Há legitimidade nos preconceitos? Uma reabilitação à luz da hermenêutica filosófica de Hansgeorg Gadamer

Abstract

Modern philosophical thought considered prejudices to be unfounded judgments that lead to misunderstandings. However, Hans-Georg Gadamer intends to restore the productive potential and the conditioning character of prejudices for the understanding out of his philosophical hermeneutics. That way, this article will resume the discussion developed by Gadamer in Truth and Method and will emphasize the following aspects: the discovery of the previous structure of the understanding and the hermeneutic circle, present in the task of understanding; it will elucidate the concepts of truth and method in the light of philosophical hermeneutics; will address the pejorative conception attributed to prejudices by the Aufklärung and, finally, will develop some of the reasons why prejudices are a condition for the understanding, because as finite and historical beings and belonging to tradition, the understanding is not restricted to the ideal of science from modernity.