The Classical and Historical Tradition in Gadamer’s Hermeneutics

The Classical and the Presence of Truth in Gadamer’s Hermeneutics.This paper is concentrated on the brief investigation in Gadamer’s book Truth and Method about the meaning of the attribute “classical” which is applied to works of literature and art. Explicating this investigation as an example which shows obviously the manner of presence and existence of what is called “the historical” in the middle of its temporality and its claim for a supratemporal truth, we try to illuminate the meaning of a concept which Gadamer calles - with reference to Heidegger - “historicity” and “historical Being” and applies it to the classical works of art. In this paper we attempt to explain how Gadamer’s investigation on the attribute “classical” can show concretely that his understanding of the historicity of truth, of the claim of works of art for truth and the truth in the historical tradition is not on the one hand involved in assumption of a metaphysical sphere and a naive and abstract rationality which is not related to the reality of the historical tradition and its specific authority, on the other hand is not entangled by historicism and historical relativism, but rather can claim the consistent presence of truth through the history.