“Kunstlehre” and Applied Phenomenology

This article attempts to clarify the ambiguity or double sense of “Kunstlehre” by Husserl and Gadamer, and emphasizes “Kunstlehre” as pure science that originated in Aristotle’s evaluation of theoría, and as fine art, or as the nature or quasi-nature of “as if”, according to Kant’s idea. Aristotle’s concept of phrónesis will be also regarded as a kind of natural “as if”, and considered as “Kunstlehre”. Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics makes a high level or deep theoretical reflection on the “Kunst” of understanding. He founds his hermeneutics under phrónesis, which will be discussed in detail. Regarding the application of “Kunstlehre” to a practical research, this article shows a contribution by Hersch, and explains how phrónesis is actualized in a case study by him. In the end, “Kunstslehre” will be pointed out as a process of exercise with time whereby Sensus communis functions as a principle (arché) of Gadamer’s hermeneutics, and makes the process of the formation of phrónesis possible