Superstitions as a Bond to Tradition – the Case of H.-G. Gadamer’s Hermeneutics

Abstract

The aim of the article is to review and critically recapitulate H.-G. Gadamer’s views on prejudices/superstitions. Gadamer sees them as factors conditioning the possibility of understanding. Frontal attack on superstition was taken by the Enlightenment. It turnus out that motivations that prompted the attack and attempts to eliminate superstitions from the area of knowledge were based on superstition. This superstition relied on faith in the self-transparency of the human intellect. The human intellect, as a tool enabling learning about reality and formulating true judgments, is not free in the sense, which was assumed in the times of Enlightenment. Intellect is always historically conditioned and always operates under specific circumstances that also modify our ideas about rationality.