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3. A “BETTER” OR JUST “ANOTHER” UNDERSTANDING? SOME REMARKSON THE CREATIVE CHARACTER OF INTERPRETATIONAndrzej PrzyłębskiHans-Georg Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics arose from a generalization of theconsiderations and results of the specific hermeneutic theories elaborated in jurisprudence,theology and classical literature. A milestone in its development was without a doubt thegeneral hermeneutics of Friedrich Daniel Schleiermacher. It was he who extended the areaof what could -- and sometimes even should -- be interpreted from the texts on every speechact, including a press article, a speech or a conversation. Belonging to the Romanticmovement in the German philosophy of the nineteenth century he was sure that the objectto be interpreted is the idea born in the head of a writer or a speaker. It is born spontaneously,in an unconscious way. That is why its creator does not understand its fullrange and meaning. The interpreter is in another position: he analyzes this spiritual productusing the full power of his consciousness and methodological cleverness. Because of thatit is possible for him to understand the author better than the author understood himself.In his hermeneutic theory Gadamer accepts some of the important results of the Romantichermeneutics, such as abandoning the difference between understanding and interpretation.This difference was usually understood as the difference between a spiritual understandingand lingual articulation of what was understood. Further, Gadamer came to the conclusionthat even a simple understanding act needs a language, and so insisted that there is notany essential difference between interpreting and understanding. But he never accepted theidea that it is reasonable to speak about a better understanding, also in the sense that wecan understand an author better then he understood himself. In a well known section ofTruth and Method, his major work, he writes:Not just occasionally but always, the meaning of a text goes beyond its author. Thatis why understanding is not merely a reproductive but always a productive activity aswell. Perhaps it is not correct to refer to this productive element in understanding as“better understanding.” For this phrase is ... a principle of criticism taken from theEnlightenment and revised on the basis of the aesthetics of genius. Understanding isnot, in fact, understanding better, either in the sense of superior knowledge of thesubject because of clearer ideas in the sense of fundamental superiority of consciousnessover unconscious production. It is enough to say that we understand in a differentway, if we understand at all. 1The following remarks try to reconsider the arguments of Gadamer, joining them with hisown interpretive practice and comparing them with considerations of Albrecht Wellmer.The result is that even according to Gadamer it seems to be possible to speak about a betterunderstanding. Though this does not mean Schleiermacher was right. Indeed, he was incorrectregarding the proper object of interpretation.The assumption of the Pre-Romantic hermeneutics (Chladenius and others) was thatthe work of interpretation (a hermeneutic act) begins with a sudden break in the understandingof a text, with a so-called “dark place” in it. Interpretation is an occasionalactivity, required only in cases when understanding stops being immediate. The Romanticperspective of Schleiermacher changed it completely by going out from the assumption1Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2d rev. ed., trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G.Marshall (New York: Continuum, 2000), 296-297.214