Tradition and Method

Despite the preeminence sometimes assigned to method in hermeneutics,

[i]n seeking to understand tradition[,] historical consciousness must not rely on the critical method with which it approaches its sources, as if this preserved it from mixing in its own judgments and prejudices. It must, in fact, think within its own historicity. To be situated within a tradition does not limit the freedom of knowledge but makes it possible (Gadamer 354).

For, in this way, one allows the substantially dialogical nature of the hermeneutical experience to have its fullest expression.

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