ABSTRACT
This chapter describes an understanding of the ontological dimension of constitutional legitimacy as practical and situational involvements with the commitments, over time, of a political community. It explores the notion that constitutional legitimacy is a reflection, or a deliberation, upon the distinctive commitments of a political activity which implicates both time and collective existence. The chapter includes the development of hermeneutics as an intellectual endeavour and considers how the hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer becomes relevant to exploring constitutional legitimacy. A fundamental shift in hermeneutics began when Martin Heidegger moved from concerns over methodology and epistemology to address matters of fundamental ontology. The implications for an ontological basis for hermeneutics, in the human sciences, were investigated by Heidegger's pupil, Hans-Georg Gadamer, principally in the book Warheit und Methode. Hermeneutics emphasises a notion of truth which is situated in the past, or in traditions, which are disclosed by interpretations in the present.
