The Historicity of Understanding and the Challenge of Relativism

Following Heidegger, Gadamer looks at history and understanding from the angle of ontology. This is based on his description of man as a being thrown into the world that belongs to history and is primarily affected by it. But his view with regard to history is open to the major criticism that he cannot extract an epistemological principle out of an ontological description of understanding and present a transhistorical criterion to measure the validity and objectivity of interpretation; so he clashes with the challenge of relativism. Yet Gadamer claims that his being accused of relativism is driven by his epistemological view of history, while his proposition delves deeper, dealing with understanding and history at the level of ontology. Gadamer is of the belief that history plays an undeniable role in promoting understanding. Not only do history and language not pose an obstacle to understanding, but they constitute the transporters of truth. Truth is projected to us through history and language. Therefore, a historical approach to understanding does not mean that everyone can tackle a topic in his own way, because though truth is projected in history and language, it is not made by history and language.