Hans Georg Gadamer and Poetry as the Core of a Philosophical Hermeneutics

Ettore Aldo del Vigo, 1952

Hans Georg Gadamer and Poetry as the Core of a Philosophical Hermeneutics 

Introduction: 

Before starting the course, I was completely unfamiliar with Gadamer. I had never read him before and was entirely unaware of his existence and work. It was a revelation for me, as someone who believes it is never too late to learn. I had previously read several works by Hartmann, Heidegger, Kant, and Descartes. I was absolutely captivated by Gadamer, impressed by the clarity of his thought, his conceptualization, the richness, and the fluidity of his solid epistemological discourse. 

Perhaps due to my love for poetry, I felt an immediate attraction to a philosopher who begins his magnum opus Truth and Method with a poem by Rilke, giving clear precedence to Ars Poetica over other artistic manifestations. As I progressed in my readings for this paper, I encountered many interesting ideas worthy of development, of which I will present the following: Is poetry a kind of vehicle for expressing truth, from the ontological to the epistemological? How can we embed truth in a poem? Can everyone see it? These are not aporias, for they have a solution based on reason and episteme. Still, they are related to the concepts of non-conceptual truth and Gadamer’s conclusions about taste, as well as his explanation of Kant’s axiomatic approach, which we examined during course discussions and in Gadamer’s detailed reasoning about the Cartesian method and his intention to explain the immeasurable that resides in the spirit scientifically. 

Gadamerian Hermeneutics of Aesthetics: 

I will honestly try to address these two questions from the fragile framework of my philosophically untrained mind, relying on the sensus communis I learned from Gadamer, which resides within us. I found it fascinating to embark on these readings and carry out the reasoning and inquiries. This scholium does not aim to become a thesis; it is merely a course conclusion paper, and for reasons of space and opportunity, it will not be as extensive as these questions deserve, though they hold great importance for me because they opened a source of knowledge, a stream from which I had never tasted before. 

On the Problem of Truth in Poetry: 

When encountering a work of art in any form, we do not approach it empty-handed; we carry prior knowledge, acquired over the years and through experience, to interpret the artistic representation we see. Gadamer refers to this as Vildung, something that is attracted, incorporated, and becomes content that nourishes reason in its interpretive action. 

I cite Carrillo (1998): “In Die Aktualität des Schönen (1974), Gadamer tells us: ‘To perceive [wahrnehmen] does not mean that one gathers pure sensory impressions, but rather that to perceive [wahrnehmen] means, as the beautiful word itself already indicates, to "take" something "as true" [etwas für wahr nehmen]. But this means that what is offered to the senses is seen and taken as something.’ Here, Gadamer uses the well-known play on German etymologies in the verb wahrnehmen, perceive, which is composed of the verb nehmen, to take, and the prefix wahr-, which coincides with the adjective wahr, true. The construction of the verb perceive in German seems to originate from the idea that what is seen is not doubted but is considered true. However, this etymologization does not prove anything unless one subscribes to the linguistic fetishism of Heidegger and Gadamer, which is widespread. In fact, if one does not doubt what is seen, this is philosophically unclear. What is it that is not doubted: a vision in the strict sense or an action and its description? If it is said that neither is doubted, then we must specify which of them the last sentence of the quote refers to, and this is where the problems begin.” To perceive something as something contains within itself a concept, and the interpretation of that concept is inferred through the judgment we make when encountering the object to be known, in this case, the poem or artistic work under observation. For Gadamer, the work imposes itself on the observer, linking Heidegger’s thought with the thesis of being. The act of artistic knowledge is purely emotional in an aesthetic sense. 

Gadamer (2001) tells us: “Here, nothing needs to be known or recognized... What matters... is that there is only a movement of aesthetic pleasure without a conceptualizing process, meaning that nothing is seen or understood as something.” In other words, for Gadamer, there is no conceptualization—there are non-conceptual achievements, as there is a clear correlation between the sense that recognizes and the sense of what is recognized in the artistic fact, which is marked by the emotion of encountering it. Recalling Heidegger (cited in Carrillo, 1998): “The first thing to avoid is the schema that there are subjects and objects, consciousness and being; that being is the object of knowledge; that true being is the being of nature; that consciousness is the ego, i.e., the I-ness, the center of acts, the person; that the I’s (persons) face entities, objects, things of nature, value-laden things, goods. In short, the relationship between subject and object is what must be determined, and that is what the theory of knowledge should address.” The idea of thetic being comes from Husserl, Heidegger’s teacher, and passes to Gadamer through him. There is a correlation of discursive consciousness here, as an interpretive tone of being opens up to the work, from the sphere of existence, from finitude, from the breadth of what is known and its temporality—a concept that is also integrated into Gadamer’s thesis through tradition. 

Carrillo (1998) says: “As for the work of art, Heidegger says: ‘It is not the N.N. fecit that must be made known, but the simple factum est that must be maintained as visible in the work: this, [that is] that here the disclosure of the entity has occurred..., this: that such a work is rather than is not.’ The emphasis is placed on being itself, on the very presence of the work. But all presence to the eyes is, in principle, the thesis of being in perception.” Thus, Heidegger tells us: “In general, we can perceive in each thing that it is [daß es ist]; but this is only noticed to immediately be forgotten, in the manner of the habitual.” And he continues with what has already been cited: “What could be more habitual than that entities exist? In the work, on the contrary, it is this, that it is as such [daß es als solches ist], which is unusual.” The basic idea is very simple: indeed, as Husserl argues, in the perception of each thing, the “thesis of being” occurs. However, and this is specific to Heidegger’s idea, being falls into “oblivion.” In contrast, the work of art stands out from everyday things—including tools—by the fact that its presence, its being, imposes itself upon us. 

This explains the dimensionality that the work of art acquires, overwhelming the individual who encounters it, opening up a conception to be apprehended and incorporated through the Vildung, which, according to Gadamer, is our own construct that is built over time and incorporates contents into the being in a gnoseological sense. This allows for its adequacy in the correspondence of contents considered as truth and representation, which are incorporated into the ontological dimension. 

I believe there is bidirectionality here, between the object aesthetically learned and the learner of the object. In other words, the work possesses its own discourse that is perceived by the viewer or reader, and the viewer or reader impacts it through the judgment formed about the work. This implies the participation of taste as a stabilizing agent in accessing the contents of the work, of sensory experience as a bridge, and of the experience of logos as a motor activated to apprehend the object.

In Kant’s view, the concept of taste is restricted to the judgment of beauty in art. When analyzing this phenomenon, Kant concludes that what is essential to the manifestation of art is that there is a genius who represents not the beauty of a thing, but the representation of an aesthetic idea. To construct the idea of genius, the notion of experience is added: the artist transforms the background of their experiences into art through a symbolic process. 

Gadamer completely rejects this conception of genius’s intervention, structuring his thesis on the phenomenological explanation of the aesthetic construct through Vildung and tradition, thus generating a kind of collective consciousness in which art and taste are shared by a large group as a knowledge based on common sense, stripping it of the Kantian idea of genius’s intervention. 

The symbolism present in the work of art generates the idea of representation and of the represented, which, in turn, feeds the spirit. This idea of merging horizons, which Gadamer mentions as a system of balance between the knower and the known object, allows for interpreting the impact of the work on the spectator and the spectator’s impact on the work, translating it into the observing mind. Gadamer’s hermeneutic program is technically based on rejecting what we might call conceptual meaning or sense. Gadamer asserts that the work “addresses us” and “demands a response,” in fact, that it “demands approval.” That approval is the impact I refer to. It is then translated into a “dialogue” between the work and the observer, where both horizons, both ways of seeing life—the spectator’s and the artist’s—merge their horizons to unite in the enjoyment of the work, which, after all, is the purpose of art, with the freedom it entails. 

Carrillo (1998) comes to my aid again: “If we remember that in the phenomenological tradition, propositions and other ‘acts of thought’—such as comparing, gathering, summing, among others—are considered synthetic consciousness (III chap. 7.), while vision, and perception in general, is considered as monothetic consciousness, as the ‘positedness of being’ (Seinsthesis), then we have two types of ‘being’: synthetic being, or—using Heidegger’s preferred terminology—‘being of the copula,’ and thetic being. Synthetic being is the correlate of all ‘acts of thought,’ while thetic being is the correlate of all perceptive acts, particularly vision: what is seen exists, or in other words, what I see I have conscious ‘as existing’—unlike, for example, what I merely imagine or remember. According to this distinction, Husserl gives us his fourth definition of truth in Logische Untersuchungen as the ‘truth’ of the proposition or its ‘correctness’ (III 123). We have, then, two types of ‘being’ as basic a priori forms of objects of consciousness, namely, being in the proposition (synthetic being or copula being) and being in vision (thetic being). The first corresponds—if the proposition is true—to the synthetic truth of the proposition, while the second corresponds to the purely thetic truth of perception or vision, a ‘truth’ that is nothing more than the presence, the being, of what is perceived or seen.” 

This “truth” is what became famous in the so-called “first Heidegger” under the name of prepredicative or prelogical truth, while in the so-called “second Heidegger,” it became famous under the name of die Offenheit (openness), meaning what is accessible to vision, even if this is understood merely formally. In any case, Heidegger used, at least as early as Being and Time, the Greek term a-letheia (truth). 

Indeed, Husserl’s definition of the thing or object itself as truth allows Heidegger to refer to the term a-letheia in Aristotle and say: ‘Truth means the same as thing, “what shows itself”.’ ... What matters is that it is an elementary yet fundamental idea of Husserlian phenomenology. This provides the basic background for Gadamer’s concept of sense. 

Here lies the central issue of the questions posed at the beginning of the introduction. Is there a correspondence between the truth expressed in the work of art, specifically in a poem, and the synthetic being mentioned by Heidegger? Does poetry serve to convey that truth? 

Gadamer, cited by Carrillo (1998), says: “Gadamer follows the Kantian idea that beauty in the strict sense is ‘free beauty,’ meaning without concepts of any kind. But what is no longer Kantian is the idea that the ‘ineffable significant contents’ imply ‘truth.’ What kind of truth are we dealing with? What really matters is the supposed ineffability, because, by supposing it, Gadamer ultimately arrives at the thetic being discussed earlier, but now as definitive of art. Indeed, later in the work at hand, Gadamer states decisively: ‘The meaning of a work of art lies... in its existence [daß es da ist].’ The subordinate clause daß es da ist is a paraphrase of another statement by Heidegger in his well-known essay The Origin of the Work of Art (1935): ‘What could be more common than that entities exist [daß Seiendes ist]? In the work, on the contrary, it is this, that it is as such [daß es als solches ist], which is unusual.’ But this is nothing more than a special reformulation of Husserl’s idea of thetic truth, of the ‘thesis of being’. This is very easy to verify in the Heidegger text just cited.” By linking Heidegger’s and Gadamer’s discourse, we arrive at a certainty of something very tangible: for the expression of truth, an ineffability condition is necessary in the work, in the poem. Something in the poem that combines ideas of beauty, taste, aesthetic sense, depth, transcendence—all expressed in the concept of “ineffability” as a bridge between the thetic and synthetic being present in the act of knowing the work, impacting the spectator. While every written work is literarily a representation of the fictional, in the epistemological sense, we can affirm that the work of art transmits and transcends toward a concept of expressed truth because it contains in its message an interiority from its creator’s ontology, and as a genuine expression, it is true, because it incorporates taste, a product of sensus communis, and because it moves from a particular environment to a general one, from the individual to the knowledge of the spectator, thus becoming general knowledge. It becomes proof of truth according to its existence, as Gadamer expresses, and with which I fully agree. 

Carrillo (1998) states: “Gadamer tells us, in fact, that in its ‘accepting and rejecting,’ taste ‘... does not hesitate and... does not know how to seek reasons. Rather, taste is something like a sense. It does not initially have a knowledge based on reasons.’ In other words, with ‘taste’ we have one of the first versions of a ‘sense,’ which, Gadamer tells us just one page later, ‘... recognizes something—and certainly in a way... that cannot be brought to rules or concepts.’” With this, the strategic result of eliminating the “concept” becomes clear: “reasons” and “rules” imply syllogisms based on concepts, that is, propositions in the strict sense. Therefore, Gadamer’s construct of a “sense” that is a “knowledge” not “based on reasons” amounts to postulating non-predicative “knowledge” and “truth.” Particularly important is the fact, already noted, that this is a “group knowledge.” From the universal conceptual knowledge—let’s call it Kantian—we arrive at a “sense” that is group-based “knowledge” or “recognition,” not conceptual but emotional, which, in fact, ‘... determines us to take sides... in moral and religious terms...’” Gadamer is emphatic in this regard, asserting that there is no unchangeable, rigid truth; truth is fluid. I would add that it is like a living being that grows and develops, becoming strong or weak over the years, and can be nurtured or tortured, that is, when truth is tainted by lies or malice. 

Therefore, we can affirm that a poem can indeed serve as a vehicle for expressing truth, as every individual, every creator, possesses it within themselves in this fusion of thetic and synthetic being, united in the aesthetic act of encountering the work. 

We can understand the phenomenon through the subjectivities implicit in it from the creator’s or the recipient’s perspective, thus advancing beyond modern notions of subject-object relations. The phenomenon of art is returned to its historicity and pragmatic sense through the concept of representation, and the festive nature of art is highlighted by emphasizing its temporality, its immanence in a specific era, which, nevertheless, can still touch the viewer from the depths of time, thanks to the emotion Gadamer so masterfully describes in his work. 

And this is the truth in the poem. The non-predicative truth... the truth that exists for all to see... as a shared feeling of taste... for everyone... in the poem. 

Gabriel Ganiarov 

Bibliography: 

Carrillo Canán, A. J. L., Poesía e interpretación en Heidegger, in: Beuchot, M. (ed.), La voz del texto. Polisemia e interpretación, UNAM, Mexico 1998. 

Diccionario filosófico by José Ferrater Mora. PDF version. 

Gadamer, H.G., Truth and Method I. Salamanca: Ediciones Sígueme, 2001.