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Dilthey and Gadamer: Two Theories of Historical UnderstandingAuthor(s): David E. LingeSource: Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 41, No. 4 (Dec., 1973), pp. 536-553Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1461732

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C RITICALDISCUSSION

Dilthey and GadamerTwo Theoriesof HistoricalUnderstandingDAVID E. LINGE

T O the impenetrable depths within myself," wrote Wilhelm Dilthey in1910, "I am an historicalbeing.... The first condition for the possi-bility of historical science lies in the fact that I am myself an historical

being - that the one who studies history is the same one who makes it."l Thesesentences of Dilthey's give expression to the central problem of this paper,namely, the problem of the relation between historical understanding and thehistoricity of human existence. Most philosophers have taken the relation be-tween these two notions to be one of mutual exclusion. The unqualified affirma-tion of man's historicity seems to lead directly to a relativism that makes anykind of objective knowledge impossible. Hence it is not surprising that theauthor of the above words is generally considered one of the fathers of historic-ism. Writing at the turn of the century, Dilthey was indeed one of the firstthinkers to see that the result of historical scholarship - its insight into man asa creature of history- threatened to undercut the very ideal of objectivity uponwhich historical scholarship itself is based.In this paper, I shall examine the attempts of two thinkers -Wilhelm Dil-they and Hans-Georg Gadamer-to work out a positive relationship betweenthe historicity of the knower and the objectivity of historical interpretation. Thesharply conflicting theories of these thinkers represent two of the principal waysin which German philosophy in the twentieth century has sought to come toterms with the radical historicity of man while avoiding the pitfalls of relativism.

Wilhelm Dilthey, GesammelteSchriften (14 vols.; Stuttgart: Teubner, 1959-68),Vol. VII, p. 278. (Hereaftercited as GS, with appropriate olume numberfollowing.)DAVID E. LINGE (Ph.D., Vanderbilt University) is Assistant Professor of ReligiousStudiesat The Universityof Tennesee n Knoxville.

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IThe background f the problemwe are to consideris the philosophicalcon-

viction that has become increasingly widespreadduring the last one hundredyears-the conviction usually referredto as "historicism"or "historicalcon-sciousness" The rise of what I will call the historicalconsciousnessbegan withthe developmentof scientific historiographyduring the last century and thesubsequentaccumulationof a vast body of historicalknowledge covering thewholerangeof social,political,and intellectual ife. With the possibleexceptionof its developmentof the naturalsciences,no other contributionof the nine-teenth centuryto our own time has been as profoundas the all-pervasivehis-torical awareness t has bequeathedto us. Certainlyno discipline within thehumanitieshas been left untouchedby the laborsof criticalhistoricalscholarshipduring the past century,not only in the sense that each is cognizantof an un-precedentedmass of information,but more basically, n that each has come toadopt a historicalpoint of view in its own methodology: each regards it animportantpartof its task to examine the ideas,problems,and texts with whichit is concerned rom the point of view of their historicalorigin and developmentand the varioushistorical nfluencesupon them.The term "historicalconsciousness,"however, as it relates to this paper,signifies more than the emergenceof an essentiallyhistoricalorientationwithinthe methodologyof present-dayhumanisticdisciplines. It points to an under-standingof reality, to a conviction that historicalunderstandingand historicalcategoriesconstitute the widest possible framework or knowledge of the real."History,"aidErnestTroeltsch,"isno longer merelyone side of a considerationof things or a partialsatisfactionof the desirefor knowledge,but rather he basisof all thinking about values and norms,the means of the self-reflectionof thespeciesregarding ts nature,originsand its hopes."2 The historicalconsciousnesshas thus come to constitutea worldviewfor which any referencebeyondhistoryto a wider framework-to absolutesor to realities not accessibleto historicalthinkingand historical nvestigation is no longerpossible.This view of things standsin starkcontrastto the sense of the meaningful-ness of historywhich men had before the present century. Until the close ofthe last century,men consideredhistory intelligible and knowledgeof it impor-tant only becausehistoryitself was deemedto fit into a largermetaphysical on-text. For medieval man, history was intelligible in terms of the supernaturalend which God had ordained or it and not in termsof itself. During the eigh-teenth and nineteenth centuries, this supernatural ramework for history andhistoricalunderstandingwas more and more called into question; the meaningof historybecameman himself, his struggle towards and gradualrealizationofhis naturalcapacities and ideals. Hence the foundationsof historical under-

2ErnstTroeltsch,Die Absolutheitdes Christentums nd die Religionsgeschichte Tii-bingen: Mohr, 1929), p. 3.

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DAVIDE. LINGEstandingat the time of the rise of historicalconsciousness n the nineteenthcen-tury reflected the general confidence of bourgeois culture in man's ability tocontrol and direct himself and his environment towards rationally envisagedgoals, the validity of which transcended he historicallyrelative. In both themedieval and the modern view, therefore,history was consideredmeaningfuland historicalknowledge possible because the course of historical events itselfwas thoughtto be controlled romwithout,for the one by the economyof divineprovidence, or the other by universallyvalid humangoods and truths.Even before the collapseof bourgeoiscultureat the time of the FirstWorldWar, historicalconsciousnesshad begun to underminethese earlier views byqualifying in principle the range of significance historical events could have.The GermantheologianGerhardEbeling has indicatedthis consequenceof his-torical thinking: "The completely new thing in historical thinking," Ebelingasserts,"consists n the fact that it relativizesall historicalthings as 'merelyhis-torical'. What earlieragesthoughtof asmanand the worldhas to be understoodhistorically,but for that reason also its validity is historicallylimited."3 Thehistoricalbecomes the merelyhistorical. With its undertonesof skepticismandrelativism, he growing historicalconsciousnessof the last one hundredyearsnolonger regardshistoryas disclosive of anythingof absolute or transcendent ig-nificance. At most, historydisclosesthe creativityof man himself in his con-tinualpositingof absolutes. But this is a humanprocessof positing and is to beunderstoodhistorically. Criticalawarenessof the past,as Dilthey saw, inevitablypreventsone from taking at face value the myriadconflictingclaimsto absoluteknowledgethat fill the pages of history.

Historydoes indeedknow of the positing of somethingunconditionalas value,norm or good. These occureverywheren it -sometimes in a rationalconceptof perfection, n a teleologicalsystemof the world, in a universallyvalid, tran-scendentallyoundednormof our actions. But historicalexperienceknowsonlythe processesof positing, which are important o it, and nothing of their uni-versal validity. By tracing the course of developmentof such unconditionalvalues,goods or norms,it notices that life has produceddifferentones and thatthe unconditionalpositing itself only becomespossible becausethe horizon ofthe ageis limited.4

Historicalconsciousnesss at bottomconsciousnessof the limited perspectiveof everymanandeveryage.But what holds for other men and other ages holds for us as well. Thus itis a small step from Dilthey's observationto the most significant result of thiserosionof the traditional oundationsof history, namely,to the insight that themode of being of the thinker himself is radicallyhistorical. The historianis noless immersed n historythan his subjectmatter. If the claimsof other men areGerhardEbeling, Wordand Faith (Philadelphia:FortressPress,1963), p. 364.GS, VII, p. 173.

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silencedby the relativityof their perspectives,how can the historicisthope thathis own claims will fareany better? Ironically,historicalconsciousnessnot onlysubordinates-or better,swallows up-all the timeless truths and revelationsgiven in the past, but now, in FriedrichMeinecke'sphrase, ike the snake thatbites its own tail, this mode of interpretationhas devouredthe knowing subjecthimself.5 The final and most decisive consequenceof historicalconsciousness,therefore,is not its ever more refined methods of interrogatinghistory, butrather its radicalhistoricizationof man, includingthe modes of thought of thehistoricalknowerhimself.

And this, of course, s the point at which the opponentsof historicismcele-bratea logicalvictoryover their perniciousfoe, a victoryforeshadowedong agoin the triumphof Socraticphilosophyover the self-refutingrelativismof Prota-goras. The criticsof historicismpoint out that, as soon as historicityenvelopesthe knower of historyas well as the object of historical nterpretation,he foun-dationsfor objective knowledgeare undermined. A cleavageappearsbetweenthe historicist'spresuppositions egarding he natureof the knowerhimself andthe ideal of objectiveknowledgeto which he continuesto pay allegiance. Theopponents of historicisminsist, therefore,that historicists cannot consistentlymaintain both their assertionof the radicalhistoricityof the knower himselfandtheir claimto a scientifichistoricalmethodology hat leads to andguaranteesobjectivelyvalid knowledgeof history. This logical objectionhas been formid-able enough that most would-be historicists have felt obliged to qualify theiraffirmationof humanhistoricity,withdrawing nto a modestkind of metaphysicsthathas allowedthem to salvagetheirown claim to objectivelyvalid knowledgeby exempting the knower himself from the otherwise ubiquitous influence ofhistoricity. The most prominentresult of this dilemmaof historicismcan beseen in the great interest philosophersand philosophically-minded istorianshave shown in methodologicalquestionsduringthe past one hundredyears. Atanyrate,even the briefanalysisof the logic of historicismwhich we have under-taken leadsone to suspectthat the concernfor scientificmethodology hat domi-natedhistoricalstudies at the turn of the centurywas motivatedas much by avague sense of self-contradiction s by any desireto be like the naturalsciences.The subtle continuationby the historicistof the metaphysical radition heset out to overcomeis nowheremore apparentthan in the method of historicalinterpretation e adopts. For it is preciselyby virtue of his scientificmethodol-ogy- that is, by virtueof his methodological elf-consciousness nd critical self-control that the knowercomesto assume hat his own capacities or judgmentremainunaffectedby his historicity. The question of the model of historicalunderstandingwith which the historicistoperates s therefore the clearestpointat which we gain an insight into his presuppositions egardinghis own relationto history. In the following sectionsof this paperI will examine the concepts

5FriedrichMeinecke,Zur Theorie und Philosophieder Geschichte(Stuttgart:K. F.Koehler,1959), p. 215.

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DAVIDE. LINGEof historicalunderstandinghat inform the work of Dilthey and Gadamer. Mymain interest s not in the detailsof historicalmethodology,or the explicitcanonsof historicalinterpretation hey involve. Instead,I shallpay particularattentionto the reflexive question,that is, to the question of the assumptions hese twothinkersmake regarding he relationbetweeenhistoricalunderstanding nd thehistoricityof the knower'sown existence.

IIDilthey'sphilosophyof life standswithin the greattraditionof Germanhis-torical scholarshipwhich has its roots in early nineteenth-century omanticism

and includes the work of such thinkers as Schleiermacher,Ranke,Droysen,andthe HistoricalSchool. But it is especially Dilthey, in a series of writings thatappearedbetween 1900 and his death in 1911, who workedout the historicistimplicationsof this heritage.Throughouthis writings, Dilthey posits a unique connection between lifeand history. "In its subject matter,"he asserts,"life is identical with history.And historyconsistsin life of all kinds in the most varyingcircumstances. His-tory is only life viewed in terms of the continuity of mankind as a whole."6Life is the ultimate,underlyinggroundof all humanthoughtand action and thesource from which the entire socio-historicalworld arises. It is the compre-hensive context in which individual,personallives take place. But we can ap-proachlife only throughthe study of the myriadforms in which it manifestsitself in the course of history. "Historymust teach us what life is; yet, becauseit is the courseof life in time, historyis dependenton life and derives its con-tent from it."7

If we are to understandwhat Dilthey means by historicity,we must firstof all considerhis conceptof the organic systemof consciousness hat is at thebasis of human life and all its historical manifestations. The human studies(Geisteswissenschaften)are distinct from the naturalsciencespreciselybecausetheir mode of understandingpresupposesan inner and underivedmental struc-turewhichis presentto the individual n experienceand reflectionon experience.The continuityof life thatembracesboth the subjectand the objectsof historicalknowledge is seen in the fact that this mental structure s at the basis of theknower'sown life as well as at the basisof the phenomenahe studies.For Dilthey, the initial contactof the self with its environment s not a pas-sive recordingof impersonal,neutralobjects and processes. Rather,immediateawarenessof our involvementin the world occurson the level of vital interac-tion. Drivesand instincts innatein the self runup againstthe resistanceof whatis beyond t.8 Consequently,he basicform of our mental structures determined

6 GS, VII, p. 256.7 GS, VII, p. 262.8Cf., GS, V, pp. 98-105.

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DILTHEY AND GADAMERin lived experienceby the reciprocityin which the self is conditioned by itsenvironmentand respondspurposefullyto it. The self's own intentionalityisthereforean original element of this initial life-relationto the world. Indeed,the world is originally present in lived experienceonly in terms of the life-relationin which it stands. Dilthey describeshow the objective world is builtup out of such preconceptualnvolvement:

. .. There is nothing that does not contain a life-relation to the I. As every-thing is related to it, the state of the I changes constantly according to the thingsand people around it. There is not a person or a thing which is only an objectto me; for me it involves pressure or advancement, the goal of some striving ora restriction of my will, importance, demand for consideration, inner closenessor resistance, distance or strangeness. Through the life-relation, either transi-tory or permanent, these people and things bring me happiness, expand myexistence or heighten my powers; or they confine the scope of my life, exercisepressure on me and drain my strength. The attributes which things thus acquireonly in the life-relation to me produce resultant changes in my state. Thus, onthe basis of life itself, types of behavior arise, such as objective comprehension,evaluation and the setting of purposes, with countless nuances merging into eachother. In the course of life they form systematic connections which embrace anddetermine all activity.9Reflection presupposes ived experienceand constitutesa stabilizationofwhat is given in it. The self thus alwayshas a world which it "understands,"albeit in a pre-reflectiveand not in a theoreticalsense,and the mentalstructurewhich developson this pre-conceptualevel is the basis of reflective activities.As reflection clarifies and draws elements of experience into thematic aware-ness, these elementsalreadybelong to an organic, meaningfulstructureof ex-

perience. The structuralunity of the individual'sexperienceis not, therefore,somehow subsequentto lived experience. Within mental life, the part existsonly insofar as it belongsab initio to a structuralwhole which is, in some sense,present in it. This is not of courseto say that the whole of the self's mentalstructure s consciouslypresent in the individualexperience. The structure,asthe organicwhole of mental life, transcends he particularpart. Yet it is im-manent in the particularived experience, n that the mind cannotremain with-in that particularbut rather,startingwith it, is drawninto a processof reflec-tion which uncoversand draws out the manifold of experienceable onnectionsmakingup the total system. Thus conscious ife is dynamicand temporal. Pastand future pervade each moment of experience as memory and anticipationspontaneouslydeterminethat moment'splace within the whole of life.In this way reflection arises spontaneouslyout of lived experience. Itdraws out and clarifies the meaningful patternsalreadypresent in the self'sinitial encounterwith the world. In eachinstanceof reflection,only a fragmentof the comprehensive ystemof the individual's ife is actuallybroughtto the-

9 GS, VII, pp. 131-32.

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matic awareness. Nevertheless,such fragmentsare sufficient to exhibit thatthe mentalstructure,which Dilthey regardsas basicto man'shistoricity, s morethan the mere chronologicalsuccession or flux of experiences. Even on themost primordiallevels, it is organizedso that units of experience take theirplace according o their significancefor the whole of the individual's ife. Suchself-reflectioncan range throughout he entire extent of his experience. And itcan be transformed rom a more or less spontaneousday-dreamingnto a dis-ciplinedand sustainedeffort to comprehend he meaningof his life. He singlesout and accentuatesmoments of life which aresignificant;otherssink awayintoforgetfulness. He remembers he key events which have shapedhis careerandhis life goals,and the eventsand experiences hat forcedhis subsequentrevisionof thosegoals. Old letterstell him how things stoodat someprevioustime. Heprojectsinto his future,and on this basis yet other past experiencesare drawninto reflection,and the significanceof his past is again revised. This interplayof lived experienceand self-reflectionconstitutesour most intimateacquaintancewith historicalinterpretation,and in it Dilthey discovers the key to historicalunderstanding.There are two features of this kind of spontaneousreflectionon life whichprove to be the essentialmarksof Dilthey's conceptof historicalunderstandingassuch.(1) Historicalunderstandinghas to do with the comprehensionof life as apart-wholestructure. It attemptsto grasp the parts of life in terms of theirsignificance for the coherentand relatively self-enclosed, ndividual life-wholeto which they belong. This individual ife-whole is progressively lluminatedbyinterpretation s the partsof life, given to reflection,arecomprehendedn theirinterrelatedness.And at the sametime, the partsof life aregraspedmoreclearlyin their significanceas the organicwhole to which they belong emergesinto theinterpreter's iew throughthem. Every biographeror interpreterof a text isfamiliarwith the hermeneuticalprocedureDilthey is describing. But the indi-vidual structure hat forms the objectof historicalunderstanding eednot be thatof a text or a personalself. It is often the structureof a groupor a nation or ahistoricalepoch. In all thesecases,the idealof understanding emainsthe same,for in them we also encounterrelativelyclosed organicstructures n which theparts have their significance in terms of the horizon of the whole. Dilthey'sown studyof the PrussianLandReformor Burckhardt'studyof the Renaissancein Italy are, thereforeattemptsto understand he individualout of itself. Likethe personalself, these largerunits are individual and can be understoodoutof themselvesbecausethey are centeredin themselvesand have horizons whichmark them off from what went before and what follows. "It is the task of his-toricalanalysis,"Dilthey asserts,"todiscover the climate which governsthe con-cretepurposes,valuesandwaysof thoughtof a period. Eventhe contrastswhichprevail there are determinedby this common background. Thus, every action,

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everythought,everycommonactivity, n short,everypartof this historicalwhole,has its significancethroughits relation to the whole of the epochor age."10ForDilthey, then, the idealof historicalunderstandings to interpret ife outof itself. The interpreterdoes not comprehendhis subjectmatter from someexternalperspective for instance, rom the point of view of its exemplificationof eternal values--nor does he criticize elements of life from his own pointof view as false or delusory. Indeed,objectivity in historicalknowledgemeansimmersingoneself in the object, in adopting its horizons,not in reducingit toa manifestationof something beyond it. It is this methodologicalorientationtowardthe individualthat rescuesthe mind from the internecinewarfareof tra-ditional worldviews,each of which lays claim to unconditionalknowledge ofreality. "Everyexpressionof life has a meaning insofar as it is a sign whichexpressessomethingthat is partof life. Life does not meananythingother thanitself. Thereis nothing in it thatpoints to a meaning beyondit."ll(2) Secondly,historicalunderstanding nvolves a characteristicmovementfrom sensuouslygiven manifestationsof life to something not sensuouslyanddirectlygiven, namely,the individuallife-whole which the particularmanifesta-tions of life presuppose. That is to say,historicalunderstandingdepends uponthe existence of a historico-culturalworld of sharedmeanings-what Dilthey,following Hegel, calls objective spirit. "In this objective spirit," says Dilthey,"thepast is a permanently nduring presentfor us. Its realm extends from thestyleof life and the formsof social intercourse,o the systemsof purposewhichsociety has created for itself, to custom, law, state, religion, art, science andphilosophy.... From this worldof objectivespirit, the self receives sustenancefrom earliest childhood. It is the medium in which the understanding f otherpeople and their expressions akesplace. Foreverything n which the spirit hasobjectifieditself containssomethingheld in commonby the I and the Thou."12All expressions, ntentional or unintentional, rom which we can gain access tothe individual ife structure,belong to the realm of life-manifestations nd con-stitutethe point of departure or historicalunderstanding. Actions,rudimentaryexpressivebehavior such as gestures or facial expressions,are life-manifesta-tions which tell us somethingof the life-structurebehindthem. Objectivescien-tific expressionsgain their precision and clarity preciselyby being intelligiblewithout any referenceto an individual ife-structureor set of historicalcircum-stances. Yet even Newton's Principiais a life-manifestationof interestto his-

10GS,VII, pp. 154-55; cf. also, p. 168. These largerrealitiesare individuals n thelimitedbut specificsensethat theyalso exhibita part-whole tructure. While this maybesufficientto justifyDilthey'sprocedure,he becameawareof an ambiguity nsofaras theselargerrealities,unlike personalselves,no longer have their locusin lived experience,butareonly logical subjects. Cf. GS,VII, p. 282.GS, VII,p. 234; cf. also,p. 138.1' GS,VII,p. 208.

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torical understanding nsofar as it indirectly discloses the life-structureof itsauthor or the mind of his age. Obviously,however,historicalunderstandingsprimarilydependenton conscious,deliberateexpressionsof experience,such asthe conversation, he written document,the poetic or the visual work of art.All of these presupposeand betoken the life-world from which they spring.Indeed,such expressionsvery often disclosemore about the structureof his lifethan their authorconsciously ntended. Througha skillful and reflectiveexpli-cationof suchclues to the underlying ife-structure,he interpreterof a text canhope to understand he authorbetterthan the author understoodhimself. Dil-they argues, herefore, hat the task of historicalunderstandings to move fromthese life-manifestations owardsa reflective reconstructionof the horizons ofthe individual ife-whole in which they stand.These two essentialcharacteristics evealDilthey'smodel of historicalunder-standing to be one of the self-transpositionor imaginative projection of theknowerinto the horizon of his subjectmatter. As Dilthey sees it, the conditionfor the possibilityof understanding s self-transpositions that both knower andknown are individualstructuralsystems shaped by history. Thus the structuralsystemof life appears n a doublecapacity:as the object I understand nd as theorgan by which I understand. To the extent that understanding ucceeds,I ineffect become the otherpersonor a citizen of the past age. I becomethe otherlife-structure,not in the sense of a mysticalor psychologicalmetamorphosis, utby reflectivelygrasping and reconstructing he life-structureof the other per-son or age.Now it is my contentionthat all the difficulties and ambiguitiesof histori-cism are present in Dilthey's theory of historicalunderstanding,and that thismodel- dominant,at least,implicitlyin the entireromantic raditionof philoso-phy andhistoriography leadsto a profoundalienationof the knower from his-tory. Dilthey assumes hat the knower is initiallyalienatedfrom historyin thatthe very successof historicalunderstandingas he conceives it depends on theknower'snegatingand overcoming he temporaldistance hat separateshim fromhis object. The aim of the interpreter s to divesthimself of his own particularprejudices,and thus to understand he life-manifestationswith which he dealsin termsof the life-worldin which they originated. What he negates,then, ishis own present as a vital extension of the past. Historical understanding sachieved n directproportion o the knower'sabilityto escapethe particularhori-zons that, on Dilthey's own theory,are the inevitable burden of his own his-toricity. Paradoxically,he historicityof existence which Dilthey affirms im-poses no real limitation on the essentialuniversalityof understanding. Nor ishistorya living realitythat extends into the present,qualifyingour horizonsasit did those of the past. It is something that is apparentlyovercomeand leftbehind by the utilizationof an effective historicalmethod.This alienationfrom history, implied in Dilthey's model of historicalunder-standing, has profound metaphysicalconsequencesfor historicism. Historicalunderstanding iberatesthe knower from his own historicity;he gains a free-

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dom from the prejudicesgiven in and with the particularity f his own histori-cal horizons. From his methodologically-secured osition beyond history, hecomesto see the relativityand the horizontalcharacter f all that is human:The historical consciousness of the finitude of every historical phenomenon,of every human social condition and of the relativity of every kind of faith, isthe last step towards the liberation of man. With it man achieves the sovereigntyto enjoy every experience to the full and surrender himself to it unencumbered,as if there were no system of philosophy or faith to tie him down. Life is freedfrom knowledge through concepts; the mind becomes sovereign over the spiderwebs of dogmatic thought. Everything beautiful, everything holy, every sacrificerelived and interpreted, opens perspectives which disclose some part of reality.And equally, we accept the evil, horrible and ugly, as filling a place in the world,

as containing some reality which must be justified in the system of things, some-thing that cannot be conjured away. And in contrast to relativity, the con-tinuity of creative forces asserts itself as the central historical fact.13

What Dilthey is offering us here is a metaphysic,and indeed, a metaphysicquite at odds with the one he imposes on the subjectmatter of history. In amannerreminiscentof Hegel, Dilthey is arguing that historicalunderstandingconstitutes a kind of heightened self-possession. It is life turning back uponitself andgaining a final sovereigntyover its own past forms. Historicalunder-standinggives life what the older Weltanschauungenwhichpreceded he histori-cal consciousnesscould not: a contemplativefreedom from the prejudicesandonesidednesswhich,as Dilthey sees it, are the markof all historical ife.Thus the cogency of Dilthey's historicismfounderson the question of theknower'sown transcendence f history. By virtue of historicalunderstanding,the historicist s magicallyemancipated rom the very conditionhe asserts o beuniversal. This conflict, implicit in historicism,between the demandsof scien-tific historicalknowledgeand the historicityof the knower himself is never re-solved by Dilthey. At the very end of his life Dilthey only began to sense theepistemologicalconsequences hat would be entailed in making his affirmationof historicism consistent by placing the knower too under its shadow. "ThehistoricalWeltanschauung,"e said, "is the liberationof the humanspirit fromthe final chainswhich naturalscienceand philosophyhave not yet broken yetwhere are the meansfor overcomingthe anarchyof convictions hat threaten obreak n? I have laboredmy entire life long on the problem.... I see the goal.If I fall along the way, I hope my young fellow travellers, my pupils, will followit to the end."'4 But how Dilthey envisaged the path leading to the goal ishard to discern,nor did his studentssucceed n reachingit.

Dilthey did, however,succeedin illuminatingthe historicityof life, even ifhis conceptionof historicalknowledge proved incompatiblewith it. Thus hiswork leavesus with a choice betweendiscardinghis vision of humanhistoricitybecauseof the threat it poses to objective historicalunderstanding, r revising3 GS, VII,pp. 290-91."GS, V,p. 9.

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DAVID .LINGEthat model of historicalunderstanding n order to preservewhat is of lastingvalue in his historicism. Since Dilthey's time, philosophershave been virtuallyunanimous n adoptingthe first alternative. In Gadamer'sphilosophywe havea concertedeffort to explorethe secondpossibility.

IIIIt is man's situationto be presentin and to understandhis world in termsof patternsof meaningthatareantecedent o reflection andcolor reflectionwhenit occurs. Dilthey intended his conceptof historicityto illuminate this perspec-tival characterof human consciousness. But if we now recall his propositionthat "the one who studieshistoryis the sameone who makes it," the full ironyof his positioncomes to light, for historicity s exactlywhat he cannotultimatelyattribute o the knower. His insight into the historicalnatureof man seems tohave a purely negativevalue for him.Against this background,we can now turnour attentionto the new directionHans-GeorgGadamer akesin his reflectionson the natureof understanding. Inhis systematicwork Truth and Method,which appeared n 1960, and in numer-ous essayssince that time,15Gadamerelevatesthe historicityof understandingothe level of a basic hermeneuticalprinciple and exhibits the positive role his-toricityactuallyplays in everyhumantransmissionof meaning. The most im-mediate resultof Gadamer'saffirmationof historicityis to diminish the sharpdistinctionbetween he scientific interpretationhatgoes on in the Geisteswissen-schaftenand the broaderprocessesof understanding hat occur everywhere nhumanlife withoutanypretenseof scientificprecision. Scientific interpretationtoo, as a mode of humanactivity,is subjectto the universaland binding powerof man'shistoricity. Quiteexplicit in Gadamer'swork,therefore, s a thorough-

going critiqueof the excessiveclaimsmadeby Dilthey and others thatmethodo-logicalself-consciousnessndcriticalself-controlamountto a vehiclewhereby heknower transcendshis own historicity. Such claims reflect the CartesianandEnlightenment deal of the autonomoussubjectwho successfullyextricateshim-self from the immediateentanglementsof historyand the prejudices hat comewith that entanglement. For Dilthey, historicalunderstandingoccursonly in-sofar as the knower breaks the immediateand formative influence of historyupon him and stands over against it. Historicalunderstandings the action ofsubjectivitypurgedof all prejudices.

This methodologicalalienationof the knower from history is preciselythepoint at which Gadamer ocuses his criticism. Is it the case that the knowercanleave his immediate situationin the presentby virtue of adoptingan attitude?'1Cf. Hans-GeorgGadamer,Wahrheitund Methode:GrundzigeeinerphilosophischenHermeneutik 2nd ed.;Tiibingen: Mohr,1965), and KleineSchriften(3 vols.;Tiibingen:Mohr,1967-72). (The formerworkwill be cited as WM,the latteras KS.) A selectionof essaysfrom the Kleine Schriften,translatedand edited by the present writer,will bepublished shortly by NorthwesternUniversityPress as Essaysin PhilosophicalHerme-neutics.

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An ideal of understandinghat asks us to overcomeour own presentis intelligi-ble only on the assumption hat the interpreter's wn historicityis an accidentalfactor. But if it is an ontologicalratherthan a merelyaccidentaland subjectivecondition,then the knower'sown present situation is alreadyconstitutively n-volved in any actual process of understanding. For Gadamer,therefore, theknower'sboundnessto his present horizons and the temporalgulf separatinghim from his object are no longer negative factors or impedimentsto be over-come, but rather,the productive ground of all understanding. Our prejudicesdo not cut us off from the past but initiallyopen it up to us. Thus our presenthorizonshave a hermeneutical ignificanceas the positive enablingconditionofhistoricalunderstanding ommensuratewith human finitude.Preciselyhere is the point at which the attemptat an historicalhermeneuticmustcriticallybegin. The overcomingof prejudices the wholesaledemandofthe Enlightenmentwill itself turn out to be a prejudice,whose revisionalonewill clear the way for an appropriate nderstanding f the finitudewhich notonlydominates urhumanitybut justas much ourhistorical onsciousness.Doesstanding n traditionsactuallymean first of all being subjectto prejudicesandlimited in one's freedom? Rather, s not all humanexistence even the mostfree-limited andconditionedn manyways? If thatis the case,the ideaof anabsolutereason s simplynot a possibility or historicalhumanity. Reasonfor usis only real as historical, hat is, withoutreservation,t is not itself lord but al-waysremainsdependentupon the given in which it participates.1

Prejudiceis the necessarycondition of historicalunderstandingbecause man,as a finite being, has no direct or neutral access to history,but approaches tfrom his position in the present. Shapedby the past in an infinity of unexam-ined ways,the presentis the "given" n which historicalunderstandings rooted,and which reason can never entirely hold at a critical distance and objectify.This is the meaning of the "hermeneutical ituation"as Gadameremploys theterm. The givennessof the hermeneutical ituationcan never be dissolvedintocriticalself-knowledge n such fashion that the prejudice-structuref finite un-derstandingmight disappear. "To be historical,"Gadamerasserts,"meansnotto be absorbed nto self-knowledge."17The pastcan now be seen to havea truly pervasivepowerin the phenomenonof understanding. Its role cannot be restrictedmerely to supplying the textsor events that make up the "objects" f interpretation. As prejudiceand tradi-tion, it also defines the groundthe interpreterhimself occupieswhen he under-stands. While acknowledging his formativerole of the past, however,Gada-mer can still affirm the legitimate, if more limited, claims and aspirationsofcriticalscholarship. Despite the assertionsof his critics,scientific methodologyreceivesits rightful and distinguishedplace in Gadamer's heory.l8 Neverthe-

la WM, p. 260.17WM, p. 285.s'SeveralreviewershavechargedGadamerwith being anti-scientific. By far the mosthostileand passionateof Gadamer'sritics is the Italianlegal historian,Emilio Betti, who

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less, suchmethodology s no longer isolatedand set entirelyin opposition to thebroader nd morespontaneous ransmission ndunderstanding f meaningwhichgoes on and alwayshas gone on within a culture independentlyof attemptsatscientific self-control.19 Gadamer'sdescriptionof the phenomenonof historicalunderstanding ries to take account of the primal interinvolvementof traditionand interpretation, r text and interpreter. The productive significanceof theknower'spresenthistorical situationpoints to the fact that the event of under-standing itself- even of scientific historical understanding- stands in, con-tinues,and adds to the continuityof traditionand the truth the traditionseeksto preserveand transmit. "Thehorizonof the present," ays Gadamer,"is notformedat all withoutthe past."20Historicalconsciousness s not only influencedimmediatelyby the past which situatesit; it takesshape in the first place onlyin and throughits understanding f the particularcontents of traditionwhichform and have formedits objects. Thus we can find no point in historicalun-derstanding, itherbeforeor after it reaches he self-conscious, eflectivelevel ofhistoricalconsciousness,at which it is independentof traditionand a concretestanding-withintradition. Critical historical scholarship actually presupposesthis. We cantell whereandwhen an ancient documentwas most likely written.But Mommsen'sHistory of Rome- a veritablemasterpieceof critical-historicalmethodology-also betraysthe "hermeneutical ituation" n which it was writ-ten and provesto be a child of its age ratherthan the productof an anonymous"knowingsubject."2'In this fashion, Gadamertries to dissolve the abstractopposition betweenknowledgeand tradition and to call our attention to the fundamentalsense inwhich historicalunderstanding s itself the bearerand continuer of tradition.This continuingstanding-within radition this interactionwith the past whichsituates the knower in the present is the burden,and yet at the sametime theproductivereality,of our historicity. As Gadamerpoints out, Hegel hadalreadyseen this in the Phenomenologyof Spiritwhen he arguedthat all self-knowledgearises from a historicalpre-given which he called substance.22 The task ofreason,Hegel contended, s to overcome substancedialecticallyand to dissolveit into knowledge. Gadamerseems to be in agreementwith Hegel- and withDilthey-to the extent that he too regards he taskof philosophyto be that ofgaining critical awarenessof our historicity,of the substantialityof historicalstands n close proximity o Dilthey. Cf. Betti,Die Hermeneutik ls allgemeineMethodikder GeisteswissenschaftenTubingen: Mohr, 1962). Gadamer's nswerto these chargesis found in his "Hermcneutikund Historismus,"which appearsas an appendixto thesecondeditionof WM,pp. 477-512.

19Gadamerhas in mind here such interpretiveprocessesas the experienceof the workof art (WM, pp. 1-162) and the practical fforts of the preacheror the jurist (WM, pp.290-95, 307-23). Cf. also, KS, I, pp. 101-107, 119-21.aoWM, p. 289.1 Cf. KS, I, pp. 103, 120-21.22Cf.Hegel, Phanomenologiedes Geistes (Hamburg:Felix Meiner, 1952), pp. 19ff.(Baillie translation,pp. 80ff.), and Gadamer,WM, pp. 285-86.

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interactionwhich shapesour hermeneutical ituation. But to becomeaware ofhistoricalinteractionand the immediate effect of traditionupon us does not atall lead to the negationof its influence. The error of Hegel's philosophy,andultimately of Dilthey's conception of historical understandingas well, is toequate these two-awareness of historical interactionand negation of its in-fluenceupon us. For Gadamer,on the other hand,reflectionremainshistoricaland finite, not absolute,and for this reason it cannot renderthe force of this"substantiality"f the past inoperative. "Reflectionon a given preunderstand-ing brings before me something that otherwise happens 'behind my back.'Something but not everything, or what I have calledthe consciousness f his-torical interactionis inescapablymore being than consciousness,and being isnever fully manifest."23 The consciousnessof being conditioned in no waynegates the conditionedness. The reflective denial of one's own historicityoutof faith in a method does not cancel the influence of that historicityany morethandoes the naive unawareness f it.It should be clear from this that Gadamer s not offering us a normativeaccountof historicalunderstanding. He presentsno new canon of interpreta-tion, but rather s seekingto describe he ontologicalcontextin which all under-standing including critical understanding transpires. This context cannotbe adequately rasped n terms of a model of historicalunderstanding ominatedbythe idea of a method. The emphasisuponmethod, n fact,blursoursensitivityto historical understandingas an event over which the interpreterdoes notpreside. Here Gadamer'sphilosophy joins Heidegger's attack on the "sub-jectivism"of Westernmetaphysics,which has as its point of departure he self-securedposition of the knowing subject. Understanding s an event, a move-ment of historyitself in which neitherinterpreternor text can be thoughtof asan autonomouspart. "Understanding tself," Gadamerargues, "is not to bethoughtof so muchas an action of subjectivity,but as the enteringinto an eventof transmission n which past andpresentareconstantlymediated. This is whatmust gain validity in hermeneutical heory,which is much too dominatedbythe ideaof a procedure, method."24In sharpcontrast o Dilthey'smodel,Gadamerregardshistoricalunderstand-ing not as transposition,but as translation. Even in the most carefulattemptsto graspthe past"asit reallywas,"understanding emainsessentiallya mediationof the past with the present. Understandings not reconstruction,but integra-tion. As translation,mediation,the interpreter's ction belongsto and is of thesame natureas the substanceof historywhich fills out the temporalgulf. Forthis gulf, as the continuity of heritage and tradition, is preciselya processof"presencings,"hat is, of mediations, hroughwhich the pastalready unctionsinand shapesthe interpreter's resent. Historicalunderstandings alwaysa con-crete fusing of horizons (Horizontsverschmeltzung). The event of understand-ing alters the horizons that existed beforehand. The text or events of the past

23KS, I, p. 127.'2WM, pp. 274-75.

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DAVIDB. LINGBspeakanew in the languageof the presentand answernew questions; he presentis enhancedand broadenedby the fusion and the narrownessof its prejudicesovercome. This concept of understandingby no means excludes attempts atcriticalinterpretation. We can indeed becomeawareof our prejudicesand cor-rect them in our effort to understand. But this correctionof prejudicesis nolongerto be regardedas the transcendence f all prejudices owarda prejudice-free, absoluteknowledge. It is the fact of prejudicesas such, and not of onepermanent, nflexible set of them, that is symptomaticof our finitude and ourimmersion n historical nteraction. Particularhorizons,even if mobile, remainthe presuppositionof historicalunderstanding. When the reality of our his-toricity is taken seriously,the knower'spresent loses its status as a privilegedposition and becomesinsteada fluid and relativemoment,a moment which isindeedproductiveand disclosive,but one that, like all others,will be overcomeand fused with futurehorizons.

In truth the horizon of the presentis conceived n constantformation nsofaras we must all constantly est our prejudices. The encounterwith the past andthe understandingf the traditionout of whichwe have come do not belongtosuch testingas the last factor. Hence the horizonof the presentdoes not takeshapeat all withoutthe past. There is justas little a horizon of the present nitself as thereare historicalhorizons which one would have to attain. Rather,understandings alwaysa processof the fusing of suchallegedhorizonsexistingin themselves.... In the workingof tradition uchfusionoccursconstantly. Forthereold and new grow togetheragain and again in living value without theone or the otherever being removedexplicitly.2The event of understanding lterswhatone was- which is to say,the interpretergenuinelylearnssomethingand does not remaininflexibly the same.This is a profoundlyHegelian insight. Indeed, ike Dilthey, Gadamer earnsmuch from Hegel, but what these two thinkers learn from him measures thegreat distance between their conceptionsof historicalunderstanding. Diltheycontinues the contemplativeside of Hegel's idealisminsofar as the knower forhim attains a final grasp of history through his reconstructiveefforts. To besure, this absolutegrasp is no longer embodied in a metaphysicalsystem,buttakesplace insteadin the liberating gaze of historicalconsciousness tself. It ispreciselythis contemplative dealof historicalunderstandinghat makesDiltheya victim of the veryhistoricismhe set out to conquer:

Man, this temporalcreature,maintainsthe securityof his existence,as long ashe worksin time, by lifting his creationsout of the temporal lux as enduringobjects. While under this illusion he createswith greater oyandpower. Here-in lies the eternal contradictionbetween creativeminds and the historicalcon-sciousness. The formernaturally ry to forgetthe pastand to ignore the betterin the future. But the latterlives in the synthesisof all times,and it perceivesin all individualcreation he accompanyingelativityand transience. This con-tradictions the silentlybornafflictionmost characteristicf philosophytoday."

2S WM,p. 289.2 Dilthey, GS, V, p. 364; similarly, f. GS,VIII,p. 225.

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Gadamer's hilosophyis more attunedto the empiricalor phenomenologicalside of Hegel's thought Not the summit of absoluteknowledge,but the mov-ing, dialectical ife of reasonfinds expression n Gadamer's hilosophicalherme-neutics. Historicalunderstandings experience, n the Hegelian sense,and notknowledge.27 Everyexperience,as Hegel triedto show,passesover into anotherexperience. Our efforts to understand have this same dialectical character.Genuine historicalunderstandingnvolves a consciousnessof our historicity,ofour finitude. Yet this consciousnessof historicity-of the bounds of humanbeing- is not an achievementwhich already tandsbeyondthat finitude in theinfinitude of absoluteknowledge. Rather, it is a radicalopenness for futureexperience, or future historicalunderstanding. Remainingwithin the continu-ity of historical interaction,the event of understandingdoes not exclude, butrathercontains,as an essentialingredientopennessfor futurerevision and trans-formation, hat is, for fusion with ever new horizons.Gadamerhas located the deepest point of agreementbetween Hegel andHeideggerandhas built upon it in his own work. Heideggerhas saidthat eachevent of understandings both a disclosureand a concealment. It is partof anongoing dialoguewith the past that breaksoff in incompleteness n the present,only to be resumedagainandagain. It would seem that Gadamer's wn theory,like all new attempts at philosophicalunderstanding,participatesin this in-evitable interinvolvement f disclosureandconcealment, ndthushas advantagesand disadvantages.I have indicatedthat Gadamerdoes not proposea new methodor procedurefor interpretation,but seeks to qualify the claims made by other theoriesas towhat is actuallyachieved in historicalunderstanding. The advantageof Gada-mer'sphilosophicalhermeneutics, herefore, s at the point of suggestingan on-tology that more adequatelylluminatesandsupportsthe phenomenonof under-standing. Gadameremphaticallyrejects the substanceontology of traditionalmetaphysicsand the consciousness-orientedontologyof German dealism. Overagainst the "subjectivism" f these ontologies, he tries to provide an under-standingof being that can push the self-securedknowing subjectfrom the cen-ter of hermeneuticalheoryand point to the deeper ontologicalcontext that em-bracesknower and known alike. Understanding s not to be regardedas theact of subjectivity as an adequatio ntellectuset re, or a recoveryof the inten-tion of the originalauthor (mens auctoris). It is not a copy of an object,to bejudged against an alleged meaning-in-itself. Rather, the text includes its in-terpretations nd is only throughthem. The mode of being of understanding,therefore, s extensive and episodic. It is extensive in that each act of under-standing s a momentin the life of tradition tself, of which text and interpreteraresubordinate lements. It is episodicor eventful in that it constitutesan on-going process of "presencings" r "concretizations"f the past in each newpresent. "The real event of understanding,"s Gadamer ays,"goescontinually

" Cf. WM, pp. 439-40.

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beyondwhat can be broughtto the understandingof the other person'swordsby methodologicaleffort and critical self-control. Indeed, it goes far beyondwhat we ourselvescan becomeawareof in all this. It is true of everydialoguethat throughit somethingdifferent comes to be."28Gadamer'sphilosophicalhermeneuticspoints the way to a deeper apprecia-tion of the actualrole of tradition in all understanding, nd for this reason itshould be of interest to students of religion. His theory frees hermeneuticsfrom the ideal of one canonical interpretationof what the past, in the formof text or historicalevent, says to us in the present. Since the hermeneuticalsituationis a constitutiveelementin determining he meaningof the text, thereis no meaningof the "text-in-itself"which the correctinterpretationduplicates.But Gadamer'stheory also involves disadvantages r ambiguitiesthat may wellstimulate urtherinquiryinto the natureof historicalunderstanding. Can Gada-mer do awaywith the possibilityof a canonicalinterpretationwithout openinghimself to the charge that he deprives the past of any determinatemeaningwhatsoeverandmakesit, in effect, the preyof the presentsituation? The inter-preter may well find in Gadamer'shermeneuticsa profounddescriptionof thefinal result of his efforts,namely,that his action itself becomesan event withinthe processof tradition n a waythat"goesfarbeyondwhathe can becomeawareof in all this." But can he make senseout of his intentionto understand nd theprocedureshe follows withoutcommittinghimself practicallyo the conceptof adeterminatemeaning in the text itself? The problemhere is remarkably imi-lar to that encounteredn recentdiscussionsof contextualistor situationalethics,where a tension and ambiguityseem inevitably to exist between the concretesituation of ethical action in which the moralprinciple must be construedandthe objective,unambiguous orce of the moral principlewhen statedabstractly.Like ethics, hermeneutical heorymust account for the objectivityof the text'smeaning and the creativityof the hermeneutical ituation. It might very wellbe that a theoryof historicalunderstandingwould benefit at leastas much fromdialogue with ethics as it has from its fruitful contact with epistemologyandlinguistic analysis.PerhapsGadamer'sheoryof understandings not without an answerto thequestionof the objectivityof the text, but that answer needs to be workedoutthrougha carefuldescriptionof how the particular nterpreters n a given ageactuallycome into conversationand agreementregarding extualmeaning. Thisconversation and agreementwould have the participants'own hermeneuticalsituationas one essentialingredient.

What a text means s not to be likenedto a standpointwhich is immovablyandstubbornly dhered o, which suggests o the one who wishesto understand nlythe questionof how the other personcould come to such an absurdopinion.In this sense,understandingt is most certainlynot a questionof an "historicalcomprehension"which reconstructshe origins of a text. Rather,one intendsto understand he text itself. But that means that in the reawakeningof theKS, I, pp. 80-81.

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meaningof the text the interpreter's wn ideas are alreadyengaged. To thisextent, the interpreter's wn horizonis determinative,but also not as a specialstandpointwhichone holds fastor carries hrough,butrathermore as an opinionand possibilitywhich cooperatesn the appropriation f what is said in the text.We have described his as a fusing of horizons. Now we recognize n it theform of operation of the conversation in which a subject matter comes to expres-sion whichis not onlymine or my author'sbut rathera commonsubjectmatter.29

However this may be, Gadamerhas given persuasiveexpressionto the positivefunction of humanhistoricityas the ontological groundof the opennessof thepast for ever new concretizations nd the corresponding pennessof understand-ing for ever new appropriations of the past.

2 WM, p. 366.

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Dilthey Gadamer Understanding