ABSTRACT

In his paper, "Hans-Georg Gadamer's Metaphorical Hermeneutics", Joel Weinsheimer argues that, for Gadamer, language and understanding are fundamentally metaphorical. In developing his analysis, Weinsheimer follows the ontological direction of Gadamer's thought. Although ontology, in Gadamer's view, goes beyond the limitations of an analysis beginning with subjective consciousness, Gadamer imports into discussions of Being normative commitments drawn from social relations between subjects. His onto-logical analysis undermines his project of acknowledging how history operates in human consciousness. Gadamer's concern with universality precludes raising questions about the relations of power that inform his own discourse and that are a parameter of language in general. His search for a relation to language that is prior to specific relations in the human community precludes seeing that one's access to language and the content of one's discourse are shaped by existing relations of power. Being at home, as Weinsheimer notes, is Gadamer's preferred metaphor for understanding the fundamental relation to language.