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light. Hermeneutic circle is such an inalterable circumstance. This theoretical 
construction is Heidegger's "preliminary structure of understanding". To be 
sure, the goals of the two German philosophers are different. Heidegger 
limited himself to explicating the fore-structures of understanding. His 
purpose was ontology. Gadamer, within the context of his own research 
objectives, is tempted to present the way in which understanding happens in 
its historicity. "Our question, by contrast, is how hermeneutics, once freed 
from the ontological obstructions of the scientific concept of objectivity, can 
do justice to the historicity of understanding" 

1a, p. 365

. In this respect, of 
course, Gadamer does not abandon the traditional concept of hermeneutics as 
teaching about art. He appreciates Dilthey's contribution to the hermeneutic 
tools of search of the spiritual sciences. However, along with them, he also 
acknowledges Heidegger, with his view of historical hermeneutics seen from 
the perspective of the "circular structure of understanding resulting from the 
temporality of human life. [1b, p. 365]. However, resulting is conceived by 
Gadamer not in the traditional way as application of theory to practice. It is 
seen in that "self-understanding corrects the constantly exercised 
understanding and refines it from improper adjustments – a process that 
would benefit the art of understanding" 

1c, p. 365-366

. 
What is the hermeneutical circle? 
Heidegger defines it as follows: "It is not to be reduced to the level of a 
vicious circle, or even of a circle which is merely tolerated. In the circle a 
positive possibility of the most primordial kind of knowing is hidden and we 
genuinely grasp this possibility only when we have understood that our first, 
last, and constant task in interpreting is never to allow our fore-having, fore-
sight, and fore-conception to be presented to us by fancies and popular 
conceptions, but rather to make the scientific theme secure by working out 
these fore-structures in terms of the things themselves" 

2a, p. 124

. 
Gadamer testifies that Heidegger provides a description of the form of 
interpretation. It is a kind of guide for anyone who takes on interpretation, an 
explanatory scheme of interpretation. The term ‘circular’ (Zirkel) used by 
Heidegger indicates the functionality of this form. Hence, "an interpretation 
is never a presuppositionless apprehending of something presented to us" 

2b, 
p. 122

. The argument he provides makes it clear that circularity is derived 
from the functionality of understanding itself. In order for this to happen, a 
preliminary expectation of the meaning of what is to be understood must be 
formed. Therefore, he affirms that, "any interpretation which is to contribute 
understanding, must have already been understood what is to be interpreted" 

2c, p. 123

. A terminological clarification on understanding and 
interpretation is needed here. Heidegger gives this orientation: "This 

212 
development of the understanding we call "interpretation" [Auslegung]. In it 
the understanding appropriates understandingly that which is understood by 
it. In interpretation, understanding does not become something different. It 
becomes itself. Such interpretation is grounded existentially in understanding; 
the latter does not arise from the former. Nor is interpretation the acquiring 
of information about what is understood; it is rather the working-out of 
possibilities projected in understanding" 

2d, p. 120

.
The functionality of interpretation entails, according to Gadamer:
- being on guard against the spontaneity of ideas, 
- being on guard against the limitations of stereotypical thinking habits, 
- focusing on the essentials, 
- keeping within and focusing on essential things independent of one's 
own "value pressure", 
- projection (of meaning), 
- working out and correcting the (fore-)projection, 
- involving the use of fore-meanings, 
- revealing the original meaning, 
- anticipation of meanings, 
- transformation of the fore-meanings into interpretative ones, 
- unity of meaning. 
In fact, these functional characteristics of interpretation are its 
procedural description as well as of understanding itself. Hence, 
understanding projects: 
- taking into account the possibility of misrepresentation in prejudices 
(opinions), 
- development of adequate project anticipations, 
- confirmation, 
- starting with non-arbitrary fore-meanings, 
- interpreter’s understanding of the origin and importance of the fore-
meanings. 
Gadamer touches upon the question of the possibility of accepting the 
difference between the use we usually make of words and the content of the 
text we read. For him, this is a challenge. Because: 
- there is incompatibility between the meaning and wording of the text 
and our experience and wording; 
- under certain circumstances – practicing average use of meanings, 
- it is difficult to overcome our fore-meanings, 
- we can understand arbitrarily others’ opinions. It concerns the 
multiplicity of fore-meanings expectations and measure. 

213 
Threfore, Gadamer points out that, "the hermeneutical task becomes of 
itself a questioning of things and is always in part so defined" 

1d, p. 370

. 
There should be one important clarification, "Hermeneutically trained 
consciousness must be, sensitive to the text's alterity" [2e, p. 235]. In order to 
realize this, the existence of fore-meanings is necessary. They prompt 
Gademer’s to make reference to Heidegger and his fore-structure of 
understanding. In general, the question of being, in his view, concentrates and 
highlights the hermeneutical problem. "Being insufficient to interpret the 
essence of being thus far, the hermeneutical situation, has been given the 
required originality" 

2f, p. 235

. The same question, referred to being by 
means of terms of fore-having, fore-sight, and fore-conception, requires, in 
its turn, a critical juxtaposition of the question with metaphysics, whose 
origins lie in its history. This is fully compatible with the logic of historical-
hermeneutic consciousness. It is a matter of realizing an understanding along 
with its anticipations. The latter should be self-aware, self-controlled by it. 
This results in the fact that there is an adequate understanding of things 
themselves. Procedurally here, the very understanding reflects with 
methodical awareness. This brings us back to Heidegger's definition of the 
hermeneutic circle. It is on this basis that he insists that the scientific theme 
be emphasized in the construction of fore-having, fore-sight, and fore-
conception. Therefore, with regard to tradition, one should seek to reject all 
that would prevent it from being understood as the things were themselves. 
What could prevent it are the prejudices. In this sense, according to Gadamer, 
Heidegger comes to understand the specificity of historical consciousness. 
Once, he establishes, in Descartes and Hegel, the ability of the concept of 
consciousness, interpreting existence as being and being present, to have a 
source of "intentionality" that understands tradition through the ontological 
assumptions of the concept of subjectivity. And secondly, he emphasizes, on 
his part, the idea of the metaphysics of the extreme of Kant. It "helps" to 
"secure" the scientific theme by engaging in understanding the tradition itself. 
This is par excellence, the very concretization of historical consciousness 
within the framework of understanding. 
Hence, the explication of the extremity of the hermeneutical problem – 
the existence of prejudice in understanding. "Historicism itself, despite its 
critique of rationalism and of natural law philosophy, is based on the modern 
Enlightenment and unwittingly shares its prejudices. And there is one 
prejudice of the Enlightenment that defines essence: the fundamental 
prejudice of the Enlightenment is the prejudice against prejudice itself, which 
denies tradition of its power" 

1e, p. 371

. Gadamer defines prejudice as "a 
judgment that is rendered before all the elements that determine a situation 

214 
have been finally examined" 

1f, p. 372

. He develops his argumentation in 
the direction of jurisprudence and the institution of ‘praejudicium’ 
(preliminary sentence). In the presence of the positive validity of such a 
preliminary sentence or a precedent, its negative consequence stands out. It is 
the Enlightenment that established the negative connotation of prejudice. The 
Enlightenment again treated it as "unfounded judgment" 

3, p. 163: 1g, p. 
372

. Gadamer claims that, "This conclusion follows only in the spirit of 
rationalism; it is the reason for discrediting prejudices, and the reason 
scientific knowledge claims to exclude them completely" 

1h, p. 372-373

. 
But the Enlightenment ‘nourishes’ prejudices, because it imposes the absolute 
self-construction of reason, the authority of reason. At the same time, it also 
protects the authority of tradition. 
On the other hand, there is the Cartesian doubt validated by science, 
including the requirement for the doubt itself and the method. In Gadamer’s 
view, it is exactly what does not fit into historical knowledge, the latter being 
in fact outside the scope of the concept of method. For him, prejudice allows 
for a positive reversal of the dilemma. But as it will be established later on, 
prejudices will prove to be implemented in the historical reality of individual 
existence to a much greater extent than judgments. They will prove to be, in 
their capacity as conditions for understanding, at the starting point of the 
hermeneutic problem. Moreover, in terms of their seeking validity, prejudices 
will prove to be at the core of the theoretical-cognitive question of historical 
hermeneutics. At the same time, at the beginning of all historical 
hermeneutics "the abstract antithesis between tradition and historical 

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