Tradition et distance temporelle : « de la justesse de la compréhension » chez Hans-Georg Gadamer

Abstract

Tradition and Temporal Distance: On the Correctness of Understanding in Hans-Georg Gadamer’s Thinking

In this paper, I will discuss Gadamer’s attempt to reach to a deeper dimension of truth, situated beneath the scientific objectivity and independent from methodological criteria. If the truth finds its core in tradition, as Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics says it, and there is no objectivity other than the confirmation given by the historical prejudices, how is it still possible to consider the problem of the correctness of the understanding? Can we assign a critical function to the temporal distance and identify tradition as a source of truth and meaning, as Gadamer does in “Truth and Method”, and consider them viable solutions to this problem? The following paper tries to answer this question by discussing the temporal distance in its transcendental dimension for the hermeneutical experience and by emphasizing its relation to the tradition defined as an “in between” strangeness and familiarity.

Keywords: temporal distance, tradition, understanding, truth and meaning, Gadamer