ARISTOTLE'S PHRONESIS AND A RE-CONSIDERATION OF HIS INFLUENCE ON GADAMER'S PHILOSOPHICAL HERMENEUTICS

In an Aristotelian sense, phronesis is an intellectual virtue. It helps us in addressing particular ethical situations in the light of what is deficient and excessive. Aristotle defines phronesis as "a state of grasping the truth, involving reason, concerned with action about things that are good or bad for a human being." (Nichomachean Ethics, 1122a25-6). His view has influenced the philosophical reflections of scholars like Hans-Georg Gadamer. Gadamer, although discusses Aristotle's notion of phronesis, but he did not directly address Aristotle's views on the doctrine of the mean. Does that mean that the doctrine of the mean was not relevant to his philosophical hermeneutics on narratives? Gadamer was more of dealing with hermeneutical issues through the lenses of practical wisdom or phronesis. Phronesis keeps dialogue open and affirms continuity in human understanding. It deals with the ever changing situations of humanity and true understanding. There may be no specific mean or answer to the dynamics of the situations and narratives that call for understanding and decisions. Whatever it is that the mean signifies is what phronesis addresses in the complex situations of the moral man. It is required in accomplishing virtuous actions; however, it does not determine the mean (or the exactitude) in a quantitative sense. Gadamer concludes that it is impossible for ethics or moral action "to achieve the extreme exactitude of mathematics." What is the significance of Aristotle's phronesis in philosophy, especially in Gadamer's continental philosophical perspective? How does Gadamer articulate Aristotle's view of phronesis (practical wisdom or "right reasoning") so as to relate its relevance in ethics to his philosophical hermeneutics/hermeneutic circle? How does Gadamer adapt this to his reflective philosophical hermeneutics (understanding narratives and meanings)? Does that mean the dynamism in the acquisition of knowledge (or even the search for truth) of the human sciences is guaranteed by the factor of phronesis?