Guide to Gadamer on Hermeneutics Andrew Abernethy Andrew.Abernethy@wheaton.edu *these handouts were prepared to assist students in readings from Gadamer, Truth and Method.
Part I “A person trying to understand a text is prepared for it to tell him something. That is why a hermeneutically trained consciousness must be, from the start, sensitive to the text’s alterity. But this kind of sensitivity involves neither ‘neutrality’ with respect to content nor the extinction of one’s self, but the foregrounding and appropriating of one’s own fore-meanings and prejudices. The important thing is to be aware of one’s own bias, so that the text can present itself in all its otherness and thus assert its own truth against one’s own fore-meanings.” (Gadamer, Truth and Method, 269)
Your task is to read Gadamer, Truth and Method, 265–71, 277–85. To assist you in this process, I have provided several summaries and diagrams below. Summary of 1.A.i. Heidegger’s Disclosure of the Fore-Structure of Understanding Heidegger is a philosopher most known for “phenomenology.” This is the recognition that human beings by their very nature automatically and instinctively engage with the “phenomena” around them to understand them. For example, if you came upon a waterfall, you are immediately seeking to understand it at some level. This takes place by automatically “foreprojecting” what you think about this waterfall. As you consider, learn about, and explore the waterfall, your “fore-projections” are gradually refined by engaging with the “object” (waterfall) to the point where your “fore-projections” of understanding are becoming less and less arbitrary. The purpose of Heidegger’s inquiry is to say something about the nature of humanity, to describe our ontology (the nature of being--we are those constantly engaging in fore-projections with phenomena around us). (pgs 265–68) Engage with phenomenon via initial fore-projection
Fore-projection
Heidegger’s Phenomenology
Human Phenomenon encountered
Encounters with phenomenon refine our fore-projections to align more readily with the thing itself