Comprehension as particiation:

a dialectic between particularity and generality in GADAMER’s hermeneutics.

Abstract

This article intends to expose the gadamerian’s notion of comprehension as participation,  aiming to explore the meaning of individual and particularity experiences in relation to understanding the game of this experience with the claim of generality, assumed in the fact that all interpretation belongs to a tradition. For Gadamer, the ontology of the work of art becomes central and vertebrates his entire thought. The art is his starting point, and since the beginning of his philosophical project, it is what feeds his reflection. From the perspective obtained by the ontology of the work of art, specifically the play of theatrical art, this article will investigate the central notions of Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics. In first place, the notions of representation and mediation, crucial to understand what is comprehension for our author. In second place, the problem of the temporality of representation will be presented in order to, in third place, state what means interpretation, in its own sense, in gadamerian hermeneutics. Finally, the question of historicity of the hermeneutical task will be developed, because in that task the particularity and generality concur.