Hans-Georg Gadamer: What Is The Importance Of Human Existence?
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Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900 - 2002) is a prominent philosopher of the twentieth century. His reputation lies in his development of hermeneutics philosophy. He was under the influence of Martin Heidegger, who expanded Hermeneutics beyond that of text to all forms of human understanding. Therefore, philosophical hermeneutics questions the meaning and significance of the process of understanding for human existence in general. Gadamer was interested in the question of Being and its omnipresent nature that underlies human existence. He established Heidegger’s line of thought in three ways. First, he revealed the historical and linguistic situatedness of human understanding and stressed the essentiality and productivity of tradition and language for human…show more content… Third, discerning from Plato the centrality of Dialogue to understanding, he relied on Dialogue as a means to further human bonds and a reason to emphasize the limits of human knowing by which it urges human beings to remain open to one another. Then adopting Aristotle’s notion of praxis and applying it to hermeneutics philosophy, established that hermeneutics is basically practical philosophy; that one shall not allow knowing to remain only on conceptual level; But must remember that knowing emerges from the practical quest for meaning and significance.
Gadamer developed hermeneutics beyond the Heidegger’s use of the term, which can be seen as developed in Truth and Method. A vital point considering his critique of methodological truth is that Gadamer did not oppose the scientific method; rather for him, all forms of methodological truth were dependent on a deeper sense of hermeneutic truth. He considered truth as fundamentally an event, a happening in which one encounters something that is larger than and beyond oneself. It exceeds the criteria-based judgment of the individual. In this sense, truth has practical nature. It’s an experience in which one is drawn away from