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The study discusses a relationship between Gadamer's reading of Platonic edios and his own thought, particularly the question of Gadamer's reading of of Platonic eidos. Gadamer publication 'Truth and Method' suggests the Platonic dialectic as a model and expresses the dialogical, open-ended side of Plato. In the Gadamer sense, the eidos is not so much an answer waiting to be discovered, but a way to ask a question.

This essay begins from Vattimo's and Zabala's account of hermeneutic communism as an antifoundationalist mode of thought that promotes a state of "emergency" by undermining those established truths that promote only the interests of history's winners. The essay takes up the crisis of public discourse concerning climate change, arguing that Gadamer's thought indicates, first, how hermeneutics can respond to the objection that it is too relativistic to contribute to discussions concerning climate change, and second, that there are hermeneutic virtues whose exercise could improve the discussions of how to meet this serious challenge. These hermeneutic virtues and commitments are: letting language speak us, actively seeking to be proved wrong, respecting (earned) authority, being open in conversation with others, respecting others' freedom, and acknowledging one's limits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]