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38 Beyond Objectivism and Relativism HERMENEUTICS AND PRAXIS One of the most challenging, intriguing, and important motifs in Gadamer's work is his effort to link his ontological hermeneutics with the tradition of practical philosophy, especially as it is rooted in Aristotle's understanding of praxis and phronesis. Gadamer is well aware that initially this may seem to be a strange connection. Mter all, hermeneutics has been primarily concerned with the understanding and interpretation of texts, and this was certainly not Aristotle's concern in his ethical and political writings. Gadamer tells us, It is true that Aristotle is not concerned with the hermeneutical problem and certainly not with its historical dimension, but with the right estimation of the role that reason has to play in moral action. But precisely what is of interest to us here is that he is concerned with reason and with knowledge , not detached from a being that is becoming, but determined by it and determinative of it. (TM, p. 278; WM, p. 295) Gadamer even claims that if we relate Aristotle's description of the ethical phenomenon and especially of the virtue of moral knowledge to our own investigation, we find that Aristotle's analysis is in fact a kind of model of the problems of hermeneutics . (TM, p. 289; WM, p. 307) The specific context in Ttuth and Method where Gadamer explores the relevance of Aristotle to hermeneutics is the investigation of the moment of "application" or appropriation in the act of understanding . According to an earlier tradition of hermeneutics, three elements were distinguished: subtilitas intelligendi (understanding), subtilitas explicandi (interpretation), and subtilitas applicandi (application ). But Gadamer argues-and this is one of the central theses of 7Iuth and Method-that these are not three distinct moments or elements of hermeneutics. They are internally related; every act of understanding involves interpretation, and all interpretation involves application. It is Aristotle's analysis of phronesis that, according to Gadamer, enables us to understand the distinctive way in which application is an essential moment of the hermeneutical experience. The intimate link that Gadamer seeks to establish between hermeneutics and the tradition of practical philosophy that has its origins in Greek philosophy is not an afterthought or merely incidental to his understanding of philosophic hermeneutics. It is a key for appreciating what he means by philosophic hermeneutics. Not only 39 An Overview do we find in Gadamer an extraordinarily incisive interpretation of what Aristotle means by phronesis and the ways in which he distinguishes phronesis from both episteme and techne; the creative use Gadamer makes of Aristotle and the tradition of practical philosophy is far richer.59 Gadamer's interpretation of Aristotle is an exemplification of what he means by opening ourselves to the truth that speaks to us through tradition. It is also the basis for his claim that the Geisteswissenschaften are genuine moral sciences. Furthermore, it is Aristotle's understanding of praxis and phronesis that can enable us to come to grips with what Gadamer takes to be the most poignant problem in the modern world. When Aristotle, in the sixth book of the Nicomacbean Etbics, distinguishes the manner of "practical" knowledge . . . from theoretical and technical knowledge, he expresses, in my opinion, one of the greatest truths by which the Greeks throw light upon "scientific" mystification of modern society of specialization. In addition, the scientific character of practical philosophy is, as far as I can see, the only methodological model for self-understanding of the human sciences if they are to be liberated from the spurious narrowing imposed by the model of the natural sciences.60 Or again, he writes: In my own eyes, the great merit of Aristotle was that he anticipated the impasse of our scientific culture by his description of the structure of practical reason as distinct from theoretical knowledge and technical skill. By philosophical arguments he refuted the claim of the professional lawmakers whose function at that time corresponded to the role of the expert in the modern scientific society. Of course, I do not mean to equate the modern expert with the professional sophist. In his own field he is a faithful and reliable investigator, and in general he is well aware of the particularity of his methodical assumptions and realizes that the results of his investigation have a limited relevance. Nevertheless, the problem of our society is that the longing of the citizenry for orientation and normative patterns invests the expert with an exaggerated authority. Modern society expects him to...

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