Cultural Reader: Gadamer and Truth Beyond Method

Hans-Georg Gadamer’s masterpiece, Truth and Method (1960), carries a provocative title. At first glance, one might expect it to be a manual for uncovering truth through systematic techniques. But Gadamer’s point is exactly the opposite: genuine truth, especially in the humanities, cannot be reduced to method. To understand what he means, we need to explore what he was reacting against and what alternative he offered.

The Prestige of Science

By the mid-20th century, the model of scientific knowledge had become the gold standard for all disciplines. The assumption was clear: to be credible, any claim to truth must be objective, measurable, and reproducible. Natural science seemed to embody this ideal, and other fields—history, art, philosophy—were often judged by their ability to imitate it.

Gadamer’s project was not to denigrate science but to insist that it does not exhaust the ways human beings encounter truth. There are forms of understanding—artistic, historical, ethical—that cannot be captured by experiment or algorithm, yet are no less real. To reduce them to scientific method is to flatten the richness of human experience.

The Event of Understanding

What, then, is truth for Gadamer? Not a static correspondence between statement and fact, but something that happens in an event of understanding. When we read a novel, interpret a poem, or engage in dialogue, we participate in a dynamic process where meaning unfolds. We do not apply a neutral “method” to extract content. Rather, we bring our own questions, assumptions, and historical situation into play, and in the encounter with the text or the other, truth emerges.

A striking example is the experience of art. A painting by Rembrandt does not yield truth because we analyze it scientifically; it speaks to us, moves us, and reveals aspects of human existence otherwise inaccessible. The truth of art is not methodical, but hermeneutic—arising through interpretation and dialogue.

Prejudices as Conditions of Truth

This is why Gadamer rehabilitated the much-maligned notion of “prejudice” (Vorurteil). In everyday speech, prejudice suggests distortion. For Gadamer, however, prejudices are the pre-judgments, assumptions, and traditions that shape our understanding from the outset. They are not barriers to truth but conditions for it. Without them, we would approach the world as blank slates, unable to make sense of anything. The task of hermeneutics is not to eliminate prejudices but to test and revise them in the light of dialogue.

The Significance of Gadamer’s Claim

By insisting that truth exceeds method, Gadamer gave the humanities their philosophical dignity. He showed that interpretation is not a flawed version of scientific inquiry, but its own mode of uncovering truth. This does not mean “anything goes.” Understanding requires openness, rigor, and the willingness to be challenged by the subject matter itself.

In an age increasingly obsessed with quantification and metrics, Gadamer’s message remains radical: not everything that matters can be measured, and some of the deepest truths come to us only through the slow work of interpretation, tradition, and conversation.