The Dimensions of the Thing (die Sache) in Hermeneutic Philosophy
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Abstract
In Truth and Method (1960), Hans-Georg Gadamer highlights the difficulty faced by the humanities in attempting to conform to the methodological criteria of the natural sciences. In his words: “The human sciences have no method of their own. Yet one might well ask […] What is the basis of this tact? How is it acquired? Does not what is scientific about the human sciences lie rather here than in their methodology?” (2004: 7). Gadamer believes that it is the thing (die Sache) that must guide the way of accessing it; therefore, the method must be adapted to its object, and not the other way around. This is the basis of his criticism of the modern absolutisation of method as the only way of validating knowledge. Towards the end of Truth and Method, Gadamer introduces the notion of ‘doing the thing’ (Tun der Sache). Is the thing that which is given to us in an apparently immediate way, or does it also imply an action on the part of the interpreter? The hypothesis that guides and structures this work is that the thing does not occur as a finished fact, nor can it be understood in one fell swoop and forever, but rather develops in and from the effort made to understand it in order to integrate it into one’s own horizon.
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References
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