ABSTRACT
In agreement with the hermeneutical tradition stemming most visibly from Hans-Georg Gadamer, this chapter argues that a renewal of appreciation for hermeneutical understanding is needed if there is to be a surpassing of the inflexibility and narrowness of the self-professed blind-sight of idealized methods and techniques, and the self-assuring self-denial of objectivity. It answers the questions about what one ought to think and do about objectivity by arguing for an ancient conception of wisdom that finds its present and current fulfillment in healthy action and the “good” of healthy interpretation, made possible by learning to live a certain way by having determined to live a certain kind of life. The chapter explains some of the most important features of philosophical hermeneutics by exploring practical reasonableness, a particularly healthy form of interpretation that forms the basis for morality.
