Gadamer: Good Philosophy for Law, Bad Law for Philosophy

Whether it adopts the form of a statute, a regulation, or a judicial decision, law consists of words, and words cannot mean by themselves: they demand interpretation, that is, they require an interpreter. At this juncture, no serious analytical reflection on legal interpretation can eschew Hans-Georg Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics. I refer in particular to his Wahrheit und Methode (Truth and Method), which happens to feature a section on the ‘exemplary significance of legal hermeneutics’, an idea that connects with what Gadamer styles the ‘comprehensive and universal’ aspect of hermeneutics. In my view, however, Gadamer’s reflections on law cannot legitimately claim ‘exemplary’ status on account of their strictly local character. Indeed, Gadamer’s thoughts on legal interpretation bear the characteristic imprint of German legal culture to the point where they are untransposable elsewhere. Paradoxically, it is Gadamer’s developments on philosophical hermeneutics generally, rather than his section on law, that significantly contribute to an enhanced understanding of legal interpretation.