Una propuesta de lectura del debate Gadamer-Habermas a partir del análisis de Ricoeur

Abstract

Undoubtedly, one of the fundamental contributions in the philosophy of the twentieth century is the philosophical hermeneutics proposed by HG Gadamer in his book Truth and Method of 1960. The hermeneut works there various aspects related to the phenomenon of understanding, showing the treatment of great thinkers of the hermeneutical tradition like Schleiermacher and Dilthey. One of the most outstanding approaches of the work is the vindication of prejudices, tradition and authority as a condition of possibility of our understanding as historically determined finite beings. From its publication, Gadamer's book had an immense repercussion in the philosophical world that has not ceased since then. Among its reception, in this work we are especially interested in that made by J. Habermas, representative of the second generation of The Frankfurt School. As we will see in this work, for Habermas the interpretive hermeneutical model serves as a methodological alternative to positivist reductionism in the social and human sciences, by showing that the understanding of meaning cannot be replaced by empirical verification or mathematical explanation. However, Habermas detects a difficulty in Gadamerian hermeneutics, which has to do with a supposed lack of criticality in the interpretive approach, for this reason this model would be incapable of serving the emancipatory ends of the critique of social knowledge. Based on these comments by Habermas, a famous debate would start which, on a personal level for the two philosophers, would serve as a pretext for the friendship that German thinkers established.