Abstract

I argue that Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutic phenomenology accounts for the social dimension of factical life. In my view, Gadamer is able to do so through an appropriation of Martin Heidegger’s early phenomenological developments. My argument is centered on Heidegger’s early formal indicative method, especially as it emerges in his 1923 “hermeneutics of facticity” lecture course. Gadamer’s 1924 publication “On the Idea of a System in Philosophy” provides evidence that Gadamer follows Heidegger in many ways but not down a path of methodological destruction by way of formal indications. Instead, for Gadamer, understanding occurs through conversation and always with reference to the self, other, and tradition. My article clarifies the role of formal indication in hermeneutic phenomenology and contributes to scholarship concerned with the relationship between Heidegger and Gadamer.