“Holding Oneself Open in a Conversation” – Gadamer’s Philosophical Hermeneutics and the Ethics of Dialogue

by Scherto Gill – [ Journal of Dialogue Studies, Vol 3 No 1 ]

Abstract

This paper’s aim is to explore Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics in order to draw out implications for the ethics of dialogue. Through examining key interconnected components in Gadamer’s theory, I highlight the openness to the other and otherness as a key normative ideal for dialogic understanding and their influence on the core practical ethos that underpins dialogue encounter, including the ethics of alterity, self-cultivation, equality, reciprocity, and solidarity. We further consider hermeneutical application or praxis by way of a guide insofar as to how one might act in the world through dialogue construed through these ethical dimensions.