Linguagem e experiência religiosa contribuições da hermenêutica filosófica para a formação dialógica a partir de Hans-Georg Gadamer

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the category of religious experience from the perspective of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics, considering language as the ontological condition of possibility for the manifestation and interpretation of this experience. The study seeks to understand how Gadamer’s hermeneutics, grounded in the open character (Offenheit) of dialogue (Gespräch), allows for a rethinking of religious experience beyond the modern conception traditionally marked by what has been termed the paradigm of subjectivity, or protective strategy, in which religious experience tends to be confined to a subjective domain. Through a reinterpretative approach, the thesis proposes to understand this experience in its constitutive dimension of being-with-one-another (Mitsein), in the living participation of tradition (Überlieferung), and in openness to the appropriative (Aneignung) and interpretative (Auslegung) movement that characterizes the phenomenon of comprehension (Verstehen). In this sense, hermeneutical experience (hermeneutische Erfahrung) gradually enables religious experience to be understood as an event that takes place in and through language (Sprache). From a structural standpoint, the theoretical trajectory of the dissertation is organized into three main axes: (1) Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics and the understanding of language as the medium (Mitte) through which understanding is realized; (2) the analysis of the category of religious experience within the domains of subjectivity; and (3) the resignification of this category from the perspective of Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics, highlighting the central contribution of the thesis, which directly addresses the following problem: how can experiences that claim to situate themselves beyond the realm of language be approached? This question enters into dialogue with the perspective of mystical traditions, allowing reflection on the thresholds of language. Such a space of limit is conceived as a frontier zone in which the (dis)closure of the (re)creative potential of language becomes manifest. Methodologically, this is a bibliographical study of Gadamer’s primary sources, centered on the conceptual principles of his philosophical hermeneutics, such as effective history (Wirkungsgeschichte), fusion of horizons (Horizontverschmelzung), the hermeneutical circle (hermeneutischer Zirkel), play (Spiel), myth (Mythos), and pre-comprehension (Vorurteil). Within this framework, both a diachronic approach, considering the historical insertion of the texts, their reception throughout the history of thought, and the unfolding of their textual production, and a synchronic approach, privileging the analysis of the interrelation between religious experience and language in the hermeneutical event, are adopted, thus assuming a simultaneously retrospective and prospective stance. Regarding secondary sources, the research draws on specialists in Gadamer’s thought, thematic studies, commentators, and supporting works that engage the topic from perspectives of support, critique, and dialogue. Additionally, the dissertation examines the category of religious experience, whose initial formulation is attributed to Friedrich Schleiermacher and which finds resonance in classical authors such as Rudolf Otto, William James, and Joachim Wach, whose contributions are revisited within the field of Religious Studies. Ultimately, this dissertation aims to demonstrate that Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics enables the resignification of the category of religious experience within an ontodialogical perspective, in which experience is constituted through the dynamic encounter between tradition and the interpretative process within the living horizon of language.