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81 5 Inside and Outside Hermeneutics: Contributions Toward a Reconstructive Reason Alberto Martinengo Translated from the Italian by Philip Larrey Introduction It is true that, generally speaking, the expression “consequences of hermeneutics” refers to the effects that the philosophy of interpretation has brought about in the last fifty years in fields of research outside of it. This is, obviously, the main sense of the concept. It is also evident, however, that if one considers the nature and manner of philosophical hermeneutics, it is somewhat doubtful whether the inside-outside couple can be seamlessly applied to hermeneutics: such a “spatial” disposition would in fact imply a systematic idea of hermeneutics, as a methodology for research applied to defined fields of the real, which, due to their constitutional obscurity, would require an interpretive point of view. It is not hard to see how every dualistic approach—of this or some other kind—risks misunderstanding the nature of the philosophy of interpretation , and doing so, paradoxically, starting from its best qualities. In effect, to think of hermeneutics as an instrument for research aimed at specific regional spheres means not grasping some of the fundamental implications of the discourse, implications without which the philosophy of interpretation falls into the most diverse objections. The most legitimate of the critiques, from the realist camp, criticizes hermeneutics for an innate tendency to deflate objectivity, in favor of a generic form of perspectivism. From here to the claim that hermeneutics is the result of an approach to the real put into practice from nowhere, that is, without due attention to the contradiction inherent in such an act, is a short step: the philosophy of interpretation supports the universality of the hermeneutic fact (everything is interpretation), but in doing so, it avoids 82 A L B E R T O M A R T I N E N G O the duty of offering proof for its own procedures. Such proof, moreover, is impossible to give, since in a universally interpretative context, hermeneutics could not appeal to facts or objective reasons of sustainability. Now, this is not the place to give a detailed run-through of the critiques against the theoretical legitimacy of the philosophy of interpretation , nor, moreover, the answers to such critiques. But it seems fairly clear that to consider hermeneutics (or interpretation, tout court) one methodology among many, and to think that in such a way we may grasp the fundamental problems it poses, risks leading us down an erroneous path. A path that, in making hermeneutics a strictly epistemological problem, minimizes the theoretical effort of those who, from HansGeorg Gadamer onward, have proposed a radically ontological reading of the Faktum of interpretation. If things are like this, and if by definition hermeneutics turns out to be inseparable from a consideration of its consequences, then it is useful to bring our attention to rest not so much upon the effects of the philosophy of interpretation on the various fields in which it operates, but also (and mainly) upon the consequences that historically it has been able to cause regarding itself. Aside from all paradoxes, I am not proposing to weigh up the philosophy of interpretation once more, in order to determine to what point it appears to be immune to the critiques leveled against it. What is needed, rather, is to take seriously the inseparability we spoke of earlier, and to radically take on board the fact that hermeneutics is a form of ontology, or it is not at all. This is, to state things in terms closer to our original problem, to recognize that hermeneutics stakes everything on the appraisal of its “intraphilosophical” consequences. Which, once more, is equivalent to maintaining that the philosophy of interpretation is not an already accomplished methodical paradigm, to be applied to something that is given out there, but, on the contrary, that it is one with its “objects” and thus that the effects of its universalization fall back integrally upon hermeneutics itself. Hermeneutics: A Fatherless Philosophy From the historical point of view, the philosophy of interpretation recognizes itself today as a fatherless discipline. It is true that such a status could be said to apply to the greater part of the currents that we are used to dealing with in today’s Western philosophical panorama. However, in the case of the philosophy of interpretation, this category has become particularly topical in recent years, after the passing of Gadamer (2002) [3.17.79.60] Project MUSE (2024-04-24 17...

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