Endless History or Reinterpretation of the Past from the Present

Abstract

Starting from the historical sense defended by some historians and some philosophers, (Heidegger among them), confronted by multiple traditional epistemologies, Gadamer analyzes the categories of “identity or selfness”, and “difference”, which make possible the dialog with the testimonies of the past. The temporary differing obligates History explicative chronicles to use the space-time coordinates. Documentary criticism or philological hermeneutic arises based on the “temporariness” of testimony. It also states the necessity of not believing what is said without a previous decoding of the conditions on which it was updated. The methodological steps of criticism are complemented with the historicism proposal of the understanding. Gadamer analyzes the reaches and limits of such layouts. Among the former, the possibility that historians ‘have to win the horizon’ stands out. Among the latter, the criticism does not recognize the historicity of the interpretations: these are made from the surplus of sense (or effectual point of view) that the consecutive generations of historians have had.