Interpretation, Critique, and Adjudication: The Search for Constitutional Hermeneutics

This Article seeks a model for a constitutional hermeneutics in an examination of two key debates in philosophical hermeneutics—the Gadamer-Betti debate over the role of author's meaning in interpretation and the Gadamer-Habermas debate over transcendence and critique. It compares these to the framers' intent and nonoriginalism disputes in constitutional theory. But the result is not another method of constitutional interpretation. Rather it is a hermeneutically informed way of viewing the practice of constitutional adjudication itself.