Documentos de Académico
Documentos de Profesional
Documentos de Cultura
Texto original
Chapter 4 Gadamer’s Rhetorical Conception of Hermeneutics as the Key to Developing a Critical
Hermeneutics Francis J. Mootz III The rhetorical dimensions of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s philosophical
hermeneutics have not been fully appreciated and developed by his commentators, leading to a skewed
understanding of the critical potential of his work. In the last years of his life Gadamer expressed what
had been largely implicit during his long career: the ancient tradition of rhetoric is an important
touchstone for philosophical hermeneutics and all humanistic inquiry. Recovering and elucidating the
rhetorical basis of Gadamer’s philosophy reveals his understanding of interpretation as a rhetorical
accomplishment, which in turn gives rise to a rich conception of critical hermeneutics that should fi nally
put to rest the canard that philosophical hermeneutics is politically naive and quiescent. This rhetorical
dimension of Gadamer’s work proves superior to Paul Ricoeur’s more philosophically-oriented project,
but I acknowledge and draw from Ricoeur’s rhetorically inclined approach in his Lectures on Ideology
and Utopia to provide critical support for my reading of Gadamer. Gadamer’s Rhetorical Conception of
Hermeneutics Gadamer signals the tremendous importance of the rhetorical tradition by positioning, at
the center of his philosophy, a phenomenological account of the experience of conversation. However,
Gadamer’s explicit references to rhetoric appear to be minimal and peripheral, even if they do occur at
critical points in his philosophy. Gadamer begins Truth and Method by recalling Vico’s development of
the humanist concept of sensus communis as a means of preserving the independent validity of moral-
practical wisdom, as distinguished from the logical-empirical truths of science (Gadamer, 1989, pp. 19–
24). Aligning Vico with the substantive rhetorical goal of saying the right thing well, Gadamer applauds
the development of the “positive ambiguity of the rhetorical ideal” 84 Gadamer and Ricoeur (ibid., p. 20).
Vico’s importance for the modern era rests on his prescient critique of the unitary Cartesian paradigm of
knowledge by reasserting “the independent rights of rhetoric [—] the art of fi nding arguments[, which]
serves to develop the sense of what is convincing, which works instinctively and ex tempore, and for that
very reason cannot be replaced by science” (ibid., p. 21). Gadamer emphasizes the breadth of rhetoric in
the ancient world, given the need for argumentation without recourse to compelling proofs in most areas
of human inquiry (Gadamer, 2006b, p. 89). Rhetoric is dialogical because one’s interlocutor can never be
abstracted as a “rational person” who must accept your rigorously logical position, but rather is a
conversation partner whom one seeks to persuade. This situation, Gadamer concludes, corresponds
exactly to what Aristotle in the Rhetoric calls the enthymeme. In it is expressed a paying attention to the
other person that characterizes true rhetoric. Using an enthymeme does not mean that one reaches a
compelling conclusion, but it is not for this reason without meaning nor without persuasive power and
claim to truth. All discourse is such that the thing meant can be shown from various sides and thus allows
of being repeated in various ways. This is the sense of a kind of conclusiveness which expresses itself in a
powerfully persuasive way without being a compelling proof. (Gadamer, 2006b, p. 90) In the modern era,
spellbound by the awesome technological power unleashed by the scientifi c method, we have lost our
appreciation of the rhetorical tradition that resided at the center of Greek life. Gadamer recalls his opening
reference to Vico at a key juncture of his conclusion to Truth and Method, suggesting his book has been
concerned principally with recovering and rehabilitating what I would term a rhetorical model of
knowledge. Acknowledging that his guiding focus on the “event” of understanding is drawn from “an
ancient truth that has been able to assert itself against modern scientifi c methodology,” Gadamer
concludes that the “eikos, the verisimilar, the ‘probable[,]’ . . . the ‘evident,’ belong in a series of things
that defend their rightness against the truth and certainty of what is proved and known. Let us recall that
we assigned a special importance to [Vico’s
Sugiere una traducción mejor