Philosophical hermeneutics and classical metaphysics

The main aim of our research is to show that the relationship between philosophical hermeneutics and classical metaphysics does not consist of simple overcoming, but rather that there is a close mutual need between the two fields. Above all, this relationship is ambivalent. On the one hand, hermeneutics' emphasis on historicity leads to a challenge to objectivist understanding within metaphysics. On the other hand, hermeneutics defends continuity with philosophical memory, including metaphysics, albeit by reinterpreting it. This continuity is particularly evident in Gadamer's proximity to Neoplatonism. In Truth and Method, he uses the emanation model to explain how something gives itself through its manifestation. Conversely, metaphysical contemplation as a model for understanding leads to an ethical indifference that renounces domination. However, this model is insufficient because Gadamer's appropriation of metaphysics ignores the concept of metaphysical knowledge in the context of causality. According to Canadian philosopher Jean Grondin, hermeneutics and metaphysics mutually need each other. On the one hand, metaphysics cannot be conceived independently of hermeneutics because the endeavor to know the why of things is to question their meaning. The desire to know, as emphasized by Aristotle, is essentially a desire to understand. On the other hand, metaphysics offers hermeneutics a guarantee of meaning and presents the cosmos as an intelligible whole with its ontological, theological and anthropological dimensions.