From concept to word: On the radicality of philosophical hermeneutics (original) (raw)

2000, Continental Philosophy Review

At the outset of his essay "Vom Wort zum Begriff," an essay first published in 1995, 1 Gadamer remarks that the title should be taken to indicate the topic of both philosophy and hermeneutics. It is not immediately evident, however, that the title indicates anything other than the traditional task of philosophy. According to Gadamer, from its beginnings in ancient Greece, philosophy has always understood itself as an activity of science, understood in a broad sense, which means that it concerns itself with concepts. What appears first with the Pre-Socratics and then most explicitly in the work of Plato and Aristotle is the attempt to give an account of the world not just in words but in the universality of the word, in concepts. Most decisively, this turn to the concept extends beyond the beginnings of philosophy in Greece. It identifies philosophy throughout its history, leading the way for the development of modern science with its emphasis on the mathematical, 2 and culminating in its purest form in Hegel, who attempted to reconcile the truth of science and the truth of metaphysics through the unifying power of the concept. In his effort then to say what hermeneutics as philosophy is Gadamer will complicate this movement from word to concept. The concept, he insists, must be demystified, and he suggests that the topic of the essay is not properly captured by the essay's title "Vom Wort zum Begriff," but is to be found in a kind of return from concept back to word. Why the concept needs to be demystified, why there is a need to return to the word becomes evident towards the end of the essay. The concept needs to be demystified for the sake of an alternative to the modem ideal of science, for the sake of a practical reasoning that makes communicative understanding possible. Without letting concepts speak, Gadamer tells us, we are not able to find the words that reach the other, which is the essential condition for living together as humans. Accordingly, the return from concept back to word, captures the sense in which hermeneutics as philosophy serves a practical task. Gadamer has elsewhere extensively developed this theme of philosophy as a practical task, most notably in Reason in an Age of Science. However, one fails to appreciate the significance of this recent essay if one reads it simply as a restate