The moving structure of reality in Gadamer’s method of interpretation: A philosophy of life in the making of history

Abstract

The reorientation in hermeneutics from matters of textual interpretation and historically effected consciousness to “hermeneutic realism” and immanent metaphysics has created questions about our place in both history and nature. They are as mutually exclusive of one another as linear and cyclic time and yet human beings have a share in both. To resolve the contradiction, the steps in Gadamer’s method of interpretation are mapped onto the following structures of reality: (1) the ontic surface defined by relations of mutual exclusion and contradiction; (2) the underlying ontological dimension in which opposites turn into one another; and (3) a mode of human existence between them that is responsible for creating the order of nature in time.