H.-G. Gadamer: verbum interius importance for hermeneutics

The aim of the article is to show the importance of the scholastic interpretation of verbum interius for Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics. The article also discusses the problem of correlation between verbum interius and its expression in the “outer word”. Gad-amer integrated the Augustinian concept of verbum interius into his theory of hermeneutics in order to overcome the forgetfulness of language in antiquity. The article also shows how the Augustinian distinction between actus signatus and actus exercitus, discussed by Heidegger, opened up a hermeneutic approach to the “inner word” that differs from apophantics. Gadamer linked the lack of semantic fullness of the “outer word” to the experience of the Unvordenklichkeit. The article defends the thesis that the problematic correlation between the “inner word” and the “outer word” can be clarified using Husserl's phenomenological attitude, which describes how we know the meaning of subject matter through different “perspectives” (Abschattungen). The “inner word” mentioned by Gadamer in the phenomenological sense is always given only in the expression of the “outer word” as a partial perspective and is incomplete in this respect. External expressions are not a defect of the full “inner word”, but are the only possible way or form of it, though not always perfect. The different expressions of the “outer word” referring to the partial meaning of the subject matter do not in any way lead to the relativization of the expressions themselves, because they all arise from the same “inner word”. However, this identity of the “inner word” is detected only in the difference of external expressions.

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