Truth, method and freedom
09
Apr
Truth is not a logical rule or even a scientific
pursuit, science moves in steps towards the construction of knowledge, what is called epistemology, at its great root was the denial of the doxa, of mere opinion.
The truth, Socrates said (through Plato’s speeches) “is not with men, but among men”, so dialogues and opposing ideals are necessary to arrive at what Hans-Georg Gadamer formulates as the “hermeneutic circle” (we’ve already posted about it here).
Hermeneutics is the art of understanding what is written or spoken, so it is the search for what each author formulates, or their mental map, and this fidelity requires a study not to put ideas or words into the mouth of the author, but to discover their intentionality.
Contemporary narratives reflect this lack of hermeneutics, with each author having to give the other their own discourse. This is only possible by restricting freedom, or intimidating the Other, what in today’s culture is called hater, which is characteristic of dogmatic authoritarianism, of those who only know how to listen to their own discourse and refuse to understand what is different.
Freedom is essential for dialog, for an authentic construction of knowledge, and a sincere search for the truth. It is necessary to listen to the other (the spoken or written text) in order to produce a new fusion of horizons, the shared process between interlocutors.
The logic of the narrative is the imposition of a discourse that claims to be unique and true, so freedom is not allowed, interlocutors are interrupted or silenced in their discourse, so that only one narrative survives and its values and arguments are imposed.
The modern idolization of the state as the only source of power, even if it refers to itself as democratic, is the incapacity for a hermeneutic and a method where dialogue is open.
We need to suspend our concepts, put an epoché in parentheses.
The hermeneutic circle is not an end in itself. Hans-Georg Gadamer reflects at length on Dilthey’s thinking, which he considers to be romantic and partly one of the influences on Schleiermacher’s hermeneutics and the ways in which he was committed to Cartesian reason and its logic.
Trapped in this logic, the dualism of subject and object remains, and according to Gadamer (1998, p. 340) it goes back to Vico who had already affirmed the epistemological primacy of the world of history according to the human spirit, this type of knowledge makes subject and object interconnected.
Thus truth is ontological, proper to the human spirit, proper to its being, in it there is truth.
Gadamer, H-G. (1998) Verdade e método: traços fundamentais de uma hermenêutica filosófica. Brazil, Petrópolis, RJ: Vozes.
