Abstract

Hermeneutical philosophy as developed by Heidegger and Gadamer is not compatible with the classical phenomenological programme elaborated by Husserl. The hermeneutical stress on historicity as a necessary condition for understanding is unfamiliar to Husserl's strictly theoretical approach. However, this does not mean that a hermeneutical philosophy as such cannot be conceived in a phenomenological sense. Whether or not hermeneutical philosophy is phenomenological depends on the paradigm chosen for hermeneutical explanation. A hermeneutics referring to the interpretation of texts may elucidate constitutional elements of phenomenology, e.g. phenomenological reduction and reflection. In this way it even can initiate a modification of phenomenology which, instead of being caught up in its subjective foundation, now appears as elucidating the openness of the correlation between intentional attitudes and their 'objects'. For this correlation the interpretation is a paradigm, whereas the openness of the correlation can be explained in respect of freedom, language, and time