DOI: https://doi.org/10.17072/2078-7898/2022-2-221-231

The ethics of pleasure as a hermeneutic problem in the early H.G. Gadamer

Ivan V. Riazanov 
Candidate of Philosophy, Docent,
Head of the Department of Social and Humanitarian DisciplinesPerm Institute (branch) of the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics,
57, Gagarin Blvd., Perm, 614070, Russia;
e-mail: iwan.riazanow@yandex.ru
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4676-2452
ResearcherID: GLS-8827-2022

The article proposes an analytical reconstruction of the interpretive strategy of the German philosopher H.G. Gadamer associated in his early works with the phenomenological interpretation of Plato’s dialogue Philebus. This reconstruction is necessary to understand the views of the creator of the «hermeneutic Bible of the XX century» in their development. The study of the phenomenological interpretation of the dialogue in the early H.G. Gadamer makes it possible to determine the conceptual difference of the question of the genealogy of pleasures posed in the philosophical thought in the 20th century. The conceptual definition of the attitude to the ethical tradition dating back to Aristotle and the dynamic understanding of the problem of the relationship between pleasure and reason in human life becomes a meaningful moment of the reconstruction of H.G. Gadamer’s interpretive strategy. On the example of the hermeneutic structure of the concept of «good», the paper identifies the dialectical difference between ethos and praxis, which is considered in the context of the textual heritage of Plato and Aristotle. The significance of the genetic concept of V. Yeager for the formulation of the hermeneutic problem in H.G. Gadamer’s works is highlighted. The study analyzes existential aspects in the phenomenological interpretation of H.G. Gadamer that date back to the concept of the «life world» in the late E. Husserl. It traces the development of the concepts «hermeneutic experience» and «hermeneutic circle» at the early phenomenological stage in the development of H.G. Gadamer’s ideas. The reconstruction of the dialectical analysis of the correlation of the one and the many in the dialogue Philebus proposed by H.G. Gadamer, is traced in the context of M. Heidegger’s ontological positions. The article substantiates the position that the dialectical difference between the kinds of pleasure arising from the Platonic difference between the soul and the body should be considered as a conceptual difference between the phenomenological interpretation of H.G. Gadamer and the genealogy of corporeality, going in European philosophy from F. Nietzsche to M. Foucault.

Keywords: analytical reconstruction, genealogy, hermeneutics, hedonism, good, dialogue, dialectic, interpretation, interpretive strategy, ontology, pleasure, phenomenology, ethics.

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Received: 03.04.2022. Accepted: 27.05.2022

For citation:

Riazanov I.V. [The ethics of pleasure as a hermeneutic problem in the early H.G. Gadamer]. Vestnik Permskogo universiteta. Filosofia. Psihologia. Sociologia [Perm University Herald. Philosophy. Psychology. Sociology], 2022, issue 2, pp. 221–231 (in Russian). DOI: https://doi.org/10.17072/2078-7898/2022-2-221-231