Hermeneutics is the study of interpretation. Hermeneutics plays a rolein a number of disciplines whose subject matter demands interpretativeapproaches, characteristically, because the disciplinary subjectmatter concerns the meaning of human intentions, beliefs, and actions,or the meaning of human experience as it is preserved in the arts andliterature, historical testimony, and other artifacts. Traditionally,disciplines that rely on hermeneutics include theology, especiallyBiblical studies, jurisprudence, and medicine, as well as some of thehuman sciences, social sciences, and humanities. In such contexts,hermeneutics is sometimes described as an “auxiliary”study of the arts, methods, and foundations of research appropriate toa respective disciplinary subject matter (Grondin 1994, 1). Forexample, in theology, Biblical hermeneutics concerns the generalprinciples for the proper interpretation of the Bible. More recently,applied hermeneutics has been further developed as a research methodfor a number of disciplines (see, for example, Moules inter alia2015).

Within philosophy, however, hermeneutics typically signifies, first, adisciplinary area and, second, the historical movement in which thisarea has been developed. As a disciplinary area, and on analogy withthe designations of other disciplinary areas (such as ‘thephilosophy of mind’ or ‘the philosophy of art’),hermeneutics might have been named ‘the philosophy ofinterpretation.’ Hermeneutics thus treats interpretation itselfas its subject matter and not as an auxiliary to the study ofsomething else. Philosophically, hermeneutics therefore concerns themeaning of interpretation—its basic nature, scope and validity,as well as its place within and implications for human existence; andit treats interpretation in the context of fundamental philosophicalquestions about being and knowing, language and history, art andaesthetic experience, and practical life.

• 1. Interpretive Experience
  • 1.1 Understanding as Educative
  • 1.2 Against Foundationalism
  • 1.3 The Hermeneutical Circle
• 2. Hermeneutics as Historical Movement
  • 2.1 The Art of Interpretation
  • 2.2 Justification of the Human Sciences
  • 2.3 Hermeneutics Today
• 3. Hermeneutics and Existence
  • 3.1 The Hermeneutics of Facticity
  • 3.2 Difficulties of Self-Interpretation
• 4. Contemporary Hermeneutics
  • 4.1 Humanism and Art
  • 4.2 Tradition and Prejudice
  • 4.3 Effective History
  • 4.4 Language
• 5. Symbol, Metaphor, and Narrative
• 6. Philosophical Controversies
  • 6.1 Hermeneutics and Critical Theory
  • 6.2 Hermeneutics and Deconstruction
• 7. Postmodern Hermeneutics
• 8. Further Developments
  • 8.1 Hermeneutics in Anglo-American Philosophy
  • 8.2 Hermeneutics in Ethical and Political Philosophy
  • 8.3 The Return of Normativity to Hermeneutics
  • 8.4 Hermeneutics and New Realism
• Bibliography
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. Interpretive Experience

The topic of this article, then, is hermeneutics insofar as it isgrasped as the philosophy of interpretation and as the historicalmovement associated with this area. In this, hermeneutics isconcerned, first of all, to clarify and, in turn, to establish thescope and validity of interpretive experience.

1.1 Understanding as Educative

In hermeneutics, interpretive experience is typically clarified inreference to understanding. In this context, when we say that weunderstand, what we mean is that we have really gotten at somethingthrough an attempt at interpretation; and, when we say we do notunderstand, we mean that we have not really gotten anywhere at allwith our interpretation. For this reason, understanding can bedescribed as a ‘success’ of interpretation. Inhermeneutics, such success of understanding is not measured by normsand methods typical of the modern natural sciences and quantitativesocial sciences, such as whether our understanding derives from arepeatable experiment. Neither is the success of understandingmeasured by norms inherited from modern philosophy, such as whetherour understanding has indubitable epistemic foundations.

Now, philosophers associated with hermeneutics describe the success ofunderstanding in a number of manners. However else the success ofunderstanding is described, though, it is typically also described asedifying oreducative. Indeed, Hans-Georg Gadamer, thephilosopher perhaps most closely associated with hermeneutics in ourtimes, closely connects interpretive experience with education. Byeducation, he has in mind the concept of formation (Bildung)that had been developed in Weimar classicism and that continued toinfluence nineteenth-century romanticism and historicism in Germany(Truth and Method, Part I.1).^[1] Education, as formation, involves more than the acquisition ofexpertise, knowledge, or information; it concerns the enlargement ofour person through formal instruction, especially in the arts andhumanities, as well as through extensive and variegated experience.Accordingly, the success of understanding is educative in that welearn from our interpretive experience, perhaps not only about amatter, but thereby also about ourselves, the world, and others.

That the success of understanding is educative in this manner can beclarified by an example, say, in reading a text such asThucydides’History of the Peloponnesian War. When wesay that we understand this text, we mean that our attempts tointerpret it (whether rigorously, as in scholarship, or more casually,as in evening reading) have gotten at something, perhaps: that inpolitics, prudent reasoning is not always persuasive enough to stemthe tide of war. Certainly, we have not arrived at this understandingin result of a repeatable scientific experiment or based on anindubitable epistemic foundation. But it is not for this reason anyless educative. In this understanding, we have come to something thatwe can agree or disagree with, something that in any case expands orchanges our views about the role of reason in politics (and no doubtthen also of public discourse and the causes of war), and, finally,something that can also teach us something about ourselves and theworld in which we find ourselves.

1.2 Against Foundationalism

Hermeneutics may be said to involve a positive attitude—at onceepistemic, existential, and even ethical and political—towardthe finitude of human understanding, that is, the fact that ourunderstanding is time and again bested by the things we wish to grasp,that what we understand remains ineluctably incomplete, even partial,and open to further consideration. In hermeneutics, the concern istherefore not primarily to establish norms or methods which wouldpurport to help us overcome or eradicate aspects of such finitude,but, instead, to recognize the consequences of our limits.Accordingly, hermeneutics affirms that we must remain ever vigilantabout how common wisdom and prejudices inform—and candistort—our perception and judgment, and that even the mostestablished knowledge may be in need of reconsideration. Moreover, thisfinitude of understanding is treated not simply as a regrettable factof the human condition but, more importantly, as an important openingfor the pursuit of new and different meaning. In view of this positiveattitude toward the finitude of human understanding, it is no surprisethat hermeneutics opposes foundationalism.

Hermeneutics opposes what can be described as the‘vertical’ picture of knowledge at issue inepistemological foundationalism, focusing, instead, on the‘circularity’ at issue in understanding. Inepistemological foundationalism, our body of beliefs (or at least ourjustified beliefs) are sometimes said to have the structure of anedifice. Some beliefs are distinguished as foundations, ultimately,because they depend on no further beliefs for their justification;other beliefs are distinguished as founded, in that theirjustification depends on the foundational beliefs (Steup and Neta2015, Section 4.1). This is a ‘vertical’ picture of humanknowledge in that new beliefs build on established beliefs; newbeliefs are justified on the basis of already justified beliefs, andthese beliefs, in turn, are justified by still other beliefs, all theway to the foundational beliefs. Inquiry, then, is an‘upward’ pursuit, one that adds new ‘floors’to the edifice of what we already know.

1.3 The Hermeneutical Circle

In hermeneutics, by contrast, the emphasis is on the‘circularity’ of understanding. This emphasis is familiarfrom the concept of the hermeneutical circle. Central to hermeneutics,this concept is not only highly disputed but has also been developedin a number of distinct manners. Broadly, however, the concept of thehermeneutical circle signifies that, in interpretive experience, a newunderstanding is achieved not on the basis of already securely foundedbeliefs. Instead, a new understanding is achieved through renewedinterpretive attention to further possible meanings of thosepresuppositions which, sometimes tacitly, inform the understandingthat we already have.^[2]

Philosophers have described such hermeneutically circularpresuppositions in different ways and, since Heidegger, especially interms of presuppositions of the existential and historical contexts inwhich we find ourselves. This contemporary significance ofhermeneutically circular presuppositions has origins in an older (andperhaps more commonly known) formulation, namely, that interpretiveexperience—classically, that of textinterpretation—involves us in a circular relation of whole andparts. This formulation derives from antiquity and has a place in theapproaches of nineteenth-century figures such as Schleiermacher andDilthey. On the one hand, it is necessary to understand a text as awhole in order properly to understand any of its parts. On the otherhand, however, it is necessary to understand the text in each of itsparts in order to understand it as a whole.

In contemporary hermeneutics, the concept of the hermeneutical circleis rarely restricted to the context of text interpretation, and, too,the circularity of interpretive experience is not necessarily cast interms of the relation of whole and parts; indeed, even withinhermeneutics it has been challenged whether interpretive experience isreally circular (Figal 2023). Nevertheless, as Grondin suggests, thisolder formulation can help to illustrate the circular character ofinterpretive experience (2016, 299). In text interpretation soconceived, our efforts to understand a text have no firm foundationfrom which to begin. Rather, these efforts unfold alwaysin mediares, through an interpretation of the whole of a text thatproceeds from presuppositions about the parts; and, no less, throughan interpretation of the parts that proceeds from presuppositionsabout the whole. Understanding, then, is not pursued‘vertically’ by layering beliefs on top of foundations,but rather ‘circularly,’ in an interpretive movement backand forth through possible meanings of our presuppositions that byturns allow a matter to come into view. In this, the pursuit ofunderstanding does not build ‘higher and higher;’ it goes‘deeper and deeper,’ gets ‘fuller and fuller,’or, perhaps ‘richer and richer.’

2. Hermeneutics as Historical Movement

Hermeneutics, taken as a historical movement, is informed by a longerhistory that dates back to antiquity. The modern history ofhermeneutics originates with figures in nineteenth- and earlytwentieth-century German thought, especially Friedrich Schleiermacherand Wilhelm Dilthey. Research in hermeneutics today is shaped, inturn, especially by Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer, as wellas by Paul Ricoeur and others (see Palmer 1969, Grondin 1994, L.Schmidt 2006, Zimmerman 2015).

2.1 The Art of Interpretation

In accord with a common account of the modern historical origins ofhermeneutics, recognizably philosophical contributions to hermeneuticsoriginate with Friedrich Schleiermacher.^[3] Closely associated with German romanticism, Schleiermacher developedhis hermeneutics in the first decades of the nineteenth century. Heproposes a universal hermeneutics that pertains to all linguisticexperience, and not just to the interpretative concerns of specificdisciplines (Scholtz 2015, 68). Schleiermacher characterizeshermeneutics as the art of interpretation, maintaining that this artis called for not simply to avoid misunderstandings in regard tootherwise readily intelligible discourses. Rather, the art ofinterpretation is necessary for discourses, paradigmatically writtentexts, in regard to which our interpretive experience begins inmisunderstanding (Schleiermacher, “Outline,” §§15–16). Schleiermacher’s hermeneutics is multifaceted butkeyed to the idea that the success of understanding depends on theinterpretation of two sides of a discourse, the‘grammatical’ and ‘psychological’(Schleiermacher, “Outline,” §§ 5–6). Bythe ‘grammatical’ side, he means the contributions to themeaning of the discourse dependent on the general structure of thelanguage it uses. By the ‘psychological’ side, he has inview the contributions to the meaning of the discourse dependent onthe individual author’s or creator’s mind. Whereas the‘grammatical’ side of a discourse is a matter of generallinguistic structures, the ‘psychological’ side findsexpression in linguistic forms that would traditionally be associatedwith style.

Schleiermacher indicates that discourses can be differentiated bywhether they are predominated by the ‘grammatical’ or‘psychological’ and he develops methodologicalconsiderations appropriate to these sides. At the same time, though,he recognizes that the interpretation of each side is reciprocallyinformed by the other (see Schleiermacher, “Outline,”§ 11, § 12). Interpretation aims at the“reconstruction” of the meaning of a discourse, but, inthis, the task is “to understand the discourse just as well oreven better than its creator,” a task which, accordingly, is“infinite” (Schleiermacher, “Outline,” §18).

2.2 Justification of the Human Sciences

The history of the modern origins of hermeneutics includes distinctivecontributions by Wilhelm Dilthey. Whereas Schleiermacher’shermeneutics is closely associated with German romanticism,Dilthey’s considerations may be grasped in connection withhistoricism. ‘Historicism’ refers to a nineteenth- andearly twentieth-century intellectual movement that no longer treated“human nature, morality, and reason as absolute, eternal, anduniversal,” but sought, instead, to grasp these as“relative, changing and particular,” shaped by historicalcontext (Beiser 2011, 1). Dilthey’s overall (though nevercompleted) project was to establish a critique of historical reasonthat would secure independent epistemological foundations of researchin the human sciences, that is, the sciences distinguished by theirfocus on historical experience (Grondin 1994, 84–90; Bambach1995, 127–185; Makkreel 2015). In this, Dilthey’s concernis to defend the legitimacy of the human sciences against chargeseither that their legitimacy remains dependent on norms and methods ofthe natural sciences or, to his mind worse, that they lack the kind oflegitimacy found in the natural sciences altogether.

Dilthey associates the purpose of the human sciences not with theexplanation of ‘outer’ experience, but, instead, with theunderstanding of ‘lived experience’ (Erlebnis).In an important essay, “The Rise of Hermeneutics,” Diltheyaffirms that the understanding achieved in the human sciences involvesinterpretation. But this means that hermeneutics, grasped as thetheory of the universal validity of interpretation, does more than layout the rules of successful interpretive practice. Hermeneuticsclarifies the validity of the research conducted in the humansciences. Indeed, he ventures that the “main purpose” ofhermeneutics is “to preserve the general validity ofinterpretation against the inroads of romantic caprice and skepticalsubjectivity, and to give a theoretical justification of suchvalidity, upon which all the certainty of historical knowledge isfounded” (Dilthey, “The Rise of Hermeneutics,”Section V).

While Schleiermacher and Dilthey are central for the modern historicalorigins of hermeneutics, hermeneutics has also been shaped bycontributions from other figures, such as Friedrich Ast. Andhermeneutics has also been influenced by ideas about meaning, history,and language developed in the period by figures such as JohannGottfried Herder, Wilhelm von Humboldt, and Friedrich Schlegel (seeGrondin 1994; Rush 2020).

2.3 Hermeneutics Today

Hermeneutics in our times is demarcated from the modern historicalorigins of hermeneutics by the influence of a new use Heidegger makesof hermeneutics in his early phenomenological inquiries into humanexistence. In turn, contemporary hermeneutics remains largely shapedby Hans-Georg Gadamer’s ‘philosophicalhermeneutics,’ which he describes as an attempt further todevelop and expand on Heidegger’s influential breakthrough.Current research in hermeneutics also receives contour from PaulRicoeur’s contributions to hermeneutics, from philosophicalcontroversies with critical theory and deconstruction, and from theemergence of postmodern hermeneutics. Further developments includeinnovations in hermeneutics made by some philosophers in theAnglo-American tradition and the development of hermeneutics inethical and political philosophy. Most recently, further developmentsinclude a renewal of interest in normative dimensions of interpretiveexperience, and responses in hermeneutics to a recent rise of interestin realism.

3. Hermeneutics and Existence

The principal impetus for current research in hermeneutics, then, is anew use Heidegger makes of hermeneutics in his early phenomenologicalinquiries into what, inBeing and Time, he calls the‘being’ or also, the ‘existentiality,’ ofhuman ‘existence’ (Heidegger,Being and Time,§ 7, section C). Heidegger’s philosophy is oriented by thequestion of the meaning, or, sense of being (die Frage nach demSinn des Seins), but as he argues inBeing and Time,inquiry into this question itself begins with inquiry into the sensein which human beings can be said to be or exist (Heidegger,Beingand Time, §§ 1–4). Heidegger defines inquiry intothe sense of the being of human existence as hermeneutical, that is,as a matter of self-interpretation. Within this context, Heideggerleaves behind the idea that hermeneutics is primarily concerned withthe methods or foundations of research in the arts and humanities.Rather, as he argues, such hermeneutical research is itself onlypossible because human beings are, in their very being, interpretive.For Heidegger, understanding is a mode or possibility of humanexistence, and, indeed, one that is projective, oriented toward theinterpretive possibilities available to us in the situations in whichwe find ourselves (see especially Heidegger,Being and Time,§§ 31–32). Accordingly, inquiry into the sense of thebeing of human existence is enacted in our own attempts to understandour own being, as we may interpret our being through the course of ouraffairs.

Heidegger’s use of hermeneutics in the context of his earlyphenomenological inquiries into human existence can be described as abreakthrough in the historical movement of hermeneutics (Gadamer,Truth and Method, Part II.3). But Heidegger’sconsiderations also continue to be a subject of considerablediscussion, and his insights remain at issue, to a greater or lesserdegree, in a range of current philosophers and debates.Heidegger’s later works are important for hermeneuticalconsiderations of history, language, art, poetry, and translation, aswell. As Heidegger develops, however, he comes to claim that his pathsof thinking can no longer be served by hermeneutics, and his thoughtcomes to be characterized by new and different orientations.

3.1 The Hermeneutics of Facticity

Heidegger clarifies the role played by hermeneutics in his earlyphenomenological inquiries into human existence through a criticalreconsideration of Husserl’s classical phenomenology, or morespecifically, a critical reconsideration of the aspects ofHusserl’s phenomenology that rely on his transcendental andeidetic methods.^[4] In this, Heidegger opposes his own ‘hermeneutical’phenomenology against Husserl’s ‘transcendental’approach.

Husserl’s phenomenology is guided by epistemologicalconsiderations, and his principal concern is to finda priorifoundations for research in the sciences. Husserl believes that modernscience, despite all methodological and technological sophistication,has failed to account for the basic epistemic foundation on which itrelies. He maintains that this foundation may be discerned inconsciousness—not, however, in any factual consciousness or ego,but rather in the transcendental ego and itsa priori eideticstructures. He argues that phenomenological inquiry into thesestructures proceeds methodologically on the basis of what he refers toas the ‘epoché.’ Theepoché is a universal suspension of the ‘naturalattitude,’ that is, an attitude oriented by our interests inobjects which presuppose their existence. Theepochéthereby allows us to redirect our awareness to objects in theirappearance as such, without reference to such interests that involvetheir existence. In contrast with Cartesian methodological doubt, theepoché is not a doubt about the existence ofmind-independent reality, but, instead, a ‘bracketing’ ofour belief in existence that frees us to focus ona priorieidetic structures of appearance (see, for example, Husserl,Ideas I, §§ 27–32).

Heidegger’s critical reconsideration of Husserl’sphenomenology is guided not by epistemological concerns, but, instead,fundamental ontological ones. Heidegger agrees with Husserl thatmodern science has failed to account for the grounds on which itrelies, and he also turns to phenomenology in order to bring thesegrounds into focus. Yet, Heidegger believes that phenomenologyconcerns an origin much deeper than consciousness, the transcendentalego, and its eidetic structures. For him, phenomenology contributes toontology, first of all, by bringing into focus the being, or,ontological structures, that comprise human existence itself. For theearly Heidegger, these structures involve what he calls‘facticity.’ By this, he does not mean that humanexistence is a fact. Rather, he means that the ontological structuresthat comprise human existence are found not in consciousness, but,instead, in our being in the world—or, as he determines thisterminologically, being-in-the-world (in-der-Welt-sein)(Heidegger,Being and Time, § 12 ff.). Thus, ourattempts to understand ourselves (or, for that matter, to understandanything else) remain bound by structures of being in the world.Specifically, our attempts to understand ourselves (or anything else)remain conditioned by pre-structures that determine in advance whichpossibilities of a situation we find relevant, and by moods thatdetermine in advance our attunement to a situation we are“thrown” into, that is, a situation that affects us eventhough we have not chosen to be in it (Heidegger,Being andTime, §§ 28–34).

Heidegger, on the basis of his consideration of the facticity of humanexistence, concludes that it would be a fool’s errand forphenomenological inquiry to proceed on the basis of Husserl’sepoché. After all, theepoché merelyallows us to reflect ona priori eidetic structures ofconsciousness, when what we should be after are structures of ourbeing in the world. Heidegger argues that phenomenological inquiryshould begin instead with consideration of these structures of beingin the world as they come into view through our own involvement in theworld. Heidegger’s phenomenology proves to beself-interpretation, as it seeks to clarify the structure of being inthe world on the basis of nothing else than our own individualexperience of being in the world. Thus, phenomenology unfolds as theexplication of the structures of being in the world that, initially atleast, we experience more or less vaguely, more or less tacitly, inour own everyday involvements with things and others. InHeidegger’s critical reconsideration of Husserl’sphenomenology, hermeneutics is a possibility of human existence itselfand, indeed, a possibility that aims at our explication of ourselvesin our very existence.

Heidegger’s conception of a ‘hermeneutical’phenomenology helps set the stage for the approaches to hermeneuticsdeveloped by Gadamer, Ricoeur, and others. Heidegger’sconception has also proved to be an impetus for current research on atension between what some take to be basic tenets of phenomenology andhermeneutics. On the one hand, a basic tenet of classical Husserlianphenomenology is that our experience is grounded in intuition,ultimately, then, in the immediacy of givenness. On the other hand, asHeidegger’s approach suggests, our experience always involvesthe mediation of interpretation. In response to this tension, some havetried to reconcile phenomenological and hermeneutical claims aboutexperience. For example, Claude Romano (2015), Jean-Luc Marion (2013),and Robert Dostal (2022) have argued, each in rather differentmanners, that while all experience begins with givenness, ourexperience is only fully realized through interpretation. And,Hans-Helmut Gander (2017) has examined the possibility ofself-understanding in light of the tension between Husserlian andHeideggerian approaches in phenomenology.

3.2 Difficulties of Self-Interpretation

Heidegger maintains that our attempts at the self-interpretation ofour existence is fraught with difficulties. One reason, he believes,is that structures of being in the world are made inconspicuous by thevery involvement in the world that they enable. He famously makes thiscase in the course of his phenomenological considerations of the waywe find human existence “initially and for the most part,”namely, in the undifferentiated “averageness” of everydayexistence (Heidegger,Being and Time, 43; § 20). In thisaverageness of everyday existence, Heidegger argues, the structure ofthe world is given through the purposes we have, the referentialrelations that comprise the situations in which we attempt to realizethese ends, and the things we employ in the service of these ends. Inthe averageness of everyday existence, our access to this structure isgranted not through reflection on it but, instead, through ourordinary affairs, as we cognize the structure indirectly through thethings (Zeuge, useful things or tools) that we employ tocarry out our projects (Heidegger,Being and Time,§§ 14–18; see also Heidegger,Ontology,§ 20). Yet, as he argues, in this form of cognizance,“circumspection” (Umsicht), the structure of theworld itself recedes from view precisely by our absorption in thoseprojects (Heidegger,Being and Time, 69).

Heidegger maintains that the self-interpretation of existence is madedifficult, moreover, because being in the world always also entailsbeing with others. In this, Heidegger argues that in the averagenessof everyday existence, we tend to interpret ourselves not by whatindividuates us from others, but, instead, by what can be attributedindifferently to anyone. Such interpretations may be attractivebecause accessible to anyone, but they come at the price of beingdistorting and reductive. In the averageness of everyday existence,the sense of self that comes into focus through self-interpretation isnot a self in its singular possibilities to be. It is rather a senseof self characterized by circumscribed possibilities, which, forHeidegger, finds expression in the pronoun ‘they,’ or‘one’ (das Man)—so that we interpret ourown possibilities restrictively in terms of what ‘one’thinks, what ‘one’ does, and no more (see HeideggerBeing and Time, § 27; see also Heidegger,Ontology, § 6).

Another, related difficulty of self-interpretation concerns thehistorical transmission of interpretations. In this, Heideggermaintains that, as interpretations of being and the being of existenceare passed down from tradition, the “original sources” ofconcrete, existential concern at issue in these interpretations cometo be covered over (Heidegger,Ontology, 59). Indeed, forthis reason, Heidegger calls for a “destruction” or,perhaps, ‘de-structuration’ (Destruktion) of suchinterpretations that have been passed down from the history of Westernphilosophy (see Heidegger,Being and Time, §6). This, tobe sure, is a call that has important implications for the study ofthe history of philosophy, one that has been influential forphilosophers such as Jacques Derrida, John Sallis, and ClaudiaBaracchi. In view of the implications of Heidegger’s call for‘de-structuration,’ the point of studying philosophersfrom the past is not simply to clarify well-worn ideas about them, butto break through such ideas, wresting from these philosophers ideasthat are oriented by the original existential concerns that animatedtheir thought in the first place.

4. Contemporary Hermeneutics

Contemporary hermeneutics is largely shaped by Hans-GeorgGadamer’s ‘philosophical hermeneutics.’Gadamer’s approach is guided by the insight that the success ofunderstanding involves a distinctive experience of truth. Consider,once more, the example of coming to understand something through aninterpretation of Thucydides’History of the PeloponnesianWar, namely, that in politics, prudent reasoning is not alwayspersuasive enough to stem the tide of war. When I come to understandthis, so goes Gadamer’s insight, I experience what I understandnot only as a novel or enriching idea. More than this, I experiencewhat I have understood as something that makes a claim to be true.Thus, to understand something means to understand something as true.The chief issue of Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics is toclarify that such a hermeneutical experience of truth is not onlyvalid in its own right, but that it is distinct from, and even moreoriginal than, the sense of truth at issue in knowledge securedthrough the norms and methods of modern science. Indeed, it isprecisely this concern that Gadamer’s title of hismagnumopus is meant to evoke: his philosophical hermeneutics focuses ona hermeneutical experience oftruth that cannot be derivedfrom scientificmethod.

4.1 Humanism and Art

Thepoint de départ for Gadamer’s philosophicalhermeneutics is the concern that the success of the scientific methodhas alienated us from the validity of the truth at issue ininterpretive experience. Philosophical hermeneutics therefore beginswith an attempt to recover the sense of truth at issue in interpretiveexperience by focusing our attention on motifs from the tradition ofhumanism and on the ontology of art. Gadamer’s considerations ofmotifs from the tradition of humanism are oriented by Weimarclassicism and its legacy in nineteenth-century German intellectuallife. His account helps us to recover the validity of an experience oftruth that is not measured by scientific method but that, instead,depends on our education, grasped as formation (Bildung)through formal education and experience, as well as the concordantcultivation of capacities, such as common sense (sensuscommunis), judgment, and taste (Gadamer,Truth andMethod, Part I.1.B).

Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics upholds that the primaryexample of the hermeneutical experience of truth is found in ourencounters with art. Gadamer believes this becomes clear once weovercome modern assumptions about the subjectivity of aestheticexperience, in which the being of art is reduced to that of animmediately present object that, in turn, has the property ofproducing affects, such as aesthetic pleasure, in a subject. In hishermeneutics, by contrast, the being of art is rather a matter of arealization or “enactment” (Vollzug) that weparticipate in (Gadamer,Truth and Method, 103). Theexperience of an artwork unfolds as an event of interpretation that,when it is a success, allows us to recognize something that purportsor claims to be true.

In Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics, the treatment of theexperience of art is expansive, but a synopsis of his definitiveformulation fromTruth and Method is instructive. Gadamer,first, introduces the theme of ‘play,’ or, of the‘game’ (Spiel) to emphasize that the experienceof art is an event of interpretation that exceeds the subjectiveintentions or interests of those involved in it (Gadamer,Truthand Method, Part I.II.1.A). Insofar as we agree to play a game,we give ourselves over to the context of meaning that comprises thegame. We allow ourselves to be oriented by the norms that govern, andthus enable but never determine, those thoughts and actions which areappropriate to the playing of the game. Likewise, when we participatein an experience of an artwork, we give ourselves over to the contextof meaning that comprises the work, and, thus, allow our interpretiveexperience to be governed by the limits and possibilities ofinterpretation appropriate to the work. When we experience aperformance of Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona’sThe Island, for example, we allow our interpretive experienceto be governed by limits and possibilities of interpretation that haveto do with apartheid-era South Africa, Robben Island Prison, andparallels with Sophocles’Antigone.

Gadamer maintains that in our experience of art, such play culminatesin what he calls ‘transformation into structure.’ By this,he means that our experience of art comes to be that of a work,grasped in its ‘ideality’ or meaningfulness, indistinction from the activities involved in its presentation (such asthe activity of actors presenting a drama). With our experience ofsuch a ‘transformation into structure,’ the work of artallows us to recognize something as true (Gadamer,Truth andMethod, Part I.II.1.B). He describes this interpretive experienceof truth as a process of mediation, by which a claim of truth at issuein an artwork comes into view through the repeated projection andsupersession of inadequate interpretations, until such mediationbecomes sufficient, or ‘total.’ There is, as anyone whohas experienced an artwork will confirm, no method to ensure thesuccess of this process of repeated projection and supersession;success depends on the quality of our interpretive work. The qualityof our work can be enlarged through the formation of our capacitiessuch as common sense, judgment, and taste. Of course, such formationmay itself be described as circular. After all, we enlarge thesecapacities that allow us to interpret artworks among other things,though our repeated efforts to interpret artworks.

4.2 Tradition and Prejudice

Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics proceeds on the basis ofthese considerations of humanism and art as an attempt to establishthe essential elements of the hermeneutical experience of truth.^[5] In this, the hermeneutical experience of truth is conditioned bytradition andlanguage.

The claim that the hermeneutical experience of truth is conditioned bytradition is not reducible to concern for determining, say, what anartist or an authortook to be true through a reconstructionof the author’s or artist’s intention, the historicalcontext of the artwork or text under consideration, or both. Quite tothe contrary, the hermeneutical experience of truth concerns somethingthat holds true for our own existence. Rather, then, the hermeneuticalexperience of truth is conditioned by tradition in the sense that itis limited and made possible by the historical transmission ofmeaning. The claim that the hermeneutical experience of truth isconditioned by tradition stresses the sense of the etymologicalorigins of the word ‘tradition’ in the Latintrāditiōn- (stem oftrāditiō), ahanding over, delivery or handing down of knowledge (OED2020, “tradition, n.”). This claim also stresses the senseof Gadamer’s German term for tradition,Überlieferung, which, translated literally, means a‘delivering over.’ In this, the hermeneutical experienceof truth involves belonging to a historical tradition. Contrary to acommon misconception of Gadamerian philosophical hermeneutics,traditions are not monoliths. Traditions are more likeprocesses—idiomatic, dynamic, and evolving—that, to borrowfrom Whitman, “contain multitudes” (Whitman,Song ofMyself, Sec. 51). Accordingly, to belong to a tradition is notfirst to possess an identity derived from a cultural or ethnicheritage; it is, rather, to be a participant in a movement of handingdown, delivering over, and transformation.

In Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics, the hermeneuticalexperience of truth, as conditioned by tradition, is thus a matter ofprejudice. Gadamer clarifies the meaning of ‘prejudice’ inreference to the early Heidegger. Gadamer agrees with Heidegger thathuman existence is characterized by facticity, so that understanding,or, our projection of possibilities, is oriented by‘pre-structures’ that are a matter of thrownness. Yet,such ‘pre-structures’ are best described as‘prejudices’ because they concern more than the individualsituations that comprise our existence. These‘pre-structures’ are shaped by the larger context ofhistorically inherited meanings that remain operative, or, in effect,in such situations of our individual existence in the first place(Gadamer,Truth and Method, Part II.II.1.A).

Tradition, so conceived, proves to be a legitimate source of authorityfor the hermeneutical experience of truth. Gadamer’sphilosophical hermeneutics thus comprises a counterpoint to therejection of the authority of tradition in modern science. Gadamerassociates this rejection above all with the “prejudice againstprejudice” developed in the European Enlightenment (Gadamer,Truth and Method, 270). In this, themotto of theEnlightenment is that we should think for ourselves, basing ourbeliefs in our own use of reason and not the authority of tradition,whether this authority is conceived in terms of superstition,religious or aristocratic rule, or custom. Gadamer recognizes that theEnlightenment charge to think for ourselves is legitimate, but he doesnot believe it follows from this that tradition cannot be a source oftruth. He writes,

The Enlightenment’s distinction between faith in authority andusing one’s own reason is, in itself, legitimate. If theprestige of authority displaces one’s own judgment, thenauthority is in fact a source of prejudices. But this does notpreclude its being a source of truth, and that is what theEnlightenment failed to see when it denigrated all authority (Gadamer,Truth and Method, 279).

In Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics, the experience of truthdoes not demand that we liberate ourselves from the authority oftradition, but, on the contrary, recognizes tradition as a possiblesource of our claims of truth. To be sure, tradition is not thereforea foundation of claims to truth. Tradition is, after all, a process oftransmission, which is ultimately “ungroundable” and“underivable” (Gadamer,Truth and Method, 254,translation modified).^[6] Yet, even if it is not a foundation, tradition is a legitimateinterpretive wellspring, in the sense that it makes possible andshapes all understanding.

4.3 Effective History

The hermeneutical experience of truth is, therefore, governed by the“principle of history of effect” (Gadamer,Truth andMethod, Part II.II.B.iv). This means that our attempts tounderstand are always guided more by tradition, and thus prejudice,than we are able to make explicit to ourselves. This principle, asGadamer maintains, has important normative implications forinterpretive experience. These implications follow from the fact thatit is impossible to become completely self-conscious of the prejudicesoperative in our attempts to understand. As Gadamer puts the point inan ontological register, “to be historically means thatknowledge of oneself can never be complete” (Gadamer,Truth and Method, 302). Because of this, the experience oftruth leads not to self-certainty, but to the insight that we shouldproceed always with a Delphic self-knowledge of our limits.

Such Delphic self-knowledge should carry over to our assessment ofknowledge secured by modern science, as well. For, as Gadamer puts thepoint, “when a naïve faith in scientific method denies theexistence of effective history, there can be an actual deformation ofknowledge” (Gadamer,Truth and Method, 301). This isevident, first, from the humanistic study of the history of science.After all, it seems reasonable to believe that knowledge based on thebest results of science today may well have the same fate as nowdiscredited knowledge which originated in the best results ofscientific research from earlier times. It is also evident that weshould carry over Delphic self-knowledge to our assessment ofscientific knowledge, second, from the fact that scientific inquiry isalways guided by more prejudice than can be kept in check by anymethod: for example, in the selection of research questions, inhypothesis formation, and in any number of metaphysical (or other)assumptions tacitly or unconsciously used to characterize objects ofinquiry.

Gadamer maintains that the normative implications of the‘principle of history of effect’ mean that in ourinterpretive experience, we should attempt always to expand ourhorizons. By horizon, Gadamer has in mind the “range” ofour capacity to understand (Gadamer,Truth and Method, 302),as this is made possible and limited by the breadth and depth of whatwe have already come to understand in our lives. In this concept ofhorizon, it is not difficult to hear the echo of the humanisticsensibility that interpretive experience iseducative. Ourhorizon is the formation we have achieved through our interpretiveexperience, both from our formal education and from ourlife-experience. Thus, the normative demand of interpretive experienceis always to become more educated.

Gadamer describes the expansion of our horizons as a “fusion ofhorizons” (Gadamer,Truth and Method, 306). This termis perhaps misleading, however, because it can be mistaken to signifythat an interpreter has a distinct ‘horizon’ that is thenexpanded through the assimilation of another distinct horizon, say,that of a text we are interpreting. Really, though, what Gadamer meansis that in interpretive experience, our attempts to understand can andshould lead us to recognize that our own horizon is not as insular ornarrow as we first thought. Rather, we can and should come torecognize that our horizon belongs to a larger context of thehistorical transmission of meaning, so that when we come to understandsomething, we are thereby raised “to a higher level ofuniversality that overcomes not only our own particularity but alsothat of the other” (Gadamer,Truth and Method, 305). Inthis, ‘fusion’ signifies something closer to the verbalform of Gadamer’sVerschmelzung, that isverschmeltzen, to melt together. We expand our horizonsthrough interpretive experience that melts away at the rigidity of ourhorizon, so that we can see how it melts into and mixes with a largermovement of transmission.

4.4 Language

The hermeneutical experience of truth is conditioned by not onlytradition but also language. In Gadamer’s philosophicalhermeneutics, the relation of truth to language is described inreference to being. Gadamer expresses this relation in a celebratedmotto, “being that can be understood is language”(Gadamer,Truth and Method, 474).^[7] According to thismotto, language is primarily a‘medium’ that shows us the being, or meaningful order, ofthe world and the things we encounter in it (Gadamer,Truth andMethod, Part III.1).^[8] Thus, language is only secondarily an instrument that we use, amongother things, to represent something, communicate about it, or makeassertions about it. The experience of language as a medium takesplace in what Gadamer calls “hermeneuticalconversation” (Gadamer,Truth and Method, 388).The primary example of such hermeneutical conversation is aconversation between interlocutors about something; but, he believesthat hermeneutical conversation also includes all interpretiveexperience, so that the interpretation of artworks and texts isconceived as a conversation between the interpreter and work about thesubject matter of the work. In hermeneutical conversation,interlocutors may, of course, use language to represent, communicateor make assertions. More originally, however, hermeneuticalconversation concerns the being of the matter under consideration.Hermeneutical conversation is thus an event of interlocution that aimsto show something in its being, as it genuinely or truly is.

The hermeneutical experience of truth can be described as the successof conversation so conceived. But, in this, truth is not experiencedas a matter of “correctness,” or as this may be clarified,a matter of correct predication (Gadamer,Truth and Method,406). In the experience of truth as correct predication, truth istypically conceived as the property of a proposition, statement orutterance that suitably connects a subject with a predicate. In thehermeneutical experience of truth, by contrast, the concern is notwith correct predication in this sense but, instead, withconversation, grasped as an event of interlocution concerned with thebeing of a subject itself. In such a conversation, truth is reached,if it is reached, not when a subject is suitably connected withsomething else, but, instead, when the subject is sufficiently shownin its own being, as it truly is. The measure of such sufficiency isestablished not in advance, but is achieved in the course ofconversation along with the claim of truth that it measures.

Philosophical hermeneutics maintains that the experience of truth ascorrect predication is dependent on the hermeneutical experience oftruth. This is because in truth as correctness, the proper connectionof subject and predicate depends in part on the being of the subject.In predication, the being of the subject is typically either left outof account or is presumed already to be determined or interpreted.But, the being of the subject—what it truly is—is a matterof interpretation. In illustration, we may consider the fictionalconversation presented by Plato in theRepublic amongSocrates, Glaucon and other interlocutors about justice. In conclusionof our interpretive experience, we may assert the proposition,‘justice is nearly impossible to achieve!’ But, whetherthis predicate can be connected with the subject of justice in thismanner will depend, ultimately, on the being of justice, and the truthof the being of justice will depend, in turn, on an interpretation ofit. Truth as correct predication, then, depends on the truth of thebeing of something, and such truth is a matter of interpretation.

Finally, in Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics, it is claimedthat the hermeneutical experience of truth is ‘universal.’This does not mean that the hermeneutical experience of truth takesplace every time we converse about something. Rather, it means thatthe hermeneutical experience of truth remains always a problem,whenever we wish to understand something, and even when a conversationculminates in an experience of truth. Each hermeneutical experience oftruth remains open to further interpretation (see Gadamer, “TheUniversality of the Hermeneutical Problem”).

5. Symbol, Metaphor, and Narrative

Current research in hermeneutics receives further contour from PaulRicoeur’s considerations of language, and especially oflinguistic forms such as symbolism, metaphor, and narrative. Ricoeurtakes orientation from the claim of the early Heidegger’shermeneutical phenomenology that self-understanding is, in the end, tobe grasped in ontological terms. Self-understanding is theself-interpretation of human existence, grasped as the enactment ofthe distinctive possibility of such existence. Ricoeur, however,proposes a hermeneutical phenomenology that, as he puts it in animportant early essay, ‘grafts’ hermeneutics tophenomenology in a different manner than Heidegger proposes (Ricoeur,“Existence and Hermeneutics,” 6). Heidegger believes thatfor the self-interpretation of human existence, the interpretations ofthe human condition found in the human sciences are derivative; whatis called for is an analysis of the sense of being, or, thestructures, of human existence as these are disclosed through our ownindividual being in the world. Ricoeur criticizes Heidegger’sproposal as a “short route,” or perhaps better, short cut,that bypasses the significance for our self-interpretation of themultiple and even conflicting interpretations of the human conditionfound in other disciplines and areas of philosophy (Ricoeur,“Existence and Hermeneutics,” 6). He proposes, instead, ahermeneutical phenomenology that embraces a “long route”of self-interpretation, one that is mediated by passing throughhermeneutical considerations of these multiple and conflictinginterpretations (Ricoeur, “Existence and Hermeneutics,”6).

Ricoeur’s contributions are notoriously difficult to reduce to aspecific position or otherwise categorize, in part because hepracticed what he preached. In his career, his route toself-understanding was influenced by reflexive philosophy, Husserl andHeidegger, French structuralism, as well as by contemporaryAnglo-American philosophy (see Ricoeur “OnInterpretation,” 12–15). Moreover, his inquiries rangeover topics in areas as diverse as religion, anthropology, psychology,history, and literature. His contributions to hermeneutics are perhapsespecially characterized, however, by the concern, first, forpossibilities of the mediating role of language to establish criticaldistance in interpretive experience and, second, by his focus on thesignificance of interpretive experience for ethical and politicalagency.

In an early formulation of what he has in mind by the hermeneutical‘long route’ to self-understanding, Ricoeur maintains thatthe pursuit of self-understanding has to be mediated by hermeneuticalconsiderations of semantic structures of interpretation that arecommon to research across the human sciences (Ricoeur,“Existence and Hermeneutics,” 11). In this,Ricoeur’s approach is “organized around the central themeof meaning with multiple or multivocal senses…” or, whathe calls “symbolic senses” (Ricoeur, “Existence andHermeneutics,” 11). This involves a novel conception ofinterpretation itself. Traditionally in hermeneutics, the purpose ofinterpretation is thought of as making apparent the single, unitarymeaning of something. Ricoeur, by contrast, stresses that the aim ofinterpretation also includes making apparent the plurality of meaningsat issue in a speech act or text. He writes,“Interpretation…is the work of thought which consists indeciphering the hidden meaning in the apparent meaning, in unfoldinglevels of meaning implied in the literal meaning” (Ricoeur,“Existence and Hermeneutics,” 13).

Ricoeur explains that the itinerary of the hermeneutical long route toself-understanding passes through an analysis of a broad range ofsymbolic forms, such as the “cosmic” symbolism revealed bythe phenomenology of religion, the symbolic character of“desire” revealed by psychoanalysis, and the symbolicforms revealed by the study of literature and the arts (Ricoeur,“Existence and Hermeneutics,” 13). In hisFreud andPhilosophy: An Essay on Interpretation, Ricoeur describes Freud,along with Nietzsche and Marx, as a master of the ‘hermeneuticsof suspicion.’ With this widely referenced idea, Ricoeur arguesthat interpretation, as a ‘deciphering of hidden meaning in theapparent meaning,’ takes on a critical function by exposingrepressed or distorted meaning that lies beneath the surface ofcommonly accepted meaning.

Later in his career, Ricoeur’s considerations of thehermeneutical long route to self-understanding shift attention from asemantics of symbols to considerations of metaphor and especiallynarrative. Ricoeur’s considerations of metaphor build from theclaim that metaphor should be grasped not first as the substitution ofone conventional name for a different one, but, instead, as a“peculiar predication,” one “consisting in theattribution to logical subjects of predicates that are incompossiblewith them” (Ricoeur, “On Interpretation,” 8).Crucial for Ricoeur is that metaphorical predication thus not onlyconcerns what Frege called ‘sense’ but also‘reference.’ Metaphors are linguistic innovations thatallow us to refer to aspects of reality for which words are otherwiseunavailable (Ricoeur, “On Interpretation,” 10).

Ricoeur maintains that narrative, too, concerns both sense andreference, but on a different scale. By narrative, he has in mind“the diverse forms and modes of the game of storytelling”(Ricoeur, “On Interpretation,” 2) and in his three-volumetreatiseTime and Narrative, he focuses on the role ofnarrative not only in literary fiction but also in the recounting ofhistory. He argues that while there are a diversity of forms and modesof narrative, all narratives nevertheless perform a common function,namely, they mark, organize, and clarify temporal experience (Ricoeur,“On Interpretation,” 2). In this, he claims that innarrative the work of such schematization of temporal experience isachieved by the composition of the plot, or, emplotment. Throughnarrative emplotment, we make apparent the meaning of persons,relations, and events that comprise human affairs—say, infiction, those that can happen, and in history, those that havehappened. Crucial for Ricoeur is that narrative emplotment isreferential; as he makes the point in regard to fiction, “theplots we invent help us to shape our confused, formless, and in thelast resort mute temporal experience” (Ricoeur, “OnInterpretation,” 6).

Ricoeur maintains, however, that the referential function of narrativeis not simply to assert something about the world but has implicationsfor ethical and political life. In fiction, narrative emplotment notonly helps us evaluate the meaning of human actions, but, moreover,contributes to the creation of “the horizon of a new relatingthat we may call a world” (Ricoeur, “OnInterpretation,” 10; see also Ricoeur, “Imagination inDiscourse and Action”). In so doing, fiction refers topossibilities of reality that can orient our agency and contribute toour efforts to reshape reality.

6. Philosophical Controversies

The development of hermeneutics since Gadamer forwarded his‘philosophical hermeneutics’ inTruth and Methodhas been fostered by philosophical controversies about theconsequences of his project. The most celebrated of thesecontroversies are about the consequences of philosophical hermeneuticsin relation to critical theory and to deconstruction.^[9] Although philosophical interest in these controversies is extensive,in each case, discussion arises in close connection with Gadamerhimself. In the case of the controversy in relation to criticaltheory, discussion originates between Jürgen Habermas and Gadamerover the problem of critique, or, more specifically, the critique ofideology. In the case of the controversy in relation todeconstruction, discussion originates between Jacques Derrida andGadamer. While the discussion between Derrida and Gadamer is itselflayered and gives rise to new questions over time, it concerns,consequentially, the question of whether the success of understandingresults in a genuine determinate meaning.

Gadamer’s engagements with Habermas and Derrida themselves aresometimes hailed as examples, or perhaps case studies, ofGadamer’s own conception of hermeneutical conversation. Gadamerhas claimed that such conversation proceeds always from“recognizing in advance the possibility that your partner isright, even recognizing the possible superiority of yourpartner” (Gadamer, “Reflections on My PhilosophicalJourney,” 36). Gadamer famously puts this belief into practicein his discussions with both Habermas and Derrida, and the legacy ofthese debates plays an important role in Gadamer’s subsequentthinking.

6.1 Hermeneutics and Critical Theory

One important controversy about the consequences of Gadamer’sphilosophical hermeneutics, then, concerns whether it offers a basisfor the critique of ideology. This concern is raised with emphasis bythe critical theorist Jürgen Habermas. Habermas, building onHegel, Marx and Engels, as well as his original theory of recognitionand communication, maintains that an ideology is a nexus of politicaldoctrines, beliefs, and attitudes that distort the political realitiesthey purport to describe. Accordingly, ideologies reinforce equallydistorted power relations that, in turn, prevent the openness ofdiscussion that is necessary for legitimate democratic politicaldeliberation and decision-making (see Sypnowich 2019, Sec. 2). In viewof this, one purpose of critical theory is to establish a basis tocritique ideology. Habermas and other critical theorists sought abasis of critique with the ability to expose even some of our mostcherished political doctrines, beliefs, and attitudes as ideologicaldistortions that result from forms of domination passed down fromtradition.

Habermas raises the objection against Gadamer’s philosophicalhermeneutics that the hermeneutical experience of truth offers toolittle basis for such critique (see Habermas, “The UniversalityClaim of Hermeneutics”).^[10] Habermas raises the objection that philosophical hermeneutics, withits adherence to the authority of tradition, leaves no room for thecritique of ideologies entrenched in the historically transmittedprejudices on which our experience of truth relies. Moreover, as wemight accordingly worry, what Gadamer describes as the hermeneuticalexperience of truth might not be an experience of truth at all, but,rather, a distorted communication that is complicit in ideology, sincethe so-called truth results from a conversation that might not beopen, but oriented by prejudices that reinforce inherited relations ofdomination.

While the influence of Habermas’s objection is extensive,Gadamer has mounted rejoinders on behalf of his philosophicalhermeneutics (see “Reply to My Critics”; see also“What is Practice? The Conditions of Social Reason”). Thethrust of Gadamer’s argument is, first, that it is actuallyHabermas’s position, not his own, that remains uncritical, sinceit is naïve to believe in the possibility of a basis of critiquethat is somehow not subject to the authority of tradition. And,Gadamer stresses, second, that the hermeneutical experience of truthis no blind acceptance of the authority of tradition. Rather, as heargues, interpretive experience remains critical, in that suchexperience unfolds precisely though the questioning what aspects ofour prejudices remain valid and which have become invalid for mattersof concern to us now.

6.2 Hermeneutics and Deconstruction

A further important controversy about the consequences ofGadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics arises in the context ofDerrida’s project of deconstruction. While the relation betweenhermeneutics and deconstruction is complex, pivotal for thecontroversy is whether the success of understanding really achieves adeterminate meaning. Gadamer, as we have seen, maintains that thesuccess of understanding is to understand something in its being, asit genuinely or truly is. Moreover, we experience such a truth as aclaim, one that we can agree or disagree with, and that purports to bejustified by the interpretive experience which first gives rise to it.Yet, as we may now observe, Gadamer’s notion of the success ofunderstanding thereby trusts in the authenticity of our own experiencethat we really have come to understand something determinately, or, inany case, determinately enough that it makes a claim of truth.Derrida’s deconstruction poses a challenge to this idea becauseDerrida argues that discursive experience is governed by anoperation—or, perhaps better, a structure ofinoperativity—that would preclude the possibility ofunderstanding something with such determinacy (see Lawlor 2019).

Derrida clarifies the character of this structure of inoperativity interms of a number of concepts over the course of his career, butperhaps none are more influential than that of“différance” (see Derrida,“Différance”). Derrida describesdifférance as a twofold structure of difference anddeferral. Building on terms from Saussure’s linguistics,différance thus indicates, first of all, that indiscursive experience, determining the meaning of something remainsbeyond our reach because linguistic signs present what they aresupposed to signify neverper se but always onlyheterogeneously through signifiers. Anddifféranceindicates, furthermore, that since this heterogeneity cannot besuperseded, our attempts to determine the meaning of something remaininterminably in deferral (Derrida, “Différance”).Because discursive experience is thus imbued with heterogeneity, ourattempts to determine the meaning of something remain alwaysincomplete, and never fully under our control because subject to afree play of signs (see Derrida, “Différance,”“Structure, Sign and Play”).

Derrida’s deconstruction poses a challenge to Gadamer’snotion of the success of understanding as a hermeneutical experienceof truth. Gadamer, as we have said, trusts that our experience oftruth really involves a determinate claim. Derrida’sconsiderations suggest, however, that such trust is misplaced. If, inthe success of understanding, our experience purports to involve adeterminate claim to truth, then our experience of this determinacymust be misguided, since the possibility of determinacy is precludedin advance bydifférance. As Derrida puts the pointduring the 1981 initial meeting with Gadamer, “I am notconvinced that we ever really have this experience that ProfessorGadamer describes, of knowing in a dialogue that one has beenperfectly understood or experiencing the success ofconfirmation” (Derrida, “Three Questions to Hans-GeorgGadamer,” 54). Indeed, in an important early essay, Derridamaintains that the pursuit of success of such a kind is not merelymisguided, but a symptom of our suppression, perhaps repression, of ananxiety about the insuperable role of heterogeneity involved in allinterpretive experience (Derrida, “Structure Sign andPlay,” 292).

Gadamer takes up the challenge posed by Derrida’s deconstructionnot primarily as an objection to his hermeneutics but, instead, as animpetus to dedicate renewed attention to the role played by differencein interpretive experience. After all, even though philosophicalhermeneutics does not involve the technical notion ofdifférance, Gadamer’s hermeneutics makes spacefor difference in important regards. First, Gadamer certainlyrecognizes that every determinate claim of truth remains open tofurther interpretation. And, second, he recognizes that thehermeneutical experience of a determine claim of truth is itself alegacy of difference, since interpretive experience unfolds in thefree play of conversation. Gadamer’s response to the challengeposed by deconstruction unfolds in attempts to expand and deepen theseand related considerations of the role played by difference ininterpretive experience. Gadamer develops this response in a number ofessays, and is led to develop hermeneutical considerations of a numberof themes brought into focus by his encounter with Derrida, such asthe significance of what he calls the eminent text (see for exampleGadamer, “Hermeneutics Tracking the Trace,” and“Text and Interpretation”). Matters of central concern forthe philosophical controversy between hermeneutics and deconstructionhave also been further developed by several philosophers associatedwith hermeneutics, such as John Caputo (1987), James Risser (1997),Donatella di Cesare (2003), Figal (2010) and others.

7. Postmodern Hermeneutics

The rise of postmodernism has proved to be an important impetus fordevelopments within hermeneutics. While ‘postmodernism’signifies a number of things, of particular influence in philosophy isJean-François Lyotard’s definition of postmodernism as an“incredulity toward metanarratives” (Lyotard,Postmodern Condition, xxiv). By ‘metanarrative,’Lyotard has in mind foundational stories of modern Western philosophy,especially as these foundational stories function to legitimatediscourses in the sciences (Lyotard,Postmodern Condition,34). Examples of metanarratives include, say, stories about theobjectivity of science or stories about how science contributes to ourprogress toward a better society.

Lyotard sees both a danger and a possibility in the postmodernrejection of metanarratives. Lyotard maintains that postmodernincredulity toward metanarratives has resulted, first, in theincreased danger that our valuation of knowledge will be reduced toone, totalizing standard, namely, that of an “informationcommodity” produced and exchanged for the accumulation of wealthand power (Lyotard,Postmodern Condition, 5). But, hebelieves, the postmodern incredulity toward metanarratives hasresulted in a new possibility, too, of liberating the creation ofnarrative meaning from the need to establish legitimatingfoundations.

Philosophers of postmodernism have sought to clarify such a postmodernpossibility for the creation of meaning through the development ofhermeneutics (see Vattimo,Beyond Interpretation, GaryMadison 1989, John D. Caputo 1987, 2018; for a creative interventionin postmodern hermeneutics, see Davey 2006). In this, hermeneuticsplaces stress on the possibility of interpretive experience to producenew meaning and shifts away from concerns about truth, being, andexistence.

Probably the most influential conception of postmodern hermeneutics isembodied in Gianni Vattimo’s notion of ‘weakthought.’ Vattimo’s hermeneutics is influenced not only byfigures such as Gadamer and Heidegger, but also Nietzsche, as well asthe important Italian philosopher Luigi Pareyson (see Benso, 2018). By‘weak thought,’ Vattimo has in mind interpretive practicesthat incrementally diminish the efficacy of narratives about thepurported ‘being’ of things that have been passed downfrom the tradition of Western metaphysics. Vattimo embraces thepostmodern possibility to liberate the creation of meaning from anyneeds for foundation or legitimacy. Building on Heidegger andNietzsche, Vattimo argues that despite all postmodern incredulity,narratives passed down about the purported ‘being’ ofthings continue to be in effect, often tacitly, in a broad range ofour current beliefs and practices. What is then called for areinterpretive practices that loosen the hold of these narratives, andthus expose that what they have to say about the ‘being’of things are not eternal verities but, instead, mockups that aresubject to interpretive revision.

Vattimo, then, defines interpretive experience not in Gadamerian termsof a conversation that brings something into focus in its being, as itgenuinely is. Rather, he conceives of interpretive experience as apractice of recovery, even convalescence (Verwindung), thatdiminishes the effects of interpretations of metaphysical conceptionsof ‘being’ passed down from Western metaphysics (Vattimo,The End of Modernity, 11). On his view, such a recoveryrequires a distinctiveremembrance that engages traditionwhile twisting free from inherited metaphysical assumptions (Vattimo,The End of Modernity, 115); moreover, such recovery involvesa likewise distinctivefaithfulness (pietas) whichhonors interpretive possibilities made available from the past withoutthereby acquiescing to the authority of tradition (See Vattimo,Weak Thought; see also Moro 2024). Indeed, Vattimo associatesthe possibility to liberate meaning through weak thought as thepursuit of what he calls ‘accomplished nihilism,’ in thatweak thought seeks to unmask every metaphysical conception of‘being’ which purports to be more than the result of aninterpretation (see Vattimo,Beyond Interpretation,TheEnd of Modernity).

8. Further Developments

Research in hermeneutics is perhaps more diverse now than at any otherperiod in the historical movement. Current research brings into focusthe relation of hermeneutics to a range of topics in contemporaryphilosophy and the history of philosophy (Forster and Gjesdal 2019).Current research has begun to expand interest in hermeneuticalconsiderations to contexts such as semantic theory (Da Via and Lynch2024), social epistemology (see Culbertson 2024), feminist philosophy(see Warnke 2015), comparative philosophy (see, for example, Nelson2017), philosophy of embodiment (see, for example, Kearney 2015),Latin American philosophy (see, for example, Vallega 2019), andcurrent topics in aesthetics (see Nielson 2023). While it isimpossible to gather all directions of current research in a shortarticle, some further developments have received particularattention.

8.1 Hermeneutics in Anglo-American Philosophy

Hermeneutics, grasped as a historical movement, is typicallyassociated with continental European traditions of thought and thereception of these traditions in the global context. This receptionhas included contributions to the development of hermeneutics made bynoteworthy Anglo-American philosophers. Hermeneutics has been adoptedby Richard Rorty, has been connected with the later Wittgenstein andDavidson, and has also been taken up by philosophers associated withthe so-called ‘Pittsburgh school,’ Robert Brandom, andJohn McDowell.^[11]

Rorty, in his now classicPhilosophy and the Mirror ofNature, presents a ranging critique of modern philosophy thatfocuses on epistemology, especially the idea that knowledge is arepresentation or mental ‘mirroring’ of mind-independentreality. Against epistemology, Rorty proposes hermeneutics, which hecharacterizes as “an expression of hope that the cultural spaceleft behind by the demise of epistemology will not befilled…” (Rorty 1979, 315). Hermeneutics holds this voidopen with what he calls ‘conversation.’ In this,conversation pursues not the truth, conceived as a correspondence ofmind and mind-independent reality, but, instead, edification (Rorty1979, 318, 360, 378). Edification, itself Rorty’s proposedtranslation of the GermanBildung (Piercy 2016, 447) concernsnot truth, then, but instead the discovery of new and usefulpossibilities.

Philosophers associated with the University of Pittsburgh have alsotaken up and developed themes in hermeneutics. Robert Brandom, for hispart, has argued that his inferentialist approach in semantics is ableto support major tenets of Gadamerian hermeneutics, thereby suggestingthat the traditions of inferentialism and hermeneutics can complementone another (see Brandom 2002 and 2004; see also Lafont 2007). JohnMcDowell, in hisMind and World, also introduces a notionconnected with hermeneutics. In this text, McDowell wishes to resolvethe question of how the mind, ultimately, in the‘spontaneity’ or freedom of reason, relates to the world.He argues that the question itself is a symptom of naturalism, theidea typical of modern science that immutable laws govern everythingin nature. In this, the worry about the place of the spontaneity ofreason in nature arises precisely from our reductive conception ofnature in the first place. McDowell resolves the question of therelation of reason and nature, then, through the proposal of analternative naturalism, one that treats reason as a ‘secondnature,’ or, a process of the realization of potentials.McDowell draws on notions of tradition and formation(Bildung) in order to clarify this second nature. He writes,“human beings are intelligibly initiated into this stretch ofthe space of reasons by ethical upbringing, which instills theappropriate shape to their lives. The resulting habits of thought andaction are second nature” (McDowell 1994, 84).

It is an open question how consistent Rorty’s, McDowell’sand Brandom’s reactions to hermeneutics are with views developedwithin the historical movement of hermeneutics.^[12] Still, Rorty’s and McDowell’s respective critical stancestoward modern epistemology and science, their novel uses of theconcept of formation (Bildung), as well as Rorty’snovel use of the concept of conversation, place them in a productiveexchange with continental philosophical scholars on themes morecustomarily associated with nineteenth- and twentieth-century Germanphilosophy generally as well as with the historical movement ofhermeneutics. Moreover, Rorty’s turn to edification and thediscovery of novel possibilities it affords as an alternative to thepursuit of truth places him in proximity to postmodern hermeneutics,in particular.^[13]

8.2 Hermeneutics in Ethical and Political Philosophy

Hermeneutics, since Heidegger at least, claims a special affinity withpractical philosophy. Both Heidegger and Gadamer, for example, upholdAristotle’s ethics as an important source for their respectiveapproaches to interpretive experience.^[14] Gadamer, in particular, develops the implications of his hermeneuticsfor practical life. Although Gadamer provides no systematic ethical orpolitical theory, he maintains the significance of interpretiveexperience as a counter to the alienation produced in modern,bureaucratically managed society. He also develops a hermeneuticalapproach to the ethical significance of friendship as well as arelated approach to political solidarity (see Gadamer,“Friendship and Solidarity”; see Vessey 2005). Moreover,Paul Ricoeur has argued that an important test of the universality ofhermeneutics is the extension of hermeneutical considerations to thepractical sphere. In this, he clarifies that and how interpretiveexperience, especially the interpretive experience of narrative, playsan important role no less in practical agency than political critique(see Ricoeur,From Text to Action).

It is therefore perhaps no surprise that several philosophers havedeveloped approaches and positions in ethical, social, and politicalphilosophy in connection with hermeneutics. In ethical philosophy, forexample, Dennis Schmidt has recently argued that Gadamer’sphilosophical hermeneutics comprises an ‘original ethics,’in that Gadamer clarifies normative implications of interpretiveexperience that, however, are irreducible to any ethical system orprinciples (see D. Schmidt 2008, 2012 and 2016). Gert-Jan van derHeiden (2019) has examined ethical considerations of testimony basedon a range of resources in contemporary continental Europeanphilosophy, but perhaps draws in particular on hermeneuticalapproaches and themes.

In political philosophy (or, as she describes her own work, inpolitical theory), Hannah Arendt not only relies on hermeneutics inher methodological considerations (1994, see also Tatjana Tömmeland Maurizio Passerin d’Entreves 2024) but also suggests ahermeneutically inflected conception of solidarity (Gaffney 2018).Richard Bernstein’s considerations of human rationality‘beyond objectivism and relativism,’ and the attention hegives to hermeneutics in this context, has been an important impetus(Bernstein 1983). Relatedly, Genevieve Lloyd has invoked hermeneuticmotifs to question norms of rationality from a feminist perspective(Lloyd 1984). Fred Dallmayr’s use of Gadamer’shermeneutics in his considerations of political theory, comparativepolitical theory, and inter-cultural dialogue (see for exampleDallmayr 1987, 1996 and 2009) have been likewise influential.

Current research in political philosophy and political theory ondemocracy, and perhaps in particular discussions about deliberativeapproaches to democracy, include contributions influenced byhermeneutics (Walhof 2022). Georgia Warnke, for example, has defendedGadamer’s hermeneutics as a middle path between subjectivism andconservatism, and, in turn, she has examined the significance ofhermeneutics for democratic theory, theories of deliberativedemocracy, questions of race and identity, and solidarity (see forexample Warnke 1987, 1993, 2002, 2007 and 2012). Lauren SwayneBarthold has drawn on hermeneutics to develop a feminist approach tosocial identity and, more recently, to examine the significance ofcivic dialogue to foster pluralistic, democratic communities (seeBarthold 2016 and 2020).

In feminist social epistemology, Miranda Fricker (2009) relies on arange of feminist, structuralist and other theoretical approaches,but, in this, argues that the pursuit of epistemic justice requiresthe exercise and cultivation of the hermeneutic virtue of recognizingthat in consequence of dynamics within society our interlocutors maybe left without the interpretive resources they need to communicatetheir experience. Linda Martίn Alcoff has also drawnsubstantially on Gadamer’s hermeneutics in considerations ofrace and gender identity (see Alcoff 2006).

8.3 The Return of Normativity to Hermeneutics

Recent research in hermeneutics has seen a rise of interest in therole played in interpretive experience by a number of normativematters. In this, some argue that the influence of Heidegger andGadamer over contemporary hermeneutics has led to a neglect ofnormative considerations in current debate. The basic charge is thatwith their stress on existential, traditionary, and linguisticconditions of interpretive experience, Heidegger and Gadamer takeattention away from questions about what criteria should be used toevaluate, say, what makes an interpretation good or valuable.

To be sure, it is possible to defend Heidegger and Gadamer against thecharge that their approaches leave too little room for normativeconsiderations. When it comes to Heidegger, Steven Crowell, forexample, argues that phenomenology as conceived by Husserl andHeidegger can itself be grasped as inquiry into a “normativelystructured ‘space of meaning’” (Crowell 2016, 238).Crowell, in his consideration of Heidegger, focuses onHeidegger’s analysis of human existence, arguing thatHeidegger’s view of the role played by care in human existencespeaks to the possibility of being responsive to norms as such(Crowell 2013). Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics may be saidto involve a range of normative considerations. Perhaps mostcentrally, as we noted above in Section 4.3, Gadamer maintains thatinterpretive experience involves the normative concern always to becomemore educated, to expand our horizons. Moreover, Gadamer’sattempts to defend his philosophical hermeneutics against critics hasalso brought into focus a number of normative matters. For example, inresponse to Habermas, Gadamer clarifies his position thatunderstanding resists ideology.

Recent interest in the role played in interpretive experience bynormative considerations, though, has also led to a revival ofinterest in these matters in hermeneutics before Heidegger. KristinGjesdal, in herGadamer and the Legacy of German Idealism,for example, recommends that we return to Schleiermacher in order tofocus attention on “critical-normative standards ininterpretation” (Gjesdal 2009, 7). Rudolf Makkreel, in hisOrientation and Judgment in Hermeneutics, argues for thepriority of judgment, and with it, reflection and criticism, ininterpretive experience. Really, Makkreel’s project is todevelop an original position or approach within hermeneutics in itsown right, one that takes up hermeneutical considerations in ourcontemporary, multi-cultural context, and that relies on a broad rangeof philosophers associated with hermeneutics. But, he develops hisview of judgment, and the normative considerations involved in it, inreference to Kant and Dilthey in particular.

8.4 Hermeneutics and New Realism

Recent developments in hermeneutics have arisen in response to‘new realism.’ This school of thought is representedespecially by philosophers such as Markus Gabriel, and invitescomparisons with the ‘speculative realism’ of philosopherssuch as Quentin Meillassoux and Graham Harman (see Gabriel 2015,Gabriel 2020, Ferraris 2014, Meillassoux 2008, Harman 2018). Whileresearch in new realism is expansive, one basic tenet is that ourdescriptions of things are not distinct from reality but, on thecontrary, are no less real than what they describe (see Gabriel2015).

The rise of new realism has proved to be an impetus for newdevelopments in hermeneutics. On the one hand, the interest in new andspeculative realism has led Vattimo not only to defend his postmodernhermeneutics against all forms of realism, but, moreover to develop apolemical critique of the motivations, philosophical and otherwise, topursue realism of any kind. In this, Vattimo maintains that recentrenewed interest in realism is motivated, in part, by a conservativereactionism against the consequences of postmodernism. He writes, forexample, that among other roots of realism is “the fundamentalneurosis that follows the late-industrial society as the regressivereaction of defense against the postmodern Babel of languages andvalues” (Vattimo 2016, 77).

Other developments within hermeneutics have found affinities betweennew realism (though not speculative realism) and hermeneutics (seeFigal, 2015; see Koch 2016 and 2019). Günter Figal, for example,introduces a ‘realist’ hermeneutics that opposes thepostmodern view in which interpretations constitute the meaning ofreality, maintaining, by contrast, that interpretive experiencebelongs to reality. In this, he focuses on what he calls hermeneuticalspace, grasped as what first places us in referential relations toobjects, and, with this, makes available interpretive possibilities todetermine the sense of them (Figal, 2009, 2010 and 2015).

Finally, hermeneutical realism has also led to novel research onclassical figures in hermeneutics. Whereas Vattimo, for example, seesin Gadamer the seeds of his postmodern hermeneutics (see Vattimo,“Story of a Comma”), Figal, by contrast, brings into focusthe realism of Gadamer’s concern for the substantiveness(Sachlichkeit) of interpretive experience (see Figal 2010,2). Moreover, some philosophers have found that hermeneutical realismsheds light on central motifs of the later Heidegger (Keiling2018).

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• Steup, Matthias and Neta, Ram, “Epistemology,”TheStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2020 Edition), EdwardN. Zalta (ed.), forthcoming URL =<https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2020/entries/epistemology/>.
• Sypnowich, Christine, “Law and Ideology,”TheStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2019 Edition), EdwardN. Zalta (ed.), URL =<https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2019/entries/law-ideology/>.
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• –––, 1993,Justice andInterpretation, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
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• Zimmerman, J., 2015,Hermeneutics: A Very ShortIntroduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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• Ricoeur, Paul, entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Mantzavinos, C., “Hermeneutics”,StanfordEncyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta(ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2020/entries/hermeneutics/>. [This was the previous entry on this topic in theStanfordEncyclopedia of Philosophy — see theversion history.]

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Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank David Liakos, co-author of Liakos andGeorge 2019, for consultation on this entry, as well as Tobias Keilingfor consultation, in particular, about hermeneutics and new realism.The author is also grateful for very helpful comments made by a refereein the peer-review process.