Gadamer e Pareyson

It is quite common, within the philosophical community to refer to Ricoeur, Gadamer and Pareyson as the “great hermeneutic thinkers” of the Twentieth century. However, if their thought is analysed closely enough, one realizes that the philosophy of each one of them was developed autonomously, moving from different backgrounds, following different directions, and reaching different (if not antithetical) outcomes. This is particularly true in the case of a comparison between Gadamer and Pareyson. The former, who does not reject and rather affirms his connection with Heidegger (but who also reinterprets Hegel), elaborates a ”harmonizing” perspective in which the finitude of interpretation receives its ontological status from the fact that it is situated in the omnicomprehensive horizon of language. The latter, for whom the existentialist legacy is much more important and who refers to Barth more than to Heidegger (and who has a closer connection with Shelling rather than with Hegel), elaborates a “conflictual” thought focused on the personal and dangerous character of interpretation, which is always exposed to the risk of failure. All of this helps to understand the final developments of the thought of each of them: gadamer in direction of the primacy of ethics, Pareyson in the direction of the elaboration of a hermeneutic of religious experience.