The Dance That Transforms: Gadamer on Morality, Music, and Religion

The reason why Gadamer’s Truth and Method opens with a discussion of ‘humanistic’ concepts—Bildung, judgment, sensus communis, tact, and taste—is that these ‘ways of knowing’ are basic to human knowledge and understanding. In this paper, I consider the role that religion (defined in a broad sense) played in helping human beings develop a common sense of understanding. Specifically, I examine some instances of religion in the form of song and dance—forms of religion that appear to date back to many thousands of years ago. What emerges is that singing and dancing together provides an excellent basis for and ways to continue engaging in community. I conclude the paper by considering Gadamer’s notion of festival. Although Gadamer makes no reference in his discussion of festival to ancient forms of religion, such religious practice can be seen as something very similar (if not identical) to the celebration of a festival.