Abstract

While Hans-Georg Gadamer does not offer a substantial or systematic account of what he means by solidarity, several Gadamer scholars in recent years have begun to organize and clarify his comments on the topic within his broader project of philosophical hermeneutics. In this paper, I turn to Herman Melville’s The Confidence-Man in order to clarify and challenge some of the conditions for solidarity that Gadamer puts forward. In particular, I focus on certain hermeneutic virtues such as openness, trust, charity, humility, and good will, all of which are necessary for Gadamerian solidarity. In The Confidence-Man, Melville depicts a world not only of strangers who lack these virtues, but one in which many of these strangers are conned by sophistical appeals to confidence and faith in one’s fellow human being. Melville’s text raises a series of important questions for Gadamerian solidarity: Is there any possibility of solidarity with those who are disingenuous actors, who yet hide beneath the guise of faith, trust, and confidence in humanity? How are we to discover new solidarities if we are fundamentally distrustful or suspicious of each other? What if the call for hermeneutic virtue is just another masquerade in a world marked by insincerity, iniquity, and alienation? Ultimately, I claim that Melville’s text demands that Gadamer scholars reexamine some of the limitations of the hermeneutic virtues, and by extension, the limitations entailed in affirming and discovering solidarity with others.