The Role of Play in Gadamer's Hermeneutics

Abstract

The Role of Play in Gadamer's Hermeneutics

Contemporary philosophy paid significant attention to "play," considering it as a mediator in perceiving truth—a truth entangled between our material world, a realm of false images, an unworthy domain due to its transient illusions, and our spiritual world, a sphere of ideals or mental images, deemed immutable truths like justice, beauty, and goodness, as perceived by Plato. Gadamer employed the concept of "play" in understanding to unveil the hidden truth within human activity, utilizing it to comprehend the other and employing it for ontological interpretation. He constructed a philosophical hermeneutic redefining aesthetic phenomena, critically assessing aesthetic consciousness, and relied on "play" as an interpretative principle. This emerged from an ontological function necessitating the establishment of a horizon linking art and the world, reconciling humanity and history, and harmonizing beauty and truth.

Keywords: art, play, truth, knowledge, hermeneutics