Dasein - Monoskop

BETWEEN SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS - GADAMER'S HERMENEL'TICS 235
method at all" and that with respect to this phenomenon the objective
is not "the amassing of ratified knowledge which satisfies the
methodological ideal of science". 16 Gadamer thus concludes:
Hence the Geistesurissenschaften are joined with modes of experience
which lie outside science; with the experiences of philosophy,
of art, and of history itself. These are all modes of
experience in which a truth is communicated that cannot be
verified by the methodological means proper to science. 17
It is in line with this notion of truth, that is, a notion of truth not
bound to method, that Gadamer also echoes Heidegger's relativistic
pronouncements. Husserl's favourite weapon against relativism, i.e.,
claiming that relativism is true is a contradiction in terms, is rejected
by Gadamer by relying on Heidegger's arguments. Gadamer calls
the Husserlian argument "irrefutable" but doubts that it can ever
have any effect. He suggests that the argument "falls back on the
arguer, in that it renders the truthfulness of all reflection suspect":
"It is not the reality of scepticism ... but the claim to truth of all
formal argument that is affected." 18 In other words, the success of
this logical argument speaks against the logician and the employment
of logical reasoning, not against the sceptic or the relativist.
Interpreters like Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas 19 , who
focus almost exclusively on passages like the ones quoted above, regard
Gadamer's project as, by and large, a direct continuation of
Heidegger's thought. At best, they categorize Gadamer's hermeneutics
as an "urbanizing of the Heideggerian province" (Habermas) 20 ,
since Gadamer, after all, reformulates Heidegger's awkward "postal
metaphysics" in more familiar terms. Paying attention only to passages
where tradition is depicted as an inescapable universal medium,
however, suppresses the presence of Husserl in Truth and Method.
Reading Gadamer in this way, one is left without a reasonable explanation
for the fact that Heidegger himself was dissatisfied not
only with Gadamer's notion of "effective-historical consciousness",
but even with the book as a whole. Heidegger's 'verdict' is simple:
"Das ist nicht mehr Heidegger/" [That is no longer Heidegger!] In
order to vindicate this judgment, we have to take a closer look at
some other passages of Ttuth and Method, passages that are equally