HERMENEUTICS: METHOD OR PHILOSOPHY BETTI'S CRITICISM OF GADAMER'S PHILOSOPHICAL HERMENEUTICS

The essay deals with objections that Emilio Betti, a historian of law, addressed to the philosophical hermeneutics of Hans-Geor Gadamer. It is about one variant of an objectivist criticism, which resents Gadamer's position by insisting on the historical condition of any understanding, and therefore sees no possibility of objective interpretation. By contrast, Betti thinks that such objectivity is possible, and seeks to formulate the general rules of hermeneutical procedure, the so-called canons of interpretation. In this essay, it is claimed that Betti's reference to canons has ethical more than epistemological character.