Além da racionalidade dogmática: uma tentativa de reeleitura do conceito de validade jurídica com base na hermenêutica filosófica de Hans-Georg Gadamer

Abstract

The present work deals with two major knowledge areas: Philosophy and Law. It results from a study aimed at approximating Hans-Georg Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics and legal hermeneutics. This work results from trying to make a reflection on the concept of legal validity, seen as central to the dissertation calls "dogmatic rationality", based on Hans-Georg Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics, with its influence on law, and that puts forward as a philosophical perspective of positivism inherent in overcoming the current law, what is constructed by a new designation of what is meant by legal interpretation. To perform this research, started from the understanding of the concept of legal validity from the analysis of the Hans Kelsen’s work, as the author of the representative legal positivist tradition in thinking that dealt with more acuity of that concept, and in contrast to that, too one seeks to make the analysis of that concept in the Robert Alexy’s work, as an example of what has been called today "post-positivism" – that is, in an attempt to overcome the still prevailing dogmatic rationality in interpreting right, at least in Brazil. The theoretical approach involved, besides the central Hans-Georg Gadamer’s philosophical perspective, the search for authors who do an analysis of their assumptions. We tried to illustrate, though, such an application, through a possible reading of the expanded concept of the hermeneutic circle proposed by the author. After all, there was certain fundamental concepts of Gadamer’s philosophy – such as the hermeneutic circle, the tradition, the temporal distance, the “awareness of the effects of history” and the application as a way of understanding – are also usable for legal interpretation enabling a more thorough reflection on the way to renewed understanding of the law. It is therefore a qualitative study and exploratory nature, of which methodological procedures departed, especially about its literature.