GADAMER'S PHILOSOPHICAL HERMENEUTICS

DISCUSS THE ROLE OF PREJUDICE IN GADAMER’S PHILOSOPHICAL HERMENEUTICS. HOW DOES IT ILLUSTRATES THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PHENOMENOLOGY AND HERMENEUTICS

BY TOLU' ELUSIYAN

PRELUDE                

Gadamer presents a positive view of prejudices in his view of his view of hermeneutics. According to Gadamer, all of us come to the text with our own prejudices  or “horizons” and these biases are not be understood as solely negative or as necessarily closing off understanding. Though it is the case that our prejudices or presuppositions can and do set limits on our interpretative endeavors, it is not the case that our prejudices are unalterable nor are they always active in a negative limiting way. Rather, they have a positive or productive function as well and actually promote understanding. Addressing this positive aspect of prejudices, Gadamer writes,

Prejudices are not necessarily unjustified and erroneous, so that they inevitably distort the truth. in fact, the historicity of our existence entails that prejudices, in the literal sense of the word (pre-judgment), constitute the initial directedness of our whole ability to experience. Prejudices are our biases of our openness to the world. They are simply the conditions whereby we experience something, whereby what we encounter says something to us. This formulation certainly does not mean that we are enclosed within a wall of prejudices and only let through the narrow portals those things that can produce a pass saying, “Nothing new will be said here” (Truth and Method, p.9)

Until we engage a text with openness to being changed by that text, we are often unaware of our biases. Thus, it is through our dialogic encounter with the text that are prejudices are made evident to us, that is, we must be open or made open to having our presuppositions laid bare. However, our concern in this work is to discuss the role of prejudice in Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics and how it illustrates the difference between phenomenology abd hermeneutics.

THE ROLE OF PREJUDICE IN GADAMER’S PHILSOPHICAL HERMENEUTICS

In the act of consciousness that is knowing, Gadamer is of the position that the comprehension of the background or the positions of the object of consciousness and the subject of conscious is very much imperative such that in the act of consciousness the prejudice of the subject of consciousness is of revered essential in the act of consciousness, the background of the object may not be essential as such.

For this reason therefore, Gadamer is of the position that the structure of prejudice of the subject of the subject in the act of consciousness must be well understood in order to have the truth of a particular reality. This structure of the prejudice of the subject of the subject of consciousness behind the object of consciousness is what Gadamer refered to as the fore-structure of understanding with special reference to prejudice. So, Gadamer opines that the prejudice of the subject of consciousness in addition to the position or background of the object of consciousness is the paradigm to having a good understanding of the truth of the nature of the object of consciousness he refers to as tradition.

Moreover, he held that prejudice affects the mood of interpretation on the nature of any object of consciousness which include: historical texts, art, culture etc.), he further posits that for one to claim to have an understanding object of consciousness in life, the person must side-line all other perspectives of prejudice. Gadamer is interested in what makes understanding possible. And this he explains in the fore structures of understanding.

However, Gadamer sees the role of prejudices in his philosophical hermeneutics more in the form of hermeneutics of humanism with regard to the interpretation of historical texts. For Gadamer, since the human being is a being of language, the implication of this for the understanding of the human sciences which include art, culture and historical texts, is that before we get to the chance to approach these human sciences objectively, they have already shaped our world perspective. And as a matter of fact, that our individual world views in any object of consciousness is what Gadamer referred to as prejudice. Furthermore, for Gadamer, we are conditioned by our position in history in such a way that we cannot return to the perspective of past authors. Nonetheless, we can still understand their works because our conditioning actually facilitates the understanding as it opens the world to us. We can truly understand the meaning of a text or event if we relate it to our own concepts, preconceptions, and prejudices. Therefore, the interpreter spells out the meaning of a text in his own historical situation.

Finally we could say, that prejudice in Gadamer’s philosophical Hermeneutics helps in the true understanding of the meaning of a text, it exposes the role of the interpreter in a given historical situation, and also through prejudice, we gain a better understanding of ourselves for it helps in the dialogue of understanding because prejudice can distort even though there is interplay.

HOW PREJUDICE IN GADAMER’S PHILOSOPHICAL HERMENEUTICS ILLUSTRATE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PHENOMENOLOGY AND HERMENEUTIC

Phenomenology has to do with understanding of the object consciousness either through the object or through the subject perspective while hermeneutics has to do with the interpretation of the background of the object and subject of consciousness. Bringing to fore from the Husserl and Heidegger, phenomenology could be referred to as a science of consciousness which make effort to comprehend and know the object of consciousness as the case may be through a method which either subscribe more to either the role of the object of consciousness or the subject of consciousness. On the side of Gadamer, Hermeneutics could be considered to be more of a science of interpretation which attempts the interpretation, understanding, clarification and elucidation of the background of the constituents of the act of consciousness, the object and the subject of consciousness, in the act of consciousness or the process of knowing that of a particular reality.

CONCLUSION

By way of conclusion on the account of this discourse, we have been able to examine the meaning of prejudice according to the perspective of Gadamer without putting aside the role it plays in the philosophical hermeneutics of Gadamer and how it illustrates the difference between phenomenology and hermeneutics.