especially the interpretation of biblical texts, wisdom literature, and philosophical texts. Hermeneutic as a singular noun refers to a single particular method or strand of interpretation. Modern hermeneutics includes both verbal and nonverbal communication as well as semiotics, presuppositions, and pre-understandings. Hermeneutic consistency refers to the analysis of texts to achieve a coherent explanation of them. Philosophical hermeneutics refers primarily to the theory of knowledge initiated by Martin Heidegger and developed by Hans-Georg Gadamer in his work Truth and Method.

While the word hermeneutics may sound a little strange, it happens to be the term for something which we all do every day. In fact, people who might say Herman who? After hearing the word are doing it. Or if you were trying to relate the word to something you knew or something that sounded similar, you were doing it too. That is, you were trying to interpret the word, to understand it in relation to something you already know. In fact, that is what the word hermeneutics means- it is the ancient Greek word for interpret or interpretive understanding. The most obvious example of the word interpret that I interpreted the ending to last night’s episode of The Simpsons differently than my dad- he thought it was sick and I thought it was funny.

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We also use the word interpret when we talk about performances or arts. In other words, we are talking about the decisions actors and musicians make about how to perform their roles or their music. But we also interpret their performances to ourselves- that is, we make comparisons between this performance and other performances we have seen. We also do this with the other arts, so interpretive thinking, or hermeneutical thinking, is very important for us. Although we don’t as commonly use the word interpret when we talk of what we like or dislike about things we experience, that is what we are doing. We are making decisions based upon information, and that information comes from previous experiences we have had. Therefore, we are all practicing hermeneutics all the time. That is, we are all hermeneuts, which is the term for people who do hermeneutics. But what really makes someone a hermeneut is being aware that making comparisons is how we think. This idea of making comparisons may seem pretty obvious, but, until someone pointed it out to you, you hadn’t really thought about it. To know that we think by making comparisons doesn’t necessarily help us become better hermeneuts. And it doesn’t necessarily make us better interpreters of the arts. First, we must get a little more familiar with hermeneutics, and acquire the tools we will need to become better hermeneuts and to get more out of our experiences with the arts.

ORIGINS

The word hermeneutics comes to us from the name of the Greek god Hermes. Hermes was Zeus messenger, the one he would send down to the world of humans whenever he wanted to tell the ancient Greeks something. That is, Hermes would have to interpret Zeus wishes to the humankind. As you can imagine, this wasn’t an easy task. First, Hermes would have to be sure that he understood what Zeus message was, which he would do by asking Zeus questions to make sure he understood. Then he would have to find just the right words to communicate the message to the Greeks, that is, he would have to interpret the message to them, so that there were no misunderstandings (if there were, Zeus could get pretty angry). So, coming from Hermes name, the original use of the word hermeneut was for someone who interpreted messages.

But the word hermeneutics wasn’t really used as the name for a way of interpreting until many centuries later, in the 1500s, when what is known as the Protestant Reformation took place. At that time, many people felt that the Church had too much control over what people were supposed to think about the Bible. This was because it was always written in Latin and only members of the clergy could read Latin. But during the Reformation (1500s), certain priests and scholars translated the Bible into the languages of the various European nations so that others could read it. And many

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people did because this was also the time of the invention of the printing press, an event that many people think is the second most important thing which ever happened in history. The only event more important is the development of reading and writing itself.

Now that the Bible was available to everyone, arguments about what it said became common. So hermeneutics was developed as the way to interpret the Bible. It was not meant to settle all the arguments or to produce only one interpretation; rather, it was developed to prevent people from saying that the Bible said this or that based only upon personal whims or needs. In later epochs, because of the success of hermeneutics in interpreting the Bible, it began to be applied to the law and literature. Finally, in the 1800s this method of interpretation was broadened to include all of the humanities. Since then, hermeneutics has become, for many thinkers, the cornerstone of their disciplines, which include anthropology, psychology, the cognitive sciences, the arts, philosophy, and even the natural sciences.

As it became more and more recognized that the natural way of thinking is interpretive, that is, making comparisons; hermeneutics has also come to be seen as a way of interpreting how we live our lives. Since we interpret all the time, people now understand that it just makes good sense to learn how to do it the best that we can. And it also makes good sense for us to study hermeneutics because of the large role it plays in our understanding of the arts.

 DIALECTICAL HERMENEUTICSThe main practitioner of dialectical hermeneutics is a German philosopher and teacher, Hans-Georg Gadamer. (He uses the term dialectical, which means back and forth, like a conversation, because he sees how we understand as being like a conversation. But more on that later). He developed his style of hermeneutics by studying Plato and Aristotle (some of the original hermeneuts) as well as modern philosophers and by noticing what was the same and what was different between the way the ancient Greeks thought and the way we think today. He also makes connections between the way we think and the way we interact with the arts. But in order to really understand what Gadamer discovered, we need to understand some of his key ideas.

HERMENEUTICAL CIRCLE   When we read, a very interesting thing happens. In order to know what a sentence means, we need to know what the individual words mean. But we can’t be sure what

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the individual words mean until we know what the sentence means. This is because words need a context in order to mean something. Words by themselves may have definitions, but they are not meaningful until they are put together into sentences. For example, the word line has a general definition, but think about the different meanings the word takes on in the following sentences-

Get to the back of the line, buddy. The Bears defensive line needs a lot of help this year. And that line drive is going to be caught! He has always bought into the party line. (Political party) Thank God they don’t have party lines anymore. (Several households

sharing the same phone line.) The telephone lines are down. I couldn’t draw a straight line if you paid me. The line of communication between Jordan and Israel has been

established. "Would you line up those glasses for me?

So, the word line doesn’t take on any meaning until it is used in a sentence. In other words, guess at the meaning of the words until we have read enough of the sentence to know for sure whether our guesses are right or not. But as our guesses are either confirmed or disconfirmed, the meaning of the sentence changes and we have to modify our guesses yet again. That is, we have to constantly move back and forth between the words and the sentence. And this happens, whether we realize it or not, every time we read. We are always going back and forth in order to make the words mean something so that the sentence means something. Or should we say that we are always going back and forth in order to make the sentence mean something so that the words mean something? This process can also be described as going back and forth between the particulars or parts (the words) and the whole (the sentence). And this going back and forth between the particulars and the whole is what we do whenever we try to understand anything, not just words and sentences. This then is what Gadamer means by the hermeneutical circle. It is the back and forth (dialectical) movement between the parts and the whole that leads to understanding.

Hermeneutical FootballYou are watching a football game. If you only watch the quarterback, you only see one particular aspect of the game. It may be an exciting aspect of the game, but it certainly isn’t enough to understand how the game itself is going. You must pull back and watch

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the play of the teams in order to get a sense of which way the game is going. Yet if you only looked at the play of the game as a whole, you wouldn’t understand the individual efforts made by the various players. But then you wouldn’t appreciate the efforts of the individual players if you couldn’t also see what they do within the context of the whole game. So, even when watching a football game, we engage in the hermeneutical circle.

Looking at paintings is another example of the hermeneutical circle. Although we can take in the entire picture at once, our real understanding of the picture doesn’t begin until we also look at the details and then back to the whole. Look at the painting, The Education of the Virgin, for example.

Although physically it is possible to look at the painting in one glance, to have any sense of what the picture really means, you must look at various parts of it- the two women, the book, the basket in the background, the play of light. But, in order for these details to have meaning, you must pull back and look at the picture as a whole once again. If you were to truly study the picture, you would go back and forth many times before you felt you had a really good sense of what the picture is all about. This is why hermeneutics is useful to us. It teaches us first that we can engage in the hermeneutical circle anytime that we have to interpret something, and second, it teaches us how to engage in the circle; for, as Gadamer says,

“We must come into the circle in the right way.”

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CONVERSATIONAs mentioned before, Gadamer likes to compare understanding to a conversation. Not only is the back and forth, or dialectical, movement of a conversation like the hermeneutical circle, but, as mentioned before, a conversation is also a fusion of horizons between ourselves and someone else. Each person’s own horizon contributes to the outcome and this outcome results in each person’s horizon being expanded to one degree or another. So the concept of conversation is a pretty useful metaphor for many of Gadamer’s ideas. It is also another way of talking about how we interact with art. Again, the most obvious example is literature; although this time we will consider all pieces of writing, not just fiction or poetry. As we saw, when we read, we have access to the horizon of whatever it is we are reading. Part of that horizon is the images that are described in the writing- the people, objects, surroundings, and so on. But another part of that horizon is the voice of the implied author. The implied author is that person we imagine to have written the text which we are reading. The reason that person is referred to as the implied author is that we can never truly hear the real authors voice in the text. There are many reasons for this, not the least of which is that the real author may be purposefully writing as though he or she believed things that are different from what they really believe, just for the sake of the story. But we also cannot really know very much about the real author from the text simply because we are never given enough information. But it is still a normal part of our reading to assume that there is a person controlling the words which we read, that is, the implied author- and, in essence, when we read, we are having a conversation with that person. For many people, this is a one-sided conversation because they don’t realize that they are in a conversation. For example- Think back to when you first read the opening paragraphs of this report on hermeneutics. For you, it was the first time you had heard the word hermeneutics. Do you recall what you thought to yourself as you read? That is, you were trying to interpret the word, to understand it in relation to something you already know. If it made sense to you, you may have said Oh, I get it, and if it still seemed strange you may have said I don’t get it. Either way, what you thought to yourself was your end of the conversation.

In other words, what we read causes reactions in us and those reactions are the very same reactions we have in live conversations.

The other aspect of having a conversation with texts is that some implied authors make it easier than others to have a conversation. Textbooks, for example, are famous for using what is known as the institutional passive voice. This style of writing tries to erase any sense of an implied author. This tactic is used to make the information in the text more convincing that is, because it doesn’t seem to be written by a person, the information seems more reliable because no one’s opinion is at work. But, guess what? The author’s of textbooks are just as opinionated as anyone else. Also, they have their

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own perspectives, just like any one else, and the information they are imparting is colored by that perspective, just like all information. Does this mean that textbooks sometimes contain inaccurate or false information? In a word- yes. But because the style seems so institutional, we never think to question it. But then that’s their goal.

Finally, the point is, just as conversations with people prompt us to think new thoughts, we can also have conversations with paintings, music, and sculpture, and so on. But when we begin to talk about having a conversation with art forms, we need first to explore Gadamer’s notion of question.

THE QUESTION OF QUESTIONGadamers concept of question can be looked at several ways. But the most important aspect of this idea, for Gadamer, is the understanding that, in order to have a fusion of horizons and particularly to have our horizon expanded, we must stay open to whatever experience we are having. That is, we must try and put our previous experiences and opinions on hold and let the new experience take place without trying to make it fit whatever expectations we may have. One way we can help to do that is to ask questions, for in order to ask questions, we must be open to the experience. But Gadamer also likes the idea of questions because questions are part of conversation. They are part of the dialectical movement of conversation and are a large part of what keeps one going. And when good questions are asked, new knowledge can be produced. There is one other aspect of question which is also important for us. This is as a way of interacting with art. By asking artworks specific questions, we learn much more about the piece than if we just look, read, or listen. Asking a question of a work of art is also a way of making it respond to us instead of us always responding to it. The first question we should ask any work of art is, what question brought this work into being? In other words, what question was the painter, composer, choreographer, etc., trying to answer by producing this piece? This may also be asked as , What problem was the artist trying to solve when she produced this work? Although these questions are similar, they will produce at least slightly different answers. And sometimes they will produce very different answers. However, they will both serve to guide how we look at, listen to, or read works of art

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PHILOSOPHICAL HERMENEUTICS:

According to Gadamer:

“Understanding is invariably hermeneutical”

It means that the process of interpretation, as it applies to the reading of texts, is equally applicable to the process of understanding.

Philosophical Hermeneutics is the understanding of any written, verbal or non-verbal language. Non verbal language uses facial expressions and hands and other bodily movement as the means of communication. For example, expressions of pain. When somebody is injured, we can understand it by observing his facial expressions.

Philosophical hermeneutics focuses on the process of understanding. And the process of understanding is a process that every human being uses at every instant. understanding the situation in which we are present and the surrounding in which we live is the core factor of living in this world; it is universal . And that’s why we say that hermeneutics is universal

Philosophical hermeneutics is the description of a process that always occur in our life. It is not a method of understanding, but rather a process of understanding. The difference between “method” and “process” is that method is the procedure to get a desired end. It is a step-by-step procedure through which we always come to a specific point. On the other hand, Process is a series of events or changes that occur spontaneously to refine and improve our understanding. Through process, our experience is enhanced and it helps us to approach true understanding. And there is no end point of this process where you can get an absolute understanding.

Understanding is not a reproductive process but a very productive process. It is not a copy of previously generated idea. Infact it is a creative process through which new ideas are created leading us to a better understanding by a new experience.

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FUSION OF HORIZON:

Horizons:

Horizon expresses the superior breadth of vision that a person, who is trying to understand, must have from a particular viewpoint. It is the thinking of a person about the world and it’s surroundings at a particular time and space. Viewpoint is the time and location in which the person is having an experience of understanding. Our inner thoughts are changing with the effect of our experience that we had in our past. And our experiences also changes with the passage of time. Every time, our thoughts change when we have a new experience, which leads us to a new understanding, thus, expanding our horizon.

Fusion of Horizons:

Every being has its own horizon of meaning. And fusion of both horizons makes understanding. While talking to a person, we are trying to understand his horizon and in doing so, understanding takes place and that understanding is the fusion of the horizons.

“Understanding is always the fusion of horizons” (T.M p.300)

Our understanding is connected with our past experience and with the effect that our past experience had on our thinking. A fusion of horizons occurs when our own horizon is understood in order to understand another’s.

Expansion of our horizon occurs with a new experience as our thoughts are broadened by that. By interpreting the horizon of others we broaden our own horizon i.e by having our own understanding of someone’s else perspectives. And such expansion of horizon leads to the fusion of horizons.

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Fusion of horizon cannot be fully achieved.

“Horizon of interpretation changes continuously just as our visual horizon also varies with every step that we take” (Gadamer p61)

For example, when we are reading a book, every time something different comes into our mind. And when we read the same sentence again and again, we understand it more properly.

Meanings can never be complete and it cannot be fully refined. Because when my horizon is questioned by the horizon of text or the partner in dialogue, then it becomes disturbed and then it is redefined. So, Fusion of horizons is never constant and unchangeable

We do not move into a new horizon, our horizon moves with us.

By experiencing new thoughts and events, it is enhanced and improved but not changed. With the enhanced horizon, it is easier to interpret new things.

Narrowness and Expansion of Horizon:

So, we can say that, our horizon expands with the positive that occurred with a new experience. And it contracts with the negative thoughts that hinders our way to have a better understanding, and it ultimately shrinks our vision of understanding.

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SOME EXAMPLES OF FUSION OF HORIZONS:

1. The horizons of a Doctor and a PatientWhen a patient is explaining his problem, doctor never rejects his thinking instead he tries to understand patient’s point of view.

Means that he tries to understand patient’s horizon in order to have a better understanding and an expanded horizon. In the same way doctor also explains the disease to the patient. At the end , both of them will leave with an enhanced and improved horizon.

No understanding will be developed if the doctor will reject patient’s thinking. Because both of them have a different horizon. That’s the reason we prefer to visit those doctors with whom we have a history of medication because that doctor has a better understanding of patient’s point of view and due to which the patient is easily convinced and satisfied with the prescription given by that doctor.

2. French – German friendly relation and fusion of their horizons.France and Germany’s friendly relation show their fusion of horizons by expansion of their thoughts.

Following are the reasons of their fusion of horizons:

1. Same Ideology Both of them have “Right-based” or “Equality-Based” ideology

2. Same ReligionBoth of the nations have Christrianity religion

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3. Same Philosophical IdeasBoth of the nations have post modern philosophers

Derrida – French Post Modern Philosopher

Gadamer – German Post Modern Philosopher

INDO-PAK RELATION

Both of the nations have no understanding and due to which there is not any fusion of horizons.

Reasons:

1. Different ReligionReligion was the basic reason due to which Muslims of the sub continent got Independence on 14th August 1947

Pakistan – Islam

India – Hinduism

2. Different Ideology

Pakistan – Equality Based ideology

India – Class based ideology

HISTORICALLY EFFECTED CONSCIOUSNESS:

“Understanding is, essentially, a historically effected event” (T.M p300)

Gadamer in his statement explains that the position of interpreter or the one who seeks knowledge is not fixed. There is no neutral position from which understanding takes place as it is the effect of past upon present. We are embedded in the particular history and culture that shaped us, so , it means that our past experience had an effect on our present thoughts which creates our own understanding. Considering an example of half

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filled glass of water. An optimist would say that it is a half filled glass due to the effect of the experiences that he had in his past which created positive thoughts in his mind. But a pessimist would call it a half empty glass due to the negative effect of the experiences that he had in his past. So, understanding of both of them is different due to the different historically effected experiences that they had.

“We can neither leave our horizon, nor would it be desirable, as effective history depends on constantly new interpretation” (Gadamer 1975: 358)

Leaving a horizon means leaving all the components of it. Lets suppose we say that “we had a bad experience” . It is our thinking due to which we say that our experience was bad. The past has an effect on our present and our past is changing at every instant with a new experience. As our new interpretations are continuosly linked with our effected history, so, we can not leave our horizon as it is impossible to wipe out the effects of your experiences.

BRIEF HISTORY OF DESCATES SCIENTIFIC METHOD OF FINDING TRUTH AND GADAMER’S CRITIQUE ON IT:

The modern fixation method eclipses alternative ways of approaching truth. According to Descartes, Truth can only be found by a scientific reason. Anything which cannot be proven is not truth at all.

A Paradigm Shift From Authority Of Text To The Authority Of Reason:

The only true authority he submits to is the authority of reason. Descartes applied newly created scientific method on the unexplored region of philosophical thoughts

Example:

“Cogito Ergo Sum”

“I think, therefore, I am”

In essence, he said that he can not doubt that he is doubting. Doubting is a mode of thinking, so, the more he doubts the more it proves that he has the ability to doubt that he is doubting.. It is self -evident that he has the ability to think that’s why he exists. So, Descartes scientific rationalism questioned traditional ways of finding truth.

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Gadamer's Critique And Revival of Tradition and Authority :

Gadamer says that Descartes drove a wedge between tradition and reason. Modern age shows past from the perspective of present. But what seems to be false now, was truth in the past. So, methodological way of finding the truth is destroying the valuable truth of past.

1. TRADITION

“Tradition is not simply a process that experience teaches us to know and govern; it is language” (TM, pg 358)

Tradition is the way of communication. Our language, religion, culture, lifestyle everything lies within our tradition. It is due to our tradition that we are able to have our own rational thinking.

“Tradition has a justification that lies beyond rational grounding and in large measure determines our institutions and attitude” (T.M p.281)

For example, a person living in America has a different tradition, as his language, culture and religion is different. So, rationality will also be different for him.

Our horizon changes with our thinking. And our reason comes from our thinking. So, reason can be a part of tradition. We can never escape our tradition as we are already within it, so how can we question the authenticity and validation of tradition when reason itself is a part of tradition.

2. AUTHORITY: “Authority has nothing to do with blind obedience to commands. Authority has to do not with obedience but knowledge” – (TM , pg 279)

True authority requires an active acknowledgement by others. It shows that a true authority is not irrational. Without an active acknowledgement, that authority would rather act like a passive submission leading to tyranny. Memorizing a text is not an indication that one understands it; one has understood only when one can put the text into one’s own words and interpreting its own meanings and by having your own understanding of its meanings.

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Genuine authority of a teacher never lies in a forcible action in fact it is his ability to open up the questionsin such a way that interpreter can have his own meaning of the question as the question is deeply understood within our limited cultural horizons and experience. The real authority opens up his questions by making it clear , important and understandable to those who are in search of knowledge. Real authority expands the vision of a student by raising a question and enhancing the interpreter’s ability to answer.

Putting the text into your words shows the understanding. Understanding always has a built-in possibility for critique.

Language as the Medium of the Hermeneutic Experience

The basic model of understanding that Gadamer finally arrives at in Truth and Method is that of conversation. A conversation involves an exchange between conversational partners that seeks agreement about some matter at issue; consequently, such an exchange is never completely under the control of either conversational partner, but is rather determined by the matter at issue. Conversation always takes place in language and similarly Gadamer views understanding as always linguistically mediated. Since both conversation and understanding involve coming to an agreement, so Gadamer argues that all understanding involves something like a common language, albeit a common language that is itself formed in the process of understanding itself. In this sense, all understanding is, according to Gadamer, interpretative, and, insofar as all interpretation involves the exchange between the familiar and the alien, so all interpretation is also translative. Gadamer's commitment to the linguisticality of understanding also commits him to a view of understanding as essentially a matter of conceptual articulation. This does not rule out the possibility of other modes of understanding, but it does give primacy to language and conceptuality in hermeneutic experience. Indeed, Gadamer takes language to be, not merely some instrument by means of which we are able to engage with the world, but as instead the very medium for such engagement. We are ‘in’ the world through being ‘in’ language. This emphasis on the linguisticality of understanding does not, however, lead Gadamer into any form of linguistic relativism. Just as we are not held inescapably captive within the circle of our prejudices, or within the effects of our history, neither are we held captive within language. Language is that

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within which anything that is intelligible can be comprehended, it is also that within which we encounter ourselves and others. In this respect, language is itself understood as essentially dialogue or conversation. Like Wittgenstein, as well as Davidson, Gadamer thus rejects the idea of such a thing as a ‘private language’—language always involves others, just as it always involves the world.

Gadamer claims that language is the universal horizon of hermeneutic experience; he also claims that the hermeneutic experience is itself universal. This is not merely in the sense that the experience of understanding is familiar or ubiquitous. The universality of hermeneutics derives from the existential claim for hermeneutics that Heidegger advanced in the 1920s and that Gadamer made into a central idea in his own thinking. Hermeneutics concerns our fundamental mode of being in the world and understanding is thus the basic phenomenon in our existence. We cannot go back ‘behind’ understanding, since to do so would be to suppose that there was a mode of intelligibility that was prior to understanding. Hermeneutics thus turns out to be universal, not merely in regard to knowledge, whether in the ‘human sciences' or elsewhere, but to all understanding and, indeed, to philosophy itself. Philosophy is, in its essence, hermeneutics. Gadamer's claim for the universality of hermeneutics was one of the explicit points at issue in the debate between Gadamer and Habermas (see Ormiston and Schrift [eds.], 1990); it can also be seen as, in a certain sense, underlying the engagement between Gadamer and Derrida (see Michelfelder and Palmer [eds.], 1989), although in Derrida's case this consisted in a denial of the primacy of understanding, and the possibility of agreement, on which hermeneutics itself rests.

Language and Text

The role of the interpreter within Gadamerian hermeneutics has a specific characteristic in understanding human potential, through the ontic-ontology of Heidegger’s notion of “Being”. The word ontology comes from the Greek language meaning the study of being, reviewed by Heidegger for contemporary philosophy by situating Being into the average everydayness of life (Heidegger 2003). To Heidegger and Gadamer, understanding the concept of Being and ‘what it is to be’ human meant that by analyzing this most fundamental of concepts we can then and only then begin to understand how we live and engage in the world through the medium of language.

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Language delivers pointers to the truth concealed within word, meaning and reveals that something exists in a (hermeneutic) circle of ontological possibilities.

Gadamer favors speech over written:

“Thus written texts present the real hermeneutical task. Writing is self-alienation. Overcoming it, reading the texts, is thus the highest task of understanding. Even the pure signs of an inscription can be seen properly and articulated correctly only if the text can be transformed back into language”

Gadamer regards the real task of his hermeneutics as revitalizing the written word in such a way that it Returns to the condition of speech. This goes back to the idea of language as part of dialogue.

The condition of language as dialogue is the real point of Gadamer's favoring of speech over writing.

He is not taking up the familiar philosophical stance of finding in speech the authentic voice of a self-presenting subject inn speech and thought is only internalized speech, were cognize Plato's soulin dialogue with itself.

Language, for Gadamer is neither a tool to be used and discarded nor a stumbling block between us and reality, rather it is the medium through which reality comes into focus. As Wachterhauser explains, “far from separating the intelligibility of the world from us, or substituting its own intelligibility, the thesis that ‘Being that can be understood is language’ roots language in the world and points instead to its integral connection with the things themselves” (Beyond Being: Gadamer’s Post-Platonic Hermeneutical Ontology, 98). One could even say that on Gadamer’s account language functions iconic-ly. Language, when functioning properly, has, to use Watchterhauser’s words, a “self-effacing” quality. That is, it disappears and makes itself nothing in order to point to the subject matter or meaning itself; it allows the things themselves to become present while not drawing attention to it. By claiming that language enhances or brings reality into sharper focus, Gadamer is both embracing the idea of language as a mirror of reality (and he explicitly turns to the medieval, Christian thinkers here) and yet he goes beyond and adds to this metaphor. That is, language does not simply reflect the intelligibility of reality but actually contributes to it. Of course, such contributions can

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be negative and distorting; yet, they can also be positive and expansive, opening up new insights and ways of seeing the (very same) realities or texts we happen to be studying. Here one can think of the many insights that have come to light through various interpretations of Holy Scripture, Plato’s dialogues, Augustine’s Confessions and any other text or work of art that has had lasting value. As each interpreter, who is of course always already situated in an interpretative tradition, comes to the text, she comes with questions and concerns that relate to her own cultural context. These questions in addition to her own preconceptions or prejudices (Vorurteilen) make up her horizon, which then fuses with the horizon of the text in the ongoing act of interpretation. Though, as I mentioned, distortions of the text can and do occur, it is clear that this negative result is not the inevitable outcome of horizon-fusing over time. Rather, as each age/interpreter comes to the text with different questions and concerns, the fusion of the two horizons allow the text to take on new life and to continue to speak as a true dialogue partner—a dialogue partner who can question me and my horizon, thus functioning as a potential catalyst for my own transformation.

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