Hegel and hermeneutics
pp. 197-220
in: Frederick Weiss (ed), Beyond epistemology, Berlin, Springer, 1974Abstract
Some of the most recent developments under the banner of "her-meneutics" have made explicit appeal to various facets of Hegel's thought, suggesting that its current Wirkungsgeschichte goes beyond Marxism and existentialism pure and simple, while still including these in sublated forms. Such direct appeals are to be found in both the hermeneutical phenomenology of Hans-Georg Gadamer and its incorporation in the most recent efforts of the Frankfurt school of ideology critique, particularly in the work of Jürgen Habermas and Karl-Otto Apel, who together constitute the hard core of what has been called the "hermeneutical-dialectical approach to metascience" (Radnitzky). Moreover, inasmuch as the aim of the latter approach is a "philosophical anthropology of knowledge" and hermeneutics as such remains centered on the problem of Verstehen, one might expect that a rereading of Hegel in the light of these recent developments should reveal something of what is still alive and operative in his thought with regard to the so-called "problem of knowledge."
