3. From Hermeneutics to Praxis

Abstract

V/ne of the most important and central claims in Hans-George Gad amer's philosophical hermeneutics is that all understanding involves not only interpretation, but also application. Against an older tradi tion that divided up hermeneutics into subtilitas intelligendi (under standing), subtilitas explicandi (interpretation), and subtilitas appli candi (application), a primary thesis of Truth and Method is that these are not three independent activities to be relegated to different sub-disciplines, but rather they are internally related. They are all moments of the single process of understanding. I want to explore this integration of the moment of application into hermeneutic under standing which Gadamer calls the rediscovery of the fundamental hermeneutic problem.1 For it not only takes us to the heart of what is distinctive about philosophical hermeneutics but it reveals some of the deep problems and tensions implicit in hermeneutics. First, I want to note some of the central features of what Gadamer means by philo sophical hermeneutics. Then I can specify the problem that he is confronting when dealing with application. This will enable us to see what Gadamer seeks to appropriate from Aristotle, and especially