hamideh izadinia; asghar vaezi
Volume 10, Issue 39 , October 2014, , Pages 45-58
Abstract
Asghar Vaezi**
Abstract
Hirsch is of the belief that Gadamer’s hermeneutics theory leads to pluralism and relativism. Following romantic hermeneutic scholars, Hirsch believes the aim of reading a text to be achieving the goal of the author. Gadamer, however, believes that understanding is to ...
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Asghar Vaezi**
Abstract
Hirsch is of the belief that Gadamer’s hermeneutics theory leads to pluralism and relativism. Following romantic hermeneutic scholars, Hirsch believes the aim of reading a text to be achieving the goal of the author. Gadamer, however, believes that understanding is to reach an agreement and compatibility with the other, not to reach his or her intention. Therefore, Hirsch believes that the meaning of text is predetermined and the aim of reading is to discover this meaning. Gadamer, however, believes that meaning is produced as result of dialog between an interpreter and the text, and, therefore, there’s no such thing as a predetermined text. Based on this view, Gadamer regard language and its tools as the conditions of determining meaning, but Hirsch believes that language is merely an instrument of revealing meaning. From another point of view, Hirsch accuses Gadamer of lacking criteria. When meaning is an undetermined concept, there will be no criteria to distinguish correct interpretation from an incorrect one. In this paper, we aim to introduce Hirsch’s three main criticisms against Gadamer and also provide responses to these criticisms based on the views of Gadamer’s advocates.
**. Associate Professor of Philosophy; Shahid Beheshti University
E-mail: a_vaezi@sbu.ac.ir
[Date Received: 02/07/1391; Date Accepted: 11/11/1393]
