Reproduction

Critiquing Schleiermacher’s hermeneutics, Gadamer ( Truth and Method (Continuum Impacts) , pp. 166-7) says that his effort to reconstruct the setting of the original work in order to divine the creative act of the creator is impossible: “We may ask whether what we obtain [from reconstructing the conditions of a work] is the meaning of the work of art that we are looking for, and whether it is corect to see understanding as a second creation, the reproduction of the originla production.”

He thinks not: “Reconstructing the original circumstances, like all restoration, is a futile undertaking in view of the historicity of our being.” We have moved on, and we cannot move back. What we get instead is “not the original,” but a reproduction. But that’s what we get anyway, whether we try to reconstruct the original setting or not. Reproduction is what all interpretation ends up with, and Gadamer insists that this is not a problem to be overcome but simply the nature of historical, temporal existence.