Gadamer's Dialectical Hermeneutics

Gadamer's Dialectical Hermeneutics contributes to the growing literature that takes seriously the significance of Plato for Gadamer's hermeneutics. What distinguishes this book is the way in which Lauren Swayne Barthold argues for a dialectic central to Gadamer's hermeneutics, one that recalls the Platonic chorismos, or separation, between the transcendent and sensory realms. Barthold demonstrates that Gadamer, too, insisted on the "in-between" nature of human understanding as characterized by Hermes: we are finite beings always striving for infinity—that which lies beyond being. Such a dialectical reading brings clarity to several themes crucial to, and contested within, Gadamer's hermeneutics. First, we are helped to see that Gadamer affirms the roles of both theory and practice for hermeneutics. Second, we are able to appreciate the nature of truth as the event of understanding—that into which we enter as opposed to that which stands apart from us as a criterion. Third, we gain insight into the significance of dialogue for understanding, including the necessary role of the other. And finally, we are able to substantiate the meaning of the good–beyond–being, as a key component to understanding. Gadamer's Dialectical Hermeneutics presents a reading of Gadamer that avoids the labels of realism or essentialism, and shows his primary motivation is to uncover the ethical, indeed dialectically ethical, and practical nature of philosophy.

Barthold’s close reading of Gadamer’s major works enhances our understanding of philosophical hermeneutics in several significant ways. Readers who follow Barthold back to Gadamer’s interpretations of the early Plato will come away with increased clarity about the particular kind of dialectic that persists and pervades Gadamer’s hermeneutics. This focus on the dialectical nature of hermeneutics leads in turn to a deeper insight into the idea of the good that sustains Gadamer’s hermeneutics. Thanks to Barthold, we come to understand that that which makes philosophical hermeneutics dialectical also makes it ethical., Barthold's book is a wonderful exercise in neo-pragmatic practical philosophy and will provide those interested in it with many important insights. On top of this, and beyond Barthold's larger project, many of the early chapters of her book contain valuable insights into aspects of Gadamer's reading of Plato and Aristotle that have not been thoroughly investigated, especially the relation between dialectics and hermeneutics., A perceptive reinterpretation and a bold defense of Gadamer's hermeneutics. Beginning with Gadamer's appropriation of themes from Plato and Aristotle, Barthold offers a new reading of Gadamer's understanding of dialogue and dialectic, the subtle interplay of theoria and praxis, and the orientation to a good that is beyond being. She beautifully shows how Gadamer's hermeneutics is a dialectical ethics. She tackles some of the most difficult issues concerning the meaning of truth and vigorously answers Gadamer's critics. This book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the importance of hermeneutics and its contemporary relevance.

Lauren Swayne Barthold is associate professor of philosophy at Gordon College.