TRUTH AND METHOD: HERMENEUTICS OR HISTORY?

Abstract

I argue in this paper that the ‘hermeneutics or history’ disjunct in its title is indeedexclusive: we can opt for either the ‘art’ of hermeneutics or the ‘science’ of history—but notboth. Should we attempt to choose both, we default automatically to hermeneutics. I argue thattwo central features of the overall argument of Truth and Method pose a serious threat to thevery concept of historical research. First is its view of the essentially methodical character of allscience, including ‘historical science’, and second is the essentially ‘phenomenological’ methodthat Gadamer purports to be employing throughout his book.