Coincidentally, I had been reading Gadamer’s work on truth and method in the context of my research into the ‘use’ of stories that some people might describe as ‘not even true’, when I read Nigel Fancourt’s review of David Aldridge’s book A Hermeneutics of Religious Education (below) and also Bob Bowie’s article in this issue (see pages 60-62) on adopting a hermeneutical approach to reading and teaching about texts in RE. Gadamer argues that meaning is not subjectively determined, and identifies a process of coming to an understanding with the text. I perceive this as thinking with rather than about stories, a hermeneutic practice that makes me ask not only what a story means to me but how I can understand what it means to the teller and to other readers or listeners.
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