Abstract

In this dissertation, I propose the following argument: I argue that we can understand the unique character of Gadamer's hermeneutics if we pay careful attention to how Gadamer goes along with, and against, Heidegger's thinking. Although Gadamer agrees with Heidegger in conceiving understanding as an Existentiale of Dasein, and the process of understanding as an event which has precedence over the centrality of consciousness , Gadamer nonetheless conceives such event not as the function of the revelation of Being, but as the manifestation of human life or tradition. Gadamer retains from Heidegger the need to retrieve the type of thinking essential to understanding Being, and yet, differs from Heidegger in that he strives to bring mutual understanding, and not understanding of Being, as an achievement of tradition. For this reason, though Heidegger's ontology is vital for the articulation of his own hermeneutic project, Gadamer nevertheless goes beyond Heidegger by re-affirming the significance of the humanist tradition whose goal consists in integrating knowing and being as a single, unfolding expression of humanity, and not Being itself. Consequently, when Gadamer affirms the primacy of understanding the issue is no longer Being, but mutual understanding based upon an appropriation of Aristotle's phronesis, synesis, and philia, as well as, a rehabilitation of the humanist notion of sensus communis